Search the Community

I'm 3 weeks out and also struggling. I have calculated that if I eat 5 small meals (2 tbs, which is about all I can manage) as recommended, each takes around 30 mins to eat. If I follow advice not to drink 30 mins before a meal or drink for an hour afterwards, that is 2 hours a time when I can't drink- adds up to 10 hours per day. Add in the fact that I can only comfortably take 125 ml (1/2 cup) per hour, you can see that I am really struggling. Today I have had a couple of cups of coffee and am sipping a cup of tea - it's 16:25 UK time. I have had about 1/2 tsp of hummous, but didn't fancy any more. Any advice greatly welcomed

Yep! 8 weeks out tomorrow. I went from 10 wide to just a plain 9.

I've been gathering all the information I can about the Lapband since this summer and I've finally made the decision to become banded. I don't have much support in my personal life. I just told my best friend of 19 years that I was having it done and her comment was "I think it's just an easy way out. You've lost weight before so you can do it again" Of course, my response was that the weight always comes back, but she wasn't buying it. My husband supports me, but he's a little worried. Being on this site has been such a blessing. I have been truly inspired by so many of you. It's great reading about other people who are considering the band, have the band or have lost the band. I am so ready to take control of my weight. My surgery date of March 15th seems so far away, but I know it will be here before I know it. Happy New Year to everyone! 2007 is going to be a great year!!!

I started with myoplex original. Like most low sugar the taste isn't wonderful but they're passable at least and I didn't actually mind the taste. And best part is each one has 42g of protein so that's half way to daily requirement. Luckily I haven't had dumping yet but if my Greek yogurt has too high sugar(over about 10 for me) I get a little queasy. And if you find something that works, get a lot of them lol. Best of luck!

It's fairly simple. For me, it was a 10 day diet. Only Protein shakes during the day and a salad with protein at night with low calorie dressing. Sent from my SM-G930T using the BariatricPal App

Hey! I have surgery next Wednesday 10/28 and my doctor isn't prescribing me any meds for after I live the hospital. Did anyone else have this happen? Hopefully if I'm in a lot of pain before discharge he will change that.

Hi Kami, I have PCOS as well. In my pre op diet I lost 29 lbs. since surgery (6/27/13) I have lost 20lbs. I was feeling a little down...even after I spoke to my surgeon because he didn't seem too thrilled with my weight loss either. He told me I was at the "low end." Anyway, I have since changed my attitude and I Celebrate EVERY success...even my non scale victories! You will be successful, even if it goes a little slower than other people. The point is...you are losing!!!! Celebrate that!! Since you know that you stall often just make sure you stay on track during those times. Also, find some fun things to do during those times in order to take your mind off of it....bowling, movies, long walks, etc. that stall will not last forever! So...about what I eat. I eat 5 small meals a day, all focused around Protein of course! Each meal is about 10-15 grams of protein. So, one day might be 1. Greek yogurt 2. Drumstick 3. Small Protein shake 4. Another piece of baked chicken 5. About 3/4 cup of chilli. The amounts are pretty small, even though it may seem like a lot of food. I can only take 3-5 bites of anything before I'm full. So, I only count each meal as 10-15 grams of protein. I also drink Water in between these meals. Sol, I hope this helps a little. I just want to encourage you...slow and steady WINS THE RACE!!! We can do this! :-)

Okay. So I understand that bread is bad. And that we are to basically avoid it forever. My question is- is this all bread? All bread-like products? What about things like no and low-carb bread or wraps? Are these going to be forever no-nos as well? HW 420 SW 347 CW 329 Sleeved April 10, 2017

I am a busy professional woman who works four 10 hour days/week and I have a teenage daughter who keeps me busy. I am in the process of going through the preauth period for sleeve surgery. Now that I am reading all the posts my single biggest concern is how I am going to fit in my postop eating schedule into my busy life. I am used to grabbing things on the go. I plan to take 2 weeks off postop but I wondered how people felt physically after 2 weeks going back to a full time schedule. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I was banded 2/3/10 and was GLAD I stayed overnight! Not due to complications of anything but I just was sooooooo tired that I COULD NOT STAY AWAKE! I was out of surgery by 9:30ish and pertty much slept 'til the next morning. I remember getting up a few times (they made me) and of course them coming in to check the bp and respitory stuff but not much else. I was tired for 2 weeks after with no energy! Of course, I also read on here where some people go back to work the next day or so!:thumbup:

I had my surgery 3-5-10 at 8am in the morning. By 3pm, I had left the hospital. My best recommednation - walk, walk, walk! Of the 8 of us who had surgery that day 3 went home and 5 stayed. Those that went home where younger (40"s or less) and seemed to be pretty healthy before surgery. Those who stayed over had medical issues or were older (60's). I had no post op pain and never even took a tylenol! I was SO happy to be in my bed that night! Good Luck! It is the best thing I ever did! Surgery 3-5-10 350lb Current 4-22-10 319lb

I like the Premier Protein Shakes too! I get mine at Sam's Club - less than $19 for a box of 12. I haven't tried the Vanilla yet. I do have several Unjury and True Results canisters of powder if anyone is interested in trying them. I think a couple are open and some are not. All you have to do is pay for shipping. Let me know and I can give you the details of what I have. There's nothing wrong with them, I just got tired of them and hate to throw them out if someone wants them.

Oui1213 - If you don't like my comments please don't read them. You are clearly quite a rude person. After having the band for 10 years, I feel suitably qualified to talk about my experiences. My responses here are honest, truthful and well balanced. Please read them again. Would you prefer it if I lied? Or genuinely shared my experiences, which, I believe is what this forum is about. My response here says that I am not knocking the band, it helped me lose weight, did I ever really feel full? No I didn't, is what the person in the original post experiencing normal? Yes it was at least the same for me. I also think it's very silly and naive of you to only want to hear success stories, like all types of surgeries, for some people this procedure works extremely well, for others not so well, people need to here all angles not just the good ones! send2steph posted "This has been really informative. Thanks!" So would you please mind your own business and keep your nose out. Thanks. Oui1213.

I was one of the lucky ones that gained 10 pounds from swelling and fluids. Thankfully I have started losing but experiencing the 3 weeks stall now. I can see my body shrinking and co-workers ask me daily if I'm losing weight. So I know I'm losing inches. Chin up...the scales will start going down soon. ????????

I am almost 10 months out and I could snack/eat all day. I notice at night I could eat more. I tend to pick slider foods. I fluctuate between 132-134. If I ever go over, I'll do a protein day. I will never risk gaining back the weight. I would have to try really hard to gain weight...eat frequently and make poor choices consistently. I will always be a food addict and I still crave the same foods, but I can only eat them in small portions. Congratulations on your weight loss. You rock.

I got the lap band done a little over a month ago. I've only lost about 10 lbs since the surgery so far. I live in Sioux Falls, SD and I really don't have much of a support group so this has been real hard for me. I know I made the right decision, I just have to get my mind on the right track.

I am set up for a conceltation with the Doctor on Jan. 3rd. I am a little worried since I have lost one friend after lap band but she also had had her stomack stapled and undone before lap band, about 5 years between surgerys. I was wondering how the condition is for those that have been lap Band for more than 5 years.? Thank you.

You can eat so much right now because you are on full liquids and they are just running through your sleeve instead of hanging around to tell you you're full sooner! No, it's true! Just wait til you get to mushies and try a soft-boiled egg....if you can eat an entire egg in 10 minutes, I owe you a Big Mac, feel free to call me out on it. Also, cravings are normal. I'd avoid the TV with the annoying food commercials, if at all possible. Also, try to appease your taste buds by choosing liquids that are more flavorful (savory cream Soups in addition to sweet juices, etc).

Monday is the big day!!!!!!!!!!! We leave at 7:30 in order to get to the hospital by 10:00. Surgery scheduled for 12 noon. Stay over 1 night and leave in the afternoon. They do have WiFi in the room so either myself or hubby can post updates. Wish me luck! I could not have remained so calm and been so prepared without you guys!

As far as smelly gas, zinc is your friend. You can find supplements at any store. When it will go away is another question though. My mother had the RNY surgery over 10 years ago. To this day she still has horrible, horrible gas and when she does number two it is like death. I hope that your situation gets better, but she has noticed some patterns. Her gas and her 'movements' smell worse when she has dairy or certain other foods. You may try food logging and cut out certain things at the same time. This will let you know if it is a trigger food; they can easily be avoided.

