morelgirl

Good luck! I left which type of band to install up to Dr Jan. He went with Realize. According to him there's no real difference in results that he's seen. I think the only thing is how each one fits your anatomy. I'm happy with mine so far! 21 lbs down!

Congratulations to both you and your hubby! Hope all continues smoothly on your journey.

I have an 11cc Realize band. My doctor gave me a card when he discharged me from the hospital to keep in my wallet. It has all the info about my band in case any other medical professional treating me needs the info. It's pre-printed by the band company with all the band info and my surgeon just filled in his name and the date of the surgery. Did you not receive one of these?

Thank you for sharing. I have a great relationship with my mom and she never treated me cruelly about my weight, but she still managed to give me a whollllllle bunch of food issues unintentionally. Because she was unhappy with her own weight, she always kept a close eye on mine and encouraged me to lose or put me on diets so that I "wouldn't have to go through what [she] had gone through." Guess what? I ended up just as heavy as her with a totally whacked out relationship with food and a metabolism slower than bloody molasses. Your story touched me and made me sad and inspired me all at once. You sound like you're managing to break the cycle with your own children, so congratulations for that MAJOR accomplishment!

That's a complex question! Only you can decide whether or not you're ready, but I will tell you that you can MAKE lap band work for you as long as you commit to working the lap band. That doesn't mean saying goodbye to food, just sitting it down for a serious discussion and then going to couples' counseling with it! No one can "give up" food; we need it to survive! And even giving up certain foods is difficult and part of what makes diets fail for 95% of us. That's the reason we turn to lap band. What we CAN do, though, is change our relationship with food. The band can and does help with this, but it won't do it alone. You also have to work on your mind set. You need to start seeing that while food can and should bring us pleasure and satisfaction, it isn't the key to those feelings. We can experience both in the absence of food as well. Good times and celebrations include food, but also good company and people we care about. Rewards can be other things that being us pleasure, from massages to pedicures to a good book or a planned "day without chores." Summer can be about good weather and outdoor activities and fun can be about whatever makes us smile and laugh. Food makes me smile occasionally, but I don't really get its jokes! Now, it's easy to say all those things, but harder to accomplish some of them. If you have trouble with them and it's at all possible for you, I do recommend seeing a therapist who specializes in disordered eating to help with the process (check out http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org to find one). You don't need to actually have a recognized eating disorder to benefit from their expertise. Not only can they help you understand why you feel the way you do about food, they can also help you develop concrete strategies to reshape your behavior. Best of luck! I'm certain you can do anything you set your mind to!

It's really a yes AND no question. Immediately after surgery, most people do think they feel restriction in that they are not hungry and get full fairly quickly even off liquids. The problem is that usually this doesn't last more than a couple of days to a couple of weeks, because it isn't actually the band "restricting" the amount of food you eat; it's the swelling in your stomach caused by the trauma of surgery. As your stomach heals, the swelling goes down and that initial feeling of "restriction" disappears until you begin getting sufficient fills in your band. A similar process happens with the filled band, as I understand it. You will be filled enough to experience restriction, then as you lose weight, you will lose fat in your stomach, shrinking that organ and thus making the band looser. That's why you need to go back later and get another fill to start the cycle over again. Hope that helps!

I've only had my band for 6 weeks and only have 1 fill of 3cc so far, so I don't have much restriction. So far, I can eat everything I've tried and I've tried almost everything, including bread, pasta, beef, rice, and reheated chicken breast, all of which I've heard are VERY hard for some bandsters to eat. It may be because I'm not tight enough yet to have any trouble. BTW, I'm not saying I eat a ton of all those things! I definitely watch my calories and portion sizes (eat about 1000 cal/day) but I like to have a lot of variety in my food, so I haven't cut anything out completely. That might change, but right now I'm doing well. I make smart choices (very few sweets or junk foods) but I think it's important not to deprive yourself. When I deprive, I end up going bonkers when my willpower finally breaks. By having small amounts of "unhealthy" food occasionally, I feel satisfied to do a big splurge.

I agree with everything you said, but especially this: "The band doesn't fail people; People fail the band." Unless you had an incompetent surgeon who placed the band incorrectly, or you're one of the extraordinarily rare people who had a mechanically defective band, the band works. Or maybe I should say the BAND PROGRAM works, because nothing is a magic cure for obesity, not even the band (or sleeve, or bypass, for that matter). The band is simply a key component in a system that involves eating less, eating more wisely, eating healthier, and moving your body more often. You can't just pick and choose which of those pieces of the system you're going to actually do. You have to do them all. If you don't, you won't lose weight. But the band didn't fail; the bandster did.

Oh, boy, do I remember that feeling. It wasn't that long ago! I looked at the four hour appointment block as fun, because it made the whole process seem so REAL finally. The nutritionist was very nice, very enthusiastic, and super supportive, so that was great, and the exercise class was pretty basic stuff...if you've done any exercise classes before, you'll already understand all the info. The doctor wasn't my favorite, but he was thorough and the exam was routine, except for the EKG (which, of course, I had to make interesting). And you're lucky with your lab tests. I had to have a few of them redone because of my wonky results. My blood refuses to be normal As for the "last meal syndrome," do try not to look at it that way. There's no reason to think you won't EVER get to have certain foods again. The point of the band, to my mind, is to aid you in eating normally, meaning you can eat all foods, but you will more easily control your portions and eat fewer calories. 6 weeks after banding, I'm able to eat anything I try so long as I follow the rules of small bites, chewing til the cows come home (and probably looking like I'm chewing my cud!), and eating slowly. If you don't have that "never again" mentality, it might be easier to resist shoving it all in before the pre-op diet deadline. Best of luck!

The excitement of the moment is that I will be getting my fence fixed! Yay! In a remarkable stroke of luck, I got a phone call last week from a detective with the local police department (this was entirely different from the department that took my report of the fence damage...since I live outside the incorporated city limits, the sheriff's department had jurisdiction over my report). It turns out that she was in the neighborhood the morning of the incident and actually SAW a tow truck hit my fence, tear it down, then turn and flee the scene. Since she was out of jurisdiction, she didn't stop them, but she made note of the name of the towing company and tracked down their phone number. When she called them and explained that the driver could be arrested because he hadn't stopped to exchange info or report the hit and run, suddenly the company was happy to contact me and arrange to pay for the fence repair. So next week, I'll have the fencing company out to replace nearly 40 ft of damaged fence. Woohoo! Other than that, I'm mostly holding my breath. My daily weigh-ins seem very promising this week, but I'm scared to believe it yet. I haven't been doing anythig really differently than I have over the last 2 weeks, when I began varying my calorie intake daily. Actually, that's not quite true. The one thing I've altered a little bit is that I've been much better about drinking water since my last weigh-in. I still don't drink nearly the amounts you hear recommended (2/3 of your body weight in ounces??? I'd end up drowning myself!!!), but I've been getting in a minimum of 8 glasses of fluid and guaranteeing that at least 6 of them are pure water. So maybe that's actually helping? I've heard people before swear up and down that drinking water can help you lose weight, but I guess I'm just stubborn and hadn't really paid attention to it before. Silly me. Anyway, official weigh-in is on Wednesday, and I've got my fingers crossed that the number on the scale from this morning either holds steady or continues to drop. We'll see!

I use MyFitnessPal, too. I have it on my iPad and my iPhone and it automatically syncs the information I enter in one device to the other, so I never have to worry about keeping track. When you set up an MFP account, you enter your weight, height, age, activity level and whether you want to lose 0.5, 1, 1.5, or 2 lbs per week. Then it automatically calculates your calories and nutritional needs for each day (I find the calorie level too high, so I adjust accordingly). I originally started using it to track my grams of Protein, since I had trouble keeping track of those. My nutritionist wants me eating 50-60 grams or more per day. MFP recommends about 55, so that works well for me. The program has a huge database of food already in there, so you just type in what you ate, and it calculates the calories and nutritional info for you and keeps a running tally. I LOVE it. It's my favorite toy. I use all the MFP info and just set my own calorie level, which I put at about 1000. I have found, though, after years of dieting and about 6 weeks of being banded, that I lose better when I vary my calories a bit. Some days I only eat 850 and some days I eat up to 1200 (once in a great while I eat 1300-1400, but generally I regret it and I might gain a few ounces the next day), but when MFP sums up my eating at the end of the week, I average around 1000/day and this seems to be working for me for slow, steady weight loss. Best of luck!

Stace, I think everyone is different as far as the rate of weight loss. I was banded 6.5 weeks ago and have lost 18.8 lbs since beginning my pre-op diet, so it's been fairly slow for me. BUT, I weigh myself daily (record my weight 1/week) and this week it looks like I might have a bigger loss than I have been. Not sure what's different, since I haven't changed anything, but it just goes to show that weight loss is a mysterious and unexplainable process. For most people the rate of loss will fluctuate, so it may slow down for you for a while, then speed up, then slow down again. The important thing is to remember that as long as the weight keeps coming off, you're doing great. Good luck!

I agree that you're expecting a lot. My surgeon told me losses were "usually 1-2 lbs per week." Anytime someone says "usually" you have to figure that some people lose that much, some people lose a lot more and some lose a lot less. I think if we go into this expecting to always be at the high end, we're setting ourselves up for disappointment. So far, I've been a slow loser and that's been tough for me to cope with, but I just keep reminding myself that losing slow is still losing, and that's what I'm after. Best of luck to you. To me, it sounds like you're doing great.

Well, yesterday I was. I was happy for 5 minutes. Maybe 7. I didn't time it (though now I think maybe I should have). I had my weekly weigh in, and for the first time since the week after surgery, I actually lost 1 whole pound. Plus. I lost 1.8 lbs. Yippee! That's like a normal weight loss, right? That means I really CAN lose 1-2 lbs per week just like the surgeon told me. I can be a real bandster! I can lose this *#$#&$%@! weight in less than 5 years! I can do it! I ROOOOCCCCCKKKKKKK! Then I remembered that I lost 0 last week. Zero. Zilch. Goose eggs. The big nothing. Which meant that my mind automatically did the math (I hate when it does that. I hate math.) and calculated that this fact brought my average down to 0.9 lbs for those 2 weeks. Yup, less than a pound a week. Cue 3-year-old temper tantrum. It was a thing of beauty. Seriously. I scared the dogs. At this point, I'm seriously considering adding lithium to my list of supplements. These mood swings can't be healthy. Yesterday, I let my annoyance guide my eating (but I still tracked it all). Today, I'm back to sanity (or my version of it) and reminding myself that I get a fill next week. My second fill. One that will hopefully bring me that much closer to restriction. I want it so bad I can taste it, and it tastes like skinny.

Cynesra, I'm a rider, too. I started when I was 8 and rode and competed until I was 18. When I went to college, I had to stop due to lack of access. That's when I really started gaining weight (before that, I thought I was huge, but I soooo was NOT). After that, I let my weight keep me away from horses for years. 4 years ago, I said to hell with it and bought my own horse. I also looked for a big boy sturdy enough to carry me, but that means he's 16.2! I would never try to mount from the ground, and frankly, all of the places I've ridden at in the last 4 years use mounting blocks anyway for the safety of both horse and rider. Don't let the inability to ground mount get you down. Use a block and get the exercise. Riding burns plenty of calories and best of all, it's too much fun to feel like exercise! Hope your knee feels better soon!

This is a quick update because things are fairly status quo at the moment. It was a crazy weekend punctuated by the pain of having to go and order my dress for my bff's May wedding. Let me tell you, there's nothing in the world that can slam a new bandster back down to earth like trying on satin dresses in a bridal shop in front of about 97 million mirrors. I mean, I'm doing well, but I've only been banded 6 weeks and am not at restriction yet, so I've lost only a tiny fraction of what I need to. Clothes shopping is still painful. I had picked out the dress ahead of time from photos based on the style, which is one that would generally be quite flattering on me, and since I'm the only bridesmaid, I could have any dress I wanted. I had it in my head that I wanted to buy something that I really loved so I could wear it again and get some use out of it, but when I tried it on, it was really more of a "meh" moment. I liked it fine as a MOH dress, but I didn't love it, which was really disappointing. Then the bff saved the day by reminding me that even if I did buy something I really adored, the chances of my being able to wear it again were pretty slim because in a few months, it wouldn't fit anymore!!! Wow, did that totally change my prespective. Suddenly, all was well again and the dress got ordered. Then this week started out with a bang. Literally. I live on a corner lot which is entirely fenced in three sections, thank goodness. the back yard is separated from the front and side yards and is where the dogs go out to play. The front and the side are more for show with nice plants and stuff (it was landscaped by the previous owners...I have a black thumb for anything except herbs). Well, sometime between 9 am and 11 am yesterday, some a#$@!%)$ took the corner too tight (frankly, based on the look of it, they HAD to have been under the influence of something) and destroyed about 30-40 feet of my fencing in the side yard. Uprooted 4 posts from their concrete moorings and everything. And then just drove off. Leaving me with a huge mess and no chance of compensation for the damage. If anyone had seen the car and given the police a lead, I'd be able to make a claim against the owner's car insurance, but no such luck. I could claim it on my homeowner's insurance, but based on my deductible and the fact that the claim would sit on my policy for the next 5 years, I'm better off just eating the cost. This makes me less than happy. The only bright spot at the moment is that I think I might actually have a real loss this week (fingers crossed). This is based on my daily unofficial weigh-ins. Tomorrow is the real thing, so today I will be watching my salt intake and trying to be extra mindful so that I can maintain any loss I've had long enough to record it tomorrow. Cross your fingers for me, please. I'm kinda sick on losing less than a pound per week. So that's what's going on and why I haven't posted more the last few days. Trust me, if I have a decent loss, I WILL be posting again tomorrow.

Seriously, there are times when I totally resent having to be a grown up, especially about things I want but am not getting. Those are the times when I want to throw myself down on the floor and have a kicking, wailing, punching, sobbing fit worthy of a sugar-crashing three-year-old. And I could do it. Trust me. I could rock the #$&% out of that. RIght now, I'd like to give in, but instead, I'm just going to whine and trust that if you don't want to hear it, you all know where to find your "back" buttons. I think I'm going to have to resign myself to being a "slow loser." Sheesh, even the term makes me want to gnash my teeth and curse creatively. Really, I still cling to hope that I'm wrong about this and that at some point, something will click in my stubborn little (I mean that metaphorically) body and the pounds will start to drop off at the rate of several lbs per week, but I have the sick, sad feeling that I shouldn't hold my breath about that. Offically, I weigh myself once per week, every Wednesday night. That's the weight I record on my ticker and in MFP, and in my brain, that's the weight I attach to myself. I am what the scale says I am on Wednesday nights. However, that doesn't stop me from weighing in every day or two just to check myself. Or to obsess about my weight; however you want to look at it. Before I had my first fill, it was wasy to blame my eensy-weensy incremental losses on bandster hell. To even be happy (to a small extent) at not having gained. After my fill last week, though, I'm running out of excuses. I'm not so restricted that I can't eat every food I've tried (haven't tried white bread) including rice, pasta, and chicken breast. But, while I can eat what I want, I find myself filling up on a cup of food or so and staying full for 4-5 hours after a meal. From what I've read, that should mean I'm at least close to an appropriate fill. Doesn't that mean I should start really losing now? I'd like to think so, but in the last 5 days, the scale has gone up 0.4 lbs and now down 0.6 lbs, leaving me only 0.2 lbs below my last week's weight. 0.2 lbs? Seriously? Is that all I can expect to lose in a week? Less than 1 lb? How can I lose less than 1 lb when I'm averaging 1000 calories a day, not eating junk, eating my protein first, and not filling up on hi-calorie, low-nutrient sliders? If I'm following the rules, I want to see results, damn it!!! I deserve it!!! Yes, yes, Logical Me realizes that any loss is a step in the right direction and that the goal is to lose slowly and steadily while maintaining my health and my sanity. Well, my health seems assured, but I can't vouch for my sanity. I mean, seriously. This is going to drive me bonkers. My surgeon will allow me to return for another fill in 2-1/2 weeks, and at the moment I'm planning on doing that because I don't think I can deal with losing less that 1 lb per week. I think that might kill me. Or cause me to kill someone else, and really, prison jumpsuit orange would totally make me look sallow.

Calcium citrate is recommended over calcium carbonate for all women because it is more easily absorbed by the body than calcium carbonate. That said, when I can't find the citrate, I will occasionally take the carbonate. Some calcium is better than none after all!

I would follow your doctor's instruction. My pre-op diet was nothing but skim milk and no-calorie Clear liquids for 2 weeks. Not something anyone could live on indefinitely, but the pre-op diet is temporary and short terms, so no matter how restrictive it seems, your dr assigned it for a reason. Milk and yogurt are actually fairly high in protein and low in fat (if you choose fat-free or 1%) so it's not as unhealthy as it seems. You can do it for a couple of weeks, and when you look back, you'll be pretty darned proud of yourself!

LOL. I think the food dreams are pretty common. A day or two before surgery, I dreamt that I made someone bring me fast food after I was banded, but even in the dream, I ate a few bites and threw the rest out, so it was like a subconscious victory! I'm sure you'll do great. Keep the positive attitude and you can't fail.

Also keep in mind that the lapband doesn't start working until it starts to fill up. The first month after surgery is about healing, not weight loss. That's the reason the time between surgery and when you get filled to restriction is called Bandster Hell. Even your first fill won't necessarily bring you the restriction you need to really start losing weight. I know it's hard (trust me, I'm there right now) but the key now is patience and determination. You WILL get through this, and you WILL start to lose weight. You can do this!

Congratulations! New beginnings are amazing sometimes, and I hope yours leads to great things.

Also, if you've ever tried anything like WW, I've heard of some people going to the center where they attended meetings and being able to have the center print out copies of their weigh in records for insurance approval. You might try that! Still, with a bmi near 40 and sleep apea, you shouldn't have a problem. I'll cross my fingers for you.

I'm doing good! I've lost about 17 lbs so far including the preop diet (10 lbs preop, 5 weeks since banding) but I've only had 1 fill and I don't have good restriction yet. I felt the same way about bypass and sleeve. I can't justify to myself the removal or rerouting of healthy organs. The band surgery was quick and recovery for me was very easy. Dr Jan is a bit remote, but he answers questions clearly and honestly, he did not try to talk me out of the band, and he listened when I went in for my fill about what I wanted and how I was doing. I'm going for my second fill 3/23 (3 weeks after my first fill). So far I'm losing slowly, but I'm okay with slow so lng as the weight does come off and it stays off. I'm very committed to the process, track all my calories and my protein and am building in more exercise, but I think if a person acknowledges that the band is just a tool and that it takes work to lose with it, then there's no reason to get bypass instead. Just remember that while some people lose fast, the average rate with the band is 1-2 lbs per week. Good luck to you! Let me know if you have any questions or anything!