Fanny Adams

Alright!! That's more like it! I'll PM everyone when I get home from site and, hopefully, we can organise something for next week! Looking forward to meeting you all :smile:

Oooh how exciting - I'll cross my fingers for you!! Grandbabies are the BESTUS!! All the fun bits and none of the laundry! :smile:

You know I think this was the most chilling part for me: " The death rate for stomach band surgery, which can cost $17,000 to $20,000, is about 1 in 1,000. There were only minor complications in the study. Stomach stapling has a 2 percent death rate and costs $20,000 to $30,000." 1:1000 compared to 2:100 - that was the main reason for my choice right there... PS: As a fully self-pay in Australia, the surgery and pre/post care visits have cost me jut over $10,000, not $17-20K

My doctor told me to go on liquids for 2-4 days after a fill, which I found quite odd, as he was quite lenient compared to other doctors in the Post-op diet requirements (eg clears 3-4 days, full liquids 1 week, mushies 1 week, solids). He also said it varies quite a lot from person to person and the time frame should be tailored to what can be tolerated. I requested only a small fill (1cc - half the norm 2cc for a first fill) and stayed on liquids for the first day but was happy to move to mushies on Day 2 and back to soft foods/solids by Day 3. For those who had a more aggressive fill, perhaps you are trying solids a little too early? It might be worth sticking to liquids only for 2-3 days and then reintroducing mushies and solids slowly as tolerated.

Yeah, we don't get many trolls in here, so it is easy to be caught unaware. Trolls like nothing more than seeing people get all het up and responding to their posts with outrage. All I can suggest is:

Me too :tongue: I find that I am regularly eating to the point of absolute fullness and discomfort (although I still don't know what people mean by "stuck") and I have a horrible feeling that if anyone stretches their pouch, it will be me. I get the feeling of fullness on 1 cup of food and then will often eat another 1/4 - 1/2 cup any way, even when I know it will cause pain. It is stupid to push the limits like this, I know, but I find I actually miss that pain of eating till I'm stuffed, as it was a standard way of eating to me. How long does it take for this sort of behaviour to cause actual stretching? Can one recover from stretching the pouch in the same way as one's stomach will shrink if you could just lay off stuffing your face for a while?

Can anyone say TROLL!!!

I think it was Wheetsin who said in a reply to a similar post, that the single most predictable weight loss pattern is the regain/plateau at around 3-5 weeks out. I posted my own cry out about this a few weeks back. For me, I lost 15 lb from 31 Nov to 14 Dec (op on 10 Dec) and then started to regain and lose the same 3lb for the next 2 weeks. It wasn't until 3 Jan that I got below that initial 15lb loss but then I lost another 5lb in the following 2 weeks. I couldn't understand it either, because I thought I had read and re-read these forums over and over and was really prepared for this surgery. However, I think what happened was that every time I read about someone else having this problem, the answers all seemed to say it was because the person didn't have restriction. I took that as meaning that the person was eating more and that was why they weren't losing. It didn't make sense to me that I was NOT eating more, was eating FAR LESS than previously but had still hit this wall. From everything I've read since then, it seems clear that almost ALL of us hit this wall and that it has nothing to do with how much we eat. As several people have pointed out, it is an adjustment to the weight loss and will happen regardless. It happened to people when they switched from liquids to mushies, to others when they switched from mushies to solids and to others when they were still on clear or thick liquids. It really doesn't seem to matter what is eaten (within reason), at somewhere between 3 and 5 weeks of starting to diet (including the pre-op period), that wall comes up to hit us in the face. Now that I think about it, I have hit this same regain/plateau on almost every previous diet. The only difference is that in the past when I hit it in the 3rd week, a week of no loss or regain would have me so frustrated I would quit the diet and then would eat my way into regaining ALL of the weight lost plus a couple of extra pounds for good measure. Thank goodness that hasn't happened this time and I have the band to thank for that. I just wish I had understood the process better last month.

