gigglypug

Milk products contain milk sugar (lactose), so they will not ever be completely sugar-free. In yogurt, most of the lactose has been converted to lactic acid, which is what gives it the characteristic sour taste...the carb count stays the same but metabolically, lactic acid does not cause as much of an insulin increase. As long as you are staying away from added sugar (i.e. stay with plain yogurt), you are fine. Most folks here go for greek yogurt for the added Protein. I mix berries and a little splenda in mine, however, fruit has natural sugars as well.

Same boat here, although most of my meals are with my reps (who know about my band) and only occasionally with our customers. I find that just about anywhere I go, the highest rated restaurants are usually the organic/locally sourced/farm-to-table concept restaurants which not only have delicious food but also typically rather reasonable portion sizes. Tapas restaurants are also a good choice. And finally I eat a LOT of sashimi (with some edamame on the side). Don't worry too much, you'll find people pay amazingly little attention to what's on other people's plate...although I did have one customer at a catered lunch remark on how little was on my plate...I told him that I had a lunch like this the day before and would have another one the next day and at that rate you have to be very careful/selective. Wine and the dessert tray are my biggest problem...the former I've limited to one glass per outing, the latter I'm getting better at resisting...and if I do order something, I leave it at a bite or two...

Question to those who tell people that their weight loss is due to "exercising and eating right"...do you consider the weight of the person you're speaking with? Asking because so many people post here upset when someone told them they should 't have WLS and that exercise and eating right is all it takes. I'm not suggesting forcing people out of the closet and clearly the level of disclosure should be in proportion to the relationship with the listener...but I'm sensing quite a bit of shame in the WLS community and I believe we're doing it to ourselves...

My official post-op instructions were: no carbonated beverages for the first 30 days and then only diet. Obviously the first part of the rule is for healing/band safety, the second for weight loss. When it comes to rules, I always try to distinguish between those two categories (and will ask my surgeon for clarification, if needed). If your doc says "no sodas", there is nothing wrong with asking "why not"...if s/he says "studies have shown higher slip rates", or similar, that's one thing, if they say "empty calories" it's another...

I did my first overnight stay for work five days post-op. That turned out to be too soon, as my job includes public speaking and I hadn't realized how much energy that requires (answer: more than I have when I'm on a liquid diet and recovering). The following week I had two days in AZ, which was better, but not perfect (I was on pureed foods then). I took my first multi-day trip in week three (major trade show) and that went fine, mostly because I was transitioning back to a regular diet....remember that there is a wide variety of post-op instructions out there, your surgeon may have you transition back slower or faster. To answer your question I'm a technical specialist for a scientific equipment manufacturer and support the sales efforts of 14 reps...in the US, anything west of the Mississippi River plus (for some reason) Western TN plus BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba :-) When I'm on the road, the vast majority of my meals are social (with reps and often with customers as well), so nibbling on Protein bars in my hotel room is not a desirable option...still tweaking the band (I was banded May 15) but I would say I'm in the chartreuse section of the color chart.

One more comment: If you chose to go ahead with the surgery, I'd strongly recommend getting travel insurance. I would imagine the Africa trip is quite a financial commitment and this way you have at least some peace of mind. Complications, while unlikely, are still a possibility and you also don't know how you'll feel (people here report needing to use pain meds anywhere from not at all to two weeks...). Are you heading into the bush or staying close to civilization? I postponed my first fill because I was heading to the Galapagos the next week and didn't want to risk needing an emergency unfill so far from any medical care. Dealing with the lap band requires special equipment/needles that are not likely to be found in many developing countries. I can appreciate your impatience to get started. Realize that lap band works over months or years and that two weeks more or less are not likely to matter in the long run...

Agree with "not hungry - don't eat" BUT don't let yourself get too hungry! It's difficult to eat slowly and chew thoroughly when on the brink of starvation!

Agreed with the need for consistency, inasmuch as can be applied to a variable patient population. I have said it before, there is nothing wrong with asking the reason for any given directive (pre-op diets for example...some people need them, some people don't). A doc that is not willing to explain the "why" behind the process would be a major red flag for me! As would be a doc who is clinging to medical directives dating from the infancy of gastric banding... Here is my fill history: 5/15/2013 surgery, 2.5 cc placed into 10cc band 7/11/2013 1st fill (my choice of date), +1.5cc 7/25/2013 2nd fill +0.75cc for total of 4.75cc

Wow, worse than your own....your vomit must be way tastier than mine! Having said that, I second the Premier Protein shake vote. I don't do shakes often (except on fill days) but I like to blend the chocolate with ice, a banana and a tablespoon of Peanut Butter...

