Fanny Adams

My surgeon just phoned and moved my date from the 12th up to the 10th!! OMG!! *PANICS!* Dec 3 - CarolK1 parrot0927 antsmith101 Christasha Danna(sewenup1) Heavy Heartland Dec 4 - TXbandit kris102003 Sandy63 candy8360 inthecitygirl Rosie15 Dec 5 - mejr62 Chienne and her dad Brooke (medic26541) Babyblues425 Munchkin392 Dec 6 – Sghatl newlife JEN_RN Lost in LS Twilight AudricIan gg88 NewMeFrisco Dec 7 - Newblew jen hollers Meghan1983 jennypoo tomecia25 Dec 8 Dec 9 Dec 10 - HeatherA (tentative) Michelle28 Fanny Adams <<< NEW DATE!! EEK! Dec 11 - ::Tracy:: LinzerPA vanessa Tia Maria Gus123 krisa Dec 12 - Caramel Vicki J chatita Dec 13 - jmschnapf Anyalee Mommathang Motogrossgirly MissyDFE Dec 14 Dec 15 Dec 16 Dec 17 - 100lbsforsale MissSac gingimop Tishbite2 grannyk girlygirlz collet Dec 18 - Mendypoo Livingthe Dream JET's MOM HHWALJ Kelly Mcgee AlysonRR Reillye missmonaaz HeatherA Just A Girl Dec 19 - Cerrin Dandydeb Artsy Dec 20 - Jonesy mrsjiggles (tentative) nhlapband Dec 21 Dec 22 Dec 23 DEC 24 Dec 25 - MERRY CHRISTMAS Dec 26 - Miss Polly jenncore lachica39 Palarin Tcuts gayle21 Dec 27 - jasmona1214 glitzigirl thundandlight Jazzywoman Dec 28 - The Fox imsamiam J.Discoun Cleo Mellis

Thanks everyone for their advice. I fly home this afternoon and I guess I'll have to look around for another Meal Replacement drink, as I don't see how I can get under 60 carbs a day using the Optifast. This doesn't quite make sense to me, because why would it be the recommended one on the list if it isn't low enough in carbs? However, I really want this to work and to give myself the best possible chance, so I'll see what I can do to find a better substitute. MrsJiggles: Thanks for you comments re solids/liquids. That was what I really wanted to know and what you say does make sense. I guess I was just wondering if I wouldn't be better off just doing the steamed veges on their own and skipping the liquid meals altogether, as this would give a lower carb count, but I suppose there's more to it than that.

Yes, my doctor did explain about the advantages of reducing the liver, and I am keen to do that. However, I don't know if the "liquid" part is necessary for that, or if it is just the calorie restriction and weight loss that is necessary. Any ideas?

My doctor didn't insist on a pre-op diet but did recommend it and explained the advantages in terms of liver reduction, etc (with comparative videos to make the point!) However, he didn't give me any specific instructions and I didn't have time to see the dietician before I had to fly back to work. I've been trying to stick to it with some adaptations, thinking that I had a bit of leeway because the doctor hadn't insisted I bought the vanilla Optifast option which has 152 cal, 2.3g fat, 15g carb, 17g Protein. The recommendation is 3 x Optifast + salads/low carb veges, giving a total of about 500 cal, 7g fat, 60g carb and 51g protein. This seems high in carbs and low in protein to me. I've been substituting the evening drink with a small meal of very lean meat and low carb veges and putting my daily intake into Fitday.com. It comes out at around 550 cal, 12g fat, 50g carb and 60g protein. While the fat content is a little higher, the carbs are lower and the protein higher and it is MUCH more satisfying to eat! A couple of days I've had a slightly bigger piece of meat and its gone up to 650 cal, with similar rises in the others. So my question is, am I blowing this by not sticking to pure liquids? What is the purpose of liquids in the pre-op stage? If the point is simply to lose weight quicky, then surely 550 to 650 cal should do the trick? The carb/protein balance on the Optifast is much more carb heavy than the Atkins diet, so I don't think the aim is to get into ketosis (I'd need to get my carbs down under 30g for that I think - not sure). If I've stuffed this up, I have another week to go before the op to correct it, but I have had to guess as best I could, as I am 3000km away from doctor's advice at the moment. Can you folk help?

