kacee

When I get thin, I'll just have to come to terms with the fact that somebody is rejecting me for ME, or possibly for reasons that have nothing to do with me at all. That is going to be the hardest thing of all for me. My fat has been my protection. It is how I have kept myself from relating to people in this world. It's how I kept myself from taking risks. Couldn't have said it better myself! Fat is a protective layering for us. A wall to keep people out and for us to hide behind, and an "excuse" for what befalls us. As those bricks of the wall are being stripped away we have to cowboy up and peek out at the world, put on our big girl (and big boy) underpants and step out into the light. What we also have to be mindful of as "the walking wounded" is that we have as much right to be here on this earth as anyone else. Never give anyone else power over you. Never give your power away. That means accepting that we are not perfect and people will not treat us always the way we want to be treated. That's not what we want but that's okay. That's life. We've got to learn to love ourselves FIRST. Using whatever self-affirmation we need to get that ball rolling. I have as much right to be here as you, or him or her. I'm okay....you're okay. If you don't feel that way....well....your loss.

Three things work.... 1. Log everything you put in your mouth on a program like FitDay or SparkPeople....and do it EVERYDAY. You'd be shocked at how quickly those calories can zoom up when you are not watching. You become hypersensitive to what you eat and tend to think more about what goes in your mouth. 2. Weigh every day. You get sensistized to it. Don't weigh every day expecting the scales to drop...just weight to get a correlation between what you are intaking as food and how your body reacts to it. The scales will fluctuate every day, a little up, a little down, but over the long haul, if you adjust your intake and watch it you'll be able to figure out how your body works, and even though you may not feel like a lot if happening, when you go back and look at the last 30-60 days, you should be able to see a change. But rather than going along and seeing the same thing day after day, adjust your intake and see how your body responds. 3. Set MINI-GOALS you can attain. Not 5-10-15 pounds by thus and so....maybe only 1...or maybe 2. Leave it at that...and then MAKE that mini-goal. It will give you many small successes. That equals incentive.

Hey Justin...any questions just fire em off. You got a lot of past experience folks milling around out here on the forum!

Your doctor won't probably tell you...but EXPECT a voracious hunger to descend on you anywhere from a few days to a week or so after surgery. You will feel really hungry. Don't freak. Don't worry. Feed that hunger with your liquids...and keep it at bay with proteins. Don't worry about losing weight right after surgery. Your band won't work correctly until you have adequate restriction....having the band and having restriction do not necessarily go hand in hand initially. The main thing is keep strictly to your doctor's orders of what and what not to ingest. You have the rest of your life to eat...4 weeks of liquids and mushies is NOTHING. Don't fight the process....expect it, embrace it and flow with it.

Swelling, pressure, discomfort....all part of the process. I had huge pressure and discomfort in my chest for the first week or so....kindof like someone pushing their knuckle into my breastbone. It's your body telling you to take it S-L-O-W. Even drinking can irritate the swolen tissues. Tiny sips and often. Chew Gas-X. A heting pad helped me too. This too shall pass.

Three things work for me.... 1. Log every single thing you put in your mouth, every day, in one of the computer programs like SparkPeople or FitDay. This is probably the single most important thing you can do. I never believed WW when they touted that, but I have been converted!!!! It ABSOLUTELY does work. It makes you hypersensitive to what you eat. If you do not log, you would be SHOCKED at how fast those calories can zoom past 1,000 and you still think you haven't done anything....can't stress it enough. 2. Weigh every day, same time, in the buff, preferably when you first get up in the morning....and log it. This gives you perfect correlation between the food you are eating and what is going on with your body. Don't weigh to expect the pounds to fly off....it is a science experiment to see what your body tolerates, when it kicks in to lose, and when it sits or gains. You experiment with your intake and how your body reacts. Pretty soon you will get a feel for how your body operates. 3. Set MINI-GOALS. Not huge goals....tiny goals. Like losing a pound in 1 week....something that can be accomplished, Baby steps. As you attain those goals, you will find yourself getting "greedy" for more success...and you will PUSH yourself to do better. Alway keep your goals attainable so you will have success. The biggest deterant for us is discouragement.

