kacee

I've got a few suggestions you can take or leave....but they totally work for me. 1. Get in the habit of weighing yourself every day at the same time, in the buff (like right when you get up) and log it on a computer program online (FitDay, SparkPeople, etc.). This is not so much to see the pounds melt off as it is to correlate the numbers with the foods you are ingesting and see how one affects the other. 2. On FitDay or SparkPeople or whatever, log every single food you put into your mouth, online, every day. I mean it. This makes a HUGE difference...and something WW has always touted and I always poo-poo'd. I am here to tell you they are right, 100%. It makes you hypersensitive to what goes in your mouth. You should probably be ingesting in the neighborhood of 800-1100 calories a day, depending on your height, etc. 3. If you are finding youself feeling poorly, sounds like your blood sugar is swinging. Try Protein drinks (not shakes, but drinks) such as Isopure clea protein drinks (40 mg and 160 cal). These are the kind of things you copuld sip on through the day. Or you may want to start eating like a hypoglycemic (6 small meals a day to maintain your blood surgar levels through the day).

What does feeling restrction mean. It means when you first ingest your food you get an almost immediate feeling of "Hmm, I think I'm full." or "Hmm, I can feel I will be full in a few more bites." Some people say they feel more restriction in the morning than in the afternoon. Yes, that is true for a lot of people (me included.) I have less restriction at night. And some people say the band helps control hunger, but most of us do not eat because of physical hunger, mostly just because food is there. So does it take away appetite? It's kindof a biological behavioral training, like Pavlov's Dog...eventually they rang the bell and the dog immediately salivated because always before he had been give food or treats when the bell rang. Eventually you didn't need the treats and food to get him to salivate on cue...with the bell. With negative feedback you can be trained to do amazing things. The NEGATIVE is that if you do NOT follow the directions, there will be consequences...being very uncomfortable. After a while, you look at food and go....hmmmm. Is it worth it to dive in? When you go to a restaurant you start ordering smaller things because early on you realize you won't be eating all of it and it's a shame to go to waste... I found that after a while I didn't respond with a knee-jerk reaction to food anymore. And then the nutritionist said after the band I will be eating between 500-800 calories a day. So then how can you possibly not loose weight? And then she said I will only be able to eat 1-2 ounces at a time. I'd say that's pretty conservative. I can eat about a salad plate of food (NOT PILED!). It goes to over 1-2 ounces, but you would be surprised that things like "3 oz" of something are considered accurate and TRUE food portions....just not in THIS country! You learn to eat SLOW as well. So, will I ever be "normal" again. As in can you go out with people socially. You'll be normal always....but you will actually be MORE normal. Face it. We're not normal now. This is abnormal and that's why we are so messed up and in the shape we are in. You are going to be retrained to eat. You can absolutely go out with friends and eat. You just order slightly different things than you used to and have more opportunity to talk. And do you throw up a lot or have bad pain? Only when you don't do what you are supposed to! There is a learning curve to this. I am 8 months out and just now getting comfortable with my portion choices, and my eating speed...and then again, I still screw up sometimes and "pile my plate" or take way too big a bite....force of habit. But I am getting a LOT better. And then how do you stop loosing weight so you don't end up looking like Star Jones? I asked the nutritionist these questions and she said well people eat all day long and stretch out their pouch. But how can you do that if you can only eat 1 ounce at a time or you are in pain and throw up? Yeah, that doesn't make sense...I think she is saying that people start to force feed themselves...larger and larger portions and keep introducing foods all day long. Anyone who would do that is an idiot who shouldn't have bothered with it in the first place. There ARE ways to eat AROUND the band, and there are people out there who get it down to a science, unfortunately. You can keep from losing by adjusting the caloric intake of your foods.

