SpecialK

Greg -- Looks like you are still chugging along there! Congrats! DJK -- You are going to do fine! You've got a great surgeon and you've really thought this through. Be sure to post and let us know when you are home post surgery.

Okay, today is Day 5 of the five day pouch test I've been trying and posting about. Well, it is working for me. Scale is down again this a.m. I fixed a beef roast in my crockpot with carrots and cooked it really slow until the meat flaked apart with a fork and was tender and very satisfying to eat but eating real protein and veggies that were soften from cooking together was a great meal and I was surprised by putting 1 cup of food in a bowl and sitting down to eat slowly, I got very full and couldn't finish the tail end of that 1 cup. Today I fixed pork short ribs and saurkraut in the crock pot and again cooked it until the pork could be separated into pieces with my fork easily and that made a good lunch today, less than a cup of food. Okay, so DUH!!!! go back to the bandster rules little girl is the lesson. Stay away from carbs even those packaged as "just 100 calorie snacks".

It is SO SO ENCOURAGING to see that it can be done when you have 200 lbs to lose to look to your example. Thanks for sharing!

I bought some Vanilla Creme Whey Protein at Target and I found that it mixed into my coffee for a morning protein option instead of putting powdered creamer or 1% milk in my coffee like I usually do. I just stirred it in slowly to give a chance to cool the coffee a little and mixed it in and it didn't curdle or clump up. You have to be careful mixing some protein into hot things.

Desdemona - yes my endocrinologist who was checking my metabolism stuff back in the first of the year, found it was low then and asked me to supplement taking a Vit D on top of my multi-vitamin and he retested about 4 weeks ago and said I was still very low and he wrote me a prescription to take Vit D now to boost my level up. The pills he gave me were 50,000 IU and the dose was 2 per week over 4 weeks. That is considered a very high dose because the over the counter Vit D I could find were something like 1,000 IU pills - clearly couldn't take enough of them to get up to the level he wanted me at. He said Vit D is being found to be at the underpinning of alot of medical issues and felt its important for me to get this level up and quickly. I see my PCP doctor tomorrow for a cholesterol recheck and I was going to ask her to repeat the Vit D bloodwork and see if this first set of treatment did its trick. So, yes, I would encourage others to have their PCP test for Vit D deficiency at their annual physicals, etc. I told the doctor I was pretty good at eating low fat string cheese, low fat yogurt, fat free cottage cheese, 1% milk, and getting outside for exposure to sun on the Vit D benefits, but he said I just can't get enough with my diet and activity at this point.

Amanda, I'm with you on it can become "comfortable" at our new smaller size and the compliments are nice but we have to keep heading for the goal line. If you've been following my little 5 day pouch test, I got to eat some meat (protein) again today and lo and behold, a very small amount filled me up. 1 cheese stick for Breakfast at 7 am, 1 hotdog for lunch with the bun, at noon-1pm, and went the rest of the afternoon until I got home for dinner with a 60 cal SF Jello pudding cup about 6:30 p.m. -- clearly going 4-5 or more hours between now without being terribly hungry. Good test to see if that pouch is holding good hard Protein up there and keeping me satisfied versus liquids and mushies were sliding on down. The scale was down a couple lbs this a.m. I'm going to finish out the 5 days on Friday and see how it goes. It definitely has made me "carb aware" again.

Scrappy - you are right but to be honest, if my surgeon had said you have to do this and come back or I won't go higher on your fill level, I would do it. Somehow its harder to do when its a voluntary test thing. The scale was down this a.m. so we'll keep going through Friday and see how I do.

I'm feeling kind of hard on myself for not toughing out this little test better than I am so far. After a good start to the day, By 9am I was really hungry and ate a protein bar and that kept me until lunch. I got a salad at noon with 1/3 cup cottage cheese and a hard boiled egg for lunch. Took me until about 4pm to finish the salad just nibbling at it. That held me over until I worked over and then had microwave popcorn because I was starved at 7pm and still at work. So here it is 9pm and I'm thinking what can I eat? Really best choice at this point is a protein shake to fill out my protein need for the day. Okay, I'm going onto harder proteins tomorrow. I didn't make it all day on mushies sorry to say. Again, they must be passing right on through my upper pouch because 3 hours isn't very long between eating things to be hungry again. I tried sipping my favorite non-calorie flavored waters and that didn't help fill me up either.

