BetsyB

Me, too, Ada--I have liquid lorcet for pain. I'm allergic to NSAIDs, though and haven't taken them for a long, long time. I've had to switch from pills to liquid since banding.

Sign me up, Buttercup! My goal will be for 15 by the 4th. That will put me 1 pound below the next biggie milestone I'm aiming for (175). Wow--I really like this band!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy bandiversary! You've done a wonderful job!

Nah, knowledge is POWER!

My doctor's instructions are no NSAIDS--forever.

Leigha, I suspect the BB will "tell" me similar things. My metabolism sucks. I gain at a ridiculously low intake, even with exercise. I am trying to figure out how to ramp it up. I think the BB will be really, really helpful as I do that. I wonder: is the BB affected by environmental temps? I ask, because the yoga classes I want to start are done in a 90-degree environment. I guess I need to do some research!

I'm just starting this: one hundred push ups

3-6 ounces, depending on what I'm eating. If it's dense Protein, ~3 oz. + 1/2 cup veggies is pretty typical. If I'm having something like black bean chili, I usually have 6 oz. or so--mainly because it's slider-ish. In the evening, I eat less. Not for any philosophical reason--just because my band is tighter then, and I hit "not one more bite!" sooner.

My doctor is more stringent than most. His diet focuses on lean Protein and nonstarchy veggies. Grains and starches are not added until at least 75 percent of excess weight is lost. But he DOES permit--and encourage---beans. Not immediately postop; I don't think I added them until 2 months after surgery. But they are an excellent source of a wide variety of nutrients. The carbs they contain are complex (and there's plenty of fiber), and there really is no valid reason to exclude them. With limited stomach capacity, it's easy to stay within any carb limitations your doctor might have. I eat Beans every single day, without fail. Even so, my carb intake never goes above that which is recommended for the ongoing weight loss phase of the Atkins diet. (No, I'm not following Atkins--I do journal on a site that gives me this information; I'm including it to illustrate that beans fit in even with the most stringent carb restrictions.) Doctors are humans--and like all other humans, their recommendations can be a little wonky. It's up to you to decide what works best for your life.

The refrigerated Almond Breeze, while 6 grams lower in protein per serving than skim milk, has 30% of the RDA for calcium.

I think the scale is a useful tool. Just as you learn new eating habits, you can learn new weighing habits. I don't think it's necessary to limit yourself to once-weekly weighing. I weigh daily. Just once, first thing in the morning. Doing this allows me to see the little fluctuations that occur for a variety of reasons---and learn to put them into perspective (so that a little upward blip does not faze me). The times I've gone without weighing have been times when I've gained---and I don't want to go that route again. So, I weigh once daily; it keeps me on the right path. There's no obsession attached to it any longer--it's purely informational and motivational.

It's true that scales don't have to be super-accurate, as long as they reliably give you a picture of the downward (or, eek!--upward!) trend. Mine's a pound off from my doctor's---but it's consistently a pound off. You should not get a different reading every time you step on the scale. Of course, today's weight might be different from tomorrow's. But your weight right now should register the same as your weight 30 seconds ago. If it does not, I would return the scale and pick one that is consistent and reliable. ETA: Donna Jo--your new picture is fabulous!

I'm really sorry--I missed that you were just a couple of days postop. The warmness is likely just fine--your body is still in the VERY early stages of healing. It should resolve over the next week or so. If you develop a fever, or notice drainage from the site, then call your doctor. PLEASE DO NOT PULL ON YOUR INCISION LINE. Causing it to blanch in that manner does not really indicate anything about wound healing, and can badly interrupt it.

How sad it must be to believe that gaining an obscene amount of weight is the best way to achieve immortality---if, instead of focusing on the positive things ahead in life, you really believed that the best way to make a name for yourself was by gaining a massive amount of weight. That eating was your one true talent. How awful to believe that that was the best you had to offer the world---unhealthy changes that threaten your very life. It's practically suicide by proxy. No wonder Guiness won't touch her with a ten-foot-pole.

I'd pretty much kill for a filet right now. I'm eyeing the dog and trying to figure out just where it would be on his body....

The last 15! How exciting is that?!?! I am torn. I guess I will give it a try, and if it's too much of a pain, I will do my food journaling on Fitday (where I have years worth of custom food entries) and use the bug to monitor calorie burn. I mostly need to know what's effective in terms of ramping up my exercise; I'm pretty controlled with regard to food. Filet sounds really good--I am starving today!

