2muchfun

Great string of pictures. Super job!

At the very bottom of this page is a link "Help". Click on it.

Sliming and PBing. imo

Good post but I've given up on the profile request. So many new members are here via cell phone apps and kindle now. I have a kindle I use occasionally and it's just not the same. I can't upload pictures, view pictures and have no idea how to access my profile. But you're right, more information is better.

You guys are just showin off now! :wub:

I never feel starved. I sometimes feel deprived but maybe only once a month when I see a particular pizza ad. We still have pizza a few times a year but not weekly like before. I can eat about anything I want but I don't. I'm satisfied with so much less food now. Deprivation and constant hunger are why diets don't work. This works for me. "Sometimes to get where you want to go, you have to do what you are afraid to do. You must be brave and push forward. Miracles occur when you give as much attention and energy to your dreams as you do to your fears".

"Fat" loss is based on calories in vs. calories burned. But we all retain fluids or build muscle to replace the lost fat as long as we exercise. So it's not always going to show on the scale. So, you can lose 2 lbs a week in fat, but lose very little weight if you replace that lost fat with muscle.

I think the visit with your nutritionist is essential? A good nutritionist/dietician can nail down your real caloric intake and make suggestions on how to make the food you prepare work for you and your band. Make sure the nut is familiar with bands? In the meantime, try to stay away from slider foods? Find a way to track your calories every meal, every snack?

sometimes Goodwill has scales for real cheap.

Eating too fast is so difficult for we bandsters to give up. Years of eating too big, swallowing without chewing adequately and too fast is a hard habit to break. And like the other posters said, bread and lettuce are difficult foods for some of us to tolerate. But, the silver lining is, you're closing in on restriction aka green zone. This means your band is starting to limit your intake. Just slow down a little and look for those satiety signals. tmf

Just be honest and call around? There are docs here in Colorado who would fill you with insurance or self pay. Pick up the phone and make some calls. tmf

I took a few days to have a bowel movement. I'm very sensitive to pain meds. They stop my digestive system cold. So, for me, I had to give up pain meds but it wasn't all that bad.

If you eat solids and don't chew well or take big bites, the food could have a difficult time passing through the band. When you keep eating at this time, food backs up into your esophogus. You'll feel slight pressure in the beginning and then it feels like there's a golf ball under your sternum. Mostly discomfort and not a lot of pain. Usually doesn't happen until you've had some fills and have some restriction. Rarely happens to patients on fluids or shakes. tmf

What foods are you eating to survive? Surely not just shakes? What food gets stuck a lot?

Just low calorie, band friendly diet should work.

Very normal reaction. It's saliva in your esophogus to help stuck food slide through easier. Too much flem/saliva and you can regurgitate it. If there is food in your esophogus, you may be able to bring some of it up. So, sliming and/or PB'ing is simply bringing up flem/saliva and stuck food. I would think that if this occurred too often, your esophogus might develop some distortion. Once in a while probably not. tmf

You may be having a stuck episode. It should pass in an hour or so? Then go back to liquids for at least 24 hrs. Call your doctor if it persists. I don't mean to kick you when you're down, but eat very small, chew chew chew from here on out. Tuna is very dry unless you mixed it with mayo? But it's still dry and can clog the band. Good luck.

If you're still hungry after an hour or two you probably could use a fill? Or, is it your eating demon egging you on? It's hard to tell the difference from head hunger and real hunger sometimes? "When a craving doesn't come from hunger, eating will never satisfy it"...Dr. Michelle May

The growling may decrease as time goes by but it may always be with you. One of the side-effects of the band. It usually has nothing to do with hunger. It's just there.

Where in your throat? If it has anything to do with the band, it would happen around your sternum area and not your neck area? Bread would have disolved by now so you might want to call your doc?

The tube from your port goes inside your body. You can't feel or see it. You're looking at something else I would think? Distended stomachs are common with the band. Should only last an hour or two though? tmf

Many of us had no pre op diet at all. Usually the pre op diet intent is to shrink your liver and if you lose weight too, it's just icing on the cake. tmf

It's really quite simple how this works but I know it's frustrating to not see results on the scale. We've all been conditioned to think lower numbers on the scale = less fat. But that's just not the case. 4 months is a long time to not see any results but if you keep at it, soon you should see some lower digits on that scale. Check out this video:

There are many emotions approaching surgery. Fear of the surgery, fear of failure and the strongest fear is, our emotional attachment to food and the eventual loss of our security blanket. The majority of failures in any WLS is the latter. Make darn sure you're ready to accept the fact you will not be successful if you don't deal with this demon. tmf

Don't take this the wrong way but you've hijacked this thread. That means that you injected your own topic within someone else's topic. No problem, we all goof around within a topic but you should start your own topic/thread in one of the forums. I say this because if you ask questions about your own issues within a thread, only a handful of people will see it. If you post/start your own topic, hundreds will see it and respond. You'll get much more exposure this way. What happens if you eat Soup? Do you fill up fast or can you eat a lot of soup? I ask this so we can know that you are eating small and chewing big? If you're getting stuck on soup, you may be too tight? If Soups pass right through the band, and you can eat 8 ozs or more, you may not be chewing your food enough? We bandsters are stubborn about our old eating habits and it can take many of us months or years to re-educate ourselves to eat properly. tmf