Jean McMillan

Everybody else gave you good advice. I just want to add two suggestions. 1. Never let yourself get so hungry that McDonald's seems like a good idea. The way I do that is by eating small, planned Snacks as well as small, planned meals. 2. Always carry a healthy snack food with you. You could post a thread asking for suggestions for snacks like that. I always carry a Protein bar in my purse. That way when you're leaving work and hungry (because you didn't eat that snack I suggested above), you'll be able to deal with the hunger without visiting McDonald's.

No. I haven't eaten baby/toddler food since I was a baby/toddler. Why would you eat that stuff when it's so easy to puree real grown-up food in a mini food processor?

It's way, way too soon to be calling yourself a failure. Your band isn't fully functioning yet, and it may take more than one fill for it to start doing its job. Until it starts giving you the early and prolonged satiety that will help you eat less, it's important that you monitor and control your portions, because overeating does more than make you gain weight - it can cause esophageal or stomach dilation, and even a band slip. Get out the measuring cups, spoons, and scale. Unless your surgeon or dietitian tells you otherwise, eat no more than 1 cup total at a time. Edited to add: I hate to tell you this, but your band is not going to cure your food addiction. You're going to have to work on the emotional/mental/behavioral aspects of eating while your band works on the physical aspects.

My weight loss was very uneven, but as long as the overall trend was downward, I was happy. My weight loss slowed down considerably towards the end and I've seen that happen to lots of people. You don't do yourself any favors by comparing your weight loss to theirs. A loss of 37kg in 7 months is fabulous. At an average of 1.3kg (2.9 lbs) a week, it's actually well above the typical rate of loss (average 1-2 lbs/week) with the band.

Welcome to the brave new world of bandsterhood! I'm going to add my responses in blue text below. Had my first fill yesterday and now I am back on liquids. The liquid diet doesn’t really bother me because I know that it will help me achieve my goal. The Dr. put me on a 3 day liquid diet, then soft, then regular. I have read people going on a 1 day and even 2 day liquid diet, but not a 3 day after a fill. Is my Dr. exaggerating this diet by extending it another day or two? Or is this the regular post fill diet? A regular post fill diet is whatever your doctor says it is. They all have their own protocol and it's useless trying to figure out why. Also, at this time, I am not hungry and have been satisfied with my liquids. My concern is…. Will I be hungry on liquids for 3 days? I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. Time will tell. Although I am not hungry, I don’t feel full. Is that normal? I think it's normal. My pre-op idea of "full" was Thanksgiving Dinner full. As a post-op it took me a while to figure out that full should be "just enough food, nothing more, nothing less." My last question is…. How can I tell if I am over filled or under filled? Underfilled = frequent physical hunger (say, less than 3 hours after a meal). Overfilled = unable to eat or drink without discomfort or regurgitation. It's actually more complicated than that, but you don't need complication right now. Right now you need things simple. Right now, everything feels a bit “normal”, but I have to assume that it is because I am only drinking liquids, but I can still drink at least a 16oz cup of water within 45 mins. Am I able to drink too much? It's extremely unlikely that you would ever drink too much water, and you should always be able to drink plenty of water, though maybe not guzzle it. One sign of a fill that's too tight is being unable to drink water. The last, last, last question: Am I over thinking this too much? Yes you are, but it's better than not thinking about it at all! UGH… I feel so confused

Well, it may not work this way for you, but when my band was adjusted to provide optimal restriction, it did change and even diminish my enjoyment of food, same as the Sensa is supposed to do, only it worked 24 hours a day and I didn't have to buy anything or put anything on my food. Food was just not as appealing to me, even my old pre-op favorites. So you may be pleasantly surprised by what an adjustable gastric band can do for you. The band presses on the vagus nerves at the top of the stomach. The vagus nerves are responsible for (among many other things) sending satiety messages to the brain. So I think my band was continually telling my brain that it was already satisfied, thank you very much, and as a result, food became no big deal for the first time in my life. Now that my band is gone, I have been shocked to discover how fabulous food tastes again.

The main reason for not drinking during or within 30-60 minutes after a meal is that (in theory), the liquid will wash the food through your upper stomach pouch too quickly, thereby reducing or preventing the early and prolonged satiety that the band is supposed to give you. I'm not sure how true that is. There's some debate about it in the bariatric community. In Australia, where they've been doing band surgery much longer than in the USA, they're saying that taking small sips while eating is OK. But at a bariatric conference I attended last summer, several surgeons said that one of the most common reasons for disappointing weight loss is drinking with or after meals. For me, it only took one episode of regurgitating the beverage I'd just had and the food I'd just eaten to persuade me that I'm better off following the rules.

