caffeine

Journey, funny you mentioned that. I had my first checkup today and on my way back to the subway I bought myself a pizza for lunch. It was my first pizza since the pre-op diet. Normally I'd have 2 or 3 pizzas for lunch and gobble them up in no time. This one I munched on really really slowly (technically I should be on pureed but I've been feeling so good lately). By the time I got to the subway, I wasn't done. Instead of waiting by the entrance to finish eating, I tossed it and went back to work. The old me would never have done that. So I totally understand what you're saying and agree 100%. We really do need to unlearn some things.

DEFINITELY ditch the bouillon. Buy yourself low sodium bouillon instead. Or that other thing that tastes like chicken that was mentioned. :Banane20: Limit your salt intake in all things. cynpatt, was that a typo? You've been eating only 600 cal/day and exercising but you gained 54 lbs? In only 2 weeks? That shouldn't be possible. Have you had your thyroid checked? You definitely should see your PCP because those numbers don't compute.

Agreed with vlp. Your doctor *wants* you to succeed and understands these things sometimes happen. Think of him as your health care provider -- not someone who will judge you. Doctors became doctors to help people, not to judge them. Maybe something like Weight Watchers with weekly weigh-ins would be useful? From experience, I can tell you that when I was on WW, I really did "behave" because you know the next weigh-in is less than 7 days away.

Agreed with the comments above. I lost 4 lbs in my first few days after the surgery, but the scale hasn't moved in 4 days even though my food intake has been very low compared to what I used to it. It finally went down by .2 (yes, point two) lbs yesterday. I think it's the fickle nature of weight. I think considering how regimented you sound, vlp's experience will probably happen. It's impossible for your body not to lose weight ... a LOT of weight ... eventually. You didn't mention your clothes. Are they fitting the same?

Apologies! AIG = Big insurance company that received bail-out money. CDS = Credit default swap. Courant = Mathematical institute of New York University. Almost as arcane as Aussie slang. :-) 17 lbs speaks to me. :-) Just out of curiosity, do you think equally well in kg and lbs? In the US, all applied math, science and most scholarly engineering is done in SI (metric) but in day to day life we pretty much exclusively use English units. I take it a lolly means "candy" and not "lollipop"? My friend calls everything sweet a lolly. It throws me for a loop. Naw, actually counseling isn't that far off. A lot of it is problem solving and/or diagnosing. They're just different kinds problems! :-) I once dated a cultural anthropologist. Now that was way off the scale. But it was cool because she was interested in physics and I was interested in anthro.

One of my best friends is from "Nawlins". :-) Yeah, that's totally my experience too. The only time I knew when to stop was like after gorging myself on Thanksgiving dinner. It's still kind of freaky. I get that "I can't stand another bite" feeling way way way sooner than I ever did.

vlp, 60 lbs in 4 months is great. There are millions of people out there who can only dream about your progress. Don't beat yourself up over it. At 60lbs, you're an inspiration to me. Whatever you're doing, it sounds like it's working to me. One thing that helps me a lot is water. It has become an integral part of my life. I made two purchases which I am 100% happy with: Green Vibrance and Alive! multivitamin supplement. In the mornings I make a concoction of Green Vibrance and empty out two capsules of Biotin and St. John's Wort and mix it into a mug of water. It totally fills me up and is a great nutritious breakfast. I'm totally happy with it and don't miss my Starbucks sandwiches one bit. It makes me feel like I'm doing something really good for my body. The Alive! vitamin supplement is what I have for dessert because it's fruity. I'm not big on sweet stuff to begin with, but fruity is great. I mix it in with a big mug of water and add a little rose water and it's a *phenomenal* dessert that I sip while watching Lost, Family Guy, or South Park. When I'm feeling "munchy" or hungry, this is my strategy: 1. Drink a glass of water. 2. Drink a glass of water. If I still feel munchy, 3. A bottle of Ensure. By this point, I'm absolutely full. It's true that sometimes I'm still "hungry" even though my stomach feels full, but by this point, my stomach feels so full that I *have* to wait. And when I do wait, the hunger is assuaged.