I'm in Australia and will be fully self-paid (my insurance doesn't kick in for another 12 months and I can't wait). I was told "between $11 and 12,000" but I get some (not very much!!) back on Medicare for the anaesthetist and surgeon. I will also get most back on the doctor's visits for the initial consults and fills, etc. If it all works as planned, it will be worth every penny.

Hi Green - re the "gunpowder" check, that is standard in almost all airports nowadays. They do it in our airports (Australia) on interstate flights, and I'm pretty certain our security systems aren't as tight as yours, so it was nothing personal. I know my local airport staff have a quota of 1 person per minute coming through, so they pick out quite a large percentage. I fly every week to and from work and I get the explosives check wanding at least 1 flight in 3.

Welcome and good luck to you! I am going under on 12th December, so I'll think of you on the night before (it will be night for me when you go in - I'm in Aus.)

Jachut, do you know what size the Berlei sports bras go up to? I've never been able to find a sports bra that will fit my girls I'm currently a 22F/G, although hopefully that will drop soon! Mind you, once I lose the belly holding them up at the moment, they'll probably head even further south! [eek]

Wow Dorr - I was just thinking the second one was your complete After pic and you looked fabulous! It must be different in person if you want to lose another 100lb but judging from the pic alone, you look perfect already!

Man, I'm really going to have to practice this! Although after the op, I guess it will only take one or two mistakes to learn my lesson. I'm hoping to avoid that though, with the practice. Also, I'm finding it really makes a difference already to how hungry I feel on the Optifast/veges, so it's worth it just for that.

Good luck Danna!! I'll be thinking of you today - hope it all goes well.

It's not the thought of the surgery that has me quaking in my boots - I've had quite a few operations in my life and some of them extremely painful. I know I can face that. What has me quivering like a jelly is the thought of "giving up eating" forever! I know that once I get through the liquids/mushies stage, we are supposed to be able to eat most things, just in much smaller quantities, but I'm scared to let go of the "big pigout". I'm especially scared about the reactions that some people have to certain foods, and not being able to eat them ever without having problems. What if I can never have lasagne again?? What if it turns out that my favourite savoury sausage casserole is one of those things that I just can't eat? One of the things I liked about this procedure was my original perception that, once healed, I could eat all types of food but just couldn't gorge myself on them. Now that I've read and learned more, I'm worried about those things - or is it just last minute nerves and I'm being silly?

LOL! Pencil erasers come in all sizes!! Or do you mean the little ones at the end of a pencil? That small? Like less than 1/4" small?? Wow! I was going for under 1/2" pieces last night and it took me over 45 mins to eat dinner! And it was cold by half way through

All the advice says cut your food into tiny pieces and chew 15-20 times. So how tiny is "tiny"? I am on the pre-op diet (Optifast and steamed veges) and have been trying to practice cutting my food small, chewing thoroughly and waiting between bites, as advised but how small is small? Say for example, a slice of carrot approx 1" diameter x 1/8" thick - cut it in half? Quarters? Eighths? More??? Should I aim for 1/2" square pieces? 1/4? I know I don't need to do this until after the op, but I want to get in practice because I really don't want to have problems "getting stuck" later on...

"reaching deep down to find your inner fanny" Ahahahah!! *falls off chair laughing* Now don't you DARE say that to me within a week of the op, coz you'll bust my stitches!! And congrats on the loss so far!! Good going, hon!!

BTW, Fanny is not my real name - that is Sue - but I've gone by Fanny Adams online for so many years now that I even answer to it in real life! LOL! I'm comfortable with Fanny, if you don't mind :confused:

Karen!! Hi!!! I've been wondering where you've been. I saw that you had your surgery and hadn't seen anything else from you in ages. Mind you, I ended up having to give up this board for a few weeks because I was becoming obsessive about it at work and felt really guilty. Of course, I'm doing it again now that I have my date, but I don't feel as guilty about it :confused: Thanks for your words - you were the one who inspired me to make the decision, so they really mean a lot. I hope all is going well with you and life as a bandster is everything you were expecting. Tell us all - and don't pull any punches in fear of demotivating me, coz I'd rather hear the truth than only the good bits.

