Bandista

This is so inspiring, Shel -- you look amazing. I am so happy for you! This is such a profound process and I consider myself very fortunate to be in the company of this forum and YOU as we all recapture our lives, step by step. Best wishes for a health-filled spring! Going to read your blog now.

Hi Kara, what a confluence of events! I hope you are both recovering well and settling back into your lives. Like every one else mentioned, don't worry if your weight is up post-surgery as there is a lot of inflammation. I was several pounds up and then one day it dropped off. Your body may be holding on because of all the stress and worry as well as the surgery itself. Like you, I did not experience an immediate return of hunger. I was on one day clear and then one week full liquids then on to mushy foods for a week. All throughout that time I did not feel hungry and I think that's a good thing as some people wake up from the surgery "starving" and feel very frustrated about that. My surgeon told me not to worry about calorie or Protein goals at all during this time -- that the objective was just to heal up from the surgery. I enjoyed tea quite a bit, and broth. I really liked potato leek Soup. I'd feel a little hungry but then a bite or two of something would give me that "full" sensation and so I just stopped (important to learn that!). I loved my Popsicles but couldn't even finish one of those. The hunger did return, however, and for me it was well-timed with when I went back to the surgeon to assess for a first fill. It took me six small fills to get to what I think is the Green Zone. Those early days were a little taste of that. Best wishes to you! Try not to worry about the number on the scale. I know it's hard -- I still really struggle with that myself. The weight is going down and of course it's happening......even a little gain is usually a precursor to a real drop for me. But it's hard for me to believe in the whole thing and I guess I use the scale to prove to myself that, yes, it's true. I'm losing weight. It's working! It will work for you, too.

Congratulations on reaching Onederland! Very frustrating to have a three-week stall but you got through that and put the 200s behind you. I am so looking forward to that day! Maybe you're afraid of another stall or just a little nervous about how your life is changing so quickly. Ironically, sometimes we're afraid we're going to screw something up so we go ahead and.....screw it up. Not sure what that is, but it's a very human tendency. Be careful not to let self-sabotage into the game. Be kind to yourself. Use positive self-talk. You have chosen yourself and your health above everything else and you deserve all good things. Best wishes to you!

Hi Sylvia, this is such a difficult time, the waiting game! I hope you hear soon and can start making plans. Meanwhile, best wishes for a great first weekend of spring (so I'm told -- wouldn't know it to look out the window!).

Hi there, congratulations on your surgery! I definitely gained at the time of surgery and then it dropped off again at day five or so -- all that inflammation. Please don't pay attention to the number. This is your time to heal up from the surgery and then to get used to banded life! I know how it is, though, but really, really, don't worry about any gain right now. Best wishes!

I don't do artificial sweeteners at all. A good coop or health food store will have lots of Protein shakes to choose from -- look for Steevia, as that is a plant, but make sure you get 100% Steevia and not one that is mixed with something else, like Maltodextrin or other fillers (my auto correct is trying to change Maltodextrin to "Exterminator" -- hmmmm). Watch out for all those additives and fillers -- have to really check labels carefully. Real food in small quantities is my goal; a diet free of chemicals is a beautiful thing. Good luck to you -- I think you are really on the right track for true health!

Go, Johnny (sorry, cannot resist -- not like you haven't heard that one a million times!)......anyway, nice you know your band will be primed so you won't have to make that trip to many times. Hope all goes swimmingly and I have to say I wish I was in Mexico right now. First day of spring in NH and we have more frozen gluck on the ground to celebrate. Best wishes for a good trip home and a speedy recovery! I have had my band a little over four months and I am thrilled. It's not just the weight loss, it's the feeling of peace around food.

Sorry I don't know anything about Charleston or the Mexican bands, but I just want to say best wishes for your trip tomorrow and your newly-banded life. Obviously the after-care component is really important so I hope you are able to find just the right medical professionals to work with stateside. Do you know whether they "prime" the band? Some surgeons put Fluid in the band at the time of placement. Also plication with lapband seems to be a trend and many plication patients do not have fills at all. I have no idea whether these are good options, but just putting more out there for fodder. Best wishes and keep us posted!

That is excellent! Way to go!

Not ice cream but I did keep a recipe a friend posted for these Protein truffles -- haven't tried them yet but YUM -- and since truffles are filed away in the same part of my brain as ice cream, here you go: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/5-Minute-Protein-Truffles-51200210

Best wishes, Donna -- I hope you'll keep in touch. You've had a lot of health issues to resolve and I really admire the way you have gone about assessing them and seeking resolution. In all of this you are really showing up for yourself and your health -- that is a big deal, the facing of things head-on. Keep choosing Donna and Happiness first!

