Caribear

Congratulations!

LOL! Enjoy your pedicure! On a more serious note, I'm glad your hand is healing and that your band is working well for you. You're doing great!

Well, I'm glad it's not anything super serious, but I know how bad migraines can be and I'm sorry you have to deal with that. Hopefully the walking will help.

I agree about myfitnesspal, it is really great. I haven't been banded yet, but I got a book called "Weight Loss Surgery Cookbook For Dummies" (lol!) and it has a lot of really tasty recipes in it. I know that they won't all be band-friendly, but there are probably quite a few that you could be comfortable with. It is high Protein, low-ish carb. Not completely like Atkins, but I prefer it that way. I wish you the best of luck, and I will be praying for you.

Congratulations!

How exciting, I'm so happy for you! You're doing awesome, keep up the good work!

Glad you're doing well, and that you have a doctor who really cares! That's great!

Yup, I think it was down for the past two days...I couldn't get on either, and if you look at the posts, they're either from the last hour or so or from two days ago...glad it's back now!

Thanks everybody for the encouragement. I still know that this is the right decision for me, and I'm continuing on no matter how fearful I may be. Honestly I have more to fear if I don't do this than what I have written here. @Godsgirl - that is one of my favorite verses!

Thanks Shirley, I will have to do that. I'm not too worried about losing enough to fall below the criteria for the band. I'm at 370 right now, with a BMI of 58ish, so even if I lost 100 pounds I would still qualify. I don't know if I have the willpower to do that anyway, but who knows... Congratulations for all your success, by the way. You're doing awesome!

LOL! Too funny! I agree, I admire your sense of humor. If we can't laugh at ourselves, we're taking things completely too seriously. Something that I did when my pants would get too big was to get a safety pin and make a "pleat" in the back or side where it's not so noticeable. It might help get you through until you absolutely have to get new pants.

Congratulations Allison, that's awesome! It's great to hear that you are doing so well. Isn't it frustrating when one of your main support people isn't "supporting" your decision? I know my mom will stand behind me with whatever I choose, but right now she just really doesn't want me to do this. My boyfriend, on the other hand, is being super supportive. I think it got through to him when I looked him in the eye and told him that I wanted to do this because I don't want to die slowly like my dad did, and that I didn't want to do that to him or to our son. If you know there is a procedure out there that can prevent something like that, you do it. I wish you good luck and continued success!

I had my informational seminar on Wednesday. My mom and boyfriend came along with me, which was awesome. The seminar was really interesting. One of the surgeons did the presentation, and he talked about some of the history of obesity and the reasons why it's so hard for us to lose weight. I did not know that eating only an extra 200 calories per day can add up to gaining 100 pounds in five years ( !!!). It was really eye-opening. After he went through all of that, he started discussing all of the surgery options they offer at their practice. The four he talked about were lap-band, gastric sleeve, traditional bypass, and biliopancreatic diversion with duodenal switch (BPD/DS). He was very thorough and did not seem to be favoring any one procedure over another; he discussed both the advantages and disadvantages of each type. At the end he had some of his existing patients come in and share their success stories. It was very inspiring. When the seminar was over, the surgeon stuck around to answer any private questions. I came up and asked him about my fibromyalgia and if it would cause any specific complications. He said that it would not be a problem and that I would be ok to go ahead and proceed with any surgery I chose. I then mentioned that I was interested in the lap band. He told me that in general, they tend to discourage people with a higher BMI from choosing the band because it has "limited average loss of excess weight." He had mentioned earlier that most of the higher BMI patients choose the BPD/DS because you can lose up to 80% of your excess weight vs. 60% with the band (average). But he also told me that it would be something we could discuss at my first consultation. Personally, I still know that the band is the right decision for me. It is the safest of all the procedures they discussed, with the lowest mortality and short term complication rate. Plus there is hardly any risk for malnutrition because the stomach is not removed, just restricted. I know from previous surgeries that it takes me a long time to recover, so I can not imagine choosing to have the BPD/DS. It is an open procedure, not laparoscopic, and there is a lot of cutting and rearranging involved. Neither can I imagine doing the bypass. I would consider the sleeve, but since it is a fairly new procedure, my insurance will not cover it. Plus my boyfriend quit his driving job yesterday, so there's no way I can do self-pay either...so that only leaves the lap-band. Yesterday I called my mom to discuss the seminar with her and see if it changed her mind at all. She first said that it had encouraged her to decide to lose some weight this year, and that we could do it together. Then she said that she still didn't want me to do it. She really feels that God will heal my fibromyalgia, and then I can work out more and lose the weight on my own. But she is forgetting something. The fibromyalgia is not the problem. I have been obese for most of my life. I have lost considerable amounts of weight in the past, but it has ALWAYS come back. I have never been able to lose any large amount of weight and keep it off for any reasonable amount of time. I'm not bad at losing the weight, I'm bad at keeping it off. That's why I feel I should go ahead with the band. It will help me keep my portions small and remind me to keep my choices healthy. Acting on an idea I got from another brilliant member of this site, I went out and bought a cookbook for weight loss surgery patients and have been eating from it for almost a week now. The food is yummy, easy to fix, and my family likes it too. Plus, I have lost another five pounds! I told my mom about this and she said "See? You don't need the surgery! You're doing great on your own!" *sigh* But at least I know I will actually be able to cook something after the surgery that will taste good and that my son will actually eat. Monday morning I will head to my family doctor to start my nine-month supervised diet, and hopefully he will let me stay with this since I have had some success with it already. And hopefully my insurance company won't deny my surgery because I've lost weight. All in all, I'm pretty excited and cautiously optimistic.

