Knaroz

Yeah the biggest thing you dont wanna do is gulp, you dont want all that air and excess liquid on your swollen stomach. As long as you are drinking slow you are fine

take it SLOW, it will get there but you dont want to fill restrction that soon. Take this time to learn to eat RIGHT, or when you have restriction you are going to vomit alot and possibly stretch the band or slip it. They go slow for your benefit.

You will find your sweet spot, everyone is different. My Doc is the same wont tell the CC but believe me, 0.1 CC can be the difference between loose, tight, and too tight. It just takes time to find it. While I agree you should let the band work for you, you still have to work a bit (ie no soft, mushies, high cals) Have you reduced your hardware? By that I mean what size plates and utensils are you using? My wife and I are using 6" plates that we picked up at the Dollar Tree (we are going to go get a nice set of small plates soon as we find the size that works the best for us) and also use baby spoons and cocktail forks. What this does is we cant overload the plates with food (portion control) and we can blitz through the food (portion extension). By using the smaller utensils it allows us to savor the food, takes longer to eat, and we fill full with less food. We even use them when we go out just beacuse I dont know if I could actually use a normal size fork or spoon again lol.

WoW I feel for all of you that your Dr doesn't do fills by xray, that just sounds extremely unpleasant and painful.

Yeah the first month is all about retraining yourself. That is why you take a week for each stage (this varies by doctor). Go slow, learn the habits, because as you get tighter, it doesnt get any easier so if you get stuck now, you will get stuck worse later and that is not where you want to be.

yeah the big incision is where the port/band was inserted and then stitched to your ab muscles. If it is just a sharp quick hurt that goes away you are just moving that muscle and it is irritating the stitches. If you have a very sharp burning pain that does not go away after moving suddenly or picking up something that you shouldn't I would speak to the doc because you might have popped one of the stitches holding your port to the muscle.

Yeah seeing that both my wife and myself were banded last year it makes Valentine's day easier, but harder as it takes more thought as a box of chocs was easiest and last minute savior lol. We went out to dinner with friends on Sat to celebrate and we find it easiest to just order one entrée and split it, heck most times we still have left overs lol.

Yeah just make sure you are watching that you are losing inches. I was losing like a mad man and hit 100 and then wham it just stopped, nothing changed except I started to work out a bit harder in the gym and not doing just the treadmill. But the inches keep dropped so that tells me that muscle is hopefully replacing fat lol

First rule of eatting out with the band for the first time. Before you sit down, learn where ALL bathroom exits are lol because 90% of the time you WILL get stuck and that is NOT the time to be looking for the bathroom lol. Yeah after you get use to the temptation of having water in hands reach we just order a water with our meal, sip on it til the food arrives and then push it aside. I like to leave mine half empty and see how many times the waitress offers to refill it hehe.

Please remember, the first 30 or so day post surgery are about healing, and learning your band, and learning a new lifestyle in how to eat your food (no drinking, small bites, protein first). There is really no fluid in the band when you first have it placed, except a small amount of priming fluid they place to make sure there are no leaks before they close up (of course this may be different from one doctor to another). I personally did not fill restriction until my third fill, but I had to teach myself before I got that that just because I could eat anything, I knew it wouldn't last and I used that time to learn how to eat all over again. Now that I am at restriction and took the time to learn how to eat, I find that I do not have as many "stuck" episodes or PBing that I hear a lot of others having. Just remember, the band is a tool, and with this surgery it is not a race by any means, take it slow, enjoy the scenery, and one day the weight loss will sneak up on you and you will be pleasantly surprised.

Right there with ya, once I hit the hundred wall its been a pain, thinking it just be the time of year and as cold as it is here down South not getting to exercise like I was when I was putting up the big numbers, just waiting on the big Thaw lol. Gratz on the 100 though!!

One thing to be mindful and watch during this time especially if you are exercising more than you did pre band is you may not be getting ENOUGH calories. Yeah I said ENOUGH lol. I went full blown out and out after my surgery with exercise and I noticed the scale stop completely and even start to go back up so I started tracking my calories in vs what I was using while exercising and I was having 200-400 a day only. If you are not getting enough calories and exercising your body actually can go into survival mode and begins to hoard everything you take in. I found that during weeks 3 - 4 if I added in high cal foods like full fat mayo with my tuna, or heavy cream with the potatoes it really got the scale blasting down.