Banded May 15th, down 25 pounds total, including 10 pre-op. Had 2.5cc in 10cc band at time of surgery, plus one fill for total of 4cc two weeks ago. Seeing doc this Thursday, maybe for another fill...? Had a glimpse of the green zone for a few days, possibly because I was at high altitude. Have gone back to normal/yellow since. Still happy: could ditch my blood pressure meds and down one size. Also, have no side effects/stucks/PBs...great win in my book Slow and steady wins the race :-)

I remember being admitted to the hospital for my first baby. I had to sign a huuuuge informed consent form listing in gory detail all the things that could possibly go wrong for my baby or me during the birthing process....up to and including death. I was panicked, but obviously being a week past my due date, there was no other option than to go forward. With WLS, we do have the option not to go through with it. And I certainly don't want to "talk anyone into" have a procedure, be it lap band, sleeve or anything else. But only because a lawyer put a condition on a list does not mean I have a statistically highly significant chance of developing it. With law suits being what they are, something only has to happen ONCE to SOMEONE (who could very well have other complications) to make it a "known side effect"...

Weight loss rates will all be around 1-2 lbs/week on the average, since your body is only able to burn so many calories a week. Initially, weight loss will be faster because your body burns glycogen instead of fat, which has lower energy density (it takes more grams glycogen to produce a given amount of energy than it would fat) and you lose a lot of Water in the process. Counting calories is crucial during the initial weeks/months of lap band until proper restriction is achieved. At that point, many people stop and rely on the band to do the work, others keep logging to keep overall control of their intake (most of us gained their weight by simply not paying attention). I usually log everything in Daily Plate, but dinners like yesterday's are impossible...two coworkers and I were at a Tapas restaurant and ordered 6 different small plates to share (if turned out too much food). All complex dishes with unknown ingredients and I had a bite of each....how to log? I've never done weight watchers, but from what I understand, the counting there never becomes optional. Lastly, there seem to be quite a few people who are afraid of being too tight (higher restriction levels often associated with long-term side effects) and intentionally or not stop before reaching the green zone. Some of them still have some restriction , but overall the weight loss is done by counting cals/carbs etc I say, do whatever works for you :-)

Definitely dependent on your current fill level: a few weeks ago, I was in Quito/Ecuador at well over 9,000 ft and while I had other altitude issues, my hunger was no different than at home (sea level). That was before my first fill (I had 2.5 cc in the band at time of surgery). Last Thursday, got a 1.5cc fill for a total of four cc in a 10cc band. This week, working in Denver and Salt Lake City and wow, this is an epiphany. Full after half a crab cake or half a cup of scrambled eggs and two chunks of pineapple! Hoping it'll still be this way when I get back home tomorrow, but being up here has put me in the green zone :-)

Oh Steph! I'm sure you'll get some replies from the British board members for THAT comment!! :-)

I absolutely agree that our food supply is whatever the opposite of "natural" is. I work with analytical chemists of all stripes, and some (very few, here in the States) do food analysis. In other parts of the world, there is constant routine testing going on...not so much here. A few recent examples that I have come across: - ractepamide is a beta blocker that routinely gets fed to pigs to produce leaner meat. The practice is completely legal here, but banned in the EU as well as in Russia and in China (!!!). The lab I worked with is just now starting to offer this test because the local pork producer is interested in exporting pork to China...when they were selling to US vendors, noone cared - antibiotics are routinely fed to farm animals at subtherapeutic levels because the animals will gain more weight (e.g. produce more $$ on the market). Again, that practice is banned in Canada and the EU but perfectly legal here. The main concern is that these animals help with the generation of antibiotic-resistant strains of salmonella, E. coli etc. - and lest you think vegetarians are much better off, the USDA is just now getting around to starting some (extremely low level) testing to verify pesticide residue levels in "organic" produce. Once a producer is certified "organic", the testing sort of just "went away", it's really an honor system at this point. Again, labs only sell testing services for produce destined for export, noone seems to care about the American consumer Having said all that, I am not aware of any evidence linking veterinary drug and pesticide residue to obesity and I would caution against "chemophobia"...not all chemicals are evil and it takes some research and/or education to sort the bad from the good. It would, however, be nice if Americans as a culture would care more about their food than its price and its convenience