<p>Ask your surgeon if the can recommend a psych. Then call and see if they're on CIGNA, or just get the CIGNA provider list and hunt down some folks in your area. It's not like this is going to be your life-long doctor or anything...you just have to have an evaluation. Call them and see if they do psych evaluations for bariatric surgery candidates and ask what it entails.</p>

** Ask some questions about the band you are getting. It amazes me the number of people who seem to have no clue how much their band holds or anything about its workings ** Ask what his fill philosophy is. How soon can you get the first fill, and if it doesn't "take" what are his requirements for a return visit (period of time). If you are self-pay, how much are the fills going to cost and do any free ones come with it (my first year is free). Does he use a flouroscope? Is he the one who does the fills alone, or does his office staff do it too?

Plus it is a lot like the post-vacation blues, post-baby blues, post-party blues, post-holida blues. These are things you get really worked up in anticipation over. It consumes your days and night leading up to it. It might be all you think about. It's all planning and anticipating and preparing.l...Then it's done and it's like....now what? Especially if you in the slightest obsessed about it before hand. It's easy to feel a kindof let down after the fact. I think I was kindof at a loss for about a week after surgery and then what I did was kick in to my "Now let's get down to business and make this sonofagun WORK!!!!!" and then I redirected my energies to that!

Well, color me wrong.... Not everyone has bowel movements once a day. Don't believe ads that say you must have a daily bowel movement to be "regular." A normal range is generally 3 times a day to 3 times a week. You may be getting constipated if you begin to have bowel movements much less often than you usually do. Everyone is different, but I would say if it is something that causes you distress like straining, etc., you need to rethink your fiber intake.

Once or twice a WEEK??????? Good grief...I'd say you are just about getting to be "normal" pooping twice a day!!!! You are definitely not eating the quality of fiber you should be if you only poop once a week or so....WOW!

Oh and if you say you are still big.... SIZE is RELATIVE. If I knew someone who was normally 450 pounds and they lost 100 pounds and were waddling around at the stout 350....you BET I would say "HEY SKINNY!!!!" In their eyes they are....and it's relative to how they WERE.

Learn to love it my friend! It is a compliment of the highest order. I get called skinny girl ALL the time at work. All I do is just smile and smile and smile!!!! I mean....DUH.....don't you WANT people to notice you are losing? I sure do! Just short of putting a neon sign over my head that says, "YEP, I'VE LOST ALMOST 60 POUNDS AND I AM PROUD AS PUNCH WITH MYSELF!!!" This is how people who know you and don't know you can go "Way to go kiddo!!!" in just a few short words! We former fatties need to stop getting so darned bent out of shape by what we perceive as every not politically correct comment that comes down the pike. Take it as the compliment it is meant to be and say "YOU BETCHA!" You don't have to say "thank you"....I just say "You betcha and stillworking on it!"

I went crazy on cottage cheese with smushed up avacado mixed in. MMMMMMMMMMMMMM.

Well hey, T's Mom....welcome to ya! You're at the right place and you can arm yourself with all the info you're going to need in your new life. There's someone around every corner here who's been there and done that, and we'll be happy to escort you into BandLand!!!

Welcome and jump on in to the General discussion area! There's loads of useful info here!

And lauraj23 is right....you have to get OVER the diet mentality. This is NOT a diet. This is changing a way of living. There are NO BAD FOODS....just BAD PORTIONS. If you are on mushies and can have some pumpkin pie...by all means do...don't eat the crust because it's too solid now, and smush up the pumpkin filling so it's softer. And then have a few bites! There's nothing wrong with it. The thing is, you won't have it for breakfast, lunch and dinner, in huge amounts, for several days. I have finally realized I CAN tread into these types of foods...but I have to go at it like a "lean person" would handle it.

You just answered my question halfway down your post. As I read what your sister was saying I was thinking, "Oh she HAS to be overweight because she is trying the sabotage routine." Sure enough! IGNORE them. Do not give them ANY power of you or your feelings. If they try to go down that path just do the old, "Hey, you're either with me or "agin" me...I need positive people around me so if you're gonna talk like that this conversation thread is over. On to something else please!"