You know, I can honestly say that I have never experienced this form of discrimination. While I wasn't fat in my teens or twenties, I've been fat for going on 15 years now (roughly 30-45), and I can't recall ever thinking I missed out on a job or wasn't served in a shop because of my weight. Sure I've had a few insults here and there, but never experienced actual discrimination. I don't know if I've just been lucky or if I'm just really unobservant and haven't noticed being ignored in a shop. When my daughter was in her late teens, I spent a lot of time in boutique shops, where I couldn't fit their largest item of clothing on one arm or one leg, let alone all of me, yet never got that impression from the sales people. Maybe it was just obvious I was shopping for someone else?

Looks like it's just thee and me, acl, but I'll hold out hopes for more to join us. I'll be home from site on Friday night and will try to organise something for next week and post details.

While you might be eating more than "you should be", how does that compare with your pre-banding eating habits? I find that I can easily eat 1 cup of food and can push it to about 1.5 cups when I'm really hungry, but I can't go past that point. If I compare that to my pre-banding days, that is still a tiny portion, so I would think that you shouldn't regain too much of the weight lost. I also find that the more solid the food, the smaller the portion, whereas I'm quite happy to eat 2 cups of Soup and could probably manage more. I was lucky enough to get a fill at 5 weeks out, but I asked for only half the usual amount as I don't want to have very tight restriction. All I can suggest for you is to make really healthy choices whenever you can and go for the bulkiest food, rather than Protein drinks. Not only will the more solid food fill you better, but you will have to spend far more time chewing and will likely get much better satisfaction from having eaten than you would from soft foods. Good luck and hang in there!!

Pretty much the same. Dianetics is the "psychological" theory and Scientology the full-blown cult. There are quite a few schools and private tutoring centres around that push Dianetics and claim that they are independent of the Church. Mind you, they are fully funded by and solely operated by Church members, so you decide how independent they are...

I see you are both recently banded - I'm only a month before you and I found that once I got past the liquid and mushie stage, I got full on around 1 - 1.5 cups of food, prior to my first fill. I don't want supertight restriction, so I went easy on the first fill and only had 1cc put in, so the situation is much the same now. It feels a little different to the FULL feeling that you get after Xmas dinner or something like that, but is similar enough to recognise, just higher up in your stomach. I didn't get that same feeling from liquids after the first couple healing days.

Hehehe - I have a similar approach when home. When I hit that plateau/regain phase in the post-op, I REFUSED to update my ticker until I could show that it had moved down again. It took from 14 Dec to 3 Jan before I could update it, but I wasn't going to update it UPwards!

LOL - yes, that one is pretty tactless. I can understand thinking "oh, so I was the biggest slob before?"

I'm really scared about having too much restriction and, personally, would rather have to add a bit of willpower to a light restriction from the band than have to deal with PB'ing and getting stuck. I can manage "a little" willpower on my own, it's when I have to keep up "a lot" over time that I fail...

I really am a great believer in it all being the "headspace". Of course, there are some shallow men out there who will only look at appearances and will only want a perfect pretty doll on their arm, but there are many many men who DO look for personality and charm over a perfect body. One of the things I think we do as "fat people" is put up a mental barrier that wards off approaches or simply doesn't see them when they happen. We don't find ourselves attractive and, in our minds, our weight is one of the main reasons for that, so we project that worry onto other people and assume that they don't find us attractive because of our weight. Often, our weight isn't the problem at all - it is that we don't look happy or confident. We dismiss opportunities by thinking "Of course, he can't really mean that" or "He would never really be interested in ME!" I've gone through the last 10 years of being in and out of the "dating" mood. For various reasons, there have been times when I simply haven't wanted the complications of a relationship and haven't been in the right mood for more casual "hookups". When that happens, I seem to close myself off from others, don't respond to the invitation in someone's eyes and the opportunities for dating just disappear. When I am ready to date again, I make a point of opening my eyes to the people around me and it usually doesn't take that long before I have what I want (be it a casual or more serious relationship). The "make eye contact and smile" thing works on so many levels and it should be done to EVERYONE around you, not just the man you might be interested in. This works because: 1) You will make more friends by being more open and friendly. This increases your social circle and gives you more chances to meet Mr Right. 2) It makes you more approachable to someone who might be interested. If you get a reputation for being open and friendly, that shy guy in the corner just might muster up the courage to say hi to you. 3) It tells people that you are confident and happy with yourself - who wants to approach someone who looks miserable? Extra tip for that really cute guy you saw in the cafe/bar/wherever: If you catch his eye, give a sideways glance, small smile and (if you can pull it off) wink :girl_hug: That "joking conspiratorial glance" can make a "secret connection" that will do wonders in boosting his confidence and may make the difference between him approaching you and him wistfully thinking maybe he should have... Of course, ideally, we should have the confidence to make the approach ourselves but that's a lot easier said than done...baby steps eh?

