RainyDay

You will get more food if you eat lower fat but don't go tooooooo low-fat or you won't feel satisfied and your body won't be able to absorb fat-soluble Vitamins like A and D. I don't love canned Soup but I make my own vegetable soup (loosely based off that cabbage soup fad diet of the 90s, which tastes good although it's not enough to sustain an adult for too long.) Anyway, soup gives a good feeling of satiety and helps you to be satisfied eating less overall. At least that's how it's supposed to work...I've lost a piddly 8 pounds and my body is already shrieking "feed me!" LOL.

That was a terrible thing he said to you, and he doesn't deserve your love or company.

My bariatric center is just having me come to monthly appointments with a dietician at the bariatric center. I have Medica and have three months of it to do. I have kinda sucked at it this month - lost 12 pounds the first week and then said, well, damn, that was enough for one month! Not the best attitude, unfortunately.

Wow, Mary, you inspire me! Way to go!

If you don't think you have fibromyalgia, you might not want a diagnosis. My mom has it and it means that when she was in several car accidents (none of which were her fault) her car insurance stopped paying for treatments related to the accident, saying it was all due to fibromyalgia, and she was stuck paying big co-pays through her medical insurance. It's really been an albatross around her neck and she hasn't gotten much relief from it even after 10 years since dx. Kat is right that anyone, big or small can get fibromyalgia. I did see some study abstracts on PubMed that said obese women with FM had a huge relief in symptoms after WLS, though. Hopefully your insurance will approve you even though FM is not a fatal condition.

I think many obese people have a history of mild (or even severe) depression. As long as it's controlled and you are willing to get treatment if you need it now or in the future, I can't imagine them denying you for that reason. I have my first psych eval meeting tomorrow and I'll definitely be candid about my history with mental health. Good luck! I bet you'll be just fine.

I am so sorry to read what happened to you. That just completely sucks. :cheers2:

I guess you didn't pull and you must not have prayed that hard either, huh!? :cursing: That's wonderful that getting pregnant was easy for you like that, I hope that's what happens to me when the time is right. heidabear - I lost a lot of weight a few years back and at that time I wasn't getting my period more than a couple times a year. After I started losing a lot, I had really odd menstrual patterns, like two weeks on and two weeks off...it took a long time to level out! I guess we store a lot of hormones in fatty tissue so when we lose fat we get dosed up with those hormones. Just wanted to throw that out in case you get some weird stuff going on - not sure if it's the PCOS or what. Anyway, I wish you good luck when the time is right for TTC!

Thank you all for your input and suggestions...I'll pass it all along to her!

Hi! I hope I put this in the right spot - it doesn't quite seem to fit anywhere. I'm getting the band myself in a few months. My mom is 65 and also interested in getting the band. However, she has almost every co-morbidity there is as well and the surgeon told her today that he doesn't think the risk of bariatric surgery is worth the benefit for her at this time. She is feeling very down about this, of course. She has a lot of weight to lose, but she also has a lot of pain that keeps her from getting adequate exercise. If you had to manage your weight problem without WLS, what do you think is the best way to do it? My mother lost 30 pounds a couple years ago and has kept it off, but she still needs to lose at least 100 more. I know diets have a rotten failure rate but what do you think is the best way to lose a lot of weight for medical reasons if you can't have surgical assistance? It's possible her health would improve enough to get WLS if she lost a fair amount, but of course there's no way to tell just how much that is. Appreciate anyone's input.

Jaqui - Definitely, that would really help. But she has so much physical pain that I think she is afraid to even try to be more active. She has a bad knee, a bad back that got further aggravated by a car accident last summer, and fibromyalgia. She is trying but even walking for 6 minutes on a treadmill is excruciating. I am trying to get her to buy herself a treadmill and try walking two minutes on, two minutes off while she watches her shows, or something like that.

Probably not 100% hopeless, you're right...but not that hopeful either IMO. I will keep pressing her to talk to her doc about this. She's been fighting her weight for so many years that I feel like this is just going to make her give up. I am normally not for crash diets like Medifast but her weight is so aggravating to her health conditions - I wish I had a crystal ball and could see if she's able to exercise after losing 75 pounds or something, you know?

