alicesandra

So far so good with my eating! We had lots of BBQ & friends over all weekend at my parents lake house, it was so much fun. I've always stayed away from eating BBQ/other non-green/salad stuff, so I did have a bit (maybe 4-5? bites at most, my stomach usually starts feeling iffy when it comes to non-healthy foods like that after a few small bites) but other than that I've stayed as on track as I possibly could be. I am so so excited for summer to be here, more so after that ridiculous 5 months of winter we had up here. I did have to get new swim suits as mine from last year were literally falling off me and I just wasn't comfortable wearing/going in the water with it being that loose.

Good question~ doctors recommended it as it's stopped my body from putting itself into starvation mode, as it was doing before, so I'm no longer gaining weight from that. And they are proud with the results from it. In between that & my workouts, it's finally going back down

I had my surgery in July, 2012. I would definitely do it all over again if I had to. Pros: My small eating habits fill me up quickly and keep me full for hours. Weight loss, obviously! As results of the surgery, I've had much more energy & more motivation to keep up my gym routines/schedules. Cons: I have none, personally.

Oh wow, congrats!

Yeah! I call it boring just because I'm not much of an eater, but I do love salads so sticking with it for lunch is what makes sure I remember to eat during the afternoon, or I won't bother and that's not good.

Congrats on the surgery! My last meal was a.. chicken salad. Which has also been my lunch the past year and a half. I am so boring with food. Pre-op diet was horrible for me though, nothing but Protein bars & shakes for a month. Never again.

You know, I always feel like the odd one out when it comes to eating & these kinds of threads here. My problem never was overeating/being addicted to food or anything like that. Growing up, I was around a mom who barely ate, an older sister & younger brother who depended on fast food (they are sticks and can eat a houses worth of food daily) and a dad who was always gone at work. I ended up picking up my moms eating habits, because fast food always has completely grossed me out in every way possible, and I was too young to really make my own food when it started. It took my doctors a good 5 years of constantly running blood tests and me pretty much living in my hospitals lab work area to figure out what was wrong with me. But as soon as they realized that my weight came on from massively under eating, they were constantly trying to push me into nutritionists and getting me to eat what I should be. My biggest issues with nutritionists is that the amount of food they want me to eat, is way too much for me. I could not keep up with her meal plans without physically getting sick, by the amount of it. My weight gain came from the fact that I never ate enough. It didn't matter how active I was growing up, because anything I did eat, my body grabbed on to. It wasn't until I was 18 that I fully understood that myself, when my doctors started telling me how worried they were because it was seemingly impossible for me to lose weight until I started eating more. I have always eaten healthy, always. I can't stand sugar, candy, cake, ice cream, most Desserts, or anything like that. I don't do chips, or excessive amounts of cheese. I was the healthiest person in my family in terms of eating, and yet I was the only one with the weight issue. Early 2012 I continued with my healthy eating, but added more vegetables/etc to my meals, and then by the time my lap band surgery came around, I was eating enough for the weight to start coming off with my exercising schedules. I've been slower than most here with the weight loss (two years - 112 pounds), but my doctors are constantly reminding me that it's harder for me to lose weight because mine didn't come from overeating. TL;DR: I've been programmed to eat healthy, so I've had no will power issues at all. My main thing is just making sure I do get my three meals a day in, just to continue with the weight loss.

My gym does weekly weigh ins. I got a print out two weeks ago with all my current progress (weight/body fat/inches/etc) and according to that I've lost almost 52 inches since I had my surgery. They measure upper arm/thigh/hips/waist/bust, so I don't have the individual inches for each thing, but just the all around total for loss is almost at 52 inches. Hoping for more when I do my weigh in on monday!

Mine tells me to just stay with any kind of liquids for 24 hours, and I'm good.

Ugh, I can't wait for spring to come, if it even does. I'm so tired of this snow. I live in pretty much the middle of nowhere so there's lots of places to walk, but with literally 7 feet of snow on the ground everywhere I can't go out and do it. I did however add another gym trip to my day so now I'm going first thing in the morning & at night, taking my niece with me the second time because she loves to follow me around in there and copy what I'm doing. Oddly enough I find myself sleeping so much better since I added the second gym visit. And it makes me feel great! Sore, but great.

The only thing I really brought with me, was an extra pair of clothes (something comfy) to wear on the day I got to go home. My family brought my phone & laptop for me after the surgery, so I wouldn't be bored just laying there. I was never good with keeping still if I didn't have something to occupy myself with.

It's usually very quick. Feeling around to find the port (may cause a little uncomfortableness at first, but not much depending on how hard they have to press around), numbing your stomach in the area around the port & they'll do the fill! It's pretty much painless. They will make sure you can get Water down just fine and you will have to do liquids for 24-48 hours after, depending on what they tell you. Although that is also just going by what mine specifically does, but yeah. It's pretty simple. And congrats on everything you've done so far!

I'm not really one for eating sugar/etc, as anything like that (ice cream/cake/candy/what not) has always made me sick. but when I do get the weirdest craving out of absolutely nowhere, I will add a tiny bit of honey to my tea! That's about it. But it works wonderfully~

Oddly enough I wish I would of had entertaining waiting room drama, but I didn't! There was one other (much older) lady in there, she asked me very nicely what I was having done because I was so young, and I told her lap band. Apparently the woman's daughter also had it done and over a period of 3-4 years, she had managed to lose 300+ pounds off of it. It was very encouraging to meet a stranger in the waiting room that was as supportive as she was to me. Same with all the doctors/nurses/people that were bringing me to the operating room. They all were being very supportive and just in general, amazingly nice all around. I think pretty much everyone I know does know about the surgery at this point. It doesn't bother me, everyones known I've struggled with my weight since I was little. I have not yet met one person that has said anything bad about it, or made any kind of rude comments on it. I'm lucky, I suppose.

Grand Rapids, MI!

Congrats & Good luck with recovery!

my fills have always followed the same routine: lay down on the table, make sure my legs are slightly bent up so they have an easier time feeling around my stomach for the port, let them numb up the area with numbing needles & the woman who does them goes right on in with it! Hands me a little bottle of water to make sure it goes down right, and then she asks me to stay on liquids for 24 hours after. That's pretty much it. first one might seem scary but it's not once you get it done with, and pretty quick!

I had the same experience with a previous 'shrink'. I was originally going for the gastric bypass when I had hit 18/19, and she was the last step I needed to do before my surgeons would be alright with it. I slipped up a bit and she got her hooks into me and took me from what was supposed to be one appointment, into 6 months worth and wanted to see me every two weeks, and I was really persistent with wanting to get it done and went to them. I eventually gave up after she promised me she would send her approval letter to my surgeons, only to backtrack the next appointment and say she wanted a ton of more appointments because she wasn't happy with me. In between that, my towns hospital put out an article in the newspaper about them focusing on doing lap band surgeries, so I went to the seminar and haven't looked back since. I'm so glad it ended up that way, but it taught me to not let them get any kind of upper hand within the questionings. What took me a year+ with a bigger/more "professional" WLS geared hospital, only to end up absolutely nowhere, took me 3 months at the one I've been going to since I was born to have all my insurance sorted/doctors agreed/psych eval done.

Some places might not require it, but a lot do just to make sure the people who want to get the surgery done are in the right mind frame going into it, and understand that the band is a tool and not a magical way to lose a lot of weight.

My psych eval was quick. I went in, he asked me the basics about my lifestyle/exercise routines, as well as about my family/friends for past & future support purposes and what led up to my wanting the surgery. As well as the questionnaire they have you do. I heard back a few days later from my surgeon saying the eval went great and he was on board with it! I would not be worried going into it, be strong, and get right to the point with answers. If you give them too much breathing room, they will dig deeper into things than need be. I learned that long ago. Good luck with it! It may seem scary, but it really isn't.

Unfortunately we sometimes have issues that can't be fixed any other way - best thing you can do is keep looking ahead and continue pushing on! You will get back up to that point again, hopefully without the issues this time, but you can do it. Stay positive, you are doing a great job. Small (or large) set backs are expected for us, but in the end it will be well worth it.

Congrats on what you've lost already. I've been at a plateau for the past 6 months, no matter what I did. Even with extra fills. My latest one apparently did the trick and I dropped 15 pounds within the last month. I'd suggest switching up your meal plans or even your work outs, if you have one!

You look great! Congrats.

Congrats on the surgery, and 12 pounds within a week is a lot! Nice job.

The liquid phase was a tough one. After going a month on the pre-op diet of protein shakes & protein bars (which you tasted the protein part more than anything in both of them to the point where it was almost sickening), and then two weeks of liquids. I had 'fun' for sure! But it got easier as I went along. First few days were the hardest. I did use some 25 calorie 'sugar free' fruit popsicles that were recommended by my surgeon, once a day, and it was probably the thing that helped me the most. Granted I was never a frozen food/etc type of person to begin with, but it made my stomach feel much better!