Fanny Adams

*BIG HUGS* Now relax, hon! What you are feeling is absolutely normal. You WILL be able to eat normal food again, you just have to get through the healing process first. I don't know what your post-op diet is, but they all follow the same pattern (although the time frames differ wildly from doctor to doctor) and soon you will be able to take thicker liquids, nourishing Soups, then mushies and back to solid foods. As this happens, you will feel better and better. WARNING: Don't be surprised if, in a couple of days time as you transition into thick fluids and mushies, you stop losing and even regain a pound or two over the next few weeks. This happens to most of us and it can be very discouraging but again, it is NORMAL and seems to happen regardless of how much you are eating. That plateau should end as you start to get back onto solid food and it will start to go down again. You may even feel very hungry until you get your first fill, but you should find that you are satisfied on much less than previously and it will get easier and easier as you get closer to the "sweet spot" with your fills. Good luck on your journey!

Some bands start out with some fill in them, although most don't, so maybe it's not that weird. It does seem odd to add to the baseline at only 3 days out though. I think the shoulder pain is a hangover of gas pain, coming back at this late stage because of your problems with your fill. Try some gas strips or search this forum for "shoulder pain" and you should get hundreds of threads giving advice on what do do. I didn't have the problem and I'm in Aus so our brand names don't match yours, so I can't be of more use, sorry.

I go from the every day obsession to the once-a-week recording and back again every week. I work on a remote mine site on an 8 day on/6 days off shift and when I'm home, I weigh myself every morning without fail and often several times a day (only the lowest counts!!). That is a continuing source of frustration as my weight does fluctuate a couple of pounds a day due to fluids, etc. When I'm away on site, I don't have access to scales, so have to just tough it out till I get home. It's a great feeling when I get home and can see the results of a week in one go. I wish I could just make do with once a week, even when I'm home, but I just can resist it on a daily basis when I'm there.

Ok folks, I can understand the offence if someone was to say "You would be pretty if you lost weight." but when they are saying stuff like "You are pretty and would be even prettier if you lost weight" or even compliments like "you have beautiful skin" or "you have a great personality", finding ways to twist that into an insult is your own insecurities talking. Just what WOULD be acceptable as a compliment? Or don't you think you deserve any, so you treat them all with suspicion? How can anyone win against that attitude?

Hi to all you singles I just thought I'd poke my head in here and introduce myself. I'm currently that wonderful trio of fair, fat and over forty but I'm working on the middle one! :ohmy: I've been essentially single for 14 years now and, while I'm generally fine with it, I guess I'm getting a little lonely lately. For those of you waiting to lose weight before you get into the dating game, DON'T WAIT!! I started my single life at only 160lb (up from 125lb at marriage) and spent the first 4 years "putting on my fat suit" in response to the crappy marriage. After 4 years of absolute celibacy and stuffing my face, I opened the door to dating and discovered that, even though I was well over 200lb by then, fat chicks get dates too! It's all in the confidence - which I know is our biggest weakness, because who feels confident when they feel fat? Since then, I have dated on and off, growing larger every year, but my "success rate" has always been tied to my current head space. My size has never been the issue. When I am open to dating and receptive and responsive to people, the dates come. When I am in my "nup, wanna be left alone!" moods, they disappear like magic. So anyway... not trying to lecture or pretend I know the answers (coz I DON'T!!) ...just trying to give those who are "waiting for the day" a little push to get out there right now! Make eye contact and smile at everyone, regardless of who they are, and someone will notice and say hi to you!

I think you have it absolutely right, Weetsin. Before I got banded, I had read many posts about people not feeling restriction before their first fill and had attributed the plateaus and stalling they were experiencing to them overeating because of that. When I went through it, I couldn't understand why because I was sticking really closely to the "rules" and was on only 300-400 cal a day! Naturally, at about the end of Week 3 dietwise (about 10 days post-op), I did my usual "**** it! I'm having chicken wings!!" I felt horribly guilty over that and went back on plan the next day but still didn't lose anything for the next 10 days or so. It wasn't until I started in on thicker mushies and solids that my scales started moving down again. I really wish I had understood this phase before I went through it, but in spite of me reading here almost every day for the 2 months prior to my op, I somehow didn't see that information or just didn't take it in. There should be a huge warning sign that says "Most of you WILL stall or regain in Week 3-4, no matter what you do!! Just work through it and it will come good again."