Hi Babsy, I thought I detected the Queen's English before I saw where you're from. I have a friend from The Courant who does CDS for AIG. He's from Sydney. It's so weird to see people use kilograms for body weight. All my degrees but one are in physics, so I have a good intuition about kilograms... I can quote the Earth's mass kilograms from memory. I could give an approximate mass for the Sun or Jupiter even though I don't have that memorized because I worked in kg so much. Same for the mass of an electron. It's so natural to think in kilograms. But when I see kilograms for body weight it takes me aback. It's shocking. Such an odd sensation to feel so comfortable with kg for "physicsy" things but feel so uncomfortable with kg for humans. Wow!!! I know that a person should weigh more or less 70-80kg, but I don't have a "feel" for that number. I couldn't tell you if 90kg or 60kg is unreasonable for an avg sized person. Back to our favorite topic. I'm still in my honeymoon. I didn't lose any weight yesterday, but I have to get used to the fact that I'm not going to be losing a pound or two a day like I used to. I'd eventually disappear if I did! :-) Today was interesting. Someone who just finished their PhD in physics with my thesis advisor called me out of the blue (he joined the group after I left so I don't know him) and wanted to know how to get into finance. Had lunch with him at an Indian restaurant. Indian food is something I can gorge myself on. Today I had one samosa and about 1/3 of the food they served. Back in the bad ol' days, I could've easily have finished the whole thing, AND have some nan as well. So I did pretty damned good, but I still can't shake the feeling that I "cheated". Then tonight we watched 4 episodes of Lost. We eat while we watch Lost. I ate about 1.5 cups of food: sauteed tuna steak avocado and onion salad lentil beans taboulli salad and I feel totally stuffed to the rafters; like I cheated. But the fact remains, I could've easily have eaten twice as much before. At least. Yet I still feel like I cheated. I need to really retrain myself -- I'm not on a "diet". I *have* a diet, but I'm not on a diet. I rarely feel starving. When I feel munchy, a glass of water usually does the trick. But I'm still dying of curiosity about what's going to happen when I stand on that scale tomorrow morning. Today the admin assistant told me that my face looked much thinner. She hadn't seen me since before my operation a week ago. When she said that I was elated. This is truly the best thing to happen to me. Why oh why couldn't I have found the LAP-BAND® a decade ago?

Thou art a braggart! :frown: (just kidding!) That's totally cool. I would like to be where you are in about a year or two. You are truly an inspiration for me. It's so funny to think that I have a better shot at getting a 6-pack at 41 or 42 than I did at 21.

Cool! I'm glad it resonates with you. It definitely feels that way for me as well! BTW, off-topic, how do you choose a profile picture and that neat-o BMI ticker from TickerFactory at the end of your post? I'd like to have one too. :frown:

I'm actually almost relieved to hear there's no magic involved. If my current weight loss is post-op surgery, then I'll take it graciously. :frown: I think what really sold me on this thing was the adjustability. Heh. I think your term, euphoria, pretty accurately describes me right now. My wife noticed that my multiple "love handles" are gone. Now I just need to work on that front tire I have hanging off my belly. :thumbup: One of the reasons why it *seems* effortless is that when I *am* hungry, a glass of water or a cup of water is enough to assuage it. I drink the water, and my stomach feels full. It gets rid of that empty pit feeling that can only be scratched by raiding the fridge. Is that the effect of post-op swelling? How many days does it take for that to subside? I'd just like to know so I can prepare for it. Right now I feel like I'm top of the world. Maybe a good dose of reality would be good for me.