I would wait another week, depending on how quickly you can get fill appointments. I've had fills that took 2 weeks to kick in.

I haven't tried Sensa. I have tried a zillion fad diets, diet drugs, and bariatric surgery. The only thing that has worked for me, not just for weight loss but for maintaining weight loss, is bariatric surgery. I looked up Sensa at the pubmed site (a site created by a US government health and medicine agency, the NCBI). There are absolutely no studies or clinical trials indexed there that prove that Sensa works and is safe. On the other hand, many studies have shown that bariatric surgery works, and if the various procedures weren't safe, no insurance company would pay for them. Right now, bariatric surgery is the ONLY obesity treatment with longterm success. I have to agree with readytogoforit: a weight loss product that sounds too good to be true, is too good to be true. But if you want to try it, now or after surgery, go for it. I would hope that you wouldn't even need it after surgery. If you did need it after surgery, why even have surgery?

You really need to ask a doctor about that. I've heard that stress as well as hormonal problems can cause increased cortisol production. Since cortisol helps to regulate your blood pressure, insulin and glucose levels, being diagnosed with some sort of endocrine disorder could actually give your doctors more ammunition in treating your obesity.

Another downside of losing weight very quickly is that it's associated with gallbladder disease.

Bandwagon is a printed book. It's no longer available on Amazon because their discount left no profit for me. You can order it by clicking on one of my ads here on LBT, or by going to my website and clicking on one of the purchase options shown on the left hand side of the page. The address is: http://jean-ontheban...on.blogspot.com You can also sign up to receive my free weekly e-newsletter, Bandwagon on the Road. Scroll down the page beyond the book purchase options and look for the brown sign-up block.

I haven't used Ultracet, but the doctor who prescribes my tramadol says that when you take the two meds together, it "boosts" the pain relieving effect.

How about tramadol (brand name Ultram)? It's an opiate, but less addictive than narcotics like VIcodin. I take it daily for chronic pain (fibro & myofascial pain syndrome). It doesn't make me high and I haven't had an side effects. I'm probably habituated to it and would have to be careful weaning off it, but it's been working well for over a year and I haven't needed to increase the dose.

You've gotten some good suggestions from other members. I don't think that one small sip of water is going to hurt. Although surgeons' instructions on this issue vary quite a bit, I have to assume that your surgeon told you not to drink after eating for a good reason - that she feels it's important to her patients' success based on her experience with her own patient population. Also, you are likely to find at some point in the future that drinking while or after you eat is an invitation to power puking. My own experience was that after several fills, my band would protest loudly if I added any liquid to the food that was already in my stomach. Since the food and liquid couldn't move downwards fast enough, it would all come back up. Not a pretty picture.

I agree with many points in your article, including the importance of an obese person taking responsibility for eating behavior rather than excusing it as a symptom of food addiction. But science is showing that certain food substances act on the brain the same was as some drugs do, and it's also showing that obesity is caused by a number of factors totally outside the person's conscious control. So I believe that food addiction exists. Maybe it needs a different label. What would you suggest?

Thanks for the plug, Stephanie! I hope that reading Bandwagon and Bandwagon Cookery help you as much as writing them helped me. Jean

CAN you smoke pot and drink alcohol after band surgery? Yes. SHOULD you? No. I think you're going to have to search far and wide to find a bariatric surgeon who would approve of a patient's drug & alcohol use, and if you're not honest with your surgeon, you're not going to get the help you need with anything - weight loss, drug use, depression, anxiety, etc. etc. The basic issue as I see it is this. I know for a fact that to succeed at weight loss after band surgery, and to avoid unpleasant side effects and serious complications, you're going to have to change your behavior. You say that this is a lifestyle change, but I can't see anything in your post that indicates you're willing to change your lifestyle. Your lifestyle now seems to revolve around dope, alcohol, and school. School's fine, but if it doesn't allow you enough time to exercise now, how is that going to change after surgery? If you can't or won't regulate your drug and alcohol intake, how are you going to regulate your food intake? There is nothing in the band that will magically make you lose weight. All it does is help reduce your hunger and appetite. You must still make good food choices, practice portion control, exercise, avoid emotional/boredom/stress eating, and so on. I don't think that a habitual user of weed or alchohol is able to see the problems associated with that habit. My husband used to smoke dope every day. When he thought he was acting fine, he was acting like an idiot. There is no way he could have maintained the self-awaress to regulate his eating behavior. Eating with the band requires a lot of attention and focus to avoid side effects. I don't know how you're going to do that when you're in a happy haze every day. And by the way, after my husband quite smoking weed, he lost 30 lbs. So in summary, I don't think you're ready to have weight loss surgery. In my opinion, your depression and anxiety, and your drug and alcohol use, all need attention more urgently than your weight issue. I know my post will come across as harsh and unsympathetic, but when you ask a question in a public forum, you're going to have to take what you get. I'm not unsympathetic. I know how hard it is to live with depression, anxiety, and obesity. So, please take this post as tough love.

