the best me

Margo, could this be it? http://www.lapbandtalk.com/showthread.php?t=7116&page=2&pp=15&highlight=Ice+Cream+bars I'll check out some more and post if I find anything...

Yep, it's hard for me to get my head out of the sand and see next year. I am almost 8 weeks post-op. I lost 15 pounds in the first 12 days and NOTHING since. No fill yet. I may just be on a small downward trend, but need to see 205 or less for several days before I'll change my sig on the weight loss. My big goal right now is under 200. My hubby is very supportive and encouraging. He sees what I'm eating and sees a big difference from pre-band consumption. One of these days it has GOT to kick in, ya know? Waiting, waiting, oh so patiently, NOT!

I can't WAIT to have this problem! Great post, Julie. I'm anxoius to see the replies here.

Okay, my hubby confirmed this looks like a bear. It would be nice to see a penny in the corner of the glass, just to really see the size, but unless you have a really big dog...plus your neighbor knew about a bear in the area so I guess you two are really holed up for the night again! Oh My! is right!

Well written, indeed. Thank you SO much for the inspiration, wisdom, and encouragement. You are a blessing.

Step away from the tomato soup! Believe me when I say that 1)you have restriction and you will feel it more when you are off liquids and on to solids again. 2)I know you have restriction if you have eaten tomato soup and have heartburn. I did the same thing post-surgery. The V-8 juice and swelling did NOT compliment each other. The heartburn comes from refluxing the tomato soup up into your esophogus. Sip, don't drink. Stick with non-acidic liquids until it's okay to move to more mushy foods. Give your band area time to heal after the fill and you will be just fine. Drink your protien drinks to assuage your hunger. OH! and chew a Tums for the heartburn. My bet is you will be pleasantly surprised at your level of restriction when you are eating hard protiens first. (hey, did ya'll like that word "assuage"? I had to look it up to check and make sure I used it correctly and I did. It means to lessen, satisfy, quench. Pronounced "uh-swage". hehe...Word of the Day!)

My intention was to plant a rose bush by the fence. I was so dissappointed when my husband bought a blue bird house and nailed it right to the fence post where Blossom's Rose Bush was supposed to go. So I tried to come up with plan B. Where else can I plant a Rose Bush? Should I even plant a Rose Bush now? Time went by. Everytime I went out back I saw the blue bird house and thought about Blossom, what else can I do in her honor? Spring came and the Blue Birds moved in. Mom and Dad Blue Bird flitted to and fro bringing pine needles to build their nest. Soon, little blue eggs sat in a sweet pine needle nest inside that house. Awww. I wonder what I should do in honor of Blossom? Then I heard the little peeps of the hatched baby blue birds, and I knew I had missed it all along. THIS is Blossom's Blue Bird House, where families grow, nature flourishes, life endures. In honor of you, Blossom. I think of you often still.

Congrats Nita! Well done...and just a few short weeks!! Time will fly. Yippeee!!!

Oh my gosh I have GOT to get a new wardrobe!! Sorry everyone. This is my "uniform" black elastic waist baggy pants and untucked shortsleeved long top, as baggy as possible. 25 more pounds and I promise to go buy some new clothes and a really good new bra.

grl, keep us posted! Glad it went smoothly and I hope you get the restriction you need.

Well, I'm very glad you told the truth! It will just be a matter of your pshychologist addressing that issue with you properly and getting the recommendations in order before approving you. I'm sure it's all for the best. Purging tendencies are certainly not a good thing with the band. Not that you would purge banded, but if you had ever purged habitually at any point, you need to understand that about yourself so you are better able to deal with banded life successfully. Good for you. Please let us know how it goes and how the psychologist handles it.

Just a theory, but doesn't that Gastric Ballooning sound like a good culprit for the "Hollywooders" who drop weight like mad when a role calls for it? They say 'Oh I went No carbs for 8 weeks" or "I got a personal trainer" Blah. I think they got ballooned! Can't prove it, but I think so.

Zarathustra, I, too, am interested in reading what is being published out there about the Lap Band, so I thank you for the link. I guess we just all gotta get our 2 cents in, for whatever it's worth. Oh, it's worth 2 cents, right? Mine is, anyway!

Okay, so I got pregnant with my oldest, and what did I weigh? 208 I had her, lost some weight, gained some weight, then lost, and settled at 208. I got pregnant with my youngest and weighed 208. Had him, lost weight, gained wieght, and never saw 208 again. I weighed 223 when I got banded, and quickly lost some weight. Guess how much? 15 pounds. And that put me at 208. And I have stayed there since day 12 after surgery almost 8 weeks ago. My body LOVES 208. I HATE it!! So today on the scale I weighed 206.4 I'm still not convinced I'll never see 208 again but at some point I'll get below it enough to know I will never look back. It has taken me weeks to convince my body that 208 is BAD. Our bodies tend to get stuck sometimes. Keep pressing forward. 8 weeks is a drop in the bucket compared to a year from now. And you can be pretty well guaranteed that you will NOT be in the 200's in a year. I know you are frustrated. I'm really sorry, but we can do this!!! With the Band, it's not that you just eat whatever just less of it and lose IF you DON'T have good restriction. For me, it simply makes the diet possible day after day after day. And THAT is what speaks to my 208.

My doc has you do liquids for I think 8 hours before a fill, then the regular 24 hours of liquids after and ease back through the full mushies. Just to be safe, I'd keep it at least mushy or liquid. I'm fairly certain your doc wouldn't say NO food.

Oh how FUN! And to meet the Fabulous Penni in person?!!! Wow! Guess what? Today I get to meet Paula! If all our plans work out, the kids and I are going to meet her at Chick-Fil-A up the road...she and her family are visiting her In-laws who happen to live around the bend from me! Isn't that Cool?! So glad you had a nice weekend Estela. Get that work done, girl!!