I have a small spoon with a longish handle and a shrimp fork that seem to help me eat smaller portions, and I try to actually put down the implement between bites. This is so hard for me it is absolutely ridiculous, makes me laugh at myself. That stubbornness you refer to in your title really resonates with me. I think it takes a while to retrain our instincts to shovel shovel shovel. Having an episode definitely leads to learning to really notice the tightness that comes on just before and then hopefully heading it off at the pass -- this, for some anyway, is the behavior modification. Mindfulness. I know that feeling in my solar plexus and it sure slows me right down and gets me chewing the next bite (a few minutes later) so I don't enter the real zone of getting stuck. Gary John you are so right about the stress! food has been my coping mechanism for tamping down that whir of anxiety inside. Now that I don't have that habit to lean on anymore (and let's face it, it didn't even really work -- talk about temporary!) I'm noticing the anxiety and stress are not really so bad if I just let it all come forward. I notice it, acknowledge whatever it is and if I'm really freaking out over something of course exercise and/or big hydration works a lot better than food ever did anyway. As for bad habits, I just noticed on another thread a very successful bander who changed up evening habits by getting out to swim a couple of nights a week rather than being home and facing the snack TV trap so many of us struggle with. I want to get to that place and hope spring will help as evenings can be so hard. Good luck to all -- we are getting there!

If you are craving fast food, just think about all the chemicals put into that "food" for this very purpose -- keeping you addicted and coming back for more. Maybe you would like to take this opportunity to get completely clean -- watch out for any artificial anything and especially sweeteners in "diet" shakes, foods, drinks, etc. Four or five days of letting your body clear out the cravings will make a world of difference.

Hi there, I remember you, too, when I first started doing my research -- one of those inspiring types! Or I just love your dog. Sixty pounds is great, and maybe it was good for your body to have some time to get used to that before you committed to the next chunk. Spring is in the air. What a great time to shed and to kick up the exercise a few notches. A while back some one posted a list of what things weigh and for some reason I latched on to the weight of a cinder block being 33 pounds. I have lost belly weight, and I guess that's just like putting down a cinder block I've been carrying around for absolutely no reason. For years. Now I'd like to put down a second cinder block -- working on that. Let's do this thing!

Hi there, so sorry about your arthritic issues. I hear you on the yoga, etc. I'd like so much to be able to take yoga again but my wrists are too compromised to support many of those poses. And ankles. Fortunately the kind of arthritis I have is made better by movement so I do feel better once I loosen up and get going. But I'm so sick of being in pain, especially at this time of year. And I'm nearly 40 down but still in pain -- hoping that when I really get the weight all off I will see a drop. But inflammation is inflammation. Speaking of which, when I read about the bread, Pasta, etc., I wondered if you might have a sensitivity to wheat. It is so common now, and it's usually the people who really love the stuff, the stuff they shouldn't have. GERD is a symptom, for sure. My husband finally went off wheat totally and what a difference that has made. He can't have even a crumb brushed into the salad by mistake without having serious repercussions, and over the years we have read up quite a bit on this issue that is effecting so many people now. Wheat today is not what it once was -- it has been genetically altered and more and more people cannot tolerate things they had no problem with before. Like TMF, I'm just another grunt on here (so true!), but who knows, maybe it's worth going off all wheat for a month and seeing how you feel. Best wishes to you!

Maybe this is your body's signal? I'm still looking for mine -- hoping for a sigh or a flutter, something subtle, but it's probably more in the hiccup realm. I've been stuck four times now and hiccups are always a big part of the event. World class hiccups, the kind that make the house shake. Painful, too! Maybe your pouch wants something out of there or you are just tight from getting stuck before. Why not call it in and get the reassurance from your surgeon's office; that's what they are there for, right? Meanwhile, hope you feel better soon!

So good you worked that out, but very funny about the bread, etc. The whole wasting food thing is so different for me now that I am thinking about everything that goes into my body and whether it's right for me -- even the good stuff like Protein, etc. can be too much if I've had enough already. I figure it's okay. I was always such a "finisher" -- clean plate club, etc. It feels really good now not to have to finish my food but to listen instead for when I've had enough, and -- miracle of miracles -- stop. Before being banded, even when I knew I had reached that point, I just kept going anyway. Thus the band and the new life. Yippee!