You have your youth on your side, hon. Many women bounce back after pregnancy with no wrinkly belly, so you should have a fair chance of success too. As for the stretch marks, well...they too will fade - lots of Vitamin E cream does help.

Thank you for replying! And yes, there is a air-conditioned gym of sorts in the mining camp, but it is generally full of fit, buff young miners and there's no way in hell I'm going in there to huff and puff red-faced on the treadmill in front of them! The camp pool doesn't get as much patronage (not sure why) and even when there's others in there, I can hide below the Water surface and don't get so red-faced because it is so much cooler to swim. I'm going to try to increase the walking when I'm home to every day, instead of every other day, but it won't be cooler when I'm on site for some time yet (there's only about 6-8 weeks of the year where it gets below 90F, and it can be up to 130F!!), so best I can do there is swim further or swim faster. I'm not sure which would be better for me - further or faster do you think?

You know, the more I read in here, the more I think that this is not just "normal" but is actually the most common weight loss pattern out there! I can't tell you how many posts I've read in the last couple of months (including my own!!), from someone experiencing exactly the same issue - lose weight really well on the pre-op and then for a couple days after the op, then suddenly regain a couple of pounds and get stuck at that for ages. Having just come through the other side of that discouraging time, let me offer you some hope! It does start to shift down again - you just have to hang in there and not give up and start eating high calorie fat foods again. For me, I did a 10 day pre-op diet and lost 15lb in 15 days. On about the 5th day post-op, it stopped and by 20 days (10 days post-op) I had re-gained 3lb. My weight fluttered at around 12lb lost for the next week and finally started going down again when I was back on solids. I think it was 30 days post-op before I got back to 15lb lost but I've lost at least another 5lb since then (now 38 days post-op). The beauty of this band, for me, is that I CAN'T give up when these things happen. In any other diet, I've always lost well for a fortnight, hit a plateau for the 3rd week and by the end of the that week given up entirely and gone straight out and stuffed my face to soothe my feeling of frustration. I even came close this time - had a couple of things that I wasn't supposed to after a week of not losing - but I couldn't actually stuff my face because I would get full after a bowl full of solid food! YAY!

*sigh* I guess it isn't enough but everyone's too polite to tell me so?

LOL!! For some reason I thought you were over on my side of the country...not sure where I got that idea from. Oh well, I put out the call to Perth bandsters and hopefully will get some responses.

I am a side sleeper and there's just no way I can sleep in any other way. I very gingerly rolled myself onto my right side as soon as I got back to my room in the hospital and have slept that way ever since. It took me a couple of weeks before I could do the same on the left side though. I don't know how easy it would be to try sleeping directly on my stomach even now (six weeks post-op) Everyone is different and some take longer to heal than others, but I'd only be worried if you still couldn't manage it in with another couple of weeks.

That's been my experience too (also DownUnder). I don't go to the movies much and only occasionally get popcorn when I do (now Maltesers and Jaffas are a different story!! hahahah!) Actually, in the past, I would eat popcorn most often when dieting as I was always told air-popped corn was an excellent low fat, low calorie snack, with lots of fibre, etc.

You got the picture inserted ok Isn't she a sweetie!!! Don't grandbabies rock? :seeya: It's usually a good idea though to resize the pics before you put them up. You can do that using Microsoft Office Picture Manager or PhotoEditor or any number of photo applications

There's no special "joining" - just click on the group name, find a thread you'd like to comment in and say something! Most of the band date groups have a thread (or several!) where people state their surgery dates and some kind person adds their name to the list. Here's the one for the New Year Knockouts: http://www.lapbandtalk.com/f112/january-surgery-dates-45858/

It is there for me! On the right side, 2nd down (1st being Chat).

