Fanny Adams

Dr Watson is pretty good and I'm sure it won't be a problem. Murdoch Hospital isn't that rigid either (within limits). While I paid for the doctor and anaesthetist about a week in advance, I ended up only paying for the hospital on the morning of the admission.

Bah humbug :thumbup: I waited till got home from site, only to find nothing had changed...zero, zip, de nada... not an ounce gained or lost since I left. I guess that means I've found the perfect food quantities for maintenance, but I'm not ready to stop losing yet!! I've only had the 2 fills and went conservative on those because I've been worried about too much restriction, but I think I'm over that worry now! Tighten me up baby, coz this going nowhere has knobs on it!! I am back on site and I'm gonna do the best I can with willpower, till my next fill. I figure I still have another 15 days to answer the March poll and my next fill is due on 25th, so I'm hoping to see SOME change before the end of March :blushing:.

I'm going to hold off answering in the poll till after I get home from the mine site on Friday. I was at 28lb lost when I left home on Feb 28, which was down from the 23lb lost when I put the 2 month poll up. I'm hoping that by the time I get home and can take a morning weight again (Sat 8th March), I'll be able to vote in the 31-40lb range! That's still March so it counts too!! :thumbup: I'm aiming for a steady 2lb per week, so my mini-goal for 1st of April would be to get to 36lb down. PS: Hehehe - I really like the "Funny" Adams . Not sure if it was a typo or deliberate but cool either way :cursing:

As the others have said, it's not really necessary to diet aggressively, but it all depends upon how quickly you want to lose weight. Those that lose fastest are those who go onto a strict diet regiment with substantial exercise (no surprises there), but you can still lose effectively with just sticking to a sensible balance eating pattern and smaller portions. I think sticking to a strict diet is probably much easier after banding and some people are really excited and want to see the pounds melt away as fast as they can. For me personally, one of the main reasons I had the band was because I couldn't face the idea of yet another diet! I'm not in a huge hurry, I like the idea of losing slowly and steadily and giving my body time to adjust. I like the idea that I don't have to deny myself anything, just take all things in moderation and that I can be satisfied on this. I have been fairly conservative with my fills precisely because I DON'T want that intense restriction. My progress hasn't been fast but it is reasonably steady and I am quietly confident that in a year's time I will have achieved my major goal of 100lb lost. I'm figuring on at least 18 months and probably more like 2 years before I hit my final goal of 140lb gone. You need to decide for you just how you want to work the band.

I tried the "eat like a bandster" plan for a few weeks before I got given my op date, after which I had to go straight onto the pre-op liquid diet because there was only 14 days from surgeons's visit to hospital! While I found it hard to be satisfied on the smaller portions, I found that cutting the food up really small and having to chew every bite thoroughly really helped that. So much of my overeating was because I would eat so quickly that I wouldn't know I was full until way past the "overstuffed" stage. I had spent a lot of evenings after dinner, lying back in the lounge recliner chair saying "ow ow ow, I ate way too much!" It never stopped me from doing it all again the next night though :eek:. Once I tried the bandster eating style, I could actually tell when I was full WHILE I was still eating and could stop before I got into severe pain. Unfortunately, I have come to realise that some weird part of me actually likes that pain, so even now I do it. The good thing is though, that eating until I feel like I'm bursting only takes about 1-2 cups of food now, whereas before it would have been more like 6! I've had my second fill and I'm really noticing that now it is much more like 1 cup only and my portions have gotten smaller. I'm really looking forward to the third fill, which I think will be "the one" to get me to that "sweetspot" feeling on 1/2 - 1 cup.

From the things you've listed, it sounds like your insurance is pushing the gastric because they think your BMI is too high. You might try contacting people in the Weight-Specific Groups for "BMI Over 50" or "200+ To Lose". There are lots of people in there who could add weight (hehe :confused:) to your arguments.

If the hunger is getting to you, add steamed low-starch veges or homemade vege broth as an evening meal. The standard Optifast diet allows for 2 cups per day, so this isn't really cheating and shouldn't affect your weight loss. It will also stop you from getting so desperately hungry that you are trying to justify having the pizza. You don't need us to answer that question about "just one piece" - you already KNOW the answer :confused:

For me, the motivation remains because I know that I CAN achieve things with this band. In the past, I have dieted then lost motivation when I hit a plateau and given up and gone back to my bad old eating habits. This time around, I CAN'T go back to those gargantuan meals, so even when I'm not trying very hard, I can easily maintain or lose slowly. It is possible to sabotage yourself even with the band, by making bad food choices and eating a lot of high fat, high calorie, low fibre/bulk food, like icecreams or chocolates, but when eating a reasonably healthy range of foods, loss will happen. Also, I find that I am not having to fight hunger constantly and so have more energy to devote to resisting temptations. Living for weeks with the sensation of "OMG I'M STARVING!!!" is debilitiating and demoralising. I would previously struggle with that until I got to the point of "BUGGER THIS! GIMME SOME FOOOOOOOOD!!" and then proceed to stuff my face and undo all my hard work. Now, that hunger doesn't bite nearly as deeply, so I only have to deal with resisting the chocolate binge, instead of having to try to resist everything. My weight loss hasn't been as fast or as dramatic as some around, but I am quietly confident that it will be continuous and steady. That confidence alone is one of my biggest motivators - this time I actually believe I can do it, something that I don't think I ever truly believed before.