Hmm... does anyone know much about low blood pressure and the band? If your BP is already low, is it likely to drop further after being banded? In spite of my weight, my blood pressure is normally quite low and I get that dizziness quite often on standing up. I've always just lived with it, but I'm getting banded in 10 days and if it drops further with losing weight, that sounds like a worry...

Fair enough, I understand the need for reassurance about what is and isn't normal. My answer would be that pain on days 2 to 4 after ANY operation is normal. My surgeon likened it to the pain felt after a gall bladder operation, which is to say it would be more than that I felt when having surgery to attempt to repair my fallopian tubes (upper abdominal surgery is apparently more painful than lower abdominal surgery), but considerably less than that felt when I had my toes reattached after being cut off.

One thing that surprises me about people's reaction to the operation is that so many do not seem to expect any pain. Is this because those people have had no experience with previous operations? I have had several operations and I know that, while some were definitely worse than others, there is no way that a surgeon can cut into your flesh, mess around with your insides and then sew you closed without some form of pain. Pain medication only works so far, and I think many people don't realise that for the first 12-24 hours after any surgery, the anasthetic and pain killers given in hospital are cushioning the pain effect to a high degree. These wear off at the same time as the pain factor is lessening due to healing, however, it is often on day 2 or 3 after surgery that the most pain is felt. I am due to be banded in 12 days and I am fully expecting pain to be a part of this - that is a price I am willing to pay. If the price turns out to be less than expected, that's great! I'll have gotten a bargain! If it hurts more than expected, that will be a bummer but I've had some pretty painful operations and have a fair idea of what to expect. I don't get how some people can expect to have serious surgery and walk away from it pain-free.

Wow that's a side effect that I didn't know to expect, but I must say I'm looking forward to it. I work in an area with extreme high temperatures and it makes me utterly miserable, so have been sort of thinking maybe the heat wouldn't bother me as much after losing the weight, but it had never occurred to me that it might go all the way in the other direction. That would certainly make my housemates happy as I've been known to run the airconditioner even in winter, when they want the gas heater on!

Hi everyone I am 45 years old and have been single now for 14 years. I have a 26 year old married daughter (pride of my life) and 2 beautiful grandchildren (both girls, ages 5 and 2). I live in Perth, Western Australia but work at a mine site 3000km away, in the far north of the country. I work 8 days on, 6 days off on Fly In/Fly Out. I wasn't always a fat person - I started gaining weight about 15 years ago (anyone make the time connection with "being single"? LOL) and have gradually ballooned up to my current morbid obesity I am really looking forward to finding the old me underneath this fat suit I've been wearing. My surgery date is set for 12th December.

I know we all hear about how important it is to drink Water and I probably hear it more than most, as I get it drilled into me every morning at our Safety Meetings on the mine site. They are constantly telling us about hydration/dehydration and have a very high focus on it, because of the heat out on the mine. I thought I'd heard everything there was to hear about how good water was for you, but today they gave us some new information and a lot of it really made an impact and is particularly relevant to weight loss, so I thought I would share it with you all. I've underlined the really interesting bits. WATER How 8 glasses a day keeps fat away Water is the single most important catalyst in losing weight and keeping it off. It is important to drink 8-10 glasses (approximately 2 litres) a day. You should also increase the amount if you exercise briskly or if the weather is hot and dry. It should preferably be cold because it absorbs into the system quicker than warm water. If you're not getting enough water, your body fluids will be thrown off balance and you may experience Fluid retention, unexplained weight gain and loss of thirst. Ultimately, when your body gets the water it needs to function at its best, its fluids are perfectly balanced. Water supresses the appetite and helps the body metabolise fat The kidneys need enough water to function properly. When they aren't receiving enough, some of their workload is dumped onto the liver. The liver's main function is to metabolise stored fat into energy for your body to use. Therefore, when the liver has to do some of the kidney's work, it will not function fully. This results in the metabolism of less fat, therefore more fat remains stored in the body and weight loss stops. Drinking enough water is good for fluid retention When your body is not getting enough water, it begins to hold on to every drop possible to survive. When this happens, water starts to store itself outside cells and this can lead to swollen feet, legs and hands. To prevent this from happening, you must drink plenty of water! By doing this, you will be releasing the stored water from cells. An overweight person needs more water than a thin person Larger people have large metabolic loads and since water is essential for fat metabolism, it is clear that an overweight person would need a large amount. Water helps maintain proper muscle tone Water helps to maintain proper muscle tone by giving them the ability to contract. It also helps to prevent sagging skin that results from weight loss. Water re-hydrates the skin and leaves it clear, healthy and supple. Water helps to flush out waste When losing weight, the body has a lot of waste or metabolised fat to get rid of and water aids in that process. Water relieves constipation When your body isn't getting enough water, it takes what it needs from other sources and the colon is a primary source. This results in constipation, however, by drinking enough water, normal bowel function will return. Things to remember Your body will not function properly without enough water and can't metabolised stored fat efficiently Retained water shows up as excess weight To get rid of excess waste you must drink more water Drinking water is essential to weight loss I know we all read and hear about how water helps in weight loss but often we don't really know why. I am the sort of person that needs to really understand a process before I can fully take it on board and this information helped me a lot. I hope it helps you too! DRINK UP!!!

