Leaderboard

So when I started my blog, I promised to be open and honest about as much as I possibly can with progress with the band. I want my blog to be a place where newbies or those going in for their diet visits to get some honest info. No scare tactics, no BS. So I have read the boards and forums but I have never seen anyone say step by step what it is like to get a fill. Today I went for my first fill and this is step by step how it happened. First I had a meeting with my dietitian. I had tons of questions for her today. I was upset that I had seemed to stall out on my weightloss. She said in fact I had lost more weight that I was unaware of. She also explained with the amount of exercise I have been doing, I am building muscle even though I am only doing cardio right now. So she explained the muscle will weigh more than the fat and eventually I will start to lose again. She told me to calm down and stop wigging out. My husband and I have decided I should not use the scale anymore at home to weigh myself. It drives me nuts and is obviously not accurate. I just bought a new one and it still drives me bonkers. I absolutely love my dietitian. She was very patient with me today. She explained in detail how the fill helps. I was confused as to why the fill is supposed to help when I am already only getting about 800 cals a day. However, I also have the plication. Because I was unfilled sometimes I would eat just a tiny bit too much. By the time the food got to the plicated part of my stomach I would be uncomfortable but just a little. She explained to me the nerves that tell us we are full are at the top of our stomachs. The goal is for my band to put gentle pressure on my stomach so that the nerves are triggered easier to tell me I am full. That was I will not over eat with that one more tiny bite that sends me into discomfort. After I spoke with her it was time to get the fill. First the nurse took me back to the fill room, had me lay down and looked for my port with the ultra sound machine. Once the port was located, she then put iodine on the port location. Once I was prepped and ready the doctor came in. Now, my doctor is the kind of doctor who is very friendly and chatty. At the same time he is a no bullshit kind of guy. If you are messing up he is going to tell you. So he comes in chatting away and I am immediately put at ease. He numbs the port site with lidocaine. Honestly this was the worst part with a tiny burning sting. I have had kids.. this aint nothin... so they say. Once the port area is numb, Dr. DeBarros then put the needle for the saline into the port. The nurse helped me stand up and handed me a cup of water. Dr. D told me to drink the water while he was doing the fill. He was looking for the point where the water would back up. So the funny part was because I am used to sipping he kept telling me to drink faster. So about the third time he said that I stopped and said.. You are not supposed to do that on the band, Dr. D. He just laughed and said, "I didn't say stop." Now all of this took about 5-10 minutes start to finish. They he asked me about my exercise and was surprised I am already up to 45 minutes a day. He said I was doing great. My diet for the next few days is to move up each stage one day at a time. Today is clear liquids, tomorrow fulls, Sunday will be mushy and then i can work my way up. My next fill appt is set for March 22. If I do not feel like I need one I will just go in for a check up and talk to the dietitian. I am so happy that I get to go visit the office once a month. I cannot imagine having a procedure where you see the doctor once and that is it. I am supremely grateful that my surgeon's office has a full staff that answers my questions and can give me the education I need to succeed on this journey.

Stress was one factor that always made me eat. Well heck before the band I never needed an excuse to eat. But now some how when I am stressed, I just write. Sometimes people think they can sway your day at work, or in life generally but what they don't realize is that the more they keep stressing you, the better a person you become. It makes you stronger, makes you realize they are just one person in this whole big world trying to rain on your parade and guess what? It won't matter one darn bit in ten years. I will still be who I am, still be successful in my weight loss, still teach my nutrition classes, still fight for animal rights, still have a loving husband and continue to improve my writing skills. You can't always make everyone happy in life, but why let food get in your way. There will always be people who will try to spoil your day, ruin what you have worked hard for because they themselves have failed. I had a client who was miserable to the point the doctor kicked her out of his practice because she wouldn't listen to him and failed at her band. She tried to make the whole group miserable but what she did not realize is the more she tried to make them miserable the more weight they all lost just to prove her wrong so that in turn made her even more miserable because she failed at what she was trying to do. Don't let stress make you eat and miserable because its just one time in your life that you have to take the bull by the horns and know that food won't solve the problem but only add to your problems. Have a blessed day because I will for sure.

Today I'm one month post up I down 15 pounds!! I'm continuing to learn more everyday and follow the rules!

Well I guess that big step is over with, I have a new friend now, I am not sure what to name it yet! lol As I have been told, the port sight will be the most painful area, and I agree to that. Keep the liquid vicodin going and ice packs help alot. I am nervous to make a wrong move or sip water too much. But I am learning. My Husband is an awesome nurse and assistant through my lap band procedure. I figured I would put a shout out to my latest status. God bless all ! keep up the great work, and thanks for listening.

