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Have you ever taken a bit of something and as you are chewing it you think “this is way too big of a bit” so you stuff half the bit in your cheek and swallow the other half? And a few seconds later you swallow the half in your cheek… How did that work out for you? It has never worked out successfully for me. Usually within minutes I am at the sink or toilet watching the bits go down the drain… sorry if this is TMI. I hate it when this happens and often it happens when I an overly hungry or the meal is really tasty. That makes it even worse because it ends the meal completely for me. So, I have to remember to take small bits, even when it is really really good and chew them completely, otherwise my yellow rose will reject them and I will not enjoy my meal. Lesson learned; I am not a squirrel!

Okay so I am going to be totally 100% honest here on what lapband has meant to me: 1- A chance to like how my body looks. 2- A chance to shop in the "normal" section. 3- A chance to be healthy as I age. 4- A chance to take my life back. 5- A chance to learn. I know many of these are vain, but it's the truth. I mean be honest here, who doesn't want to look in the mirror and go damn I look good- or at the least look in the mirror and go uh, I look pretty good. For the ladies out there, I am sure you will agree- it's nice to lose weight and see that little glimmer of somethin' somethin' in your significant other's eye. I want to be sexy for my hubs and have him be proud of what I look like on the outside as he is about what is on the inside. And, yes, dang it- it feel darn good to be able to buy clothing the size doesn't have a W attached. I am 32 now and while I was healthy when I had surgery with no health issues and rarely ever needed a doctor- I knew that those days were numbered. I knew it time I would likely end up diabetic like my dad, or with heart issues like my brother and grandfather or any other major health problems. I wanted to insure that as I age I can do it in a healthy manner. As far as taking my life back, I had come to the point where I realized food ruled my life. My co-workers and I would spend an hour in the mornings discussing and deciding on where we would go for lunch. I ate crap and would feel like crap. I would over eat and have horrible indigestion and stomach cramps that would make me feel aweful. I wanted to rule my food, not it ruling me. Leaning- I think I will always be a learner/researcher. I love to read and study- I could be a professional student if I had enough money. I have read a lot of health, food, calories- basically how our bodies work. I like understanding things better. Now I know if I would have know some of this earlier, boy it would have made a difference. The way I look at food and what I put in my body is totally different. But, will I ever eat something totally decadent and sinfully calorie loaded again - yep. Being honest here- I fully intend on having some Red Velvet Cheesecake Factory Cheese cake for my anniversary. The difference in pre and post band - that cheese cake slice will not all be eaten by me and it will now follow a huge equally calorie loaded meal and it will not take place multiple time of year. This is not about restricted myself for everything I love, it's about a balance between over doing ( which was what I did before ) and driving myself crazy with restrictions. This journey is going to be long, God willing, (the rest of my life). Everyday is a choice, every meal is a choice - I am the only one to blame or pat on the back for my choices because they are MINE. I want all the things that the band gave me a chance at, but the only way I am going to achieve it is if I do my part. The only person I can cheat is myself.

