isaviolinist

I can eat pounds of lettuce without a problem. I really like salads and I dip in the dressing instead of pouring it on top, so I usually don't use more than a tablespoon and luckily lettuce is so low calorie you can eat 4 cups and not make much a of dent in your daily calorie intake.

This is really a question for your doctor. What are his post op instructions? Whatever they are, you should just follow them. I never was really eating cream Soups post op (maybe once or twice) but according to my poSt op plan, cream soups (without solids, just the soup) would've been allowed after 4-5 days (which is when I moved to full liquids). I was eating Tuna with mayo probably close to the end of my mushy phase which was around 4 weeks post op. I don't eat chicken but I would imagine if I did, it would've also been during the second half of mushies.

Thanks for the encouragement. It sure is a b****. I had my second session With the therapist yesterday and I really like her. So I'm hoping that there is some hope for me. I like your thought about laughing at yourself once in awhile. Sometimes things get too serious which doesn't help the stress and compulsion to eat. So I'm definitely going to try and lighten up sometimes about it. Thanks for the advice.

Yay! You'll have to let me know how it goes. It's great because you can get softer tofu and mush it up into things (like chili or even veggie burgers) and it will add Protein but you won't know it's there or you can get firmer tofu and cook it in soups or bake it and pan sear it (or really cook it the same way you'd cook a piece of meat...same marinades and everything). Good luck!

After surgery my doc gave me the option of staying or going home. I chose to stay. My mom is a nurse so I would've been okay at home but I just liked getting meeds via IV and should something go wrong in the night, I would be in the hospital already. I liked staying over.

I don't think mine turned yellow but they were pretty strange for a bit after surgery. Its probably just a combination of the liquids plus going through the surgery and probably not having a bm for awhile after surgery. But if you're worried, give your doc a quick call just for reassurance congrats on your surgery! Hope you're starting to feel back to yourself

I didn't purée my foods. I don't eat red met pork or poultry and the thought of eating pureed fish is so disgusting to me I wouldn't be able to eat it no matter how hungry I was feeling. During that stage I ate a lot of soft tofu. Soft tofu with sauces, soft tofu soup and stew...you can put it in anything. It's super healthy, packed with Protein and a great mushy food. Tofu is a great food all around and a good substitute for meat anytime (not just during mushies).

I think like all statistics, they're just that - numbers on a paper. They dont have much to do with YOU personally and have nothing to do with your intentions or mindset. And you can make yourself determined to not be part of the average or the statistics. My grandfather always said that whatever the outcome is, that is truly what your intentions were. It's harsh but true. If your intention is to lose all of your excess weight (or my goal is to lose my excess body fat percentage and be in the healthy to athletic range for a female my age) then you will be able to do it. There are many people on here who have met their goal with their band.

Wow! Congrats on your success and your ability to deal with your addiction via the band! I definitely envy you. For me, the band did not take away my compulsion to eat. I just started seeing an eating disorder therapist in hopes that she will help me out with these issues. The band, while helping me with portion control, definitely hasn't helped with my compulsive eating at all.

I count calories (I try to stick 800-950 a day) and I also weigh and measure my food. It's important to me to count calories because unfortunately the nutrition facts for 4 oz of salmon vs 4 oz of cheese vs 4 oz of pasta are very different. When I don't log calories Its much easier to eat and just forget about it (which is why I only stop food logging when I'm overeating and don't want to think about it). I'm also really anal about how much protein I'm eating. I don't usually just eat 4 oz but because of the different shapes and thicknesses of various kinds of fish (I don't eat red meat or poultry... Just seafood and vegetarian protein) it's hard to accurately estimate how many ounces are in various pieces. So I weigh all of my fish and then I usually can eat 5 or 5.5 ounces.

That rarely happens to me and hasn't happened lately, but when it does happen, I just eat fewer calories that day and don't try to eat something to make them up. It's never happened so consistently that i've needed to make a plan for the next day (except for preop diet and the first week or so post op...preop I was only getting 500 calories a day average but I didn't really care).

I love looking at our combined total Pretty awesome. Its much easier to do this with support and motivation from others!

I haven't checked in since Nov 15. Thanksgiving I didn't lose anything (definitely ate poorly, but exercised like a crazy person every single day including the day of thanksgiving and on Sunday morning before we went to the airport). Anyways, today I'm at 208.8 which is 5.2 pounds less than I was on Nov 15. A few days ago I was at 207.8, but then I got my monthly friend and I'm up a pound. Trying not to despair lol. This happens every month (but its still frustrating, despite the predictability of it). Hopefully it will start back up again after my period is over (sorry if its tmi ).

I'm a compulsive eater as well and have just started to see a therapist who specializes in eating disorders to try to deal with my binge eating. The way the band works and the way my emotions and head works remain separate. I know many people here claim that their band has taken care of their emotional and compulsive eAting habits, but I could never imagine that happening for me. Just gonna have to deal with it the old fashioned way. I would definitely look into seeing a therapist! Goodluck!