Hey there, your big day is almost here! Congratulations on that -- you're off to a great start. I was so excited about having the surgery that I didn't experience a lot of pain. When I compared it to dentistry for example, or severe cramps -- all the discomfort was really okay because at least it is for something positive, something I wanted so much. I think a sense of humor really helps a lot. I had never been an overnight patient in the hospital before and I'm 52, so I was a bit nervous. It was so much better than I expected. I elected not to take the prescription narcotic prescription I had filled just in case as I really didn't need it and didn't want the side effects. But that's just me! You will get through these next few days and be on the other side of it all in no time. I'm pretty sure the walking is the secret to success. When I woke up and needed to use the bathroom I took that opportunity to walk up and down the hallway with my IV pole, then I repeated that over and over again -- feeling like I had to pee, visiting the loo, walking up and down the hall a little further each time. By morning I had done so many laps and then at home I continued around our driving circle. I'm pretty sure this really helped kick off the healing mode for my body. And now of course these few months later I can't remember any of that discomfort, just the delight in being down nearly 40 pounds and feeling really good about myself and my life. Best wishes to you -- keep us posted!

Barbee, would measuring help? Sometimes I eat out of a stainless steel measuring 1/2 cup with a little spoon just to remind my brain of ideal portion size so I can eyeball better (smaller) for other meals. And I try to take an assessment at the time -- am I really hungry or do I just want to chow on something. Also the speed thing, oh my. We live in New England and I have always eaten so fast. Now I really notice that in the people around me, and of course my band speaks up as soon as I start doing it myself. I try to imagine those esophageal squeezes signaling my brain, "I'm full. Stop!"

Hi there, congratulations on your weight loss and everything else -- you are doing so well! The fill thing is weird, isn't it? Protocols vary, the way some have fluid in the band at placement, others none, some doctors do a series of small fills, others a large one then tapering off.....hard to know how each Individual is going to react, too. I've had six small fills. It's only this latest one that put me in the zone but it hasn't been black and white, I had to let it all settle in each time and then over a few weeks determine whether I was "there." Best wishes as you continue on -- don't forget it is a slower process with less to lose, but you're on track and now it's spring. Great time to shed!

Brant, you are doing beautifully -- congratulations! With such a big change, not only on the scale but in the brain -- your whole way of thinking, your priorities, your commitment to your healthy future -- there is that pinch me feeling, pinch me to see if I'm dreaming, am I really 88 pounds down? Have I turned this ship around? Yes! Will you screw it up? No way. You have that beautiful boy there to remind you every day why you want to be healthy -- and you want him to be healthy, too. Try to love and believe in yourself the way you do your boy. You don't have to be perfect. You just have to take each new day and live it. We don't live for food and addiction now, we don't live to escape -- we live to be present in our lives and that is a very happy thing.

Sorry, metals ilium above is metabolism! Can't edit from my iPad.....have a great day over 50 friends! So wish I had done this earlier but this is the right time, bands are better and I didn't even know about WLS a decade ago. Still, not to have been fat in my forties would have been nice, or thirties. Ok, stop, no use going down that road. Onward!

I don't eat in the morning either, just drink my half a pot or so of tea. It's a relief not to have to get in the "most important meal" etc., as there is new research that breakfast may not be right for every one -- for some it just starts the calorie ticker early in the day, nothing to the whole metals ilium firing thing, etc. Big surprise we are not all the same! My motto is if Hungry, eat, if not hungry, don't eat. I make sure the hunger is "real." And the non-hunger -- I have to be careful I'm not just being restrictive and denying myself, so many years of diet programming in my head! Since I'm never hungry in the mornings and I feel "tight" I just skip. I have very high energy. I fact that "needing to eat" thing now seems like it was nonsense for me, the feeling weak if I didn't eat., etc. must have just been one of my mind games. So clear now about all that weird food thinking, the on/off diet mentality. Very grateful for my band!

My Winnie-the-Pooh belly has gone down considerably but I've still got a pouch there. When I stand sideways in front of the mirror sometimes I push it in to see what that profile will look like if I keep working out as much as I can and continue to make excellent choices. But it's so much better than it was -- the spare tire. People gain in different ways and I definitely am a belly fat body type. I think my favorite part is the throat and chest, the collarbones, feeling more definition there. I've always thought my upper arms were fat, even when that wasn't possible. Now I've lost three inches on each arm -- amazing. Cannot even fathom that! I think measuring is really good, that and jean sizes, for letting me know what is real. Trying on clothes over the weekend that's what I felt like, "it's real, my weight loss is real, the clothes are smaller and they fit!"

I just made out like a bandit at Coldwater Creek's spring sale. I was a 2X before (their largest size, I think) and now two sizes down at XL. Their sizing is different from department stores. I like the way CC hangs everything together -- small right up to 2X and I find the quality of the clothing is very high. Great sales staff to go get other sizes or thing you may like, and the sale prices are ridiculous (one pretty top was $4.99, another $11, but then this season's stuff is very pricey). Well-stitched, etc. I also like J Jill but haven't been there in years. In a few months I will try that one, too, and also will see what Dress Barn has to offer. I am determined to have a couple of nice summer dresses for high school graduation, etc. Cottony billowy, pretty. Thanks for that suggestion!