Ok, the last week has been kinda stressful and I know it's only going to get worse. My job is changing greatly over the next few months and I am having learn a lot of new things and work extra to keep up with my job while I learn a new system. So maybe I am just stressed, but I need to rant for a min...... WLS is Easy WTH. I saw someone this weekend who hadn't seen me for a while and told me I looked great. Of course the next thing out of her mouth was how did you lose so much weight? I said that I was really watching what I ate, eating healthier and moving more, and that I had lapband surgery. Her comment was, oh well you are lucky then you can't gain weight. I wanted to expload at that moment. The thing is with lapband or ANY WLS you can gain weight. Gaining weight is EASY, not losing it. I can gain by eating more than I expend- calorie layden thing (milkshakes, chips, ice cream, cake, ect). I can gain just like anyone else. It really bothers me that people still have this misconception that WLS makes it so much easier. Does it help, YES, does it make it easy HELL NO. BMI vs Size Ok so here is another thing that is buggin me. My entire life doctors have complained about my weight. I have been over weight since I was 5. Over 200 since middle school (now 190's). Now that I am losing and I have studied info, I congnitivly know that the scale isn't totally accurate when it comes to my health. I have lost 50+ lbs, while my weight is in the 190's I am far smaller than I thought I would be in the 190's. Why, because of my muscle to fat ratio. It is often said that muscle weighs more than fat, not exactly true. A pound of muscle takes up far less room than a pound of fat. A stick of butter and a ball bearing may weigh the same, but that ball bearing is much smaller. So my muscle mass has increased, and my shape has decreased, but the scale isn't moving these days. Yet when I go to the doctors they look at the scale and calculate my BMI and tisk tisk tisk. WTH- Doc please look at the whole pic instead of one fasit. I am a work in progress not a completed project. Fear factor I will be the first to say that I am scared, paranoid, terrified of gaining weight back. I have tried way to long to lose, now that it has begun I do not want to revert. So yes I am almost obsessive over it. Is this good, not really, but it's me. I look at what I eat, I weigh daily, I move more. Being a scientific person I like to see cause and effect. How does what I put in effect measurment and weight. I chart every thing so I can take it to my doctor. Judgements Ok, so maybe I am paranoid that people judge me when they aren't, but I think that comes from my years of low self esteem. I often see people state, Oh you are doing what your suppose to so don't worry about the scale, don't weigh it just drives you crazy, don't worry the weight will come off. Yes, I know all the data- about the scale doesn't show the whole picture, that we should keep on doing what we are suppose to when the scales stops and in time weight will come off. But, gee am I the only human on here that while I know this, it still doesn't make me happy that the scale isn't going down. Ok, so maybe I am judging others here, but here it goes.... some people post and make statements on here that make them appear that they are perfect. They are losing, they are doing what the doctor says, they aren't weighing daily- happy, happy, joy, joy. It's like they never get frustrated or impatient ever. I honestly wonder sometimes are they really like that, or are they just putting on a front on this sight. Because while this journey hasn't been the tooth and nail climb that diets have been in the past, it has not been all hunky dory and perfect. So my thought for them is be human, I have flaws I get stressed, and I know you do to, no matter if you want to admit it or not. I think newbies need to know and see the entire picture. Yes, you do what your doc and NUT say. Will this be easy - no. Will you hit plateaus- yes. Will you get frustrated at times- hell yes. Will what works for me work for you- maybe/maybe not. Okay so enough of my ranting. If I offended anyone sorry, chalk it up to me having a bee in my bonnett to day and had one straw to many put on my pile. Thanks for letting me rant!!

I first want to give a shout out to JennJitters for inspiring me to write this blog. I saw a blog she put out where she listed all the things she wanted to do when she lost the weight and I wanted to do the same thing. I am one week post op today and I wanted a list of things that I could look back on in 9 months or a year and say "yes! I did that" You don't have to read all the way through, It will probably be a fairly long list because there are allot of things I want to be able to do. This is mostly just for me but I am willing to share it because I know that you all probably feel the same way about most of these things... Learn how to rock climb Hike and summit any mountain I feel like (I love the Olympics) Go horseback riding and not feel like I'm killing the horse Have children and be able to play with them Be in shape for the first time in my life Walk into a room and not think everyone is staring at me because I'm big Have my first ever Valentines Day date Take the stairs not wishing there was an elevator Be able to get cloths at any store without wondering if they have my size Ware cloths in the single digits Be confident in myself Fit in the rides at the fair.. I love rides! Ware a bikini and feel good about it Learn how to snowboard Be able to buy shews that are not "wide" Be able to ware high heal shoes for more than 20 minutes without being in pain Sky dive! Oh yes I really want to do this! lol Have a man pick me up Not be controlled by food Eat to live not live to eat Buy longerie and feel good wearing it Be able to have pretty panties that are not hidden under a roll Be able to share cloths with my sister (she has the coolest cloths!) Take full body pictures and not hate them Have only one size of cloths in my closet (not 5 different sizes depending on what diet I am on this week) Be comfortable in a normal size sleeping bag Go to the gym and not be self conscious To be able to fit comfortably on an airplane To be able to do a hand stand... why not? To be able to do advanced yoga Get a tattoo Fit in a playground swing without hurting my hips To feel sexy Now lets see how long it takes to mark off a few of these

Ok so I went and saw my surgen today for a fill. First I told him about everything that has been going on with the death in my family and me eating off. And to my surprise he told me he was proud of me, for taking responsibility for my actions. I also told him about all the lovely people I have been talking to on this forum and how yall have help me. On to the visit I get on the scale and to my surpised I'm down two more pounds. Can you say all smiles. You guys have truely help me a lot and I can't think you enough for the support. I was so happy when I left the office I went and did three miles at the gym. :wub:

My wife and I have been quite open with our two daughters (9 and 12) about my lap band. Before surgery we walked them through what would happen, how it would affect my life and more than that why I was doing it. So as I have had to adjust to my new lifestyle, my daughters and wife have adjusted with me. But I didn't realize the extent of that adjustment until I heard these words come out of my 9 year old's mouth "Mom, you are chewing too fast, you need to slow down!" The look of shock on my wife's face was priceless

Breakfast and I have never been friends. Then again, mornings and I are not on the best of terms either. I'm so not one of those people who get out of bed ready to face the world and any challenges that come at me. Rather, I get out of bed bitter, grumpy, semi-conscious, hostile, and mute. It takes a minimum of one cup of coffee before it's safe for anyone in the vicinity to approach me, let alone talk to me. If I attempt to eat sooner than at least 1 to 1-1/2 hours after I wake up, everything I swallow makes a return appearance. Before banding, I ate in the morning depending on craving, attitude, and general quirk of fate. Since being banded (while being compliant) I never eat breakfast. I know all the "rules" about breakfast. It's the most important meal of the day. You need to restart your metabolism after your overnight fast or your body will go into starvation mode. Eating breakfast makes your metabolism work harder all day to burn more calories. People who skip breakfast usually eat more calories over the course of the day than people who eat it. I've heard it all more than once, but the key word (especially in the last bit) is "usually." In other words, it's not always the case. Take me, for example. My normal routine is to wake up (reluctantly) about 8:30 or 9 (I love to sleep, and I work for myself, so I allow myself the luxury there). I shower, then stumble out into the house for a cup of coffee. Since I drink my coffee with cream (half and half, 20 calories worth, carefully measured), I try to limit myself to one cup. By 10, then, I'm usually ready to start my day. Generally, I get quite hungry by 12, so I begin fixing lunch and eat around 12:30. Then my tummy starts rumbling about 3 at the moment, since I need another fill. If it's not too terrible, I hold out til 4, when I have a small snack (cheese or something else protein rich). That keeps me until dinner around 6:30 or so. It's a system that works for me. I count all my calories and stick to my plan without issue. Well, every once in a while I start questioning myself about whether I might really be doing this all wrong, and I decide to have breakfast to see if everyone else is right. Today I planned to up my calorie intake anyway, so I decided that it would be a good day to experiment with breakfast. I got up at 8:30 and went through my routine, but at 10 instead of just finishing my coffee, I was sitting down to a healthy breakfast of about 300 calories. I ate it, finished around 10:30, and since enough time had passed, it stayed down. It was yummy, so I enjoyed it, and it was almost entirely protein, so it should have kept me satisfied until around 1 pm. By 11:45 I was hungry again. At noon I was ready to gnaw my own arm off, and all day since I've been hungrier than usual and exerting all my self control not to eat more than my planned intake. Now this may be evidence that my metabolism is working faster due to breakfast, but to me it's not worth it. I can lose weight without the boost, and I do it without the misery of constant hunger that breakfast seems to cause in me. Maybe that makes me a freak of some sort, but I've finally decided that what works for me is the most important thing. That, and losing the weight, of course.

Get your ass moving AJ! You have been slacking on this. The Fitbit doesn't lie. It shows that your daily steps are way down, no where near the 10,000 step per day goal. And what happened to taking the stairs at work???? Slacking there too! Vacation is over! First tine tomorrow you will get moving. Tomorrow, hell, what is wrong with right now? Stop typing and get moving! NOW!!!! Will do, just as soon as this video is over. OK, as long as you dance during the video!!!

So I guess that part of this is an actual scale victory, but in some ways it isn't. My whole goal for WLS was to get off as many drugs as possible. I've been taking diabetes medicine along with hbp meds, and cholesterol meds for almost 10 years. In actuality I've never been diagnosed as a diabetic, only IGT and I've never had high cholesterol. The endocrinologist that I saw, felt that this was a preventative measure. My BP was high at the time, but I am not sure that I really needed the meds. By the time I saw the Dr. I has dropped about 60 pounds, and I think if he had waited a bit before testing me, we would have seen that my numbers were coming down. My A1C never got about 6.1 until right before surgery when it when to 7.0. I was taking Actos, (a proven carcinogen) 2000mg Metformin, Avapro and Vytorin. I took myself off the Actos right before surgery after reading that it will lead to bladder cancer. After surgery, I cut my meformin back to 1500mgs. On Wednesday, I went to my PCP who has been really very supportive and we talked in detail about my plan to get off the drugs entirely. He hedges a bit, but I think he feels we can get there. So....he cut my metformin to 1000mg, cut out my Vytorin entirely and to my surprise cut my Avapro to half the dosage!!! Wasn't even lobbying for that one. We did a blood test to baseline my numbers and will do another in 3 months. I'm down 50 lbs since November 20th and have 50 to go to hit my goal. It feels SOOO good to be off the drugs. Just by having the surgery has increased my quality of life 100%. By summer, I expect to be drug free! If you are reading this and you haven't had surgery yet. This is probably the best reason above all to do it. It won't be the easiest thing that you will do and at times you will hate it But gosh the benefits so out weigh the short term struggles. Peace... John

