littlefroggy

I just had a fill, so I am tight and not eating much! Yay! B- 2 thin slices of cheese L- tomato soup and 2 bites of chicken salad D- 1/4 mexican pizza

I had a pretty big fill today. My dr. said I was on the upper end now and would experience some differences than before. I haven't had any solid foods yet, but I am BURPING a lot more than usual (and I normally burp a lot.) Have people who are filled up more noticed increasing burping? I am hoping with this tightness, I am going to lose a lot more and keep my portions much smaller.

Pasta may become the death of me. I never liked it much BEFORE the surgery, but now it's one of the things I can eat and not get stuck... so I have been eating it a lot. I tried sushi once with rice and it didn't get stuck (before first fill) but it didn't feel good either. I'm avoiding it.

ok, I have realized it... I am totally an "overeater" and it's a problem. I have done well on this lapband journey more or less, though I do over eat on occasion. The last couple weeks (holiday stress maybe) have been the worst. I have even drank while eating so I could eat MORE... should I join a support group? Get a counselor? What would you do? How did you overcome this? (edit: the R and the lapband trademark is totally a thing on the page, I didn't do it myself. weird.)

I am hoping it kicks my butt back into shape... the last few weeks have been bad. Overeating, etc. I changed my ways yesterday and was much lower in calories, higher in Protein and exercised...

I also just finished the Twilight series (well actually I will probably finish Breaking Dawn tonight.) They are great and I have been reading each book in a day or so- they are totally gripping. I also just finished "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy, which was GREAT! It won the Pulitzer. I read that one on Thanksgiving.

If you can, I would suggest swimming. I swim 4-6x a week and LOVE it!! It is so awesome. You can even get an underwater ipod to listen to music while you swim. I find myself learning new things each time and increasing my endurance, lung capacity, and stamina. When I first started I could do ONE lap and I had to breathe with every stroke. Now I do 3-4 strokes between breaths (3 is normal) and I can swim 6 laps without resting. I have taught myself to do a flip turn and use kickboards and these leg things. I can feel the muscles in my arms and legs and see a big difference in the contours of my body. You just have to get over the being in public in a swim suit thing. There are always people at my pool who look worse than I do, or just about the same, so I don't worry about it. Oh, I started out doing deep Water aerobics. It's great. You wear a bouy around your waist and swim in the deep end doing different kinds of walking back and forth without touching the ground. I think both swimming and aqua-aerobics or aqua jog and low to no impact.

I think it started a few weeks ago when family came to town and has spiraled out of control since then. My eating has been TERRIBLE... at least before I was still exercising... now in the last 2 weeks due to various complications (parent teacher night, a late event at work, pool closed for Veteran's Day and Thanksgiving) I have not really been working out like I was before. On December 26th I am going to visit friends in NYC and want to be looking GOOD. Well, as good as I can. I am getting another fill next week. But I have lost 9 lbs since my last fill (somehow) but gained back 4 since Thanksgiving (I actually didn't overeat during dinner and PB'd on stuffing). My doctor is going to say 1-2 lbs a week is "normal" but I KNOW I have not been doing what I should. I am not sure what to do to turn this around? Should I do low-carb? (I haven't been) Should I make sure I only eat 1/2 a cup of food at a time? (I haven't done that either.) What is the BEST way to pull yourself together? Portion or food choices? I am also upset because I think my bad eating has caused hair loss. In the last 3 weeks it is very obvious to me that this is happening. I am still doing Vitamins, but not getting 60 grams of Protein each day- some days but not all. I am going to GNC to get hair vitamins TODAY.

This is 5 weeks after my fill (to the day.) Now I am getting stuck DAILY, often 3-4 times a day. This was not happening before. It's been happening all week. What gives?

I am TRYING to work out daily, but for one reason or another, it's more like 4 days a week... some times 5. How do you do it? How often? I can go swimming daily, but often can't make it. I usually swim 30-45 minutes, about once a week getting in 60 minutes. I'm not doing anything else.

