KartMan

No! No! No!:tongue_smilie::cursing::ohmy: You (like a lot of us) are barely into this process and way too early to do something so self destructive. Think back to all the diets you did before… They worked at first right? While you were following the program that is. Then one day you splurged, and it wasn’t too bad on the scale. So then you did it again, even sooner the next time. Next thing you know you were back to your old eating habits and fatter than before. That’s when you discovered the band and signed on for a change in your lifestyle. Look, if you are like most of us you have a problem - once you indulge you can't stop. You paid the expense (or went thru the insurance hurdles), suffered the anxiety of the surgery, lived thru post-op, and are enduring fine thru bandster hell. Don’t sabotage all of that for fear of hurting someone’s feelings. If you cant tell them the truth of why you are eating less, then just lie. Just say you are recovering from a medical condition that reduced your appetite, I’m sure you can get creative. Honestly, I think you are looking for an excuse to splurge. Why do I think that? Because I think I might be tempted to do the same and so would a lot of us on this board. Resist the urge, stick with the program, and love the new you.

Count me in the lucky camp too:thumbup:. I was banded 2/18/09 and have felt restricted enough to have cut may portion size way back from pre-band days, enough so that I have lost 30+ lbs. I go in next week for my first fill which I'm hoping will cut my portion size by yet another 1/3. I have been eating 3 meals a day of 400-500 calories per meal. I rarely feel hungry between meals. I have been doing great with not drinking during or after meals. I do drink a big glass of water just before breakfast, if I miss out on that one I have a hard time drinking my full amount during the day. Yesterday I had my first real stuck/PB episode on some eggs and chicken that I had for breakfast. It wasn’t quite as bad as some of the horror stories I read on here, but it was a wakeup call to slow down while eating and to chew chew chew.

Yes! That certainly is something we can agree on.

You are misinterpreting what I said. I was talking about MY own way of looking at it. I have a very hard time believing something that does not have a basis in facts. Especially something as big and often misused as religion is. If at any point here it sounds as if I am bashing someone’s religion, I apologize – that is not my intent. I think it is great that people have faith, if it makes their day brighter or makes them a better person, then for me that is a good thing. I really draw the line though when someone’s faith (or more likely religion) encroaches on someone else’s beliefs or lack of beliefs.

Well, I don't know it very well yet as we've only been together 5 weeks - but so far so good. I can tell you this, I have never been 5 weeks to any diet that I felt as good about.

Well that’s an easy one (at least from my perspective). Very little of science is based on faith, very little of religion is based on fact.

Or if you really like stats, you could consider that you are probably more likely to get in a horrific car accident on the way to surgery than to die as a result of the surgery. I don’t mean to make light of it, but it really is a fairly simple procedure with relatively low risks. If you are really concerned about your kids (I was about mine), consider the risks you are putting them in by you continuing to be obese. The longer you stay fat, the higher the chances are of you dying due to complications related to obesity.

I would never go so far as to call myself an Atheist because that would be the firm belief that there is NO god or power at all, which is a faith based belief itself (and also not supported by fact). Wicca turns me off for much of the same reasons as other religions do, in that they seem to get caught up in all the ceremony and hocus pocus in the same way as other organized religions. I choose to refer to myself as an Agnostic, one who really does know what if any power is out there (and frankly doesn’t care). I do have a firm commitment to try be the best person I can and to be good to the planet and my fellow man. For me that is enough to make me sleep well at night.

Just to clarify a point... I don’t think the Bible claims that God wrote anything in the Bible, but that it was written by man. Those men interpreted what they "believed" to be God's laws. The Quran claims that Mohamed (who was illiterate) was the instrument of God and that the verses came directly from God to Mohamed’s hand without any input from man. The closest thing to that in the Bible was when Moses went up to the mountain and came back with the Ten Commandments (which if memory serves me right were blasted onto the tablets by God himself, or was that part just in the movie?). It's interesting how Christianity and Islam have chosen to take some of those "laws" and profess them to be the word of God and that all who disobey are disobeying God directly while at the same time some of the less palatable laws or topics that don't suit their needs get little or no attention. The video from a few posts back was great because it reminds people like me (agnostic, indifferent, whateveryouwannacallus) that we can and often do do good things all on our own without a book, a Priest, an Imam or even God telling us to do it.