WHEW! Glad to know they haven't changed the procedures on us!:faint:

Had my first fill about 30 days after surgery. This is also when I started weighing myself daily AND logging everything I ate DAILY on my FitDay program. Many people will say they don't want to do that because weighing everyday is discouraging, but I find that you sensitize to it. It gives me evidence of the results of what I put in my mouth and I can chart it very effectively. Also, when you weigh every day you get used to miniscule moves of the numbers. I concentrate on the 10th of a pound. The actual pound numbers are secondary and when they change it's like a bonus. Also, any time I have felt unsure about my progress, all I had to do was go back and review my stats for the previous 3-4 weeks to confirm that yes, I AM still losing, and losing a pound or more a week. You'll fluctuate daily, but all in all you should be able to see a reduction. Every time I see those numbers drop even a tenth of a pound I have INCENTIVE to continue.

Follow your doctor's orders on when to start mushies. Good mushies are any soups (including creamed soups, but nothing with CHUNKS in it), puddings, cottage cheese, yogurt, applesauce, watered down mashed potatoes...anything with a baby food type consistency. (Avoid eggs for the time being. They really ripped me up, and I didn't try them until my first week of solids and they backed up on me something fierce and I have heard others say the same thing). Get yourself some protein powder to make shakes. Try the clear protein drinks such as Isopure clear protein drink which is a great filler during the day and gets you the protein you need without a huge number of calories. My doctor also considered fish filet to be a mushie. I lived on Groton's fish filets (about the size of a pack of cigarettes and comes in Cajun, Garlic and herb, lemon, etc) and it was very filling for me and gave me the impression of eating though the fish is very soft.

I believe it actually gets stuck at the opening of the pouch. The idea is for the food to work its way into the small pouch, but many of us tend to gulp our food or take too big a bite out of habit and not chew thoroughly and so everything bottles up like in a funnel at the top, which causes sliming, PBing and discomfort.

You need to really rethink as you eat. Sounds like you may be taking too big a bite, or not chewing enough. I have great restriction, but if I don't really watch myself I PB a lot because I tend to forget and take a big bite, or gulp. When I really really slow down and chew chew chew and think when I eat I don't normally have that problem. So it's not just the tightness of the band, it is also how you are navigating the eating process.

Yep, foods tend to slide through faster if they are lubricated with a liquid. The idea is to fill quickly and feel satiated for a long period of time. However, that being said, let me WARN you all.... if and when you get some food that seems to go down and stick, do not, I repeat DO NOT EVER TRY TO WASH IT DOWN WITH A LIQUID. That is a recipe for a PB if there ever was one. It's like pouring water in a plugged up toilet. Isn't going to do anything but come back up.

By the way, don't bother with the "last supper syndrome" because you will be able to eat probably 80-90% of what you ate before after the band is on....juswt in smaller quantities. You're not kissing foods goodbye...you are kissing the PORTIONS goodbye.

I had no pe-op anything either. Dr. Spivak simply said "Do not gain any weight before surgery." I looked at what other people were doing and kept my consumption down to a dull roar the week before.

What on earth do you have a bruise on your THIGH for? Were the lights out in the operating room...or did they drop you?

Your band is not working for you until you have good restriction, and that does NOT come just with placement of the band. I managed to lose while waiting to get good restriction (I didn't get really good restriction until my third fill....3 months into the process), but it was a fair amount of work. It got much easier after the fills.

That was why I opted not to do the 6 month weight loss program my insurance required. I figured they would just use it as an excuse to say I didn't need the band, if I lost any weight at all. The problem is you can lose the weight if you really put your mind to it....you just cannot KEEP it off long term. You said yourself you've done this for 30 years (so did I). I would go back and insist that you want it, if you truly do.

heating pad and gas-X...two of the greatest inventions in the world. My gas went on for a month. I ate gas-X regularly. It is agonizing, but it does eventually subside. Mine was under my left shoulderblade and running up the left side of my neck.