Okay ladies, time for some behavior management. If you are weighing more than once a day, start wieighing ONLY once a day for a week, then do once every other day, then once every third day, etc until you get to once a week. It may takes weeks to let it go, but weaning yourself may help. I weigh daily in the mornings. Some mornings I forget. I feel like it helps me to see where I am. The only problem I have run into with weighing daily is that if the scale does happen to be a bit low, I find myself not hassling too much over the food. Then it's up the next day. Why do I do that? Michelle, I was laying in bed last night thinking about how it's time to start doing the weekly scale challenge...see you over there!

The Board Owner is Alex B. who is banded but he NEVER posts!!! He is a very busy business owner but checks in occasionally. He leaves the day-to-day duties to our wonderful Moderators (Alexandra, Penni, Kellymoos, Betty, and Marie) who keep us in line. But it really is a self-moderating board for the most part, would you moderators agree? Look up Alex B. in the members list and check out his old posts in the archives. He seems like a really nice guy and I sure enjoy his Message Board!!

Wow Sheri, thanks for filling us in, it sounds terrible! I wonder what could have prevented that from happening? Was the band too small, could the doc have replaced it with a larger band? Surely you will be able to do this in the future? Will you? On the insurance, if you are Incorported you can get Insurance for small businesses. It's pricey but we have coverage. My DH is a General Contractor. He is the only employee so the family has coverage through him, and they can't deny you (just as if you got a job w/ a company and they MUST provide you with health benefits if you are full-time, you know what I mean?) so you CAN get coverage that way. But with cash pay, wow, all that money and surgery and NO BAND! I feel terrible for you! I'm really sorry. And I'm sorry you lost your grandfather, too. What a difficult time for you! Who was your doctor? Will you try again later?

Warning: personal religious beliefs to follow...I respect the fact that we all don't share the same beliefs, I won't blast yours if you will treat mine with respect please. (not YOU Crystal, just anybody reading and getting their panties in a wad cuz I believe whatever) I'm so glad you bumped this...back when I first read this post, I was doing a Bible Study on Femeninity with a lady at my church. Great study, but I was also able to find the words to say aloud that I really felt spiritually inadequate because of my weight. I'm NOT, but I still felt that way. Hello, I weighed 220+ pounds and really have this deal going with food. SOMETHING is wrong!! Do I not believe God's promises to me? Am I not "owning" them? The Bible says lots of good things about God's love for me and how He can and will help me and it really doesn't have anything to do with ME being worthy, but HE being full of Grace and Truth. This was really a comfiming factor in saying yes to Banding. I felt so much that there was room for me to grow, spiritually, but my fat ass was in the way. The tug between the Nirvana, if you will, of self love rooted in God's love, and self-loathing rooted in, what? self-centeredness that makes me self-important enough to do something this drastic for my appearance? Blah, blah, blah. I still struggle with a sense of selfishness, a fear that what I have done is NOT God-honoring, won't be blessed by Him, whatever. Call me a prisoner of my own spiritual beliefs, who knows? But I also feel I will never be able to find out what there is to know and understand while stuck in this big ole body. Thanks for keeping me thinking!

Whoa Nellie! That's Pre-band for even me! Okay, 2 hotdogs and a hamburger...but still, that would have me alarmed as well. What size band do you have?

How are you hanging in there Dallasdoll? Boy, your venting has turned into a really great thread! Thanks! I had forgotten that you are just a week after me on your surgery date. I have some feedback. Yesterday I did what Jayme said and made sure I had Bandster meals all day, even if I had to do more than 3, right? Well, I had a GREAT eating day! Just a little effort and I was able to fill up on hard protiens, the day flew by, I wasn't hungry and I continued my downward (SLOW) trend on the scale. 205.6 this morning!! However, today was not so hot. I didn't worry and just ate and snuck in some sweets. Todays lessons are: Brownies are evil and large restaurant salads with 3 ounces of chicken finely chopped in do NOT keep you full. I have eaten worse than today, but it was very different from yesterday when I ate my solid meat first and snacked on sliced turkey instead of brownies. I'll fill you in on what the scales say in the morning. I hope I haven't gained back my tenuous loss of 3 pounds. Come on Dallasdoll! We can do this! Plus you have to do SOMEthing to keep it together until your next fill, right? It will only feel like a blasted diet for a while, until we change that thinking. And whoever said it above, when the scales start moving, it's a real motivator!

I did Boost, they have a high protien version, 15gm or mg, whichever, didn't have on my reading glasses, which is not as much as some of the others but it was drinkable. I still do one for Breakfast on Sundays and drink it in the car on the way to church. chocolate or vanilla, yummy. Get a few containers of chicken broth, one of beef when the chicken gets old for you. Swanson's makes it. Gas-X dissolvable tablets. Antibiotic ointment for your incisions. Make sure you have a heating pad for your back/neck/shoulders or for your belly if needed. Gatorade or Propel went down better than plain Water. Hot tea bags. Jello. That should pretty well get you through week 1. And then, Egg Drop Soup. Oh my gosh, I would NOT have made it without that on occasion. And it was a nice quick outing to the Chinese place up the road. And the price was right, $1.87 for a large which was 2 meals at the time. Now I can eat/drink and entire large and when I did that I quit eating it!! It's ALOT of soup. During week 2 I would add in the fried noodles and let them soak really well, and it gave me a little something to chew that was still soggy. I'm sure there are other items to be recommended, but that's about all I needed. I over-bought and still have stuff in the cabinet I never got to. It's amazing how long your leftovers will last compared to pre-banding. Good luck!

Yummmm, EGG DROP SOUP!!!

Thanks Mandy, I liked that alot.