so i was hanging with friends yesterday and we dont see each other very often. once a month maybe. anyway they decided they wanted to drink. n i wasnt gunna. but they convinced me to have a sip. no big deal. it made my stomach kind of crampy so i didnt continue (wasnt planning on it anyway but yeah) i did have some "scale-less victories" yesterday though. we were at subway. i didnt eat anything there. but we have friends that work there and they sort of burnt some cookies like 2 dozen and she brought the tray over and asked hey free cookies u want some? i didnt take any! and i love those cookies. my one friend took about six my other two. so that was good. but then we went back to my friends house to drink (them not me) and we decided we were gunna see what all the fuss was about on that chatroulette site. it was a horrible demeaning experience.. so we maybe talked to idk 15-10 people and three of them asked if i was my other friends' mother... im 21 for christ sake... one person as soon as they could see us started pointing and yelling "fat lady fat lady fat lady!!" over and over. another person said they didnt want to talk to us because i was a heifer... another person once they could see us said "WHOA" we asked what.. they said man she's fat. my friends just dont get it.. they just ignored these people and what they were saying to me..didnt even try to stick up for me.. they know its all true and so do i.. i would have just left but i never get to see them.. so it ruined my night and i was depressed all night. being the "buzz kill" that i am. it certainly didnt help i have been having a tough time w my depression and stuff this week.. not sure why but it feels like im off all of them.. not good.. they just dont get it and they literally are avoiding talking about the ELEPHANT in the room.. they tell me what do u care what random people think of you.. well cuz its confirming how i feel others look at me everyday especially at classes.. i have a hard time making friends and i feel thats half the reason.. i have no confidence and am so insecure that when people hit my like that it really really hurts... this is the only place where people might understand.. i dont expect people to say im beautiful, but my god.. another reason im posting this is so maybe when im successful with my band that i can look back at this and not forget how horrible things are/were. also i have now decided if i ever date people again my test is going to be what they think of obese people.. if they have bad feedback. theyre out of here. people suck. thats all i can say..

About three or so months ago Jacksonville held the biggest adoption event ever for cats and dogs. Over 850 cats and dogs were adopted in a single weekend. As some of you know I am a big advocate for abused animals and rescue overly abused iguanas. Every year over 8 million dogs and cats are euthanized because people refuse to spay or neuter their pets. That is 8 million too many. I vowed this year I was going to put some kind of happenings in to action regarding euthanasia and abuse to animals and began writing my senators and congress men and women. Of course they nix things like this off because after all it is just an animal. An animal that has no voice. We can house rapist and murderers, feed them, clothe them, provide shelter but can't save a helpless animal from being put to death because an owner just didn't want them anymore, refused to feed them, or like with pit bulls chose to fight them until they died. The first congressional hearing is going to happen. I am taking my voice to be their voice to Washington D.C. in April to stand before our law makers and make them accountable to make harsher punishments for people who abuse animals, to provide aide to shelters so that these animals can live until they are adopted, to make owners who surrender pets just because they don't want them anymore to have to pay fines besides just a surrender fee. With the help of three attorneys here in Jacksonville, our Mayor, and several SPCA members from this area along with law enforcement, we are all going to make our voices heard. Every cities shelters need help. If you can donate some of your time please do, if you have old blankets, can donate some food please do. These animals do not deserve to die because people throw them away like garbage. I am also urging any of you to write your senators and congressmen and women to provide the funds needed so that shelters won't have to euthanize animals. I know I am only one person but by God I am doing something to try to help save these babies. When you adopt an animal it is part of your family. I don't think any good parent would surrender a child because they didn't want them anymore. A pet is for life. Also if you want to adopt an animal go to a shelter. Most of the time you pay only 20 bucks and the animals are already fixed and if you already have an animal please get them spayed or neutered. We owe it to animals and children to make sure they get the best care they deserve.

Well I was always told by my surgeon that lapband patients should never throw up and this question has come up many times on the forums what happens if you get a stomach virus. Well I haven't had one in about 2 decades so I was kind of hoping I wouldn't ever get one again. Well last night after dinner my stomach felt like crap. I only ate a small amount of pork but I took some prilosec and went to bed. Holy crap at 2 a.m. I woke up heaving up what I thought was all my internal organs and had massive amounts of diarrhea I know TMI. The good thing was the only thing that was coming up was gas so it was just horrible dry heaving. I was home alone because my husband was away and I knew I could not drive to the hospital with a bucket heaving as hard as I was. I figured I would take some compazine I had from my gallbladder surgery and I called my surgeon. He said drink water even if it comes back up because it will make the throwing up less violent and meet him at his office at 6.a.m. Well so much for the compazine because that wouldnt even stay down. My doctor met me at his office at 6a.m gave me a shot for the nausea because he is nice like that and sent me for a stat ct scan. By now I was only throwing up about every hour. My little band was fine thank God. He said at three years post op that it is probably well adhered to the stomach so it would take more than this to move it. Of course I have major swelling so he told me clear liquids for the rest of the week and through the weekend and not to try to put any food in there even if I am hungry. He gave me a shot for the nausea which thank God has gone away and told me to drink plenty of gator aid for now. He didn't think there was a need to remove the fluid, just resting the stomach would do fine he said. Well the one good thing about all this is I hate more then anything to throw up and I was thankful that nothing came up. So now ya know if you have a stomach virus the first thing to do is call your doctor to guide you. He is there for me no matter what. I dont feel embarrassed to call him and this time I needed him. I don't like going to the ER's for things like this because there are worse off people then me in there. So now if the other end stops I will be fine. Trying to eat some italian water ice slowly just to get some fluids in. So my hope is to not have a stomach virus for another 4 decades now lol.