Weight lost on pre-op diet: 17.5 lbs (1.6 lb/day). I gained 1.2 lbs during surgery. Probably swelling plus the weight of the band itself. Weight loss with lap-band in 3 days: 6lbs (2 lb/day). In all, total weight loss is 23.5 lbs, but what's truly amazing is how effortless weight loss is right now. Tomorrow I will be under 230, which is what I weighed in the middle of grad school. To me, the lap-band is magical. I know what it does, but there's something else it does which the doctors don't advertise. It somehow makes it easy for me to listen to my stomach. My stomach tells me things, and I never could listen. I always wanted the last few fries on the plate. Or had "room for dessert". Somehow, the lap-band opened up a connection between my brain and my stomach. Actually, maybe I could phrase it this way. The lap-band doesn't make me realize when I'm no longer hungry. It makes me realize when I'm full. There's an important distinction. When you're "not hungry", you can always eat if you want to. It becomes a matter of willpower. And since I am overweight, I already know that my food willpower is ... "limited". But when you're "full" rather than "not hungry", there's less willpower involved. I can FEEL my stomach is full. and it FEELS like I shouldn't be putting anything more in my mouth. My only regret is not doing this sooner. I should've done the band years ago. I see tons of people on the forum who have lost 100 lbs and more. Even though I may not talk or interact with them, I definitely take notice. I totally understand where that kind of weight loss comes from. Whoever this Mr. Lapband was, he was a genius! :frown:

Hey Cathy, If you got a Lap-Band lapband, you almost certainly got the Lap-Band AP, with a whopping 14mL fill volume. It's their 3rd gen model. My surgeon said that Realize is often better for men and LabBand is often better for women. One of the reasons is that men usually have a layer of (healthy to have) fat that never disappears. It's encoded in our DNA just like wider hips are encoded in females' DNA. The Realize bands have a curve that accommodates that layer. I guess it's genetic leftover when we left our caves for a few days to wrestle apes and bring back dead boars to feed our fellow cave dwellers. Please don't tell my friends and family, but I have a passion for Chicago style pizza. In fact, my last 2 meals were a hot pastrami on rye from the 2nd Ave deli and Chicago deep dish style pizza. :-) But I live in NYC, which is also a food capital.... There are a few things that make me sad, like calamari and Chicago pizza, but as they say, nothing tastes nearly as good as being thin feels. I've also heard that people with LB lose the same kind of cravings that we used to have. It's now been a week for you -- are you finding that to be true? I imagine you haven't had your first fill yet. I'm relieved to hear that breathing is painful for others. Nobody warned me about that; I was stressing a little that that I was the only one. The hospital gave me a little breathing exercise device. I'm supposed to hit the 1500 mark. Right after surgery, I think I was able to hit like ... 500. In the evening I got up to 1000. This afternoon I hit 1200. I wonder of there's a LB FAQ out there? Your reply, along with a number of posts I've read here, have taught me a great deal about pre-op and post-op issues. Pete

Thanks Tracy! I hear you about being inside and a part of the OR. I can't imagine what your job must be like. I've always heard that surgeons develop a strange detachment to horrifying situations because if they didn't, they'd be miserable thinking of all the people they work on. The nurses and staff at the NYU Bariatric Center have been wonderful. In fact, one of things I'm going to do today is send flowers to my surgical coordinator because she has been SO wonderful with everything. I think part of the reason is that doctors must have a really awful job -- telling people the most awful thing you can tell someone. And the nurses caring for people who have no hope. But bariatric hospital staff must be different. The office workers, staff, nurses, doctors see people who have suffered their entire lives. We have dieted and rode the weight rollercoaster our entire lives, and suddenly, we are being given the chance to reclaim our lives and really live to our full potential. No more searching the closets for a shirt that doesn't show a roll of fat. No more feeling awkward about having our pictures taken. I'm sure our excitement rubs off them, and I would imagine that even though there's a lot of fat people in the office, it must be a very positive, very good-vibe kind of place to work. Everytime I had to go to NYUMC, I couldn't help but have an out of control smile on my face. :scared2:

I don't know, but according to my packet, the symptoms are: * acid reflux * nausea * vomiting (inability to keep much of anything, even Water, down) If you suspect your band slipped, you should contact your doctor and get an ensophagram, which is a special type of x-ray that shows the position of the band around the stomach. Here are some pictures and more info: http://www.thinnertimes.com/weight-loss-surgery/lap-band/lap-band-complications/slippage.html