What an interesting topic! It kind of goes with another thread I've seen around here, which was examining the pre-op "hoops" people had to jump through before getting the band which were consistently much more involved for insurance patients than for self-pay. Which is curious, when you think about it...insurance companies have to pay for all those extra tests, studies and services, too and so they are increasing their cost....unless a sufficiently large amount of patients gets "weeded out" by this process to be a cost incentive. Clearly, not all of these pre-op tests are medically necessary for ALL patients, so why are they being performed standard on insurance patients to such a high degree? Is it the docs "milking" the insurance companies? Is it the insurance companies delaying surgery as much as possible in the hopes that patients just give up and go away? Not sure, but there certainly are differences... For me, it wasn't about motivation but about control. My insurance does cover WLS, but they were very specific on who could perform the surgery. Their choice was a group that was headed up by a very established surgeon, but that also included 4-5 less experienced surgeons...and I would have had no choice in which one performs the surgery. Add to that that I would not have been able to even MEET the surgeon until my insurance approval came through and the whole thing looked way too impersonal and mechanized to me. Installing a lap band is a little like making a baloon animal inside someone's abdomen...and success, in my mind, is much more dependent on the surgeon than on whether it is a 10 cc or a 14 cc or a Realize band. I was not about to outsource that decision. I don't know whether my insurance would have demanded the 6 month supervised-diet thing, but this to me is the most atrocious requirement of them all. I can lose ALL kinds of weight in 6 month, that is not the problem, that has never BEEN the problem. Like many people on this board, I bet, I'm an expert dieter. Problem is that by month 8, it's all back (usually bringing some extra friends). What a waste of time and resources THAT exercise would have been. Unfettered from insurance requirements and dictates, my self-pay surgeon could personalize my treatment plan. With the exception of high BP, no health concerns, BMI of just over 40 and liver enzymes came back normal = no formal pre-op for me! Yay! I hate to hear about docs that prescribe two weeks liquid diet pre-op for every single patient! I'm sure that this is medically necessary in SOME cases, but in many instances I think it's just torturing fat people. And that's just NOT NICE. 10% of the mass of a healthy liver is glycogen (also called animal starch). These are stored carbohydrates that get transformed into glucose (the brains preferred fuel) very quickly. But because it is a rather inefficient form of storage (there is a lot of Water involved and per gram of glycogen you get a lot less energy than per gram of fat) it doesn't last very long. A few days of low or ultra low carb diet (solid food and all) will deplete glycogen storage easily. So why all the excess liquid dieting? Post-op it's necessary and for most people not that hard since the band/swelling really help at least the first week or so... Sorry, I'm ranting. But there seem to be very different standards of care out there...and while I agree that you should follow your surgeon's advice at all times once you pick them, I do think people should pick their surgeons VERY carefully...

I personally will eat most seafood and fish, but my partner is in the "only if it's not TOO fishy" category....so here are some "approved" choices: Wahoo/Ono, Halibut, Cod (preferrably Icelandic), Sand Dabs, Walleye, Sole "Wacky Wahoo" in Aruba has some of the most fantastic seafood I've ever tasted (especially their ceviche), so if you go there every year, give it a try!

Actually, the firstborn market in CA is rather depressed, so I'm afraid that strategy won't get you far It's true that the price tag can be a bit steep here, but there are no minimum salary requirements per se....remember, all the wealthy folk here have their cleaning ladies and gardeners etc. and they have to live somewhere, too! The biggest shock for those coming from more sparsely populated areas of the country is the lack of any kind of land around our houses...in the suburbs around Los Angeles, we have miles and miles of track houses, each with a postage stamp sized back yard and a few inches on each side, which may command an asking price of 600k anyway. 150k gets you precisely nothing. Having said that, our economy is somehow accommodating all these high-end mortgage and rent payments so if you do get a job here, it might very well allow you to not become homeless....so my advice would be to scope out that part of the deal first. For what it's worth, OR (more specifically Portland) would be my second choice off your list. I love the quirkiness of the place and it's tied for my favorite foodie town in the country (together with NOLA)...although that distinction might not be of much importance anymore However, most of the "water" there seems to be coming from above and my splendid SoCal tan always suffers if I stay in Portland for too long

Oh Boy, do I hear you! In the past, it's exactly that kind of scenario that has doomed diets beyond count...doing everything right, getting next-to-no or no reward from the scale. Previously it would have resulted in a big ole "Well, $@#!$#! this $!#%" and that would have been the end of that particular bout of weight loss. Precisely why I got the band. Now, my plan is to rely on it when the going gets tough, temptations are plenty, I'm travelling with limited options and social obligation etc. and "power diet" in the good times between. I currently only have 2 cc of saline which doesn't help much but WILL keep me from going completely overboard...fill is on July 11th, until then I really just expect to hang tough... Hope your fill on July 5th will give you a boost

Ha! By process of elimination, sounds like I'll have a new neighbor soon....well, me and the other 24 million folks around here... I live in Southern Orange County, about half-way between Los Angeles and San Diego and it's a perfect spot for me. However, to go to either of the "big cities" (not that SoCal isn't a continuous big city...with the exception of my little corner) takes about 1 1/2-2 hrs with even moderate traffic, so definitely sync your job and residence as much as possible if you're really thinking about moving here... Neighborhoods can go from extremely posh to not-posh within a couple of blocks, so if you need any feedback, let me know and I'll be happy to help

Short answer: in order to work properly, the lap band has to be adjusted to just the right amount of restriction. This process varies by individual and can take some time. Until complete, many (but not all) patients report little to no help from the band and any weight loss is mostly due to good old-fashioned dieting. Sleeve and by-pass are instantaneous and weight loss is fastest right out of the gate. Long term, all methods CAN be equally effective. Some lap-band patients never reach the famous "green zone" and give up, others develop complications and have the band removed (which of course is not an option with any other WLS). I don't know the numbers when correcting for these patients (who typically don't loose a lot or regain weight), but according to my surgeon If the patient is compliant the long term success is actually easer with the band because it can always be adjusted whereas the other methods are a one-time deal.

Don't be scared!! It's nothing your pain meds can't handle...just take them on time (no merit points for being a "tough guy/gal"), sip your Water and walk as much as possible and you'll be back to normal before you know it

Hmmm....which one do you dislike more...humidity or horrendous traffic?