READY TO BE WEDDED TO YOUR BAND? On a humid May morning 37 years ago, after a four year courtship, I married my first husband. We exchanged our wedding vows in front of a Catholic priest, a Presbyterian minister, and 40 guests consisting of family and friends. We walked out of the church and into our married life with “until death do us part” in our young minds. Six years later, we divorced. Eventually each of us married again, this time to the right partner, and we’re all still happily married today. As the saying goes, practice makes perfect. It’s practice that will make your “marriage” to your adjustable gastric band perfect, or as perfect as any human endeavor can be. It’s important to know that when you wake up in the recovery room after your surgery, you won’t be magically endowed with all the knowledge, experience, and habits you’ll need to succeed with your band. Even if you did tons of research, faithfully attended every pre-op educational class, and listened closely to and made detailed notes of everything your bariatric team told you, some things – important things – you’ll have to learn through the everyday experience of living and eating with your band. When you leave the hospital or surgery center after your surgery, you probably won’t be headed for your honeymoon quite yet. That will come later, when you’ve had enough fills to achieve optimal restriction and you begin to feel that your band is really working. The excess weight will start coming off and you’ll walk around in a dreamy pink haze, delighted with your new life partner. You might even give your band a silly private pet name, the way my husband calls me “Love Bug” (which always makes me think of my first car, a chubby little Volkswagen Beetle). Then one day, the reality of banded life will wake you up. You’ll think, “Who is this creature I’ve married?” And like Jenny, a former coworker of mine, you’ll realize that while the engagement, wedding and honeymoon were exciting and fun, the day-after-day business of marriage isn’t exciting or fun 24 hours a day. It’s hard work. It’s boring. It’s frustrating. It’s humdrum. Jenny divorced her new husband after only three months of marriage not because she didn’t love him, but because she didn’t love being married to him. For many of us, being a wife isn’t nearly as fun as being a bride. One day you’re a smiling princess dressed up in flowers and lace; the next day you’re a haus frau frowning at the skid marks in your prince’s underwear. I suspect that Jenny just wasn’t old enough or mature enough to be a wife. Neither was I when I married the first time. One of the reasons most bariatric surgeons and insurance companies require a patient to have a pre-op psychological consult is to evaluate the patient’s understanding of what they’ll have to do to succeed after surgery. Are they ready for a lifetime commitment? Do they have reasonable expectations? Can they follow instructions? Are they capable of learning the new behaviors they’ll need for a productive, peaceful partnership with their band? HABIT FORMING New bandsters need dozens of new habits – something like 60-70% of my book Bandwagon is devoted to explaining those habits, so I’m not going to try to cram them all into a single article. I’ll pick one at random. Hmmm…how about EAT SLOWLY? How are you going to turn that behavior into a habit that will serve you well for the rest of your life? So Dr. McMillan tells you, “Eat slowly,” and you nod your assent while thinking, “Get real! I’m too busy to do anything slowly. I have 3 kids and 2 dogs, I work 2 jobs, I take care of my elderly Aunt Bertha, I coach my daughter’s softball team, I have a house to run and a spouse who’s always on the road…” Well, you get the idea. Dr. McMillan has just told you to do something that’s very simple and yet impossibly difficult, you think Dr. McMillan needs to wake up and smell the coffee, and a door in your mind slams shut. Actually, Dr. McMillan is already awake, has had a cup of coffee, has tended to all 10 of her dogs and all 3 of her cats, is about to leave for the fitness studio, and when she returns she will deal with a home renovation project while running her home-based publishing business off the kitchen table; tomorrow the fun will start all over again, including a 5-1/2 hour shift at her retail job and a trip to the supermarket. She’ll get someone to come look at the leaking French doors, do the laundry, pick another batch off ticks off the new dog, and cook several meals. Dr. McMillan’s friend Nina calls her the “Tennessee Tsunami”, and despite all that, Dr. M. still manages to eat slowly every time she sits down to a meal. As a pre-op, it took her maybe 5 minutes to hoover her way through a meal that would feed a farmhand, and now it takes her 5 minutes to chew her way through the first bite. But that EAT SLOWLY habit (or any other habit) didn’t become a habit for me overnight. It takes many, many repetitions to turn a new behavior into a habit (a British study found that it takes anywhere from 18 to 254 days of daily repetition to make a new behavior “automatic”). I know it’s a big challenge, especially when you’re also trying to learn a few dozen other new behaviors and turn all of them into habits while somehow conquering the dozens of bad habits you already had, but I assure you, it’s worth the effort. MIND OVER MATTER? Sometimes the biggest stumbling block in changing my behavior isn’t the behavior itself – it’s me and my stubborn, willful mind. I rarely have a valid reason to refuse a new, healthier behavior, whether it’s a small thing like putting my fork down while I chew each bite, or a bigger thing like always wearing seat belts in the car. My brain stomps its feet and cries, “I don’t WANT to do it!” I have to ease into the new behavior gradually, so that I don’t become overwhelmed and end up crying, “See, I TOLD you it wouldn’t work!” So although part of me knows that this is a huge, lifetime deal, I dole out the changes in small pieces, one day at a time, one hour at a time, one minute at a time. If I live as long as my mom did, I have another 32 years of eating ahead of me. I eat 6 times a day, 7 days a week, so if my arithmetic is correct (no guarantees there), I have another 69,888 meals to chew my way through. That is a truly mind-boggling number, so I’m tackling this task one meal at a time, and I suggest you do the same. I also suggest that you tackle one behavior at a time. Even simple things can become too complicated when you try to do them all at once. Last year, I bought a new cell phone. I hate the telephone and always have; as far as I’m concerned, cell phones are the work of the devil. I chose a phone with far more capabilities than my old one. It seemed like a dandy little gadget when the sales associate was demonstrating it, but when I’d had it a week, I had to return it because (as I told the puzzled 20 year-old who processed the return), I simply could not deal with a device that required me to hop on one foot while patting my head, rubbing my tummy, and singing the “Star Spangled Banner” in order to send an e-mail. So sitting down to each post-op meal trying to remember whether you’re supposed to hop, pat, rub, or sing is a set-up for failure. Better to pick out one new behavior as this week’s challenge. Next week, add another new behavior to your repertoire. The week after that, another one. During that time you’ll be repeating all the new behaviors as you slowly add new ones, and gradually the behaviors that were new become old…in other words, they become habit, and you won’t have to think about them much if at all. When I was a little girl, my mom had to remind me to brush my teeth every day, but eventually the tooth-brushing became an automatic part of my routine. If I were in a car accident (God forbid) and suffered a spine or brain injury that erased all my old habits (good and bad), I’d have to start it all over again. I’d probably festoon my house with reminder notes: BRUSH TEETH on the bathroom mirror; EAT SLOWLY on my placemat; FEED DOGS (well, maybe not – the dogs come complete with their own extremely reliable and audible meal reminder system). That’s a lot of work, I know, but the pay-off is enormous!