I added up how much calories I ate yesterday while trying to do full liquids and was surprised to see it was about 1400 calories and I was truly hungry throughout the day because the soup and protein shakes I had just never satisfied. I got up this a.m. and had a 1/3 cup of fat free cottage cheese and a non-fat yogurt for breakfast because I awoke thinking about what can I eat. I'd say this is equivalent to the old "bandsters hell" stage where you have to just eat restricted totally based on willpower. BTW, scale still sticking at the same number keeping me at my -110 lbs spot. Onto a day of mushies and see if I can eat less than 1400 calories on mushies today.

Lynn, I am in day 2 of the 5 day pouch test and I can't believe how hard it has been for me doing full liquids again -- how the heck did I do 2 weeks of this when I can't get through 2 days. I must have been much more swollen from the surgery than I realized given I'm at pretty high fill level and full liquids are really not satisfying me at all. I think the liquid protein shakes are just running right on through and same with the soups I ate. Tomorrow I'm going to try "mushies" for the whole day. I did cheat today and ate a handful of almonds before I got to the gym for my workout. I'm going to keep trying at this though. I am convinced I am having carb withdrawal. When I went grocery shopping I couldn't believe how many little things I thought about buying like seeing 100 calorie snack items and thinking that isn't so bad... aha! yes it all adds up. Will check in after the tale of the scale tomorrow.

I also meant to say that it is too bad that the ticker changes over time so I think we should post in the threads here the actual number when we hit a milestone so we could go back later and say yes, that was when I hit my 100 lbs! etc.

I read about this website called www.5daypouchtest.com and I am going to give this a try to test myself to back off eating carbs especially and make me focus harder on protein. Check out the website link and see what you think. I shamefully ate a big plate with mashed potatoes and beef/noodles in gravy that was over the top of the potatoes. I realized I went for all those carbs because it was easy eating, I was tired, and hungry. What can I say, just gave into temptation. I'm back on track today and went to my gym and put an hour plus of swimming/water aerobics in and then went to the grocery and did healthy food shopping. I'm actually thinking about cooking things up today for eating later this week due to my heavy work schedule that has me getting home late. I'll let you all know how the 5 day pouch test challenge for myself goes. Let me know if you try it and your results.

Okay, this might fall into the "TMI" category but here goes. Sliming - some of us describe having to spit out excess saliva because if we eat past our point of fullness, even our saliva has no room to go down and stay down when you swallow until your food begins passing from your upper stomach pouch to the rest of the stomach. This saliva like fluid doesn't have a vile odor or anything in my experience. 2. PB'ing - is the bringing up of food bits or chunks when your body is telling you that you ate past your point of fullness. The pressure sensation of being that full will cause you to want to expel some of the food to relieve the pressure. If you are careful to watch for the point to stop eating, you can avoid this in my experience 90% of the time. The other 10% is my own fault, ate one more bite to finish something off, etc. When I have brought that food back up to spit it out, it has not been down into my stomach where the acidic process has started to break down the food. So when you bring something up, it again doesn't have some terrible vile smell. I am one of those people in the past that smelling someone else who got sick could get me gagging too. So smell is a major factor here. Last, my worst experiences of either of the things above occurred when I thought that maybe taking some sips (tiny sips) of water might help the food go down better when I felt overfull. That was just the opposite - made it far worse to put liquid into the mix. If I am feeling alot of pressure, I usually just try to stay pretty quiet and calm and tough it out for 15 minutes. What I mean to say is I tried jumping up and walking around once when I was overfull to see if that would help jiggle the food to make it go down and that didn't help.

Hi Dottie. We share our bandiversary. There is a Monthly Support Group of the March 2008 surgery date bandsters that is very good. Come on over to that thread and say Hi. There is a "master thread" we have kept going strong since before we were banded to now.

Traveled several times and no alarms. Don't worry. You're fine.