Well I told the doc that I wasn't feeling the desperate need for a fill but could eat a full cup of food fairly comfortably and sometimes a little more but after that had to stop. He ended up putting in only 1cc, which is half the usual 2cc at a first fill. I felt a little tighter that day but by the evening was feeling exactly the same as before. The doc said I should be on liquids for the next 2-4 days depending on how well I tolerated things. I did do liquids on the first day but went back to mushies on day 2 and normal food again on day 3 and haven't had a problem since. He didn't seem to think the port bruising was a problem, although I am still a little worried about that, as sometimes it does feel like I am tearing stitches loose. It has been better lately though, so I am going to just muddle along. I don't particularly want to feel super tight restriction, as I can live without the PB'ing and getting stuck that others seem to be suffering. I've not had a single episode of that and am quite happy about that. Right now I can eat anything at all - rice, bread, red meat, etc - but am happy on 1-1.5 cups of food per meal. I think I might lose a little faster if it were only 0.5-1 cup, but I'm scared that if I go for that level of restriction, I'll end up with the other problems to go with it. So far, I've not found it at all hard to stick to healthy foods, but then again, I never was a chocoholic or a fan of junk food. I've had my moments with those of course, but my main problem as always been portion control (ie eating enough for 3-4 people at the evening meal), so I'm grateful that this stops me from doing that. What do you guys think? What's the big rush to get total restriction? When people say that without that tight sensation, they can eat "anything", do they really mean they can go back to eating the enormous meals they used to consume? Or is it just if they are feeling any level of hunger, they find it hard to make the right choices in what they eat? In the past, I have usually eaten to the point of pain - stuffed myself so much that I usually have to lie on the couch and groan for an hour or so after a meal until it goes down. I find I actually miss that kind of pain but I do get a similar sensation when I try to go over a cup - just higher up in my stomach. It doesn't feel "stuck", just FULL!

I guess it is different for everyone, but for me that regain/stuck time lasted about 10 days, in which I regained 3lb quite quickly and then lost/regained 1lb a day. As I came off mushies and got into eating more solid food, increasing from around 600 cal a day to around 800, my weight started to drop again before I had a fill. I think it is still dropping now (post-first fill), but I don't know as right now I don't have access to a set of scales.

I too am in the big boobed corner (anywhere from an 18E to a 22G, depending on the weight, currently 20F) and I know I'm going to need a lift when I've reached goal. Already, they point due south and without the fat gut to prop them up, that's not going to get better. However, unlike many of the ladies who've commented so far, I LIKE my big boobs. They've always been part of my identity and a source of confidence. Even when I've been at my fattest and feeling horribly unattractive, I've always been able to kid myself that if I round em up in a decent bra and put them out there, guys will focus on those and ingore the huge tummy and fat arms (lol - yeah, I know it's a dream, but it fools me at least). I really want to perk them up again but I'm terrified of losing too much off them and having horrible scarring. Because they are so droopy, I know it is going to take some pretty major reconstruction to lift them up again and that would be so much easier if I went down to a C or D cup, but I don't know if I would even recognise myself below an E PS: Don't you just love the way boobs float in Water? Swimming in the pool is the one time I feel happy about the shape of my boobs. They need to invent a portable aquarium or something that one can wear in place of a bra and have perky pool boobs all the time!! Hahahah! :biggrin:

Yup, ditto!

