MacMadame

Support doesn't mean lying to people so they feel good.

The pre-op tests vary -- some depend on your medical history. They want to make sure your heart is okay so you may get a cardiac stress test and/or an EKG. They should also do either an X-Ray or an Upper GI to see what's going on with your digestive system. Most want you to have a physical and to do lab work to make sure you aren't deficient in something. In the US, you get to visit with a dietician to learn about the post-op diet and to identify any eating disorders and also a counselor for an evaluation of your mental health. Not sure if that's standard elsewhere. Another one that is popular here is to send you for a sleep study. My surgeon doesn't routinely do that though, so I didn't.

Well of course not, salami is gross! :thumbup: But I do eat a lot of eggs and cheese and not a lot of veggies. I eat a lot more veggies than some people I know with my WLS, but not a lot compared to the un-altered. I'll eat more as I get farther out, but I'll never eat 5 servings of fruits & veggies a day. I'm not convinced that's necessary. But if you express an opinion publicly, you have to expect people to challenge it. :scared: The medical industrial complex (as I think of them) in the US is very attached to a high carb, low fat way of life. They preach this constantly and when Atkins first came out, they went nuts. They said people would get heart disease, have high cholesterol, etc. But that hasn't happened. Now I think Atkins is a bit too extreme for a lifetime, but the basic principles of eating a higher Protein, lower carb diet are sound, IMO. Carbs are for quick energy -- which people working desk jobs don't need the way people who do hard labor do. Then, I think many of these people would be eating in ways you think are unhealthy even if they weren't low carbing it. Because instead of eating salami, they'd be eating processed carbs. It's not focusing on protein only, though, but protein first. It's pretty hard to get 100 g a day (what I also need for my activity level) without focusing on it. The other thing is, it's not forever. The human body is made for hunting and gathering. That means we are designed to be able to store stuff and to live off our stores. So for, say, six months, I can eat mostly protein and I won't be malnourished. If I did it for years, that would be different. And eventually my stomach will be at it's biggest size and I will be at goal weight and I will be eating more and so I will have more variety. As I add in more calories, it will not be more protein, but more veggies, fruits and nuts and even some more starchy stuff like a baby red potato. In the meantime, it's recommended by most of the experts, even the ones that don't buy the low carb way, that when you are on a very low calorie diet, you should eat a lot of protein to preserve lean muscle mass. So, given that, I think not eating the way I am would be the unhealthy thing. I need the protein more now.

Welcome to LapBandTalk! I think the best place to find others who used your surgeon or medical coordinator is to go the forum for that country or to go to the Doctors & Hospitals section.

Welcome to LapBandTalk, Tiffany. I'm not from that area so I don't know your doctor. But maybe if I bump up this message, someone else will notice it and chime in.

Welcome to LapBandTalk! I don't live in SD any more so I can't tell you about Dr. Takata, but I can say feeling nervous is normal.

Welcome to LapBandTalk! There a couple of places on this site to look for this sort of info. There is a Doctors & Hospital section and a section for every state in the US. Both are good places to find info about a particular program in a particular area.

47 min. on stationary bike. It said some enormous miles but the levels were off. I was way higher than I normally go and it claimed my heart rate never went over 112. So something was messed up.

They had a trainer give at talk at the OH event I went to and he said it absolutely didn't matter what order you did them in. I tend to agree as I have read nothing that convinced me it mattered. The main thing is to DO them! I personally like to warm up my muscles first before I do weights though so I will ride the stationary bike for 10-15 min. first. But I won't do a full cardio workout before hand.

I have a schedule. I run on Monday, Wed. and Fri. I do bike or pilates on Tues and Thurs. On either Sat. or Sun. I bike outdoors. With a schedule, you aren't tempted to run every day for two weeks. Plus cross-training is good for you. Next month I will mix up my schedule because I'm joining a tri club and taking advantage of some of their coached sessions which are on a set schedule. But that's my schedule for now.

I have a sleeve and think it's awesome, but I don't agree with your coordinator. There have been some studies showing that *long-term* anywhere from 25-40% of bandsters end up with a complication that requires a second surgery by 10 years out, but that surgery is not always to remove the band. So even in the worst case scenario "most" don't get their bands removed and definitely not in the first couple of years. OTOH, those stats were way to high for me, which is part of why I got a sleeve. But not nearly as bad as your coordinator made them out to be. Also, the sleeve isn't "just like a band" at all. It is a restriction-only surgery, but it's very different from a band in how it works and what the first 6 months are like and in a number of other areas. If you want to know more about the sleeve, come to the VSG section of the board and we'll talk your ear off. :thumbup:

Welcome to LapBandTalk? Who did you go to in Monterrey? I was looking at Dr. Rumblaut at one point but decided to get a sleeve instead of a band and to stay local.

Did I mention some moron hit Mini-Mac with his car yesterday? He did stop, but when she said she was okay, he took off. Even though, a) he was at fault because she was in a crosswalk and :bored: she clearly wasn't okay (she was very shook up) and c) she was two buildings away from school so he could have walked her there and turned her over to an adult.

I'm still on Week 8. Ran 28 min. as instructed and then walked 5 and since I still had time and hadn't finished the 5k, I ran another 7 min. Only one more run this week and then on to Week 9. Woot! Woot!

47 min. on treadmill. Ran 28 and then later 7 and got the whole 5k in.

Welcome to LapBandTalk. When I have a surgeon I want to check out, I use the search function here. You should be able to find a few threads about Dr. Finley as the name sounds familiar.

Welcome to LapBandTalk!

I eat less than 25 g of fat a day on average and my cholesterol is 131. You keep saying eating this way isn't healthy, but not offering any evidence to back that up.

Yeah, I do. Yep, they tested thin people. Fat people were about 3x more likely to have the virus than thin people. This is a statistically significant difference and therefore worth publishing. It's the media who is going on about "cause". Researchers know that correlation is not causation and that further research is needed to determine *why* there is this big difference.

Stationary Bike, 45 min. 9.5 miles. I'm still trying to get 10 miles in 45 min. but it's not happening.

Welcome to LapBandTalk! Be sure to check out some of the other sections of the board. There is one for your state, for example. Maybe you can "meet" your new friend there. When you say "Temple", is that "Temple University" in Philly? I grew up in that area.

That's one way of looking at it. Another way is that it's one more nail in the "it's all about willpower" coffin.

I'm starting Week 8. I ran the 28 min then walked 5 for the cool-down. Since I wasn't at 5K yet, I ran another 10 min. after that. My heart rate is not spiking up as high when I run so I think that means I'm building endurance!

47 min on treadmill. 3.33 miles (slightly over 5k for you metric folk). I ran 38 minutes of it too. Whee!

I would ask you how your skin is now? It should give you an idea. I have found that, even at 51, my skin will get loose and flappy, but then will "snap back". So it's not clear to me that I will *need* PS. In fact, I had a free PS consult at an OH event and the doctor was impressed with my arms. They looked a lot like some of his "after" pix! :thumbup: So I think, having lost 50 lb., you probably have an idea of how your skin is responding and where you are on the skin elasticity scale. My surgeon says only about 1/3 of his practice ends up getting PS, btw. So that says to me that everyone who loses 100 lb. doesn't need it.