I’m seeing a disturbing proliferation of victimhood these days. Every day the media broadcast reports about victims of crime – of scams, fraud, theft, murder – and victims of acts of God, like weather, fire, and floods. My heart goes out to those victims because I feel a kinship to them. I too have experienced violence, loss, trauma, and pain. But I am not a victim. Are you? VICTIMHOOD Before we get into the meat of this article, I want to ask you a question: are you a victim? Don’t tell me the answer yet, but keep it in your mind while you read the rest of this article. Victimhood can be alluring. It garners attention, assistance and pity that you can milk for the rest of your life if you play the role well. You don’t have to be responsible for rebuilding your life or restoring what you lost. That doesn’t appeal to me, though. It sounds boring and tiresome, and it discourages laughter, which I find even more healing than tears, so why does victimhood continue and even proliferate? Let’s take a closer look at how obese people like us become victims. WHO ARE THE VILLAINS? Every victim needs at least one villain. Who or what are your villains? Me – I got a lousy genetic legacy. I inherited every strand of obesity DNA my mother’s gene pool had to offer (plus the ones for thin hair and crooked teeth). We won’t discuss the humor genes I also got from her, though. Humor doesn’t enhance my victimhood. But that’s okay, because I’m actually not a victim. While we’re blaming obesity on our ancestors, we need to look at the flip side of the nature versus nurture coin. I got a raw deal there, too. Neither of my parents encouraged exercise or sports. In fact, they ridiculed physical fitness programs and encourage scholarship and mental fitness instead, so I ended up being a very smart, very fat intellectual. And that’s fine, because I have a college degree and an impressive resume as a result. And anyway, I’m not a victim. Another popular villain nowadays is addiction. Addicts will do anything to support a drug or other destructive habit. We need ever-increasing amounts of our substance just to prevent withdrawal, never mind to get high. For my brother, the substance is methadone. For me, it’s food, especially sweet or salty or fatty or otherwise nutritionally evil food, and it’s even easier (and cheaper) for me to score a hit of my substance than it is for my brother to score some of his. Baskin Robbins, McDonald’s, Lays and Duncan Hines are just a few of the virtually inescapable pushers I know. It’s sad but true, but I can overcome it, because I am not a victim. Let’s not forget our celebrity-worshipping society and the flood of images of skinny women that wash over us every single day. The media and the likes of Victoria Beckham, Kate Moss and Angelina Jolie constitute a vast and powerful band of villains. The siren song of “Thin Is In” sounds all around me, but it doesn’t matter because I can shut my eyes, turn down my hearing aids, and remember something important: that I am not a victim. In addition to obesity, I suffer from another incurable, chronic, debilitating disease that’s scientifically been linked to obesity. The pain and fatigue of fibromyalgia and myofascial pain syndrome haunt me every day, with villainy that threatens to suck all the joy out of my life. But I’m not going to let pain get the better of me, because I am not a victim. IN CONCLUSION Now let’s go back to the beginning of this article, where I asked if you’re a victim. I want to hear your answer to that question now, after you’ve read the article. Think carefully before you speak. Okay, here goes. Are you a victim? Really, truly, a victim? No? That’s great! Neither am I. Like you, I’ve chosen to win the weight loss battle, conquer the villains, and emerge the victor. I’m not going to settle for anything less than that, and neither should you. So grab your swords, my friends, and fight back now!

As highland said: drink lots of water! Also, be careful of your sodium intake. I've been watching my sodium intake lately and that stuff seems to be in every danged packaged or processed food product in the grocery store. The old guideline for maximum sodium intake for adult women was 2300 mg/day. Now it's down to 1500 m g/day.

CarolinaGirl recently was banded with plication. I'll ask her to respond to this thread.