I am only 4.5 weeks in with no fill yet, so my only restriction is due to swelling – but I do feel some restriction as described above. I never have felt the band itself. You may think you would feel it in the same way you feel a watch on your am, but really you don’t. As the others have said, I can feel my port. It is sort of a “thicker” spot in my skin just above the larger of the scars, but it doesn’t hurt at all. I have had the sensation of two distinct stomach growls when I get hungry or shortly after I eat which is a bit odd, but not bothersome.

I went to Dr. Martinez at the Gastric Banding Center. http://www.gastricbandingcenter.com/index.html Everybody there was fantastic and the surgery went great:thumbup:

I really don’t know if there is a God or not, I guess that makes me agnostic. I also really don’t care. I believe in trying to be good to my fellow man because it seems like the right thing to do, not a rule to follow because a priest or a book told me so. While I don’t know the answer to “is God real?", I do know that there are religions and I am sick of them all. It seems that all of them are corrupt in some way or another. I just wish that all of you that are religious would just be happy with what you have and leave everyone else alone. It seems that religion is far too often used as a tool or justification for one group to oppress another. I am so sick of this religion looking down on that religion or a people using “gods will” as a justification to do their evil bidding. I love my country and its people (and I served it honorably in the military) but I don’t believe god or any other power makes us great, we have to do that on our own.

So far so good, down about 28 lbs after about 4 weeks. The first week was a little rough due to gas pains, but it seemed to pass fairly quickly. My doc wasn’t real specific on what to eat post-op. I stayed on clear liquids the first week, thicker liquids the second week and have been on thick mushy stuff since. I find that I eat a lot of ground chicken, refried beans, scrambled eggs and shredded cheese. Only the chicken has caused me problems and only if I eat too fast. I haven’t had a fill yet, but I have been pretty satisfied with 3 400-500 calorie meals a day. I am losing .2 -.6 lbs per day and it has been pretty effortless. I haven’t really exercised much, but I know I need to start. I did go on a pretty long bike ride last Sunday that almost killed me. I had eaten my 400 cal breakfast at about 8am and started the 14 mile canyon ride at about 12:30PM. About 4/5ths of the way into it I was completely spent. Back in the old days I would have had plenty of energy to complete the ride, but now with so few calories in me I just ran out of steam. The lesson I learned was to make sure to have something in me before undertaking something like that again.

Fitzie, I’m not very far into this journey, but I have my own internal plan for success (which basically is to dramatically reduce my daily caloric intake). My problem has always been with volume. I have eaten my share of bad foods that helped to get me to where I am but the one thing that really packed on the pounds for me was the quantities that I would eat. I am looking to the lapband (and so far it working) to help me drastically cut my portion size down. One of the things that always contributed to my diet failures in the past was the restrictions – can’t eat this can’t eat that. I know there are restrictions with this lifestyle, but they seem more palatable to me than what I have gone thru in the past. Since my portions are much smaller now, and I seem full longer, I feel like I am less likely to go overboard. I fell like this tool lets me eat the food I like (within reason) and the band keeps the portion size down. I have been eating between 1200 and 1600 calories a day (with what I consider to be tasty meals) and have been losing .2 - .6 pounds a day (which might actually be too much too soon). Some days I have eaten meals that are not physically bigger, but do have more calories. On those days, my loss usually stalls or I gain about half a pound. For me, that one day stall is ok about once a week just to give myself a little satisfaction. The trick for me is to not overdo it during that one meal, and to make sure not to let it go past one meal. I want to give myself a treat, not start a trend. I also am a big fan of weighing myself daily. If I did treat myself the night before and have a stall or gain, I let the band help my get things back in control quickly.

