jjsmiles

As with everything else - I am thinking you will get lots of different opinions. I am scheduled to have a bowel resection (open - not laproscopic) and possible ileostomy reversal and hernia repair on September 9. So far, my 3 different surgeons are all saying that I don't need to be de-filled (I have asked them all). I am having my surgery at the same hospital as where I had my lap band and they are saying there is always a lap-band surgeon on call, so if I am having problems, they can deal with it then. A couple of things I am worried about: Since being banded, I CANNOT vomit (I mean true vomit - I can PB easily enough), so I am very concerned about nausea from the anaesthetic - I am going to be sure that everyone knows that I need LOTs of anti -nauseal stuff. Since losing so much weight, my port is right under my rib cage and is starting to stick up through the skin- with them cutting through my abdommen and moving tissue and muscle all around I am worried that something will happen. Again - the surgeons don't seem too concerned. Make sure you let everyone who will be working on you know all your concerns and about your band. I guess after that, we just have to trust that they know what they are doing!! Good luck!

I hit my "first" goal of 180 pounds last week and posted some pictures on another thread, but I am becoming addicted to posting pictures :ihih:, so thought I would post here as well :seeya:. It makes me feel so positive about everything when I come to this thread and see everyone's progress!!!! Blue Blouse - around 350 pounds Yellowish Blouse - one month before surgery - around 300 pounds last two pictures - taken last week at 178.8 pounds!!

With all of your knowledge about nutrition and fitness, I think you will find the band a very helpful tool. It won't do the work for you - you know how to do the work - but it will help you control your physical hunger and your portion sizes. I have heard (not there yet so don't know this personally), that the band is more helpful at maintenance than at weight loss, as it helps you to keep your portions reasonable, even when not in weight loss mode!! With that hunger and portion control, good food choices and you hitting the exercise hard again, when you are cleared, I have no doubt you can be wildly successful :biggrin2:. Many people have posted about the band not being a cure, but a tool to help you in your battle. You have many other tools on your belt - time to dust them off and make them work together!!! One thing though - the band doesn't help with head issues or head hunger (the desire to eat even when not hungry) - you need to make sure you are getting the help and support you need so that you can manage your depression and anxiety. At the end of the day, you want to be there for your daughter, but you have to do this for YOU :biggrin: Good luck on July 30 in Mexico. We will be rooting for you!

Thanks everyone. Heather O and Lil Miss - your pictures look pretty terrific as well. LJM - congratulations!!!!- I see that you are pregnant - that is wonderful news. Make sure you take care of yourself! Jacquie :biggrin:

I am heading out of town for a couple of days - but I just had to say this - in just over 13 months - I have hit my GOAL :frown::lol: I can't believe how excited I am. I only picked 180 pounds as my goal because it was under 200 pounds and I couldn't imagine being 200, much less being under. Now that I am under goal, I am thinking that my NEW goal should be 160 pounds. That totally blows me away that I would be saying that I think 160 pounds is an achievable weight for me. I just needed to brag for a minute. Thanks for reading :biggrin2:.

I don't know why - although at my gym, they refuse to weigh you after a work out - for my monthly weigh in there, I have to get weighed before I do anything! They don't ask when I last ate or drank though! I drink a lot of Water during a workout, but I also sweat a great deal (or is it "glow" :thumbup:), so I would think that both would impact the scales. I am like you in terms of weight, although when my weight doesn't change a whole lot from the night before, I can usually tell that I am retaining some water. My left ankle is always swollen when I am retaining water. I always weigh the most before I go to bed, the least when I first get up, after going to the bathroom.

Oh - the dream of being called tiny. Somehow don't think thats ever going to happen :biggrin2:. Congratulations!

Just catching up on the thread. OMG Karey - I am so glad you are ok after that horrible experience . Make sure you are taking care of yourself and taking it getting lots of rest and as many fluids as you can tolerate! Between you and BJean - wow you are making my heart pound in anxiety for you both. Jacquie

Well I'm back home - THANKS SO MUCH FOR ALL OF YOUR POSITIVE COMMENTS. I was kind of scared that no-one would respond :drool:. I love looking at all your tickers - so many of you have already been phenomenally successful and others are waiting to begin their journey. I get a great deal of inspiration from this site. A few people asked what my plan has been for the last 13 months. I started to get serious about this journey in June of 2007 while I was waiting for approval for the surgery. I went to Weight Watchers and followed the points program for most of the summer. Between WW and the pre-surgery diet, I lost 43 pounds. After surgery, I have consciously chosen to eat all foods, in moderation. I do count calories (I usually am around 1000-1200 calories per day) and I find a real key to my success is documenting everything I eat, including quantities. I am a person who needs to be ultra aware of what I am eating, or I will eat unconsciously or obliviously all day and especially all night. I do eat carbs, fruits, vegetables, as well as Protein. I try to eat natural foods (not really a rule, but easier to eat healthy) and whole grains. I still eat chocolate, pizza, Cookies and potato chips, but only a few and not very often. I go out to eat, but I don't do fast food and I always try to think about what I will order before I go, so that I am more likely to make a reasonably healthy choice. I am not overly restricted (I can eat 3-4 oz of protein and a cup of cooked vegetables at a sitting), but that really works best for me. I also exercise, ALOT. I go to the gym 3-5 times a week and combine cardio (eliptical and treadmill) with strength training. My workouts are at least an hour, and sometime two. I had to build up to that, as before this journey I counted the walk from the car to the grocery store as my daily walk. Long story finally ending - here are a couple of pictures: Blue blouse is from late 2005, when I was about 350 pounds. Yellowish blouse was about 1 month before sugery (I was around 300 pounds then). The other two were taken over the last couple of days.

OK Julie - I just googled accutane and OMG, the potential side effects are absolutely horrendous - includes mood disorders, psychosis, depression, suicide, increasing cholesterol, making your blood sugars hard to control, back pain, skin disorder, the list goes on and on and on. You need to be on 2 forms of birth control and have 2 negative pregnancy tests before you can be put on the drug. Do you seriously want to put yourself at such risk a couple of months before major surgery? Can't your skin wait until you have stabilized from the surgery? Please consider this very carefully.

Don't start it until you have talked to your lap band surgeon. I don't know much about acutane other than it is a really really strong drug and you don't want to jeopardize your surgery. I was on a really low dose of prednisone and the anesthetist was not happy pre-surgery (gave me lots of grief actually about the potential complications to the surgery), and then I got sick after the surgery and stopped taking it, which apparently is a big no no - you have to be weaned off of it. I am suspecting that accutane may have some serious potential side effects that you need to check out very carefully, with surgery upcoming.

I agree that you need to find a new PCP as soon as is realistic for this journey. A couple of things though: with the band, I would expect your diabetes to improve. I am a type 2 diabetic and within months I was able to stop taking both my medications (avandia and metformin) and my blood sugar has been totally normal for at least 7 months now. However - if you aren't able to physically manage on 1500 calories a day now, I am a little concerned about how you will manage with the band. Many of the things that people use here (protein shakes, etc) would not be ok for you with your diabetes,as you already know. You will need to be extremely careful about not getting too restricted, as it will severely limit the calories of "real" food that you can eat. Many bandsters go to 1000 calories or less per day after banding. I mainly stick to 1000 calories, and I am not sure if I could even eat 1500 quality calories every single day (I am not including junk or treats in that count which I can eat all day and night :embaressed_smile:). I would really recommend that you have a discussion with your nutritionist and your lap band doc about how to manage your hypoglycemia. The pre and post surgery diets (I don't have a clue what your clinic requires - they are all very different) may need to be much more complicated for you. Good luck!!!!

I have never worked as hard as I have over the last 13 months, which makes the journey hard. That said, I have found the weight loss to be relatively easy. As others have said, I don't experience the ravenous hunger that I used to have continuously. I still experience "head hunger" on a regular basis, but the band has helped me to manage that hunger. This journey is really ALL about my head - has very little to do with my stomach. I have done 95% of the work that has brought me success. The band has contributed immensely, and I am so glad I have it, but I did all the work.

You know there are as many opinions out there as there are doctors. I sometimes think that the doc's that are saying Protein at the expense of all other food are in it for the results rather than health. Most of us can tell you that we lose very well on a high protein diet (Atkins like), but we have difficulty keeping the weight off once we introduce some carbs back into our diet. I am so glad that my clinic is funded through health care (not fee for service or insurance) and so they really don't have a vested interest in fast results. As such they recommend that patients eat a varied diet, including carbohydrates, fruit and vegetables, as well as protein. I aim for 60- 65 grams plus of protein and stay around 1000 calories a day. That said, I don't sweat it if I eat more (if I go out) and if I really want something (pizza, chips, chocolate), I have them, but just not all the time and in greatly reduced quantities. I log everything I eat faithfully on the dailyplate.com. I also try to exercise (hard cardio and strength) at LEAST an hour 4-5 times per week (I built up to that over time). Research is showing that exercising regularly and logging your food are some of the key indicators of weight loss success. A bandster just posted an interesting article yesterday of a large study that supported food journaling- showed people who logged their intake lost 2x the amount of weight of those that don't log. I very consciously chose that for this journey I wanted to eat as normally as possible, so that I could maintain the eating habits for a lifetime. As you can see, I have lost over 140 pounds in 13 months, so I think I have made the right choices for myself, so far anyways :thumbup:

Karey - just saw your ticker - CONGRATULATIONS!!!!! So I was at the gym today and apparently I have turned into an obsessive compulsive maniac. Me being on holidays may not be the best thing :tt1:. I ended up doing a 24 minute sprint circuit and also 2 hours of cardio (45 minutes and 4.13 miles on the eliptical and 5 miles in 75 minutes on the treadmill). During my treadmill, I started with a mile walk at 4 miles per hour, then I did 12 x 1 minutes runs at 4.5- 4.7 miles per hour, alternating with 2 minutes walking at 4.2 miles per hour (over 35 minutes). After that I couldn't seem to stop myself from walking almost 2 more miles during my "cool down". I am very happy that I could actually do over 9 miles, but I also think I am setting myself up, as there is no way I can have a life and spend 2 and 1/2 hours in the gym on a daily basis!!! Maybe it is a good thing that I am leaving on Wednesday to meet some friends in another town for a couple of days :tongue_smilie:.

Question: How does your doc tell that you have lost muscle rather than fat? I am very curious. My lap band clinc has one of those wonky machines that is supposed to measure your percentage of body fat and Water (tanita body composition analyser). Is that what your doc uses? When I did some research on it, the site I was looking at said that if you are dehydrated, it will not be accurate. My appointments with my doc are always early in the morning and since I am weighing officially, I never have anything to eat or drink before my appointment :tt1: so I am not sure that the machine is anywhere near accurate. It sounds like a good idea to try out the site that Karey suggests. I keep hearing about the body bug, but I don't know about wearing an insect all day :tongue_smilie:. I am not very technically inclined - I can't even get a pedometer to work properly on me.

I'm proud of you Renewed. I have come to the inevitable conclusion that the changes I have been making need to be applied for the rest of my life. I will never be able to eat anything I want - no matter how much I exercise. You know what - I am actually ok with that for the first time in my life (doesn't stop the envy though). One of the most amazing things to me about this journey is becoming aware of just how oblivious I was to the choices I have always made when it comes to food in the past. I truly thought I had no control over my weight, but the reality is, I refused to take control and instead I ignored myself and whenever I even had a thought about food (whether I was hungry or not never seemed to come into the decision) I just reached out and grabbed and ate it as fast as I could. How does that happen? I have always taken such pride in how I presented to others - always being friendly, smart, kind, helpful, hardworking - how could I present that way to the world, but not apply any of it internally? Hmmm- big life question - no real answers, but I am kind of sad that it took me into my 40's before I started to really "get it". Jacquie

That is awesome news BBK!!!!! Sometimes things work out the way they are supposed to, although the journey to get there may be long and difficult, and maybe doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense at the time. I bet when he is done, you will have way better results than he could have achieved with just the one surgery :cursing: Your pin up pictures look fantastic. Thanks for having the courage to show the others though - they are very helpful and inspirational for the rest of us - and remember - you are still the incredibly special you, no matter what the outside looks like :biggrin2:. I think you look beautiful at any weight and with your body just the way it is!

Many clinics ask you to lose at least 5-10% of your excess weight before surgery- so for example if you want to lose 180 pounds - to lose at least 9-18 pounds. I was at a support group meeting last week and the dietician at the meeting was saying that band research from all over the world is showing that the band is successful for people who show that they can lose weight before the surgery, not so successful for those who don't or can't. As well, research is showing that the most successful bandsters incorporate exercise into their daily habits, either before surgery or as soon as possible after. As such, my WLC - which does not do fee for service work and only offers the band on a limited basis - is using weight lost and commitment to exercise as part of their screening tool to determine who gets banded. I know this issue is debated endlessly on this forum. Many people think that they don't need to do anything before surgery and that they will start working after the surgery. They have the attitude that "if I could lose the weight, I wouldn't need the band". I personally strongly believe that is a recipe for a poor to middling result. To make the band very successful, you need to be ready to make some major changes in your life. You can't expect the band to do the work and make the choices for you. If you haven't started to incorporate those necessary changes into your lifestyle before banding, you will likely find it very difficult to do so after banding, as there is nothing magical about the band to make you change over night. You will still want to eat after the band (head hunger) and you will still crave the foods that made you obese in the first place. Many people find that the foods that got them into trouble in the first place slide right through the band and are very easy to eat, band or no band. Good luck in your journey.

Thanks everyone!! I am kind of scared of the interval thing - this week I will try to go from 30 second intervals to 1 minute intervals - see how it goes. It is kind of weird, but I seem to be built for distance rather than speed because whenever I start exercising, it kind of hurts for the first few minutes and eventually the pain goes away and I can go for quite a while!! My worst issue is my feet - I always have blisters and a bunion doesn't help. The more I pay for my shoes, the worse they seem to feel on my feet!!! BJean - so glad you are home and on the mend!!!! Sounds like you had a really tough time, but hopefully the worst is behind you. Not the way you want to get rid of that last 20 pounds, for sure . Unfortunately, my bowel resection can't be done laproscopically . Make sure you take care of yourself, get plenty of fluids and lots of rest. How long do you have to take it easy? Mimin - it must feel really terrific to lose that much weight so quickly and feel more on track! Karey - our bands are fickle and hopefully yours will settle down soon. I think you need to make sure you are getting enough sustinance if you are PBing - the Protein shakes sound like a good thing. Only 20 more days - almost 1/2 way there!!!! Jacquie

Thanks Karey My Plan: 1000-1200 calories per day 1-2 hours of exercise, 4-5 times per week (cardio and strength) I have been exercising very hard over the last six months (combination of eliptical, treadmill and sprint circuit (think Curves)). Anyways most days I am going between 5-8 miles (according to the machines). The last two weeks I have been toying with the idea of jogging on the treadmill (scares the you know what out of me). This week, I have been doing 10-15, 30 second jogs, with 1 minute walks in between. I will have to see how it goes, as I am having trouble thinking I can get my endurance up. I am "glowing" in a rather extreme way at the end of the intervals :biggrin: Like you, I want to be as fit as I can be before my surgery in September. Whether or not I actually get a tummy tuck, I will be losing about a foot of my colon and will have a very large incision to show for it. I have had a number of surgeries in the past, but never when I was actually fit, so I am hoping it will help my recovery. Thanks for letting me join!!!!! Jacquie

Everyone has said great things about hormones, sodium and Water retention. In addition, your weight loss has been great so far, but one of the things to remember is that that much weight loss in such a short time frame means that much of that loss is water, not fat. As such, your body will go up and down as your body adjusts to its losses. I would suspect that your body is just trying to balance itself. Remember, if you are eating nutritionally soundly, within your calorie goals, and not loading up on fat and suger, the scale changes are not showing a true "fat" gain, they are just measuring total body weight, including changes in your water levels. Many people are tempted to drink less, because they think, less water in, less water to sit on my body. For most of us, the opposite is true - the less water in, the more the body wants to hold on to what it has because it needs it. I would suggest that you are getting at least 10 glasses of Fluid a day. I, unfortunately am quite addicted to my scale, but I have had enough time to learn not to panic when the scale goes up a bit or stays the same for 2-3 weeks. I know my body is taking time to adjust to the changes its is going through, and if I just stay calm and keep to my routine, the scales will eventually move again. I am not sure if anyone suggested it already, but I would also say - measure yourself regularly. You may or may not lose weight, but your measurements will show the truth. Good luck and relax

I am wondering if you aren't actually eating enough? By exercising a whole lot, your body is building muscle, which needs more energy than fat does. Also, are you retaining Water? Have you considered trying to go low sodium? I am also excercising a great deal (4-5 times per week, between 1-2 hours of cardio and strength each session) and sticking to around 1000-1200 calories a day (I use www.thedailyplate.com - which I love - very easy to use). I have actually noticed that on the days I exercise, I don't lose weight, but I will on days I don't - hmmmmm? Because I have been at such a high BMI for many years, I have a lot of excess skin and fat in the abdomen and arms, particularly, but I am pretty toned, if you can get past the hanging skin. I am actually thinking that I need to increase my calories, rather than decrease! I have been losing well, but I also generally stick to a very low fat, low sugar diet in the calories that I eat - high on vegetables, about 60-75 grams of Protein per day. When I was in hospital last year, a dietician said I should aim for about 1 gram of protein for every kilogram, so I am a little below that suggestion, but it seems to work for me. I will probably get shot for this suggestion, but what about decreasing your protein a bit and adding vegetables (not just salad) and fruit? I very consciously did not go low carb in this journey and am lucky that I tolerate all foods as long as I chew well. I don't know, but I am really attributing my weight loss to a healthy well balanced diet that isn't overloaded with any one food group. Good luck!! PS - as per Doddie, I also eat chocolate, Cookies, baked chips, pizza and chinese. I just eat it occasionally and not huge amounts. I am not overly restricted and can eat 2-4 oz of protein and at least a cup of cooked veggies at any given time.

Hello Ladies, I want to put my bid in to join this thread . I had initially put my goal as 180, only because it was less than 200 pounds and I couldn't even imagine being at 200, much less below. Well I have been hovering between 180 and 181 for about 10 days now, and I do realize that I can achieve much, much more!!!! I think I need to change my goal to 160 now. It actually sends goose bumps through my whole body to even think about it . Because I have had carried so much weight over the years (as you can see from below I have been at least 409 pounds) my skin is in horrible condition and I am carrying a huge amount of extra skin and fat in my abdomen and arms :thumbup:, so I am a little worried that 160 isn't realistic, but what the hay!!!!! Karey - will you let BJean know that she is in our thoughts and prayers? I have been living with an ileostomy (done by emergency due to to diverticular disease and bowel obstruction) for the last 2 plus years and am scheduled for a bowel resection (plus MAYBE ileostomy reversal and MAYBE tummy tuck at the same time ) on September 9 and I know how scary this all can be. I have lots of experience with all the issues surrounding colon stuff, so if I can be of any support or assistance, let the family know I would be happy to help! Thanks for being such a positive influence on the rest of us!!!! Jacquie