I am one (of the many, I'm sure) who loathes exercise, but one thing I've usually been comfortable doing is swimming. I work on a mine site in the far north of Western Australia) and it is just too damned hot (even at 4:30am!) to go outside walking, so I've been swimming in the camp pool after work at night. It took me a week but I have gotten up to doing 1km of laps each night, using a mix of breaststroke, backstroke and overarm/crawl. It usually takes me about 40 minutes to do this and I was planning on stepping up the pace and taking fewer breaks until I could do it all at a brisk pace non-stop, before stepping up the distance. When I am home in Perth (3,000km further south), I can handle walking in the early morning or late evening, as it is cooler then. Currently I've been doing 2.5km about 3-4 times per week, each walk taking exactly 30 mins. Everyone else that reports their exercise routine seems to be doing things like an hour of hard cardio 6 times a week or similar. So is 1km per night swimming or 2.5km every 2nd day walking enough? Or should I be trying for more? Do I have to keep increasing the times/distances to keep getting benefit from it, or can I just stick to the current routine?

Hahah! Love it - sharing!!

I dunno peoples, I have to agree with Wasa here. As a general rule, we ARE oversensitive about this issue and there is no winning with us. Even when someone simply says "Gee, you're so pretty!" without the "if you lost weight" tag behind it, we mentally add that bit anyway. I would venture to guess that most of us are uncomfortable with any compliment and will manage to twist it in our heads to downplay it. And let's face it folks, if we thought we looked fantastic fat, would we have had this surgery? Health issues aside, the cosmetic look of a severely obese person is not attractive. Do (did) you look in the mirror and think "HOT!" or "Fattie!"? Do you really think you will look prettier when fat or thin? We need to learn to hear the genuine compliment in the statement "You have such a pretty face, you'd be gorgeous if you lost weight". Yes, that does mean you don't look gorgeous at 300lb (gee surprise surprise), but it ALSO means you have a pretty face! And now that we have found our pathway to losing weight, we can look forward to being gorgeous! Those who compliment us with the "if you lost weight" proviso are almost always trying to be sincere. They are trying to focus on the good points, not be insulting about the bad points. Face it, if they wanted to be insulting, they could simply say "Fat ass!" and who among us hasn't heard that before? Our self esteem is low enough with the genuine insults that we get from rude people, without allowing our insecurities to turn genuine compliments into insults too.

Would any of the Perth bandsters be interested in getting together for a dinner one night or lunch one day? I am only home in Perth every second week (work on the mines, one week on/one week off), but would love to catch up with some Perth bandsters when I am home. Ideas for get togethers: * Find a nice restaurant and all order an entree (and no-one has to feel odd because of that!) * Have a Monthly Lunch or Dinner Party at someone's house, serving bandster style food and portions (everyone takes turns to host). * Have a picnic in Kings Park, with a BYO picnic lunch

Hi Sewenup! Which gym is this? I think it would be great to work with someone who understands bandster issues. I've been swimming 1km per night when up on site and walking 2.5km most days when home in Perth, so that's more exercise than I've done in YEARS but I wouldn't mind adding a gym session or two when I'm home. I've also been thinking about having a dinner night with the Perth bandsters. If I put out the call on the Australian Bandsters forum, would you be interested?

Welcome to the club, Cherry Blue! Dr Watson seems to be a great surgeon. All of his patients that I have heard tell their stories (including me!) say that they have had a really easy recovery time. He must have extra gentle hands when in there or something

Correction: I added all the bills up from Dr Watson, the hospital, anaesthetist, lab work, including the first fill on Tues, and it all came to $11,850. Medicare didn't cover the hospital fee (approx $3360 for day patient only) or the cost of the actual band ($3600), but did pay some cover on all the other bills. In the end, I was refunded $1350, making for a nett cost of $10,500.

Hehehe!! I don't care if this is reviving the long dead - this is a topic that NEEDS resurrection! :tt1:

*bumps* I just found this thread in one of the "related posts" links from something completely different, and I must say, this thread needs continuing!! My preferences? I'll take quality over quantity any day but when you get both at once, whoohoo baby!!!