Using lots of lotion will help elasticity somewhat (just staying hydrated in general will help.) Also, building muscle will help as well. I am also worried about the excess skin, but I am noticing that around my arms and my thighs it's actually tightening up. I can only attribute that to muscle development through exercise. I have some fatty loose skin right near my arm pits and upper, upper thighs but it's not as bad as I expected at all. Not even noticeable... and my thighs are definitely shrinking... Amazingly, my stomach, while still humongous is shrinking and not "floppy" either... so miracles do happen!

Huh... that's interesting. I had my TOM last week. That could very likely be the culprit.

I seem to have a weird weight loss cycle. I will maintain my weight (no losses) for about 2-3 weeks, then drop 5-7 lbs at once. Yesterday was my weigh in and I was 225 for the 3rd week in a row. Today I woke up light headed and couldn't figure it out. I thought I wasn't getting enough Protein or something so I kept eating (not over eating just trying to figure out why)... still not going away. Finally, I weighed myself to find that I was 220- 5 lbs lost! (Maybe more since it is 1:45 and I weighed w/ clothing on and had already eaten Breakfast and lunch.) Anyway, this is the third time this has happened. I am always light headed/dizzy and then find that I dropped a lot of weight overnight. Does this happen to anyone else? Should I be concerned?

I try to get 65 grams a day of Protein but often get more. I have protein with EACH meal and eat it first. I don't really watch my carbs or fat though... I am still losing, but could probably do better. B- 5 light laughing cow cheese cubes w/ lox (I make little lox wraps.) L- teriyaki chicken (home made, no rice) S- 100 calorie pack oreo thingies D- 2 tacos, 1/2 cup of refried Beans Total calories: 947 Fat: 40 Carbs: 50 Fiber: 13 Protein: 80 I also burned like, 540 calories swimming today.... so that changes things a bit, but I am not counting that toward the calories anymore.

I LOVE LOVE the spaghetti with meat sauce. It has a good amount of Protein and I eat all the sauce/meat and about half the Pasta. I eat that for lunch like, 4 days a week. One day I had a turkey dinner and ended up burping for about 6 hours afterwards. So I have only stuck with the spaghetti. But I do find in general those things don't taste very good anymore. Be careful with the microwaved meat. It can give some people problems. For the cost of the meals it's probably not really worth it, unless there are one or two that seem to have high enough protein and low enough calories AND sit well in your stomach. I have tried a few others and dumped them out... they just aren't that good to me anymore....except that darn spaghetti! I buy like 5 at a time!

I was diagnosed pre-diabetic, which was one of the reasons I got my butt in gear to get the surgery. Anyway, I hadn't taken my blood sugar since the surgery and I took it one day this week it was 130! It was never that high before... when I took it regularly before, it ranged from 110-120. I wonder if it's the low calories? Any thoughts? Could I be getting worse with the blood sugar and CLOSER to diabetes even with the weight loss?????

I swam after a fill and it was fine. Go for it.. if you start to feel weak or something, then just get out. Have fun!

I am taking the gummy adult Vitamins from Target. (Not Target brand, but available there.) My dietician said they weren't great and to take the Centrum, but a centrum sitting on the counter does me a lot less good than a so-so Vitamin in my body. I take a dose and a half, just in case.

I am hating my job right now. the only thing good that I did today was go to my exercise class, and even that pretty much sucked (I have stopped liking the class and the whole time I was wishing I were doing another exercise I like better, but felt it rude to leave in the middle.) I know it's a lot harder to lose weight when other parts of your life aren't going great. Right now I feel like the WLS is the only good thing going on- and that's on shaky ground. I put a lot into my work (um, can we say workaholic?) but I changed positions this year and HATE it. I work for a small organization and there is no way I can move up or down or across, or anything. I will have to wait a full year... ug. And even then, I may not be able to stay at this particular job... we are seriously changing and the changes may result in my being out of a job if I don't do well at the position I VOLUNTEERED for and now HATE. What do you think? how can I stay motivated when things seem to be falling apart?

I use calorieking.com. It's a pay site but I like it because they will give me a breakdown of the Vitamins, Protein, minerals and everything. They also have thorough graphs, charts, etc. I love it and use it daily.