I think that the construction of things will cease BIG belching. I belch little belches....a LOT...and not big gulpy belches but little bubbley ones (sorry if that's TMI). I don't think there is much room for a LOT of air, and it does tend to get uncomfortable, so it comes out little and often.

The liquid/mushies stage is NOT for losing...though you most likely WILL loose mainly because it is a way of eating SO UNLIKE what you have known as a habit in the past. Yes, liquids will go through. Mushies a little less, but going through easily is the IDEA of this in the first place. Your band will not be effectively working for you until you get good restriction, so sit back and work through the process and don't agonize. You might not get to optimum for several months. You will never be what you were pre-band, but you need to take this slow and not expect overnight success. It will come.

I see people talking about how other people will treat them when they are "thin"....how their partners and family will react to it, etc. I don't really see people commenting on what I believe to be the core of the problem with most everyone... "When I am ______ (insert your word here.....thin, skinny, 130 pounds, etc.) will I finally be HAPPY with and LOVE myself?" I think that's what this really boils down to. We have all punished ourselves for whatever indiscretions we perceive we have done to ourselves, or have been done to us by others. I don't believe that ONE of us has had a truly healthy relationship with OURSELVES in this self-destructive lifestyle. And NO we won't magically love ourselves at a certain weight. This is a multi-step process. Mind and body, together. You cannot divorce the two. As the metamorphisis takes place in our bodies, we have to turn inwards and REALLY look long and hard at why we got where we got...take those bricks of thinking apart and study them carefully and try to put them back together in a more healthy way... THAT's the challenge we face....the weight is secondary, like getting rid of the symptom of a disease, if you don't address the underlying cause, the symptoms will return.

Are you logging what you eat and weighing often? I weigh every day...not expecting the pounds to fall off, but to compare the weight flux to what I am ingesting. It helps a lot and logging your food makes you hypersensitive to what you are eating. If you log accurately (and I mean, every cookie, etc.) you will see exactly what you have to do. I log whether I am good or bad and believe me, the little changes can make a difference. Also, are you eating things high in sodium? Holidays tend to bring that. I have been out of town at my brother's for Christmas and even though I could not eat a LOT, I definitely ate a lot of the WRONG things (though really small portions), and had a lot of things like ham (HIGH sodium), so when I get back in the sddle and start getting things in order again tomorrow (got home today), I know that ol scale will have jumped up several pounds, but that is OKAY considering what I have been doing.

I went to California in September to visit my nephew and my Mom and I went to his school and talked to his principal about his studies, etc. We talked for over two hours to this man (he was around my age) and at one point he asked what I did and I made some comment on my job and I said something like "Well, in my line of work you have to be something-or-other..." and he looked at me and smiled and said, "....and beautiful too!" and I tell you I nearly fell out of my chair!!!! (Damn, Mom didn't have her ears in and missed the comment!) Talk about an ego boost! I wish everyone realized what a boost little comments can make in a person's life! I think that's one that is going to stick with me for years!

Okay, I already had an appointment with my dermatologist so I asked him about the hair loss. He said it is due to dermatitis, which is caused by stress (surgery, weight loss, etc.). He gave me two sample bottles of (1) Regular Head and Shoulders and (2) Head and Soulders intensive treatment (in a dark blue bottle). He said wash my hair every day, alternating the two and I should see a difference within a week. The important thing he said was to wash it EVERY day (which I don't normally do). So that's what the doctor said if anyone is interested, since it's all over the counter stuff.

Everything has shifted with age (actually for the better!) 215-225 = 1x-2x 185-175 = 16/14 pants. XL top. 160=12 pants and L/XL top (wide shoulders)