Hope it all went well and that you are now recovering nicely! Good luck on the liquid stage and be prepared for a NORMAL stall/slight regain in about 2 weeks as you ease into thicker liquids and mushies. Don't panic when it happens (and it happens to most of us!), just take heart and keep on going - the plateau does end if you don't give up!

I'd love to be there but I'm back on site this weekend :rolleyes2: I hope to catch up with you all soon!

$77K?? $77 thousand dollars???:blushing:

Wow, that seems extremely high, especially the cost of the lapband itself. I was a self-pay in Australia and I know that our medical costs aren't as high as yours, but still - I would have thought that the cost of the band itself would be comparable and mine was $3600 AUD (which is about $3200 US). Actually, I would have thought that it would be more expensive in Aus, because we usually pay much higher prices for manufactured goods than folk in the US do (eg cars, white goods, etc). I paid cash individually to each party involved, so I know my cost breakdown worked like this: AP 10cm lapband: $3600 Surgeon's Fee: $2700 Anaesthetist's Fee: $1600 Private Hospital Theatre Fees & Day Bed (including take home drugs and those awful anti-thrombosis stockings, etc): $3700 Lab Bloodwork: $170 Total cost for the day: $11,770 AUD (approx $10,600 US) I can add to that the $150 for the pre-op visit to the surgeon and then two followup visits for fills ($150 each), and subtract the $1400 rebate that our Medicare system gave (which is very minimal because this was privately done), so far this band has cost me $10,820. I wonder why the band itself is so much more expensive for you - it's all from the same company and we have higher import duties, tariffs and other taxes than you, I was very surprised by that.

Great idea Jachut! Might have to try that one myself!

Erk... I was lying in bed last night, wondering what the hell was this odd pain I felt, and it sounds very much like yours only milder. If it works its way up into anything more severe, I'm off to the doctor's to check it out *sigh*

Not only do I think this woman was being out of line, I truly don't understand her point. With 3 young kids under 4 years old, are you not a family? Who is such a room designed for, if not you? It does say "Family", doesn't it? What does she mean by "you can just use the regular room"? You said "we" several times, so I am assuming that you were in the Family room with your partner and kids - so was she seriously expecting you two to split up and take some kids into the Ladies room with Mum and the other(s) into the Mens room with Dad? That's ridiculous!

LOL! I think we were separated at birth, Jacqui! That is me to a T!

Today was the first day that some that I hadn't told about the surgery actually asked "Have you lost weight?" Whoohoo!! It's finally noticeable!

Congrats to everyone! Whether you've lost 10lb or 50lb, just think of this: All of us have been successful! Can you imagine having lost ANY amount of weight over the period December 2006 to February 2007? If you're anything like me, that time of year is a guaranteed GAIN for me, so even though I'm at the low end of the weight loss scale, I'm thrilled with what I've achieved so far.

I'm in total agreement. I can live with the banner ads and the ones on the right, but the one in the middle of the thread is just plain intrusive!

Wow!! Someone's lost 81lb or more since December? :biggrin: Way to GO!!!

Hi everyone It's been over 2 months since our op for most of us, so I was wondering how the group was going. I am one of the "slow losers" but in many ways, I am working to make it happen that way, so not too worried at this point. So are you a tortoise or a hare?

For me, the weirdest thing about this thread is that the original poster and all of the responders TALK with other people in the waiting room.:scared2: I don't think I've ever even overheard conversation in the waiting room, let alone spoken to other people about the band. I don't know if it is a cultural difference or not, but I don't think it is lap-band related, as I have noticed the same thing in any GP's waiting room for all of my life. It's like it is a library or confessional or something - everyone reads the magazines, keeps their heads down and, if eye contact is accidentally made, a small nod is all the communication allowed.

Coz we still get unholy glee from breaking into the Boy's Fort and giving you all Girl Germs!! Ahahahahahahah!!

It sounds to me like you have the same addiction to the sensations of overeating that most of us have/had. When you weren't watching or attempting to control your intake, you were probably oblivious to how that eating pattern was fulfilling your emotional needs. Once you started to try to cut down and control those behaviours, your addiction fought back by finding ways to try to hide the food and hide your eating. It's scary to contemplate life without our favourite comfort. It scares the crap out of me, anyway! I was also terrified that I would have to give up my favourite tastes, including Pasta and other carbs. It's only been a short while since I took the plunge, but already I can tell that there is a HUGE difference in my hunger levels depending on whether or not I have eaten carbs that day. Carbs make me HUNGRY!!! At the same time, I don't have a lot of restriction yet, so right now there is absolutely nothing I can't eat, including breads, pasta and rice. In some way that is a comfort to me for the long run. I know that, right now, carbs are not doing me any favours because they are fighting against the value of the band which does decrease my appetite even without full restriction. I'm looking forward to getting more restriction and if the price for that is less carbs, I'm prepared to pay it. However, I also know that once I achieve goal, I should be able to loosen off the band a little and eat a sensible balanced maintenance diet that will include carbs and will satisfy me. The band doesn't mean giving up your favourites forever (except maybe carbonated drinks - although some can even manage that). When it is working, it doesn't mean living with hunger every day either - that is the whole point of it! That you DON'T feel the dreaded hunger daemon clawing at your insides in the same way. No-one can live with that feeling for very long. Other issues with emotional eating aren't solved of course, but it does help in taking away most of that physical sensation of "I'm starving!"

Congrats!! You're doing really well! I can't wait to be able to see a difference in my pics and then post them...