So.. I have signed up to do a 45 day challenge with my weight loss support group from my surgeon's office. The challenge is we have to exercise every day for 45 days. We then have to post a pic or a video of us doing the exercise or being active in some way on the group's facebook forum page. The prize is a chance to win a gift card. So today, I joined a gym. I have a friend who did the RNY surgery today. She goes to the same gym and will be working out with me when she is back on her feet. I don't really care about the gift card. I am excited to be excited about working out. This has never happened to me before. I usually hate the thought of any kind of physical activity. I feel good when i get up and out of the house for a while. I feel great after I dance with my daughter. I might not have dropped a ton of weight yet (who has at 4 weeks?), but I have a ton more energy. I am down 25 lbs so far. I am looking forward to seeing what I will look like and feel like after the 45 day challenge. Once it is over, I will post an album of the daily pictures so we can see the progress. If people want to see it. I thought it might be cool to see what a one and a half month transformation looks like.

Over the last month I have lost 6 classmates all from heart attacks, cancers and other ailments that were health fanatics, gym rats, runners. Being healthy is a plus but genetics plays a big role in how long we will live. When I was almost 300lbs I never had high cholesterol ever. My friend Lisa was a gym rat and dropped dead at 38 from a massive heart attack. My sons half brother died at 29 from a massive heart attack and when they did the autopsy he had heart disease. We all want to be healthy and have wls to get there. I feel great but my family has a history of breast cancer. So where am I going with this? Get the weight off and live each day to its fullest. Go on vacation, spend time with your family, make up to people who have done you wrong even if you know you were right. Life is too short to be waiting for health and wealth. My husband and I are just now looking to purchase our first home. Because the market is right. Jacksonville is a great area and the housing market is great. Do I want a 30 year mortgage at 50? Heck no but who cares I want my own home. We are spending a thousand dollars a month or rent when we could get a 4 bedroom home on water front property and pay about 415 a month in mortgage payments. So now my fun begins going to look at homes. Some as cheap as 98,000 for a three bedroom just built in 2007. The banks want to get rid of them so desperately they are going for practically nothing. Have fun, stop letting the number on the scale bum you out and do something that you always wanted to do.

So I am currently on the mushy stage of my diet. Basically I can eat whatever I can mush up or thick liquids. If it can be pureed or mushied it can be eaten right now. I have a rather large combined family and one of my biggest fears is it would be really hard not to want to eat the things the kids can have but I cannot. So subtly, over the last few grocery trips I have been making small changes that add up. I bought spaghetti sauce with less sugar in it. I bought turkey meatballs and I changed their pasta to whole wheat. (I dont eat the pasta and probably never will again). So when I made dinner.. The kids never said a word about the new taste of the meal. They loved it! They never knew the difference in the meatballs because I never said anything like "Hey this is really different.. try it". I just cooked like normal but with better ingredients. The family had their pasta dinner and I had two mushed up tiny meatballs and a little bit of sauce. Family dinner was a success. Then last night's dinner was Mexican food night. Now.. I LOVE Mexican food. There is a little hole in the wall place here in the town I live in that I visited at least 4 times a week pre surgery. Yeah.. I admit it.. its my favorite and a weakness. I made the taco meat with ground turkey and just seasoned it like normal. The seasoning turned it the orange color and gave it the same flavor. The kids never knew the difference. Used lower fat cheese and for the fajitas we did grilled chicken. I had fat free refried beans with a little salsa on top. Lunch today was tomato soup with skim milk. They love tomato soup so that was never a fear. I was so scared I would want to eat junk food. In all reality I am improving the health of my kids and they don't even know the difference. I am not making a huge deal out of EVERYTHING HAS TO CHANGE!!! If I do that.. they will shut down and not want anything new. I bought this HUGE box of sugar free popsicles and the kids love them for treats. I wanted to write this blog to let other people know if you are worried about how the kids will react to the diet changes, just change it. Just make stuff and set it on the table. The rule in my house is if you are hungry enough you will eat. Try to make small little changes to favorites that make them healthier without changing everything they love. Another thing we have always done is there is never ever tv on during dinner. It is our time as a family to talk about the day. I think this kind of distracts them a little bit. It is so important for me to keep that time as a special family time. Where food was always the center of family get togethers, I think it in some ways still can be. We just have to make healthier decisions. So far even right down to the 6 year old, I have gotten great support from my kiddos. I am so happy my major change can also be a healthy change for them without negatively impacting them. The last thing I want is to find any of my daughters obsessing over a scale before school. I want this to be an easy transition for everyone. While I am still learning what I can eat, I am having fun experimenting and looking at new things to cook for everyone. I am sure I can come up with healthy treats and things kids love without gaining weight back. I am just going to have to make the effort and be excited and say things like Oh my gosh you guys.. this is so yummy. If I have something yummy, most of the time they want to try it. I still have my days where the smell of bacon wants me to know over my grandma for a plate of food.. but I think this journey is going to be a lot less hard than I thought as long as I just do it. My imagination is so much worse than reality. Don't pysche yourself out. You got this.