The redness is pretty typical, but it should not be warmer to the touch at this point. I'd give the doc a call; s/he will probably want you to start antibiotics. I know this is worrisome, but it's common, and just a blip--it will be okay.

If I were doing it, I'd veer toward their Filling Foods program--or, even, their old Core program. It de-emphasizes points, and emphasizes making the right food choices. (Weight Watchers has gotten a lot of criticism in recent years due to its "eat what you like! just count the points!" approach. While this increases compliance, it does so at a nutritional cost. Core was developed to address this criticism. Its newest incarnation is very similar.) I can't lose weight using Weight Watchers's point system. I can be 100% compliant, and gain--it's simply too much food for me. There's NO way I could meet the point allotment with a band in my body! But if I were to follow the other plan, and focus on lean Protein and veggies, it'd work. (There would be no room for using activity points for the weekly point allowance, though.) I personally don't think it's a terrific plan for people who are banded. I think that lots of doctors recommend it because they don't really know much about diets, in general, and it was for years the gold standard. (It is returning to that status again; it was less favored by those in the know for about a decade, for good reason.) I use Fitday.com to journal my food intake. It gives me much more information than WW Online or WW eTools does: calories, how much protein/carbs/fat I've gotten, and so on. It's free. Once you approach restriction, you will need to rely on willpower less and less---but it will remain important that you get the right nutrients. Weight Watchers really does not ensure that. But if you keep an eye on things with a program like Fitday, you can see, at a glance, when you need to make changes. Just my 0.02

Well, milk is a good food---but it's just that: a food. And as such, it really should be used in moderation. In other words, it's not really a beverage that you should "drink a lot" of; it should be approached as a whole food that is part of your meal plan. It is important to get plenty of Fluid, and you certainly can count milk toward your fluid quota, for hydration purposes. But for nutrition/weight loss purposes, most of your beverages should be non-caloric. Drinking milk in any quantity can pretty much wipe out your calorie allotment for the day. At 110 calories a cup, it adds up. (Even skim, at 86 or so per cup adds up.) Still, I would try to make the switch to skim--you can start by mixing 1% with skim, then slowly decreasing the amount of 1% you use. Calorie concerns aside, your body simply does not need the saturated fat that 1% provides. Your heart and blood vessels will thank you. I have been using almond milk because it's lower in carbs than cow's milk (which may not be a concern to you) and also because I've become lactose intolerant postop. It's really good. But when I use it, it's my meal---I mix it with Protein powder for a meal-replacement shake when my band is tight.

Sounds good! And it really packs a Protein wallop, doesn't it? Bariatric Eating has a line of coffee/tea drinks called BElieve. When you're able to add caffeine back in, postoperatively, they're worth a try if you like the bottled Starbucks drinks. You can order them at bariatriceating.com.

Even if you don't have comorbidities, with a BMI of 38, you are at far greater risk for them down the road. You are making a smart decision to avoid obesity-related disease. You and your doctor know your diet history. You know that, even though you don't have a super-high BMI, your efforts in the past have not given you the results you need to be healthy and comfortable in your own skin. You know that, without surgery, you're likely headed down a path of more gain, and more health problems. It doesn't matter what other people think---you know what your body needs. And you have a bazillion people here who understand.

Well, I broke down. After waffling, convincing myself I didn't need to have such precise information, and waffling some more, I just ordered the BB. With the sale + coupon code, it was just too good a deal to pass up. Even if I use it only short-term, to get an idea of what I burn with certain activities, it will be very useful information--worth the cost. (Especially since there are a couple of people in my family already clamoring to have it as a hand-me-down when I'm done with it!) Leigha, is the food journaling aspect easy to use?

Leigha, mine tightened up after a couple of weeks, too--I was really surprised!

Great post! For a while, I was rewarding myself, for pounds lost, with money. I "paid" myself in quarters. Why? Because each roll of quarters weighs half a pound. Each week, I went to the bank and got rolls of quarters equivalent to the amount of weight I lost. This was really helpful for me. Even on weeks when I'd only lost half a pound, I got a real appreciation for my achievement----carrying half a pound of quarters in your pockets for a while, and you decide that it's not insignificant!