When I first decided to have VSG, I didn’t initially come to this board. I did my research, talked to my Drs. and went through the process. Any questions that I had, I was able to research through the internet and typically I found answers. If I couldn’t I would discuss them with my Dr. or my nutritionist during my 6 month pre-op requirement. I found this board just days before my surgery. I came here looking for mutant people like myself. People whose life had spun out of control and sought solace and comfort in excessive food and drink. People who had decided that they have had enough of the churn. People that were taking the steps to improve their health and their lives. People that actually allowed themselves to be spread out on an operating table and let a group of strangers cut out a perfectly good stomach. You see, I don’t have a lot of support at home as my spouse had RNY a few years back and failed to maintain her weight and is fairly obese again. She’s been pretty passive aggressive about the whole thing and, well that’s a whole Jerry Springer episode all in itself. I don’t have any close family, and I didn’t share my surgery with anyone who was particularly close friend wise. For some unexplained reason, I needed to be in a tribe for this journey, so I found this board. I came here and I met a whole raft of nice people, people that I enjoyed conversing with on a daily basis, mutants like myself (you all know who you are, and I thank you for the friendship that you all have extended to me). I learned things on this board and I contributed and tried to support. As I did, I came to realize that this surgery is a whole lot tougher on some people than it had been for me both physically and mentally. I guess that I had focused so much on trying to lose the weight and get healthy, that I didn’t see WLS as that big of deal. I’ve done every diet, taken nutrition classes as part of my school work, was a pretty faithful follower of good gym habits; I just couldn’t put down the fork and the cup. I barreled through all this like I always had, by not taking any prisoners. It never occurred to me that others weren’t like that, so it was an eye opening experience to hear the struggles of others. As I tried to pass along my experiences and support, I started getting offline messages. Some were funny, some were more questions, but over the last couple of weeks, I got a couple that were just down right mean. I was being chided for responding in an honest and forthright manner, not being judgmental, but offering an opinion based on experience and facts. Then last week, I was perusing a thread over in one of the other sections that basically called out the so called “vets” on the board for hijacking threads and interjecting silliness and nonsense into too many threads. The poster felt like all this should be relegated to the chat room and policed off the boards. What really melted my butter was a reply by someone that I had truly respected, and someone that had been chastised openly on the board for some of their responses, actually agreeing with the poster about how some of the “vets” handled their posts. This was someone that I had actually defended and sent a message of encouragement to, now blazing away at others (and myself, in my opinion) on the board. It was a wake-up call that maybe there are mutants here that don’t come here for the same reasons that I do. Maybe they feel that this should be a very narrow, well patrolled repository of information and facts, and that there’s no room for a joke and a smile and a bit of irreverent behavior among the tribes people. So, last week I decided to take a few days away from VST and figure out what I wanted from it. Had I graduated from the tribe of mutants? Was this drama that seems to interweave itself into threads on a regular basis worth it? Had I really been that callus in my responses as I was accused of being? I even visited another gastric sleeve board just to get a perspective of how the other tribes live. Then, it dawned on me that we all come here to get something that we need. It might be information, it might absolution, it may be reassurance, and it might even be a joke when we need one, but we all come here seeking something. Because my reasons for being here are different from others, I shouldn’t be castigated for offering an opinion or a word of tough love or even warm and fuzzy encouragement. I shouldn't feel bad to have a joke with a fellow mutant about some nonsense. But, I have decided that for now, it is best that I don’t participate as regularly as I have in the past. I want to continue to learn, I want to see how others react to their quest for health, but mainly I want to be with my tribe. I can do that from the lurkers chair just as easy as I can by participating and I don’t have to sweep the drama from my mailbox. Thanks for listening – I appreciate each and every one of you for taking the courage to make the life altering changes necessary to live a long and happy life. Peace.... John