ARGH!!! :biggrin: I work on a remote mine site and we have to pack our lunch in the camp each day, as there are no canteen facilities on site. I can't face eating at 5:30am and usually pack Breakfast as well, then eat it at around 8am (I start at 6am). I couldn't believe it when I went to get my brekkie out and there it was GONE!!! The cleaners have to go through the fridge each day and mark any plastic bags with lunch inside with an X and then throw out all the ones marked with X's from the previous day. I guess she just got my bag mixed up with the others and tossed it by accident. I know it's a silly thing to get upset about but I damn near cried! I was really looking forward to that poached egg for breakfast and I had grapes (GRAPES!!) for lunch - do you know how rare it is for us to have grapes instead of boring old apples and oranges on site? Now I have to finish out a 12 hour shift before I can get back to camp for dinner :mad:.

While I can agree that it is annoying to read "why aren't I losing?" from those who then admit that they are eating too much or eating wrong foods, not exercising, etc, I think some people are being a little harsh in their judgements of those asking "why aren't I losing?" in the post-op period. I started reading in this forum in Sept/Oct and read thousands of posts and threads in the time up to my operation. I read just about the entire pre-op/post-op faqs, the complications sections, support sections and more. I thought I was really well-prepared and thoroughly understood the process that I would go through. I was wrong. Somehow, in all my reading, I had missed the information about the plateau/regain pattern that most people seem to experience in the post-op period. I had read thread after thread about it but still didn't really get it until it happened to me. All the replies seemed to focus on "well you don't have restriction yet", so I took that as meaning that people without restriction had gone back to eating their pre-op huge meals and that was causing the stall. I didn't know that I would hit this plateau, even when following the rules to the letter! I don't know how I missed that information, because AFTER I got caught by that and posted about it, I suddenly started seeing similar threads everywhere that gave the full picture. Maybe it was a blind spot and I just didn't want to see the "negative picture" - I don't know. Also, when I was asking about my plateau, I also admitted that I was one of those people who made an error in judgement and ate something I wasn't supposed to (in my case, chicken at about 10 days post-op). I was only out by a few days by MY surgeon's rules and it didn't seem that big a deal to me, as I did all the chew, chew, chew things and took it really slowly with no lasting effects. However, I got absolutely slammed by several people and told I would cause slippage, permanent damage, etc, etc. In terms of computer forums, this is one of the biggest I've ever seen and there is a LOT of information in here for people to digest and assimilate. It doesn't surprise me at all that people miss information and ask the same "stupid" questions over and over. Hunting among the thousands of threads can be very intimidating when one first comes in and if the question you want to ask isn't visible in the first index page, it seems easier to just ask again and hope that a sympathetic person will respond. In my case, that post-op stall made me so frustrated that I slipped up - one time! I got back on track immediately and eventually worked out that the plateau was normal and not because I was doing something wrong. What made it particularly irritating was that the person who slammed me the hardest was banded a week after I was and was still in the 2-3 days post-op where most people don't feel hungry. After ripping into me, she then posted her own call out for sympathy, when she hit the same wall 10 days later. Poetic justice is good :biggrin: Anyway, sorry for ranting but I do feel that some of us aren't giving others enough of a break as they come to terms with this radically life-changing procedure.

One thing that helps put this in perspective is to look down at the bottom of this thread to the "Similar Threads" section and see just how many other ones there are with the same title and exactly the same worries. You are not alone, mate, and at 2lb a week are really doing well in the average scheme of things.

Oh now there's a dream!! I haven't worn high heels in years and years and years. I managed to put a pair on for my daughter's wedding 4 years ago (for the first time in ages) and my feet were KILLING me within about half an hour. Haven't even tried since then. *sighs* One day...