Leena

I'm assuming you're very young if your mother "feels like a failure" due to your weight. You might want to ask her why she feels this way. I would say get support where you need to get it from. I had wonderful support from one of my friends and I've had a few friends pretty much disown me because of it. I've had the "easy way out" comments, plastic surgery ones, pretty much everything under the sun. Just be ready for some off the wall comments and unsupportive things. I think one of the blessings from this surgery was to see who my real friends really are.

I like the low fat string cheese; I think it's the cheese head brand. 60 calories, 2g of fat and 8g of protien. And they're pretty filling for a snack.

I was on toporal XR for high bloodpressure and heart arythmia, metformin for insulin resistance and lovenox (injections) as a bloodthinner. My surgeon approved them all, actually prescribed the lovenox. Currently I'm on 0 meds. All I take is my calcuim supplement and multi-Vitamin now.

Your dr can prescribe anti-nausea meds. I had them post-op and my dr prescribed enough for me to keep them in stock. They disolve in your mouth and really work. There is a bit of a stomach bug going around. 2 of my 3 kids just came down with it. It seems that 10% of the kids in their school were sent home with it last friday. Call your dr and have them prescribe something.

You can be even rougher than before, trust me, after loosing my first 100 pounds I can now take on all 3 of my sons in a wrestling match and win by power, not because of mere weight (sitting on them, LOL). Yes I'm still a tom-boy at my age. In the beginning you are going to have to watch your port area. But last week one of my sons hit it and I could really feel it. It doesn't hurt too much, just feels really wierd. And it takes a while for the general soreness to go away post-op. In the next few months I'm starting Tang Soo Do and should be fine. I'm not looking forward to being kicked in the port though.

I would stick to your doctor's orders, o0bviously he/she has a reason for them. That being said you can puree meats. I bought a babyfood grinder and used it post-op to get in protien. You can also add protien powder to a lot of things: applesauce, mashed potato, pretty much anything. I'm 5 months post-op and still can not eat steak. The initial post-op diet is for healing.

For being pre-op you're completely normal. Now if post-op you can down a 12 inch subway sub you're going to need to see your doctor immediately for a fill. My pre-op diet was 2 slimfast shakes a day, plus one meal of what-ever I wanted (YUMMY) and I did manage to loose 17 pounds pre-op that way. I have to say that my hunger is really gone. It took a the first month to 2 to get rid of stupid head hunger. But now, nearly 5 month post-op I have to literally remind myself to eat. I realized last week I literally forgot to eat, well I did eat 1200 calories, but that was in the whole week. No wonder I was so sick by friday night. I find it helpful to write down what I'm going to eat in the morning to plan for the whole day. Otherwise I find it difficult to remember to eat. Yeah this coming from a woman who knew how to use the fast food drive through and where everyone was located in a 10 mile radius. And hiding food wrappers in the car was an old habbit of mine.

There's an Indian restuarant we used to eat at once a week for the last nearly 4 years. A month post-op I went back and ordered 1 dosa. I only ate 1/4 of it with a little bit of the soup. Usually I eat a whole dosa, whole soup and some appetizers. Anyway the chef came out personally to see what was wrong. About 10 minutes later he came out again with a new dosa. I ended up taking that one plus the left over one home. A week later we went back and I made a special trip into the kitchen to let the chef know that his cooking was amazing and I just had stomach surgery and couldn't eat a whole lot so I'd be taking atleast half of my food home. Other places do seem to look at me like I'm crazy.

Thanks so much. I'm going to try miralax as my ds takes it and it's worked well for him. His is prescription, and I didn't realize it was OTC now. So I'll be buying my own supply if it works. Has anyone used benefiber?

I think I need to start taking one. Actually I know I do. What kind of fiber supplements does everyone take? I know we're not supposed to take metamucil because it expands and thickens and can strech the pouch. So what do you take?

If it's on your list then try it. But I suggest making it really watery.

I was told not to lift my 3 yr old for the first 3 weeks. He's small and 25 pounds, but wasn't allowed to lift him into his carseat and we have a large SUV. So the little guy had to climb in and out.

Hang in there. Have you tried Boco Burgers? They're a very healthy alternative to hamburgers and even turkeyburgers. I eliminated all red meat from my meals. I can't tolerate bread either, so one Boco burger has 90 calories and 14g of protien along with some Fiber too. The whole big salad isn't bad, as long as you're using a low calorie fat free dressing. I eat salad every day and trust me it's a big big salad. I feel I need the fiber to "clean out my system". My surgeon told me that lettuce sort of liquifies as you chew it and easily slides right on threw the pouch.