Thanks for all the feedback everyone. I have been thinking about this all night and I think it is a combination of everything and the various comments from you all, even though different, have each been right on target in their own way. Nicotine is an appetite suppressant, and I think the patch is probably a big factor. I know I have used "have a cigarette instead of eating" in the past, when I've been dieting and it works (sort of). I just wasn't expecting it to have such a great effect because I figured I was only replacing one source with another. However, I am probably getting a lot more nicotine from the patch than I usually do from cigs, as I usually only have 10-15 a day. Also, I have used the small-bites-chew-chew-chew before when dieting and it did work when I did it - I just couldn't sustain it in the long run and always fell back into bad old habits. What I want the band to help me to do is to not quit those patterns and keep them up for life. I think another factor is also that the doctor didn't insist that I had to do either. I have a long history of playing "reverse psychology" mind games with myself and actually use it a lot to trick myself into doing stuff. Basically, if someone says DO THAT, I dig my heels in and refuse out of sheer stubbornness. If they say YOU CAN'T DO THAT, it suddenly becomes the thing I want most in the world. If the doctor had said "You MUST give up smoking and you MUST do the liquid diet", I think I would have gone automatically into defiance mode and found it much harder. By making it my decision and by me giving myself the option to do it or not as best I could, I avoided that trigger. Anyway, today I am going to go for no cigs at all (I had another one last night before bed, so only 2 yesterday, which I would have said was a miracle for me). I'm also going to try to stick closer to the liquid diet thing (ie no fish & veg for dinner), but am still going to do the yoghurt/fruit lunch and maybe a bowl of soup if I'm struggling tonight. Hehehe - at this rate, my work pants might stop cutting me in half before I even finish the shift!! That would be sooooo cool! I had to get them to order in the extra huge size especially, coz I couldn't get into anything on their shelves - you can imagine how embarrassing that was to have to do through the store guys .