Luckily my fiancé is not like that. But my mom is and has been for my entire life. I love her more than life itself but I rarely have heart to hearts with her about eating or overeating. I learned at a young age to hide food from her. I would take food upstairs or stuff it in the couch cushions. Now, at 28, when I go home, sometimes I still hide food. Because I know if she sees me eating anything besides a meal (and if the meal portion seems too big to her she'll say something), regardless of what it is, she'll comment. I could tell her that vie only eaten 500 calories that day and 1 Hershey kiss will fit into my calorie budget for the day and it just won't matter to her. I have been very straight with her about this issue in the past few years as it's a serious boundary issue. I would suggest doing the same for your husband. Approach it kindly, but if he doesn't respond to that, do what you need to do to drive your point home.

When someone on here is complaining that they're two weeks out and not losing, its most likely because they are drinking high calorie liquids, eating high calorie mushy foods, retaining fluids, not moving around or exercising, or any combination of any of those. If calories in exceed calories out, you will gain weight. If calories in equal calories out, you will maintain your weight. If calories in are less than calories out, you will lose weight. As I said, I had a 3 week preop diet (during which I lost 20 pounds), and then proceeded to lose 20 pounds a month for the following three months. The preop diet wasn't fun, but I loved losing the weight preop, and I'm glad that my liver was in great condition for surgery.

I have kind of a weird schedule. I also don't work much. My schedule is what works for me, but admittedly its a little strange (and sometimes it changes). I also don't eat breakfast (eating shortly after waking up makes me feel sick). 730AM: Wake up, take synthroid, drive fiance to school 830AM -11:30AM: Run errands, do housework, go to the supermarket, etc. 1145AM: Drink a Premier Protein shake Noon: Pick up fiance 1PM: Start dinner usually 2PM: Take a 2.5 mile walk (or some other kind of exercise when its cold out) OR go to gym for cardio (1.5 hours on days without cross training class, 30-45 minutes on days with cross training) 4PM: Go to cross training class (4 times a week...the other days I do cardio at the gym on my own) 6PM: Get home from cross training class, get dinner together (including calculating all nutrition for each part of the dinner BEFORE we eat it...I usually do this before I make it so I know whether its a good thing to make in the first place) 730PM: Clean up from dinner, watch tv, hang out with the kitties, or whatever 830PM: This is when my bad snacking habits come up - sweets and other bad foods. I can generally control it but I'm seeing a therapist now to help me out with binge eating disorder. 930PM: Take chewable Vitamin and fiber gummie 10PM-11PM: Go to sleep

This happens to me too sometimes. Ive started using this thing called an cybex arc trainer. I actually like it much better than the elliptical and its a better workout. And its more comfortable for my feet.

Cool, let me know how they turned out!

If you go to the bell plantation website you can do a search by zip code for retailers that sell it. Good luck! It's great stuff!

I just have to comment on all of the responses that you lose less weight after surgery if you have a preop diet. I think this is something that a lot of people on lbt say but Its not accurate. Case in point, I lost 20 pounds on my preop diet and then 60 pounds in the 3 months following. The only scientific explanation for what may appear to be slower weight loss after surgery for those with a preop diet is that the more you weigh, the more calories your body burns to function on a daily basis. if you lose weight before surgery you will naturally be burning less calories daily than you did before you lost your preop weight. Hypothetically, if 2 people (who are identical...clones of each other) start at 290 pounds and Person A does a preop diet and weighs 270 at the time of surgery and person B does no preop diet and weighs 290 at the time of surgery, person B's body will be burning more calories daily as they weigh more than person A. Thus they may lose that initial 20 pounds very quickly (at the same rate that person A lost the initial 20 on the preop diet). The rate at which one loses weight is a simple formula of calories in vs calories out (in minus out equals your daily calorie deficit. If there is a deficit of 3500 a week you will lose one pound a week). I feel that it's unfair to tell people that there is a correlation between no preop diet and faster rate of weight loss post op as it's just not true. Just telling it like it is.

We have a tanita scale that we love. It's supposed to measure body composition but we've never configured it. But it's a cool feature. And it's super accurate.

The point of doing the liquids for 2 weeks, mushies for 2 weeks, and then slowly back to solids is not because you can't physically eat solids until you've had your band for 4 weeks (your band has no saline...you could probably eat an entire pizza or a huge bowl of Pasta if you wanted), its because your stomach is still healing. So anytime you put any kind of food at all into your stomach, your stomach churns in order to aid the digestion process. As the band has just been placed around your stomach, the sutures are healing and that churning has the potential to loosen the sutures/disturb the scar tissue that is forming and help your band slip. The more solids you put in, the more churning it will do, and the more you are at risk for complications. Most people can eat the same as they did prior to banding after surgery, because there is no saline in the band (some doctors do put a small amount in at the time of surgery, but if yours didnt, there is nothing there). I would get back to your post op diet asap. Just out of sheer curiosity, if you were expecting to get sick, why did you eat the chicken? I think I was beyond terrified of throwing up for the first 3 months, I didn't eat anything that would even have a tiny percent chance of making me sick. Just wondering...

We don't have the same surgeon, but that was pretty much identical to my preop diet (which I was on for 3 weeks). First 3-4 days are pretty crappy...it gets better thereafter.

I'm going to buy the most fabulous wedding gown I can find. Seriously. Not even setting a budget. (And then I'm going to buy a lot of cute dresses and things...and hopefully something beautiful to wear to my brother's rehearsal dinner for his wedding...and I'm going to get my bridesmaid dress altered for his wedding...They ordered me a 22-24....they'll have to cut it apart and repattern it...I'm pretty excited about it ). I can't wait for my fiance to be able to easily pick me up and carry me across the threshold as well