My battle started when I was 10, my first diet, the cabbage Soup diet, followed by the grapefruit diet, slim fast, dexitrim, WW, hypnotism and then cycling back through all of them. By the time I was 12 I reached my adult height of 5'5" and wieghed 120 pounds, while all of my peers were in the 80-90 pound range. Now that I think about it at 120 I was really skinny, a size 4/5. But being teased and harassed about being "fat" didn't help and I managed to gain 30 pounds by the time I was 13, so 150 is not too thin when your friends are all thin, or by this point just other kids in school. I couldn't run a mile in gym class and had to walk. My parents made me participate in school sports so I chose basketball-6th and 7th grade, volleyball 7th grade, 9th-11th was swimming and 9th-12th was tennis. I had to have special ordered swimsuits for swimteam and a size 16 tennis skirt special ordered. The quality of my jr high school and high school life just sucked. And of course my weight increased well well past 150, the whole way up to 350 by the time I was 30. Unfortunately I stopped growing taller when I was 12. If I had the option of lapband when I was a teenager I would have done it. I think 13 is a good age for a girl, if she's done growing. As a teenager I wasn't a junk food junkie, just a carb addict (bread, Pasta, rice, etc). Probably the reason the lapband works so well for me now.

I have both, as well as a recumbant bike and stairmaster/stepper. I would have to say I like them all pretty equally. I rotate days with them. So my body gets a change and new workout each day. The incline option on a treadmill is great as is the stride selection option on an eliptical. I think the most important part of getting in a workout for me is my ipod.

Ahhh! Last night I was sitting next to DH on the couch watching a movie and accidently ate veggie chips, not too bad, but the sodium has me retaining water today, 2 pounds of it. He's hooked on chips and I just subconciously ate chips. I feel so crappy about it, so I'm planning an extra workout today for those stupid chips. Anyone else dealing with snacking spouses?

You might want to try Land's End. They tend to have nice conservative suits for around $40. I know my mom just ordered a plain black one for her water aerobics class. I'm not sure what sizes they carry, but I know she's about a 12 or 14.

I think protien shakes are okay. Just not a protien cake or cookie or food, etc. I allow myself a cup of apricot cinnamon tea with a splenda.

Ok I did it yesterday. It was soooo hard. So today I'm making DH fix his own dinner plate. I'm putting an apple crisp in the oven now and will be able to have a bite of it with my 5 o'clock dinner. Glad to have you two, Honey and Chiquis join me.

I have 3 boys, 3,6 and 7 and was banded in September. I told them all about it before surgery and they asked a lot of questions. Since banding they have even been to a support group with me. Their question there was why weren't there a lot of men there, just women. I am a very open and honest parent with my sons. Not everyone parents the same way. My older 2 sons have even watched videos of lap-band surgeries online and think it's sooo cool. They also understand why I had the surgery (years of eating too much food) and how it's going to change our lives, ie mommy has more energy now and does sooo much more than before.

Just an option I thought I'd through out there. We have a home warrenty through American Home Shield which covers all of those major house appliances, heaters, ACs, etc. I think it's about $30 a month and has been very useful. It came in handy when we first moved in, otherwise we would have had a $2k bill to fix the boiler. It's something you may want to look into. I'm sure there are other companies out there, that just happens to be the one we've had for 3 years now.

I have noticed that I loose faster when I don't eat after 5:30pm. But it's soooo hard to do. Dh gets home from work between 6:30 and 7pm on an average night, so I have to see him eating. To make matters worse it seems like he always Snacks after dinner and a few times a week asks me to make something like apple crisp for him at night. I'm soooo bad and end up licking the bowl. At least I can have dinner with the kids just before 5pm. So anyone want to join my no eating after dinner challenge/support thread? -Leena

You'll have to ask the dr which one you have. I know pre-op I got a packet which had the 10cc card in it. At my first fill I asked how many ccs the dr was putting in. He said 1cc, which I thought was conservative for a 10cc band. Well apparently I have the 4cc band, just got the wrong card in the packet, clerical mix-up. So the dr looked in my file to confirm I had the 4cc band. Call your drs office and ask them to look it up in your file.

I had that experience yesterday with chicken, and I'm 4 months post-op and it's been almost 7 weeks since my last fill. Anyway pineapple juice helped a lot. In my post-op soft food stage, sausages were not included.

Thanks everyone. Well the verdict is no more chicken before afternoon. I'm spending the day on liquids and am fine so far. I have no desire to even eat chicken after yesterday. I just got back from the grocery store and bought some low-fat low-sodium turkey breast from the deli and will stick to that.