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I did not put anything into a blender other than vegie Soup.My mushies consisted of:- yogurt,soft cheese,eggs,minced meat,oats,weetbix,veggies mashed with gravy,over cooked pasta(made some great tuna lasagne),baby fruit etc. I agree that putting a meal into a blender and having it all mushed together sounds horrible.

Sounds like a pretty healthy diet to me. Well balanced.

An hour and a half isn't that far away. My surgeon is between 1 hr and 1.5 hours away depending on the traffic.I suppose I am used to travelling because I live in a small town but there is another surgeon much closer (about 30 min away). I chose my surgeon based on his amazing reputation and the distance to get there didn't even enter the decision making process.

Mine is probably relatively loose.I can eat most foods most of the time. However lots of foods give me trouble sometimes! E.g I almost always eat a poached egg on a slice of wholemeal toast for Breakfast. On Saturday it just would not go down.I had not done anything any differently to normal, was not eating any quicker or taking bigger bites. I had to PB. I am not as fortunate as you as I have PB'd or slimed on plenty of occassions but most of the time when it happens it is no big deal. I am loose enough that I have been on holiday with friends that do not know I am banded and they didn't notice anything strange about my eating habits. I also have to have a healthy snack between meals. For me I cannot imagine that being tighter would help as then I wouldn't be able to get enough decent food in and would probably get hungry sooner. I also generally tend to feel tighter in the evenings which is the opposite of what most people find. i don't normally have a problem eating breakfast but quite often struggle with dinner!

You have a 3rd option. Go and see another surgeon. If this one is so bypass focused he is probably not the best person to do your band if that is what you decide. You may find that you do not get the aftercare and support that you will need with banding and if you don't lose 'quickly' enough he may be one of those that turns around and says "I told you you should have had a bypass".

Some great straight talking there. Love it. It's good to have you back.

Most surgeons plans don't include snacking. However when you talk to them most will acknowledge that to go for 7 hours without food is for most not achievable.They would far prefer you to eat something healthy that will tide you over than to do the kind of mindless snacking that you may have done in the past.

You should have a planned healthy snack that carries you over until dinner time. My dietician recommends fruit, muesli bar, tuna,vegie Soup,salad or something similar. Most people cannot manage on 3 meals per day and a small healthy afternoon snack is perfectly acceptable. the key is to plan what and make sure it is healthy rather than just going back and fore to the fridge for the mindless snacking.

I agree about bad things happening in 3s so all your bad stuff is done.Now things can only get better. Sorry you have had a crap month.

In the US with the culture of sueing people at the drop of a hat I would have thought that every practice would be in the same situation and that you would be hard pushed to find one that had never had a malpractice suit! I am probably totally wrong but the impression that the rest of the world have is that people in the US are very lawsuit happy!

What brand band do you have. I haven't even heard of a 15cc band. As far as I know the Lapbands are 10 or 14 CC and I think Realize are 11CC. The older Laobands are smaller - about 4cc.

When you say you can eat more than you should be able to on what are you basing that? Are you really eating a lot or is it just that you have heard/read/been told that you should be satisfied on 1/2 cup of food or something similar? You have to be able to eat enough to keep you from getting hungry and to get good nutrition. If you serve your food on a small sized plate , eat that and are satisfied then you are doing great. Don't go getting overfilled just because you think that you should be satisfied on a miniscule amount of food.What is more likely to happen if you do this is that you will eat high calorie sliders that can cause weight gain, or you could get reflux or worse. Your loss of 5lb certainly sounds like you are in the green zone to me.

How about drinking milk, making Soups with lentils,chickpeas or some kind of pulse in and mushing them up,yogurt etc? I don't do Protein shakes and haven't since the preop phase. I get more than enough protein.

I agree with the others. I have no idea if I could have eaten that because I wouldn't have tried. Your choices for this stage of the diet do not seem to be the best. Are you following the eating plan that your Dr gave you? If not you should start following it straight away because eating foods that are not on the plan before you are properly healed can lead to problems in the future. Most dr's have a plan that says 2 weeks liquids, 2 weeks mushies and 2 weeks soft foods. If he has this protocol you should be on the mushy stage now. Think things like mashed veggies,pureed fruit,yogurt,ground meats/chicken etc.