I had the pain for the first 3-4 days, then it seemed to go away for 2 days then came back for 1 day. When it did come back it was right after I drank something heavier than water or juice, esp if it was more than I should have drank. I am 12 days out now and it is totally gone. My dr said it is actually referred pain rather than actual pain in the shoulder. He said the gas is actually in the diaphragm between the abdominal cavity and the chest cavity. When the stomach swells up from too much liquid it presses on the gas which irritates the nerves, those nerve endings though terminate in the shoulder rather than in the diaphragm hence the pain "in" the shoulder.

Day 6 and 8 were fine for me:biggrin:, no problems. I would just say don't try to be a contortionist.

Of course you can blend toast, heck - you can even blend an IPhone:sneaky: Will It Blend? | Presented By Blendtec

It could happen, friends don't have to agree politically. But then again, you may consider me snobbish since I have already been banded.

Dan, You seem to be a funny guy - and maybe you are just trying to be cute here. If you are, great - haha good one. If you're not, well I'm pretty sure you are so far off base you probably can't be helped anyway. Don't presume to know what I do and do not know about politics or economics. You don't know me and you never will. I have been around long enough and have been engaged enough to know the situation, and I certainly know that even 1 more day of Bush or his failed ideas would have caused even more harm to this country. You had your chance in the last 8 years, look what we got for it...

The only thing I'm sorry about is that I voted for that worthless POS Bush the first time:cursing::w00t: and was even suckered into believing his lies that got us into the sinkhole of a war in Iraq. Bush has been the single worst president and may have set our country and possibly the world into a downward spiral the likes of which we may not recover from for a generation or more. His economic and foreign policy were catastrophic and his blatant disregard for science have cost countless lives to be lost. Obama is politician, so we know he is not perfect and he will certainly make mistakes along the way. I am extremely impressed with what has accomplished so far and am looking forward to his other ideas.

Everybody seems to heal a little differently, but I would say you have a pretty good chance of making it. I was banded last week on the 18th. I went in for a few hours the next day, and about 4 hours the following day. I spent a lot of time out of the house this weekend and a full day at work today (day 6). Now keep in mind, I haven’t done anything real physical, but I was definitely moving around. If your job involves lifting you need to be careful not open the incisions or the internal stitches.

I think it depends as much on policy as on how you are doing. The place I had mine prefers not to have overnighters. I was in at about 8AM but didnt get to the OR till about 11 and was out in a little over an hour. Woke up pretty alert in recovery shortly after. I was home by 2 or 3PM. I would say it was pretty easy for me, but having to deal with little ones would have been a little too much that first day - get help if you can. My kids don't know I had it done and my 7yold girl is a hugger. She likes to run up and fling herself into my belly:eek:, I have had to come up with some pretty creative blocking moves.

I weigh once a day in the morning right after I "lose":wink2: a little more in the restroom.

Day 4 and still doing pretty well. The shoulder pain keeps popping up. It is completely gone and then it just hits and hits hard:cursing:. I find that a heating pad does wonders on it. A little worried about lack of protien. I dont think there is enough in the clear liquids I am drinking. I am gonna go out to GNC to see if I can find something tastless to mix into my drinks.

I am 3 days post-op and learned the hard way that I really have to sip slowly. The first day I was taking pretty normal sized drinks of liquid and would find that I had these bouts of pain in my chest. It was sort of like heartburn without the burn. The best way I could describe it was it felt as though my esophagus was being wrung out like a towel. Anyway, I figured out that it was probably due to drinking too fast. So I have started doing these baby sips, probably a teaspoon at a time and seems to have gotten much better. My question is, will drinking always be this way? I can’t imagine being really thirsty after a workout and drinking one teaspoon at a time until my thirst is quenched.