When I was big, I just ordered 1X and 2X stuff and lived in "big shirts". Hard not to fit in those. Now I am losing I actually find out I am pretty much a normal size. Those items that don't fit, I try to determine if it's worth it to get a size smaller (or larger) and just return them for credit or echange for another size. Going to a regular department store seems really daunting to me still. I LOVE castalogs. Plus I have ordered about 10 pairs of shoes on line and every single one has fit! WOW!

Here's something interesting.... Naturopathyworks - food cravings...

If you have chunks of ice you have too much ice in there and also you may not have a decent blender. For my shakes I put 1 cup skim milk in (first), 1 scoop powder (second), and a "handfull" (probably comes out to about 5 cubes of ice or less) (Last of all, closest to the blender blades). Then I blend on high for about 30 seconds untill the "chunking" sound goes away.

There are still some foods that seem to "burn" for me...salad dressings with vinegar in them are one. You are just getting used to working with more "solid" food. Yes, you will feel discomfort and fullness. The fullness you have is in another place and will take some getting used to to recognize it. Everything is still swollen down there and therefore, not a lot of anything will be going down for a little while. If you feel like you are going to pop, back off on the amount. Take in liquids until you just start to feel the "feeling" of being full and then stop....no matter what you have or have not already taken in. If it appears to come on suddenly then you are drinking too fast (and then everything all of a sudden hits bottom and you are miserable).

There are three things that worked for me in my journey and I will tell you why. 1. I weigh every day...not necessarily to see the weight melting off of me and not expecting a dramatic loss each day but to correlate my weight with what I was doing with my eating habits. 2. I log everything I eat online on a program called FitDay (there are many out there). Weight Watchers always touted this and I always pooh poohed it. NOW I kow why they say to do it. It makes you hypersensitive to what you put in your mouth. As you start out, you are training yourself, your mind, your stomach to be different from the way you were before. This helps you accomplish that. Knowing what you ingest and being able to correlate it with the numbers on the scale is invaluable. When you screw up with the intake and then the scale goes up, you can see it and know EXACTLY what happened and why. Too often I hear people saying "Gosh, I've only lost 3 pounds in 4 months...I just do NOT know WHY." THIS will tell you why. It's not Rocket Science...but it is pure physics. Cause and effect. 3. I set mini-goals. You DO need goals. Goals keep you moving in the right direction. Goals don't mean "Okay, I have to lose 200 pounds." Goals CAN be kinda fun...like I want to lose three pounds in the next three weeks. THOSE kinds of goals. Attainable goals. When you start reaching goals (no matter how silly and small) you get MOTIVATED to do MORE and you start stretching those goals, testing yourself. Without goals you just wallow around making excuses for why things aren't progressing. Success = Progress.

Okay guys, just jump on in and get your feet wet here! We were all newbies once, and I think because of the good experiences we had with folks on the forum who took us by the hand pre-op, we feel we should be available to do the same thing for folks after us. There is no substitute for experience. You're in good "hands."

Welcome Kiddo! We are totally here for you. We've been where you are and walked your walk. As you progress on your journey there will be TONS of folks (no pun intended) ready to take you by the hand and lead you down the path. There is no better teacher than experience.

I commend your surgeon on his recommendation. He can fill you in on the basic mechanics...we can fill you in on everything else he doesn't tell you about. I'm 7 months into my journey and 56, and I have been reborn. I am loving my life.

Okay, Mytggr.....how'd it go?

Sounds like you are keeping on top of things, and it is totally typical not to have restriction for a while when they first start filling you. I had NOTHING until my 3rd restriction and then it was "WHOA!!!! So THAT's what it's supposed to do!!!" If your doc has a flouro, request to be filled with that so they can really dial it in.

The last thing I would ever want to be is someone's "practice patient".