Yeah, I think that might be the only way. My mom is not really a binge eater per se. She is retired and doesn't feel like cooking anymore, which I can understand! She has disabilities that keep her pretty sedentary and she has that nice thrifty metabolism she so kindly shared with me. :tt2: I think I am going to start making her some meals to freeze and eat instead of her random eating. Like last night she ate a bunch of peanuts, an orange and a candy bar. It wasn't a massive quantity AFAIK but obviously not that balanced and not a good idea for a diabetic. So maybe I can just throw together a little TV dinner for her when I cook and she can eat that. We eat lunch together almost every day so I try to make decent stuff for her and my toddler, like a tuna sandwich on whole wheat bread with sprouts and tomatoes. But she eats such random, not that great stuff for supper and usually skips Breakfast. Hopefully if she gets a little more healthy home cooking that will help. It is dismal (for me at least) to think of a handful of peanuts and a candy bar and a piece of fruit as a meal! :mad:

I know, it's so hopeless! :mad: I really worry about her. I wonder how awful doing something like Medifast would be for her?

That happened to me when I lost 110 pounds a few years ago! I went from an 11W to a 10 or 10W depending on style. Amazing that even your feet shrink. I feel your pain as a bigger-footed gal. I have a hard enough time finding attractive, comfy 11s! BTW, I've heard of people losing even more than one size after big weight loss.

I also have PCOS. I'll be doing a combo of FAM (temping and checking CM) and barrier methods during fertile periods. I'm not going to take the pill again, I feel like it aggravated my hormones very much and it also stalled my weight loss.

Thank you all so much for your input!

Most of my Wal-Mart experiences have not been too bad. However, one time my mom and I went really early on a Saturday morning to beat the rush, maybe at 5 a.m. There were two cashiers working even that early. And thank God, because one of the cashiers was digging so deep in her nose that I feared for the safety of her brain tissue. I mean, just unapologetically picking away. It was hilarious but shocking!

My chiropractor said she has a couple banded clients. I think if you give yourself a few days to heal you should be OK.

If you have a good group I think it might be helpful. The leaders at my WW site were very anti-WLS in general and I wouldn't have felt supported.

I have only had one c-section but the surgeon at my clinic told a woman at our seminar who had had three c-sections that if he encountered any internal scar tissue he would remove it if possible because that can interfere with digestion, etc. So talk to your surgeon - perhaps he or she could remove excess scar tissue too.

Those of you who started with BMI over 50 or have a BMI over 50, do you feel like you made the right choice with banding rather than RNY or DS or other more invasive surgery? I am starting with a BMI around 59 but I think I'll be somewhere around 55 when I get my band. I am 29, healthy other than borderline BP and PCOS, and I like to exercise. I haven't been too diligent about exercise in the past few months due to a back injury, but I am getting back into it slowly but surely. I went to a new endocrinologist today and while she didn't shoot down banding 100%, she did say she would not want me to get a band and end up revising to RNY if I could avoid it. (Obviously I feel the same.) I can tell she leans toward RNY for sure but I'm not sure if that's due to her seeing more RNY successes or what. My main issues are that I eat a fairly healthy diet, plenty of Protein, veggies and fruit but toooooooo much of everything, especially starches and butter, which I'll have to learn to live without - or at least without so much! I also battle sugar cravings but I've been detoxing from that for a while and I finally am at a point where I don't miss it much. I worry because I've seen a few study abstracts on PubMed that indicate bigger bandsters don't tend to lose as much, although I have also read some that say we lose the same percentage of excess weight so I don't know what to think! I'm also at a clinic where the nurse said banded people tend to lose as much eventually as RNY and they have a great follow-up program. She said their average excess weight lost for both surgeries is around 80%. Anyway, I'm wondering for those of you who started at BMI over 50 - if you don't mind rehashing for the 100th time, do you have any hormonal issues that contribute to excess weight? Do you feel you are making adequate progress and that you'll be able to keep your weight off better than in diet attempts you might have made before? You know, all that stuff. :biggrin: I appreciate your input. I still feel like the band is for me but I want to know as much as possible. Right now I'm on the 1500 calorie plan the clinic gave me and feeling OK on it. I'm shocked that it actually feels easy for once but I could just be really motivated this time around!

I think if you are done with breastfeeding (for life, of course!) it might be a good option! That's a very scary family history.

It depends on whether you are mature enough to follow the lap band rules (and I'm not saying that based on your age...I'm 29 and am worried if I'M mature enough and I've seen people older than me have the same worry.) If you are good at sticking with things, if you are willing to exercise, and if you are willing to go to your doctor if you have any issues, it might be a good thing for you. I was your size at that age and I just said to my mother yesterday that I wish I had been able to get banded at that age but that I didn't know if I would have been ready for it.

I was very addicted to my diet sodas a few months back and I cut them out cold turkey. It was no fun at all but now I rarely crave them. I admit I have one from time to time (I'm not banded yet) but since I don't feel dependent on them anymore I doubt I'll even miss them much when I am banded.