Ok, first of all, sorry for the long post, but this is weird and I need to tell the background to explain it properly. I just got given my surgery date (12th December, only 2 weeks away!) and am going through the usual emotions - excited, scared, hopeful, terrified... My surgeon told me that, while I did not have to do a 2 week liquid diet, it would be very helpful and would make the surgery less complicated, and then showed me a video of the surgery on someone who had done the fast and another on someone who had not. The differences were very obvious. Also, he told me that while I did not have to give up smoking it would be beneficial and explained the advantages in specific terms of less chance of infection, less chance of nausea after the surgery, etc. He suggested (but did not push) that I at least try to stop for 1 week prior to the surgery, to give my lungs a bit of a chance to rest. Now I am a committed smoker and, although considerate enough to not smoke around non-smokers, have always been defiant about not giving up and have never tried before. I was dreading the liquid diet phase. I really didn't think I could do either, so I was elated that it seemed I was going to be able to "get away with it", ie without all the hard battles that others have seemed to have gone through. However, I went home and thought about it a lot and came to the conclusion that if I couldn't commit to a simple 2 weeks of not smoking and not stuffing my face, how could I ask myself to commit to a lifetime of living with the band? This would be my final "test" to myself and besides, I rationalised, if I cheated and broke it the doctor was going to go ahead anyway and at least cutting down should help. So... yesterday I went out and bought a fortnight's worth of nicotine Patches and a box of Opti Fast. I was due to fly back to work in the afternoon (I work on a remote mine site in the far north of Western Australia, but live 3000km south in the state capital, Perth). I finished the last cig in the pack at about 3:00pm and put a patch on and headed to the airport, figuring the first test would be to see if I got off the plane desperate for a cig as usual. I got off and wasn't desperate, but managed to talk myself into having one anyway, rationalising it as "oh I've already smoked all day and the patch can't be working yet". BIG MISTAKE - I felt dizzy and got head spins and put it out half way through. This morning I put another patch on and have gone all day with only one cig at 10am this morning (its 7pm now) and I really didn't "need" that. WOW - this seems easier than I thought!! Who knew?? Now comes the weird bit... I couldn't quite bring myself to go the full liquid diet so I thought I would ease into it by having the first day on a mix of Optifast and small servings of soft food. This is what I ate: Time...Today.............................................Normal day on Site 6:00...Coffee/skim milk/sweeter....................Coffee/skim milk/sweeter 6:30........................................................Cereal/skim milk 8:00...Optifast Vanilla.................................2 slices Fruit toast (no butter when being "good", with butter when being "bad") 10:00..Coffee/skim milk/sweeter....................Coffee/skim milk/sweeter 10:30..Apple..............................................Apple 11:30.......................................................Eat half lunch early coz I'm "starving", large plastic container of sliced salad veges) 12:00..Half cup yoghurt/half cup tinned fruit....Remainder of lunch - bread roll (dry when being "good", with butter & vegemite when being "bad"), cheese & dried apricots 2:00...Coffee/skim milk/sweeter....................Coffee/skim milk/sweeter 2:30....Apple.............................................Small slice of fruit cake (because I'm "starving" again) 3:00........................................................Another small slice of fruit cake (because, you know they are REALLY small!) 3:30.........................................................Go and look at the little packets of 2 biscuits (cookies to you US people) in the kitchen and try desperately to talk myself out of it (sometimes successfully, sometimes not) 4:00...Coffee/skim milk/sweeter....................Coffee/skim milk/sweeter 5:00...Optifast Vanilla................................................................. 6:00 Catch the bus back to camp. Now normally after a day like this, I would have been thinking about food all day, be "starving" again at dinner time and go straight from the bus to the mess hall and load up my plate with roast meat and gravy and kid myself that I'm still being "good" coz I have lots of steamed veges with it and no chips. By 7:00pm, I'd be stuffed full and my tummy would hurt coz I'd eaten it too fast in a "frenzy of hunger" from "depriving myself" (haha!) all day. Tonight, however, I had hardly thought about food all day. I wasn't even hungry! I went to my room, did some laundry and then wandered down to the mess. I decided to see if I could "eat like a bandster", and I had a bowl of corn & potato Soup, taking small mouthfuls, chewing each 15-20 times, putting down my spoon and waiting between bites, etc. At the end of the bowl, I was FULL! I couldn't understand it because I "should" have been starving hungry! I decided to test it and got a small portion of steamed fish, 1 small new potato, a small spoon of carrots and small spoon of Beans (about 1/2 my usual portion size). I cut everything really small and did the bandster chew-chew-chew-swallow-wait... trick again and (here's the WEIRD PART), less than half way through this half sized portion, I was so stuffed full I couldn't eat any more!! I mean REALLY REALLY full! I threw away more than half of the meal (and I NEVER throw away food). What the HELL??? Is it the nicotine patches? Is it the Optifast?? Nothing in the Optifast literature says it comes with an appetite suppressor (and by the way, that stuff is NASTY!!) Is it the eating technique? Ive tried that eating technique before and it's never worked for me. If I thought I could maintain this pattern and not revert to type in 2 weeks, I wouldn't even need this surgery!! Is it fear of the surgery?? Has anyone else had this weird experience?