Being on a low carb diet can do that... is it sort of metallic? I read about that in Self or something. Add carbs to your diet at least once a week and it should keep you more "normal" smelling.

My dr. gave me a little card and it shows the proper levels for being filled. the Red Zone "remove fluid" says: -poor food choices -regurgitation -discomfort while eating -poor weight loss -night cough I had a cough for the first two weeks after my fill but it's went away. I mainly now like to eat chocolate (it goes down so smooth) chips/crackers (I can mush them easily) and Pasta. I don't eat any dairy, otherwise, I think yogurt would be my best friend right now. meat is hard to eat and gets stuck. I get the stuck feeling just about every time I eat any Proteins. I haven't been puking, but have been close a lot of times. I also gained a pound last week and have a hard time keeping within my calories, which I know is based on my food choices. I am sort of thinking I need an unfill, but don't want to do it, if this is really just me making BAD choices. I mean, I will admit, the Halloween candy has had the best of me. I don't know..... my next fill isn't until after Thanksgiving anyway, so starting tomorrow, I am really going to focus on small meals, three times a day, Protein first. It's been hard though since everything gets stuck. I am also thinking of going back on liquids for a few days, then mushies just to give my stomach a rest.

I have been swimming for just over a month, and can already feel the muscles in my arms and legs. There is almost no flabby parts of my arms, and only my upper inner thighs have a little flabbiness. I am hoping that goes away!

Believe it or not, this was HUGE for me! I got a membership through a job I had that offered serious discounts at 24 hour fitness. I have the delux plan, which is any day, any location in the state... at a super low price. Because of this, I haven't canceled, despite the fact that in FOUR YEARS I have not set foot in the gym! Yes it was a HUGE waste of money for 4 years, but I knew if I canceled and wanted to join on my own later, it would be triple or quadruple the price...(I'm paying less than 20 a month!) Well, I have been swimming like a maniac- and paying to go to the public pool despite the fact that there is a pool at the gym! I didn't want to go to the gym pool because of huge windows that face the weight room. (I had gone to the gym 4 years ago when I was on Optifast and went 6 days a week back then, losing 50 lbs, but never getting to goal.) But the public pool close to my house is closed on Sunday and the others have short hours on Sunday and weren't open after 12:00. I really wanted to work out. In fact, I felt like my day wasn't going to be complete unless I did. (Whoo-hoo on my attitude shift!) So I decided to go to the 24 Hour Fitness. I walked in, changed, hopped in the pool- and low and behold, while I was the FATTEST person there, I was among the best swimmers! Most people in the pool were just sort of putzing about, not swimming laps at all. One guy was actually teaching his GF how to swim. I was very proud of myself. In my year of counseling pre-surgery, I never could get myself to go, despite the fact that we talked about it a lot. I am going to try and go more often now. But not to swim- the Water was too cold, the lanes weren't divided up well (people were haphazardly swimming wherever they wanted) and there wasn't enough clorine in the water, because it just smelled (and unfortunately) tasted funny. However the locker room is 100% nicer than the public pool. Now I am going to try the yoga classes there again. On top of paying for the membership and my pool fees, I've been paying to go to yoga classes at a sweet little studio within walking distance of my house. I like the "feel" of the studio better, but for the price, I'd rather go at the gym. I am feeling so much better and so is my body. I can actually feel my ARM MUSCLES (biceps) now!! I love, love, love working out!

My other weekend problem is I tend to be social (getting out of the house) but that OFTEN involves food! I ate out Friday: toppings off of a personal pizza (limited menu at that place) I ate out Saturday: Lettuce wraps at Vietnamese restaurant (super low cal) but then we were out very late and got pie at like, midnight. I ate the filling of a pecan pie. I am eating out again today! : Will be going to Thai and getting satay which is just chicken. I always get that now at Thai restaurants. Anyway, it's all part of the dilemma! (The good thing is that I usually pick Asian restaurants and only order appetizers. Those things together tend to make this work better, but still!)