Congratulations! It is very inspiring to read about people like yourself who have had real success with the band. Keep up the good work!

Thank you for the replies. That's the thing - I'm able to lose some weight on my own, but not all that I need to, and I'm not able to keep it off long term. 30 pounds over the course of nine months wouldn't be unheard of for me, but if I were to try on my own to keep it off I would put it back on within a year.

I have had my gallbladder removed, which is somewhat similar to the lapband surgery from what I hear, and I can tell you the worst part is the waiting. On your actual surgery day, everything goes so fast that you don't really have time to be that scared, and before you know it you're waking up in recovery. One minute the anesthesiologist is putting the mask over your face, the next thing you know you're done. You'll be fine.

I haven't been banded yet, but the thing that calms my nerves is thinking that, like shay said, I can either take the slight risk of dying in surgery (something like .65%) or keep on like I am and know that I will die early like my dad did (100%). Plus it helps knowing that this is the safest of all the bariatric surgeries. I'm sure you will be fine. Your surgeon looks very capable, and I'm sure he and his team will take good care of you. Again, like shay said, you can do it.

Awesome job! And I have to agree, you are lovely!

Thanks for the advice! I love your blog, BTW. You're doing awesome, keep it up!

This definitely helps me, Zil. It really reconfirms everything I've seen and read so far. Thank you so much for the insight. : )

I know how you feel... my old scale made me want to tear my hair out because if I stepped on it three times in a row, it would give me three different weights, up to 30 pounds apart. And yes, it is on a hard floor, I've had lots of people ask me about that. But I recently got a new scale that was pretty good value for the money. It's nowhere near those high-end scales, but it gives me consistent weights within a pound of each other. It's an EatSmart scale, and it was less than $30 on Amazon. Here's the link if you want to check it out. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001KXZ808/ref=oh_o03_s00_i00_details

Lol that is too funny. Well congratulations anyway!

Specifically for those who had been overweight their whole lives... I've been thinking about this for a long time, and I just have to ask. Have you had any problems emotionally dealing with being "thin" for the first time? I've been obese or morbidly obese for my whole adult life and most of my childhood, and I just can't wrap my head around what it would feel like to be a normal weight. I'm ready to be healthy, but I've never known what it was like to not be the "fat girl"...

There's nothing wrong with wanting support while going through such a major stressful life decision. And it does take a lot of strength to admit that we can't always do everything on our own. I don't know how you feel about God, but He is always there to hold your hand when you need it. And there are plenty of people here going through similar experiences as you who would be willing to hold your virtual hand, myself included. Don't hesitate to send me a message if you need someone to talk to, I'm on here a lot. I will help you in any way I can. You can do this. <3