I didn't know anyone made a list! I am on it too. Twice actually. I had a twisted stricture. Same sort of treatment as a leak. Happylife. I was most unable to work for months. I dont know the total cost of treatment. Would be scared to even guess. The facility that did my surgery covered the costs. God bless them. I went from Aug 10/2011 to Dec 24/2011 without eating and at times keeping down only some liquids. Long periods no liquids either. I had 8 dilations, 4 operations, 2 feeding tubes through my noes, stent placement, and than removal from migration. Than I had a unheard of fix. Called Stictureplasty. After the Sleeve healed for a long period of time they cut the twisted stricture out and put the two parts of the sleeve back together. And crossed fingers for no leak. It worked! The reason I mention this to you is they told me if the scar tissue from the twisted stricture was soft chances would be better for no leak. As it is difficult to have scared tissue mend. Another thing is they gave me a J tube. It was a feeding tube that went directly into my tummy so that I didn't have to eat or drink while the revision surgery healed. I would do it all over believe it or not. I love my sleeve so much. For you it is a personal decision that only you can make. I wish you the best and happiness!

The reason I go by weight is that it's easier to measure than volume. (Like you can't squish a pizza slice into a measuring cup.) The density of all foods is pretty close to the density of water. Within 10%, I would guess. And if I chew thoroughly like I'm supposed to, that four ounces of pizza will be about half a cup.

I have BCBS of Ky thru my husband employer AK Steel. My Dr office filed this morning with INS for final approval and by 10:30 I had a call from my Drs office. That's quick! Pre op appt next Thursday

I was sleeved 19/10/15 and I've bee absolutely dropping the weight with some pretty troubling side effects, but mostly doing ok. My dad is now made up that he's finally going to bite the bullet and also be sleeved. We've talked about it a fair bit and he's been put off by issues I've had. I've stuck on the path of this has really changed my life in so many ways and I don't regret it at all, although there's been negatives it's better than dying of a heart attack, and that it gives me the restriction I need to succeed. Dad hasn't been well. He's 170+ kgs and has had a few heart attacks. I'm not sure he'll make 60. He has lost up to 20kgs before on his own and is happy to exercise, but finds food restriction the hardest. We are both terrible coke drinkers. And fast food addicts. My surgeon operates locally but is mainly at another hospital 50 mins away. I went to him because originally I was considering bypass and the local one didn't do bypass. Do you think it's better to stick to someone we know or try another person? I didn't like that he wasn't contactable when I had a problem with my sutures, another thing that put dad off. Also I'm young, Dad isn't. For me it's been about getting to enjoy my life before it passes me by and to be healthy for my daughter. Dad doesn't mind being fat. He does love food though. Any over 45's have anything to offer? Any help I can get would be appreciated. I don't want to loose my Dad, and Idont want him to be scared.