So your thoughts so far Blaze21? With a $100 price tag I am gonna have to hear some really good reviews before I bit that bullet lol. Also looking at NFL Training Camp that just came out also.

I prefer Quality of Life over anyone else's feelings any day lol. At over 400 lbs I had people telling me I wasn't big enough :thumbup:

Congrats on hitting the WII milestone lol. Yeah My parents in law had bought one and I had went over to see what I thought about it and jumped on and about cried lol. The 300 weight limit was for the Japanese release of the WII, for us bigger Americans they bumped up the weight limit. Think it also had to do with the conversion of kg/lb lol. Also Just FYI for anyone looking for the Wii fit bundle, Target is doing a Black Friday deal of the Wii Fit board + Wii Fit Plus sofware for 67$. I will update if I see any other deals on it. Target Black Friday Ad and Target.com Black Friday Deals for 2010 near the bottom of the page under Video Games

One thing I would say to check is looking at the foods you listed above are very much trouble foods from most people after they have 3+ fills. Make sure you are chewing the heck outta everything, might be time to give up the rice for now, and also eggs are a really troublesome as they have to be cooked just right too dry or too wet can cause sticking issues.

I guess we are truly lucky we don't have to experience this as I was banded in July and my wife was banded in Sept, so she has kinda learned from me and then I help her as she is learning from actual experience. There is a lady that was banded the same day as my wife who we stay in contact with and her husband is not and she is having a lot of the same issues as stated above.

I am on my third fill and sushi is only a problem if it has the "seaweed" layer in it. I do not have any issues with the rice but I do have issues with the seaweed sheet that is in the layers

Yeah I would say the main reason is you just had "major" abdomen surgery so you are going to have swelling in your stomach area, plus all the gas they put in you for the surgery as well is causing some bloating, plus your body getting use to the new foods, I think this causes you to loose everywhere but your stomach. I am down almost 80 lbs and just now starting to loose pants sizes it went from my feet, my head/neck, and chest first.

Everyone adapts at their own speed. Personally It has taken me almost 2 months to be able to complete W1D1

Although Mariasha's enthusiasm is nice, be careful if you are just starting any program. It is normal for your hips to hurt because of the excess weight and gravity pushing on the bones and joints. Especially if you have not been walking normally try not to walk 2 days in a row ever, do it every other day. Once that becomes too easy then you can move up to longer walks but try not to walk every day, let your leg muscles rest and on the days you are not walking try to work on some upper body stretches or lifting small weights. By giving the muscle groups a day of rest and alternating you will see results faster, you will be less sore, and enjoy your new found freedoms.

LOL know what you mean I still get the urg for a cold one every now and then lol

Sorry bud gonna have to give up the beer, all the bubbles its just like drinking a soda. Best bet is to stick to Hard Straight liquors, no mixers as they contain tons of sugar and calories.

LOL Had this same experience over the weekend as well. First I had a "pissed" moment because I went to the clearence section and all my life when I was 3x 4x 5x all they had was L and XL. Saturday I go to look at all they had was 3x + clothes. I wanted to scream lol. Then my mom had tagged along and was trying to figure out shopping ideas. She picks up a shirt I had been looking at a few weeks before and grabbed the 2XL size (the size I had tried on about a month or so ago). Well I noticed it in her buggy and I turned to my wife and I said "I don't think I can wear that size anymore..." So she distracts her and I go get another but in XL and lo and behold it fit very well lol. Had to put on this whole song and dance routine that I was gonna buy the shirt, then act all sad when my wife said we didn't have the money for it and put it back so that my mom could sneak back over and change the sizes Then on Thur night of the same week we had our first cold snap here and we were going on a Haunted Hayride and I went to pull my pants out of the closet :smile: Needless to say, umm, I had to go out to Walmart and buy a pair, which was the first time I have been able to do that since Middle School.:smile: