Duhs9919

I've found that blogging really helps me feel accountable for what I'm doing. I saw the You Tube videos of others and felt inspired but wasn't brave enough to video myself. I post on blogspot too but then copy and paste to my blog on here. Feel free to check mine out as well http://www.amandasramble.blogspot.com Good luck!

I went to the one off Main st. Www.trueresults.com. My insurance required 6 months of visits before my surgery. My first visit was in February and my surgery was 9/10/12. They give you a lot of guidance. My surgeon was Dr Hollis. He was a great surgeon. I wasn't real impressed with his office staff (different office than True Results). Just had my first fill with True Results 10/9 and they were wonderful.

I had the type of pain you are talking about up until about 4 weeks out. It got so bad with the not being able to breathe I went to ER. Nothing was wrong. I found that eating really slow helped keep it from coming on. Mine was between my shoulders on my back. The only relief I would get was from the heating pad and funny enough Icy Hot. I still carry icy hot in my purse just in case. Good luck it gets better.

Yes if you don't follow up with after care (fills) and some sort of accountability check you will not see results. If I were you I'd find a place near you that can administer a fill and monitor your progression. Using an app like My Fitness Pal (www.myfitnesspal.com) will give you a method of food tracking to help you stay the course. Good luck to you!

Woo hoo! Congrats!

I went through True Results. I love them, they offer a lot of tools and expertise.

I was starving for about 2 weeks after surgery. I don't know if it was related to the surgery and swelling and my body healing but about the start of week 3 I started to notice I wasn't hungry until late morning and became satisfied sooner. It will get better for you.

I have several pairs of Old Navy, Lane Bryant, and Ana (from JC Penny) and a couple of JC Penny dress pants. I need 18/20 jeans. I'm in Houston can anyone help? I will trade or buy them. Thanks.

duhs9919 for me.

@Shira we are twins!! Best of luck to you. And thank you for the condolances. @ Livestrong, thank you as well. I miss her lots!

Well once again I was in bed about to have a long visit with the sandman when my nagging conscious made me get up and come write my blog. Its officially been 4 weeks since surgery!! I am down a total of 25 lbs since I started my pre-op diet! And a total of 32 since I started this process in February. Woo hoo. I had two doctors appointments today (I'll get to those in a min) and was thinking to myself in the elevator on the way home after the second one, how lucky I was to be in the situation I am in. If you had told me this time last year that in a year I would have my band and be on my way to being happy and healthy I would have said yeah right. I just hope that my success continues and yes I know that I am the one who controls my destiny. As my clinician said today, I am the boss of my band not the other way around. First visit of the day was my surgeon's office, which I have grown to not like the office staff. The nurse practitioner make a crack about all of my emails when I was going through all of that extensive gas pain. Doesn't tell me much of anything and even has the wrong information, she starts talking to me about my gastric sleeve. Then she realized oops, I have the wrong chart. She also stated again that I had 0 cc inside my band. I am just glad that I do not have to deal with that office anymore. She gave me my release that turned my care back over to True Results. I get to True Results for my first fill and have to say that I was really pretty nervous about it. I am a big whimp when it comes to pain but I had read from several people that it wasn't anything bad. They did like any other doctor's office, weighed me, took my vitals, asked how I was feeling and then left me in the room until the clinician came in to do my fill. She walked in, her name was Linda and we got a long really well, we had each other cracking up. She asks if I want to be numbed I said heck yes. She stuck me about 5 times (which didn't hurt) to numb the area and I have to say pretty quickly I could only feel the pressure of her pushing down but not the actual feeling of it, if that makes sense. They located my port by feeling around and I have to say it was pretty cool/yet kinda gross to be able to feel it. Once she found the top of it, she tried accessing it to test to see if any fluid was in there. I told her that the surgeon's office said there wasn't any. Another nurse had to come in and help since my port was being stubborn, she said that my port site was still pretty swollen from surgery and deeper than she thought it would be. But guess what...I had 1.5 cc in my band!! I am not really upset with that because I can't imagine how unbearable the past few weeks would have been without any restriction, I would have been eating the walls. This also means that my stomach and liver were really small when he got in there, because he said he doesn't do fills if the area is really tight around the band. So double score for all of that liver worrying. However, at the same time I am just mad at my surgeon's office for giving me wrong information. I am officially filled to a 3.5 cc in a 10 cc band. I had to wait in the waiting room and drink a cup of water to make sure it went down before I left. I can say I could tell a change pretty quickly, and I've had some issues with gas pain tonight. I think that this is from me needing to take EVEN smaller sips of things. Part of the problem is that I am dying of thirst, or feel that way and just want to chug a bottle of water, but that would cause A LOT of pain. So I have just been taking more and more sips. According to the target track True Results put me on they would have liked for me to have lost 3 additional pounds, which would have meant 14 total from the date of surgery. But everyone was happy with what I had done. However, my next target is another 16 lbs lost by my next fill which is scheduled for 11/6. I am going to increase my working out even more and make sure I am cutting back on my carbs and making sure I behave on the weekend. I haven't been crazy with them, but going to reign them in some more. Oh, I emailed the nurse practitioner at the surgeon's office and told her they may want to update my chart to reflect that I did in fact had 1.5 cc in my band post-op. The lady had the nerve to write back and say, "not necessary." WOW!! Am I blowing this out of proportion or am I a little justified in feeling like they have absolutely zero patient care. But on the pro side, I had 6 people tell me today that my incisions looked really good. For the record, I have no issue with the surgeon, just his office staff. I'll post a pic next week showing what they look like a month out. Anyways, I was back to liquids for today and tomorrow, then one more day of mushies, then back to regular food on Friday. I will keep you posted on how my weight loss is going, hopefully I can continue to see the scale numbers go down and meet that goal of 16 lbs by 11/16. That would make me at 40 lbs lost!! I can't even believe I can type that let alone it be possible. I still haven't purchased any new pants, why I am not sure yet. But I desperately need too, going to be wearing burlap sacks pretty soon if I don't fix this problem. Also, non scale victory I have written and proof read the first 3 chapters of my second novel! And I think come up with a title for the first, so pretty soon I hope to be a self published author! My final rant, I normally post on Monday nights, but couldn't bring myself to do it. I had to put my first born fur baby (I don't have any human children) to sleep last night. Taylor was my 9 year old chocolate lab who was just getting old. She went downhill fairly quickly in the past two weeks and after our best efforts to save her, she was just too far gone, so we had to put her out of her pain and misery. I literally was there right after the was born and I held her paw until the end. The pain I feel is terrible and I miss her like crazy. I was outside tonight with my other dog, Lizzie and I could have sworn I heard her bark, needless to say it brought tears to my eyes, but I know she is watching over me. Until tomorrow, Amanda

Thank you!! Very helpful!!

Well I'll have you all know, I was in bed, found a comfy spot to lay in (hard to do these days with 5 incisions) and all but asleep when I keep feeling this nagging sensation for not writing my blog tonight. One of the main reasons I started this blog was to give me something to be accountable for. If I had to blog once a week (at least) and update whomever reads this on my progress then I would be less likely to cheat or fall of the band wagon...ha ha, you get my joke? So I drug my butt out of bed, fired up the computer and now here I am. It is hard to believe that it was only a week ago today that I was having my very first surgery and that at this time last week I was in a drug induced stupor off in dream land. I've read many postings on the LBT website I am a member of for fellow lap banders, that many people had a "what have I done," moment. I can honestly say as hungry as I have been over the past week, I have never had that moment. I am very excited that I can honestly say I've had the surgery and I am on the path of weight loss. Yes I know it will be a lot of hard work with controlling my diet and exercising but I am really looking forward to it. And I think having the lap band will be the perfect tool to help me reach my goals. I am just ready to be off restriction for diet and exercise so I can come up with my "real" world plan. I have been looking at the class schedules at 24 Hour Fitness coming up with a plan for which classes I am going to take when. I would ideally like to do at least 2 classes a week of weight training and cardio at least 5 times a week. Once I can start going to these classes and working out I know that it will become second nature and of course seeing the results will be extra motivation to keep going too. Right now I am on the second week of my post op diet which consists of my protein shakes and thicker soups such as tomato soup. Last week was just pure broth which was harder than I thought it would be. I had read that a lot of people were not hungry the days following surgery. Well this fat girl wasn't one of those lucky ones. Staying awake long enough last week to sip my water and protein shakes was tough since the pain meds knocked me out pretty good, however when I was awake I was definitely hungry. And since I was only drinking liquids which go right through my band I had a very limited window of that "full" feeling. I do enjoy that only about a cup of liquid makes me "full." I am also working out my plan for when I can return to normal food in about 2 more weeks. There is a place here in Houston and also Dallas called My Fit Foods, (www.myfitfoods.com) I have had their meals on several occasions. They are low fat, high protein meals that are aimed at people who are as I call "label aware," and looking for fast but yummy healthy food options. Only down side is that they are on the other side of town, but I can trek over there on Sunday's and prepare for the week. They have several options, low carb, gluten free, etc. I plan on getting their small portion, which is 3 oz of protein for my lunches. I am one of those people that if I have to prepare a lot in advance I will eventually stop doing it. Or I will wait until I am ravenously hungry and be miserable. They are pretty affordable ranging from $6-$8 a meal which is cheaper than eating out somewhere and I believe the portions are small enough that I wont be wasting a lot of food. They have a lot of chicken, fish, and turkey options which will be nice. I still plan on having a protein shake for breakfast and just protein and veggies for dinner. I would update you on my scale progress, but I have refused to get on the damn thing since Saturday. I was very frustrated that after having weight loss surgery (WLS) that from the time I went in the operating room until I came out I managed to find 6 lbs. I know that this is from the fluids and bloating my body has gone through from surgery. But it was a little frustrating. My nurse practitioner told me this was normal and that I would see results soon. She also pointed out that I was losing visceral fat and that my clothes probably fit better. At this point I wasn't wearing much but yoga pants and t-shirts so I wouldn't know. Saturday I got dressed and my tightest pair of jean shorts fit considerably better, even were a little loose. And I was able to comfortably wear a shirt I hadn't worn in 2 years. It wasn't too tight anywhere and managed to cover what I wanted it to. So small victories. I had said I would weigh on Tuesdays but I think I am going to push that to Wednesday or Thursdays. I'll let you all know. My surgeon's office also has a support group once a month, I am not really sure what to expect from it, but I believe I will go. Any tips and advice from people going through this with me might be helpful. That will be this Wednesday. I would be lying to say that I am not scared **** less that I will not lose any weight. Although I have bitched and complained a fair amount, I have managed to stick to my diet so I know that I will lose the weight. I also think I have an outline for success with my food and exercise plans. I just have to be patient (gasp!) and let my body work its magic. I cannot fail! My mini goal is to see -20 lbs by my post-op appointment on 10/9. I managed to get to work today and I will say it was odd to be back there, I kinda enjoyed being off for a week. I was so worried that the world would end without me for a week but they all survived. I had my shake for breakfast and managed to drink some water. About 10:00 a.m. I started feeling really tired and out of it and my incisions were starting to really bother me. I didn't take my pain meds because I didn't want to fall asleep at my desk, so I was only taking Advil. I made it until about 12:30 before I threw in the towel and packed it in and went home. When I got home I did notice I was really pale and my cheeks were flushed. So tomorrow I will be taking a half dose of pain meds about 9:00 to see if that doesn't help me make it the entire day. So anyways, this is a long ramble and I do need to get to sleep. Big party at work tomorrow with lots of vendors and customers so I have to be on my game. Maybe the pain meds will help drown my anxiety about not being successful with a weight loss. Until tomorrow, Amanda

You will be okay, just take it slow and try to get all your liquids in. Good luck.

Saw your post, I sent you a friend request on My Fitness Pal, I love that app.

Congrats and welcome to the club! Like Rojas said, sip your water/liquids, I got too carried away and was drinking to fast and ended up with terrible gas pain! Good luck!

Congrats! I am 4 weeks out and had my first fill today and I mentioned in my blog tonight that riding the elevator to go home from the drs appointment today, I was just thanking my lucky stars and how I couldn't believe I was as far as I am. To tell you its all roses and sunshine would be lying, there is some tough work ahead of you, but it is all worth it in the end. Trust me, I've had many hungry nights during pre-op and right after post-op that I thought I might wake up and have a pillow missing I was so hungry. But it is all manageable. I'd make sure you ask what your surgeon's pre/post op diet requiremens are, a lot of surgeon's vary. And welcome to the site lots and lots of great people here with lots of knowledge! Best of luck!!

You will be fine. I was banded 9/10. Just make sure you walk a lot after surgery and drink your water. I took Advil/ Tylennol between pain meds and it helped a lot. Any questions feel free to let me know. Good luck.

Sorry for my radio silence last week. It was a crazy week and I spent most of it exhausted. I was going to post on 9/27 which would have been 30 days since I started my pre-op diet but due to some strange water weight or something I didn't lose any additional weight until this morning. So here are the hard cold facts as of this evening, I am down 22 lbs and almost 2 pants sizes!! That is a total loss of 5 lbs last week!! Woo hoo!! It is so bad that I am going to have to either go shopping for some suspenders (real sexy I know) or some new pants this week. I have been actively logging everything that passes my lips into my mouth with www.myfitnesspal.com and also logging my workouts. It is really eye opening the calories in some items. I look at things before that I would have eaten without hesitation and now think, wow that is so not worth it. If you are watching your weight, I highly suggest getting the My Fitness Pal app, or you can visit them online. Sunday I trekked across town and made it to My Fit Foods, (www.myfitfoods.com) and picked up my meals for lunch for the entire week. I have to say that it is really nice to have healthy fresh choices. And I don't have to guess if I am eating well or have that anxiety standing in the kitchen in the mornings trying to figure out what I should eat. I know a lot of people eat the Lean Cuisines and such, but foods like that are usually very high in sodium. And as I learned last week, water weight gain is not your friend! This week also started my return to solid foods, I'd be lying to say I wasn't ecstatic. Had my first experience of food backing up on me, Wednesday at work we had some breakfast tacos brought in. I was attempting to eat one, sitting around the table at work chatting with everyone, when I stopped thinking and started shoving this delicious tasting taco down my throat. It didn't take long for my band to remind me (not so nicely) it was still there and that I was eating entirely tooooo fast. I felt like I was going to throw up at my desk, which I refused to do. If you know me, I HATE throwing up. I got up and walked around outside for a bit seriously contemplating if I threw up in the bushes who could possibly see me. I managed to keep it down and seriously logged that in my brain in the "DO NOT DO THIS AGAIN," file. This weekend I went out on Friday night and had a couple of drinks. I logged them on my tracker so all calories were accounted for. From trial and error I have discovered that drinking beer or carbonated drinks causes that funky gas pain in the middle of my back (which the only remedy is Icy Hot, which is not a great perfume choice). So I have been sticking to wine and mixed drinks. But for once I feel like I am resuming my life, but just a much much much better choice making, health conscious, working out maniac. For the first time in a long time I feel like I have control of myself and my body. I got a wild hair up my butt this weekend and signed up for a water zumba class at the local rec center. I've always wanted to try zumba at the gym, but quite frankly have been too chicken to do it in front of other people (I really am shy). And I am really not all that coordinated. Being in the water gives you the sense of security if you don't exactly get the move that no one will really notice. Its a 45 minute class and at about minute 20 I thought to myself, what in the hell did I get myself into. But at the end, it was awesome and a great work out. From all the running in the pool my big toes are sore and will probably make walking impossible tomorrow. I've ordered some aqua socks to fix this. I've mapped out when/where I am going to work out on a weekly basis, my goal is 5 times a week to work out. Aqua Zumba is 3 days a week. So I will be going to the gym the other 2. I plan on starting my Couch to 5K training on Wednesday. Lets see if I can make it one week through the workouts without killing myself. I am a terrible runner...swimmer for life. LOL. Anyways to wrap this ramble up, I had a big non scale victory tonight, I checked my food log and I still have enough calories left to go to McDonald's after work out tonight and get a sundae. I sat in the parking lot of the rec center debating, a creamy chocolate treat would really hit the spot, but ultimately I exited the parking lot and drove home. I sliced up an apple and had some peanut butter with it. And then when I still had an itch to eat something, instead of giving in to my mom's Klondike bars (she needs to eat all of them next visit) in the freezer, I made a protein shake!! By no means does this mean I've won the war but I have definitely won this battle, however, the light at the end of the tunnel is still dim. But I will win...eventually after all, Rome wasn't built over night and in spirit of my new running adventure, life is a marathon not a sprint. Until tomorrow, Amanda

My surgeon allows them in small amounts. But not worth the gas issues.

Well exactly 14 days ago I changed my life forever. I still haven't had any of the, "what have I done," moments, but I have been in absolutely excruciating pain since Thursday of last week. I can happily report that I am officially down 20 lbs from the start of my pre-op diet on 8/27. After gaining 6 lbs from surgery and feeling as if the bloating wouldn't ever go away I am really excited that I am starting to see results quickly. And yes I know, I do not want to see them too quickly to avoid a plethora of issues. I have started using this handy dandy app called My Fitness Pal, (www.myfitnesspal.com) which allows me to track everything I put in my mouth and also the amount of physical activity I do. It tells me how many calories I have left to consume for the day and also breaks down my nutrition for the day letting me know exactly how much protein, fat, fiber, etc. I've consumed. I've seen similar apps that get to be a pain in the butt with entering what you eat, but this app has a scanner part where you can actually take a pic of the items bar code and it adds it to your list. Very cool and very easy. I know that many different weight loss programs preach writing a food journal to keep track of how much you are consuming and I have found it to be a great tool in making sure you aren't over indulging. I am notoriously not very good at keeping a food journal but so far for the past 7 days I've done it and I can admit I am kind of addicted to it. Right after surgery I jinxed myself by saying I hadn't experienced any of the gas pain that some of the others on LBT (www.lapbandtalk.com) had mentioned. Well guess what has been keeping me company during the wee hours of the morning...gas pain. It started last Wednesday night in the middle of my back between my shoulder blades. Walking, Advil/Tylenol, burping, and Gas-X strips had helped make it possible for me to sleep Wednesday night. I stayed home from work on Thursday and Friday for the same reason. I started on Thursday walking around the park by my help disburse the gas pain. Needless to say by Saturday I was up to 2 miles and was still having gas issues in the evening. Sunday I did not have any pain and thought that perhaps I was finally getting a handle on this issue. NOPE! I woke up this morning at 0300 feeling like I was going to throw up the pain was so bad. After going to work with the heating pad attached to my back, the pain didn't let up and actually was making it difficult to breathe. I contacted my surgeon's office and told them that I was doing everything they had told me to do and the pain was getting worse and unlike before it wasn't letting up this time. My nurse told me that perhaps it was gallstones, since I was also describing those symptoms. Well after a very long visit to the ER and after several rounds of costly tests, I was sent home from the ER with no news. All of my tests came back normal, so I am back to square one with this gas pain. I really am starting to feel like a big baby always whining about this pain, but from what I have been told is pain very similar to a heart attack. And it is also frustrating that I can't manage to make it go away and stay away. My next step is to eat even slower than I already am and see if possibly my food choices are contributing to this issue. Now that I am finally able to eat more real food as my co-workers call it, I sat down last night and wrote out a menu so I could figure out what I was eating at each meal so I didn't just wonder around aimlessly. I've also picked up two lap-band cook books, one is Bandwagon Cookery by Jean McMillan who is the author of the Lap Band Bible, Bandwagon. Her book is very funny reading all the pointers on how to eat well with the band, I am 95 pages in and haven't made it to her recipes yet but from what I've flipped through they seem to be good. The other is Eating Well After Weight Loss Surgery by Patt Levine. I actually prefer her recipes so far from what I've read. She also has a nifty guideline on each page that lets you know how much you should consume depending on what stage you are in on your diet. And the other thing I liked is that all of her recipes have been taste tested blended in case you are in the liquid stages. Very helpful information. I attended a birthday party on Saturday and managed to watch what I ate, made sure to not stuff my face with anything awful and put everything that I ate on my food journal. I was proud of myself at being able to control my choices. Thinking about what I would have eaten a few months ago astounds me, I would have gone bonkers and really stuffed my face, then wondered the next day why my pants were even tighter. So that is the low down on the past week. I am hoping that the weight continues to come off, I continue to log my food, and that I continue to exercise on a daily basis. Oh yeah, and the pain STOPS! My one month anniversary from starting the pre-op diet is on Thursday, so I will update you all then on my final weight loss for my 1st month. Until tomorrow, Amanda