It sounds as though you are doing the best you can with the diet so the answer must be increasing the exercise. I also live in a small town in Aus so know exactly what it is like plus I have always hated exercise! However I think the key is finding something you enjoy.How about Wii - most young people love that and its something you can do on your own at home. Also I am sure you probably have a community house or something similar - what courses do they offer? Ours has bollywood dancing which I love, its so much fun. How about uni. Isn't there a gym or an exercise group there that you could join. Also when you walk try jogging for a while. You could walk for 100 steps then jog for 20 steps or whatever. Just something to increase your heartrate a bit more and try to do it every day even if it's only 15 minutes. The thing with exercise is the more you do the more you want to do. It actually energises you so even if you feel to tired force yourself to do a bit and at the end you will probably feel fantastic.

It is because they have to work on averages. Some people lose all their excess weight or more, others don't stick to the "rules" and either don't lose as much or may even put on. Yes it is possible to put on weight with a band especially if you are too tight as the you end up eating high calorie sliders. So long as you are committed to the process and follow your Dr's instructions there is no reason why you shouldn't lose all your excess weight.

I do that all the time.

The question is what are you eating, how much are you eating, are you exercising etc. You need to be honest with yourself.If you are only eating 3 times per day,eating the amounts recommended,the correct types of food ,not drinking with or soon after meals and exercising daily then yes you seem to have a problem which you need to discuss with your surgeon. However if you are eating more than or more often then recommended, not eating the right types of food, not exercising then the problem lies with you not the band. Remember the band is a tool which makes the "job" of losing weight easier but it is still only a tool. It does not do it all for you, you have to work with it. A lot of it may be head hunger rather than actual hunger and you may benefit from seeing a nutritionist or physchologist that specailises in eating issues.

I wondered about this too as it didn't seem to make any sense. There was even a thread about it and no-one came up with an answer. When I saw my NUT a month or 2 back he explained to me that often when people go out for dinner they will keep on drinking right up until there meal comes. Then what quite frequently happens is that they will get stuck/not be able to eat as much as they normally can/have trouble with a food that is normally fine.This is because their pouch is still full with the liquid.I know it sounds weird as we think that the liquid goes straight though but apparently not. it does still need some time. This explained for me why when I go out to eat I have sometimes had problems with foods that should have been fine. It doesn't always happen but there have been a number of occaisons when I have not been able to get my food down and the only explanation is that it is due to what i have just drunk.

Well said Betsy I couldn't agree more. In fact that is the reason why I replied the way I did originally.Something in the tone of the OPs post got my back up. If the question had been about why the rules differed so much it would have been OK. But it was very flippant in I don't do this and I don't do that........ as though the OP knew better. There is a vast difference in some of the rules.But if you have a problem with them you should discuss them with your surgeon, not decide to follow the ones that suit you and ignore the ones that don't.

No champagne? Really? Someone must have forgotten to tell me that. Seriously I am one year out and still have champagne occaisonally.When I was first banded I had been told no carbonation. A couple of months later when I went back for a fill I asked about this and was told that it was fine in moderation so long as I could tolerate it. Apparently after banding some people find the gas very uncomfortable while for others it is not a problem. And if you are following the rules of not drinking and eating at the same time the bubbles are not going to stretch your pouch.That whole idea is crazy.Think about it - what happens when you have a build up of gas? You either burp or fart!It doesn't stick around to stretch your pouch. What you choose to drink makes a huge difference to. Gulping a bottle of coke straight down is probably going to hurt like hell. Having a glass of lime and soda that you sip slowly isn't. Ditto champagne. However be careful. Don't try drinking champagne and then eating straight afterwards. that can cuse major discomfort.

Never heard of this before. is it possible that you have picked up some bug that might be going around?

Wow, that's amazing.

A stone is 14lb. Average loss with a band is between 1 - 2lb per week. Generally the heavier you are the quicker you lose initially. So if we call a month 4 weeks you can expect loss to be between 4 and 8lb per month. You are looking to lose 21lb or an average of 5.25lb per week. That is a lot, yes you might lose it in the first couple of months but it is unlikely that you will lose this amount regularly. I know lots of bandsters.Some have lost in excess of 60kg (132lb) but that is in a period of 2 years or more. I do know one person who has lost 60kg in approx 15 months which is pretty incredible.That is an average of 2.2lb per week.

I find my water goes down a lot better if it is hot, with a tea bag and a little skim milk, especially in winter!