I don't know a soul on this board. After all...I'm new here. Eleven days ago...I got banded. I put a couple of years into my decision...and even at the last moment...right before my doctor's office was seeking insurance approval...although I THOUGHT I knew what I was doing...I was still waffling on the procedure that I wanted him to perform. Banding or gastric sleeve? All of the super invasive stuff sounded so scary...but a little bit easier. With a deep breath and an emotional eenie meenie minie mo...the band it was!

Why did I choose the band? There were a couple of reasons banding seemed so much better than the others. First of all...there was no re-routing of organs or crazy craziness. The band...is removable...fixable...long term if I want it to be...and it seemed to be the "civil" of all the procedures. So...she put the paperwork in...and within days I was approved based on a hard life of eating like there's no tomorrow to "drown my sorrows" and the high blood pressure and sleep apnea that had been the product of my lifelong romance with food.

After I woke up from the procedure...the first thing that really hit me was..."Oh God...this thing ain't comin' out!"

Yeah.

Suddenly...I had this sort of rush of fear and self-loathing. That was the moment that every diet I have ever been on flashed before my eyes. Just recently the fad diet around our office has been the HCG Hormone thing. Whatever. A lot of people lost weight...but in the back of my mind...I kept thinking about the long term consequences of injecting hormones for weight loss. They had tried to get me to jump on the bandwagon...but I just kept getting the vision of me sprouting a third nipple or growing a tail or some other freakish genetic possibility...that it helped me remain strong enough to skip the hype and let them do their own thing.

Sure enough...as with every office diet fad...wouldn't ya' know...they all lost weight?! Another lady in our office had joined the Jenny Craig thing around the same time...she dropped some weight and then it appeared to creep back slowly.

This same group had gone on a all protein shake diet a couple of years ago. I did that. Yep. I was there. I lived on protein shakes and restricted food intake for 5 months. It was all hearts and stars...I dropped 30-40 pounds...and ended up in the hospital ER with dehyrdration and some sort of stomach bug. Why? Because I was so damn rundown and tired from the lack of anything other than that in my system...save for limited meat and veggies...that it kicked my butt.

I started drinking orange juice...and it was over. Yep. I just couldn't bring myself to starve anymore. I was done with it. Tired. Disgusted. Scared. My blood pressure was STILL kind of high and my snoring was embarrassing. My weight crept back up and THEN some. Wow.

My decision to get banded was so hard...mainly because I love food. There aren't that many things that have brought me as much pleasure as good food. It's just the truth. I knew that I needed some sort of control device. And there you have it. Just like everyone else that's had to go through the insurance approval process...my time was spent at seminars, doctor's appointments...yuck. What a drag. Seriously...I didn't even KNOW my health had become so lame until this process began. And we won't EVEN go into the pre IVC filter stress. OMG.

So there I was...awake from surgery...they handed me a tiny cup of water and I drank every drop like a good girl...and within a couple of hours I was out of there.

Broth, Jello, water....broth...water...jello. You know exactly what it's like. It wasn't as annoying until a couple of days later when I had to be admitted to the hospital for dehydration and a possible infection. Turned out after about 546 units of fluid...1435 needles stuck into me...etc etc...that there had just been too much fluid in my band when it was placed and after they'd removed some of that and made me suffer through what I like to think of as the most painful 36 hours of my hospitalized life...I threatened the male nurse who seemed to not care that my veins were so overworked from all the fluids that they were pushing, that the meds felt like battery acid in my veins...that he either got in touch with my doctor and got me the hell outta there...or I was gonna go total Commando status and leave on my own accord.

I s'pose my actions were persuasive. My doctor discharged me within a couple of hours.

That's been a little over a week ago.

Since the banding...I've lost 20 pounds for a total of 24.8 pounds lost including a very brief pre-diet. So basically...today is the 21st...and my weight has dropped since January 5th.

This has NOT been easy. It has NOT been a walk in the park. Yes...I have been hungry. Yes...it was pretty tough before they removed the extra fluid. Over the first couple of days I was only able to get in about 3-4 cups of fluid. And I am SOOOO missing food.

Two nights ago...I drove to Wendy's...bought a Junior Bacon Cheeseburger...and took two bites...chewed like crazy...and then...spit it out. Of course. There's no place it can go without making me sick. OMG it was so...good...and greasy...and cheesy and bacony...and I had a brief moment of regret...that I spit out with that two bites of food.

I know it's gross. But really...at this point...I don't care.

The people at work have started to notice the weight coming off of me...and I love how they tell me about their diets. (Not really) I have been where they are and none of that stuff ever worked successfully for me. We have one lady that has dropped 60 pounds and looks fantastic. I think I hate her a little bit. (Not really...but in the realm of weight loss...she is like an arch nemesis for the time being. Damn her and her ability to keep eating normally.)

I can tell you a dozen ways to drop weight. I can tell you what to eat...what not to eat...how to prepare the food...etc etc. It does NOT work for me for whatever reason.

I have rinsed my ground beef after browning it since 1988. Mayo? Haven't touched it in forever. So...with all that said...if watching this and watching that had been right for me...it would've worked a long time ago. Am I justifying why I chose to remove steak from my life forever? Yes. Ha!

I noticed that I sat in front of Food Network the other night...like agonizing over an old ex. There it was...looking all good...and there I was on my couch...wearing my pajamas...Durabond glue stuck on my incisions...my belly gnawing itself...a delicious bottle of...water...in my hand. It was like watching your ex-husband win the lottery.

I went to bed feeling a bit defeated. My clothes still fit...they're looser now...and I wonder how I managed to shove so much butt into such a little bit of fabric...and after telling myself that if I just get to sleep...that tomorrow...when I wake up...there's another chance to wake up to a scale that reads a slightly smaller number than the day before.

The weight loss so far has been all that's really kept me sane. And Ativan...but that's another story. : )