Scrappy, those family things you shared were precious. Congrats! I got to see my good friend tonight for dinner and when we set up where to go she was so worried I wouldn't be able to eat anything or enjoy dinner. I said, heh, I'll be fine. Let's just go and have fun. I ended up with some meatloaf and mashed potatoes which was a real treat and she was amazed I could eat that even though it took me twice as long to eat half as much as she did. My freind saw me and the first thing she said is I bet you weigh less than me now! I didn't want to say yes, I probably do, and make her feel bad, but I want her to lose weight too but like Scrappy said, she has to think about it and become convinced in her mind when she is ready. I got three more pages put together for my weight loss journey scrapbook. I put a page together about my 100 lb milestone celebration day with friends where I passed out 100-calorie snack packs. Another page is from Easter where I was able to wear the same fancy pink two piece top/skirt set I wore at my sister's wedding 21 years ago. AND... it fit loosely and the two pictures of me years ago versus today is pretty neat. Last scrapbook page I did was my Seatbelt Success story and pictures I posted about from when I went to Florida in May. I took pictures of me with the seatbelt with room to spare and that is a precious NSV I won't forget. Part of the reason I am doing the scrapbook to remember the good times along this journey is so that I will always have that to look back on. In the past when I lost 100 lbs two prior times, sadly so, and regained it back, when I was heavy again I would think how the heck did I lose that 100 lbs and why did I let myself gain this back. I am still plateaued on this same number in the -110-112 lbs range but I got alot of compliments at work especially this week about people who see me in "skinny" size 22 jeans now and can't believe my transformation. I want to get to some magical "12" jeans maybe in a year??? Who knows. Just taking it a day at a time.

Hi Lisa. Nice to see another Mt. Carmel lapbander coming into the site. Let me give you a link here to the Mt Carmel specific thread that we all post on. Also, there are a group of us who meet in person at the Polaris mall and if you'd like to join us sometime, we answer those considering lapband, and as well as support those who have had the surgery. http://www.lapbandtalk.com/f56/n-e-1-been-banded-mt-carmel-col-oh-31225/ http://www.lapbandtalk.com/f56/central-ohio-get-together-july-11-2009-a-96412/

Kudos from me too! I'm keeping a Scrapbook of my weight loss journey and I took pre-op photos of me with my surgeon, surgery day, my -20, -30, etc. milestones, my 1 year bandiversary and I just finished up the photos on scrapbook pages where I was able to fly in a plane in May without a seatbelt extension and that was a big milestone for me. I just keep knocking off 10 lb increments and looking at clothing size changes too. I fit into a size 18 swimsuit a friend gave me and that was a huge accomplishment for the summer. Can't wait until I see 199 on the scale so I can take a picture of that!

Sillypuddy/Joyce, I feel I should say I will try to answer some of your questions here based on being about 15 months post op now on my lapband surgery and knowing that the nutritionist still speaks greatly from the Gastric Bypass nutrition perspective (in my opinion) so here goes. 1. Foods you cannot have anymore -- it all depends on the person. I haven't tried really fibrous foods like raw brocolli but I can eat a small amount of steamed brocolli. I can eat crushed pineapple (in its own juice version) in small amounts. I can eat popcorn. I can eat steak - tiny bites and I take my time, use some A1 steak sauce if its particularly dry. Toughest foods to eat for me are dry chicken and dry Turkey - I can get full on a very small quantity of both of these but I can eat them. Okay, don't remember what else was on the "never again" list but I was trying to speak above to the healthy things I thought I'd miss. 2. For the Not Healthy Foods or what is called "Slider Foods" - sweets, ice cream, etc. --- I very rarely allow myself a small treat of some of these things but to be honest, I am very committed to losing now and I know a scoop of Graeter's Ice Cream is like 500 calories and its gone in minutes and that was half my daily calories or so. Lapband patients can unfortunately still eat these things, they slide right on down because they melt in your mouth, and I haven't heard folks talk about getting sick or having what the gastric bypass patients describe as "dumping syndrome" which I think is a combo of throwing up and diarrhea. If I were getting that effect, that would keep me away from them too. Bottom line, choose healthier treats or make it a rare occasion to have something. 3. The forbidden soda pop thing - carbonation - I have been virtually 99% faithful to giving up diet pop since surgery and I have found I don't really want it. Once I had restriction, the carbonation adds air and takes up valuable stomach pouch room I need for other things. Try to stay away from pop. 4. coffee -- still drink it and caffeine isn't a big issue for me but if you want to go de-caf, that's fine. 5. Advil/Aleve - I spoke directly with Dr. Price about this one when I had my pre-op consult and just before surgery as I also have back and knee pain and take Advil daily. He said I could still continue to do so. I have found I need it less and less as I have lost weight but I do take it, with surgeon and my primary care doctor knowledge, and I have been fine. If someone has a sensitive stomach and Advil/Aleve upsets you when you take it now, I'd definitely discuss that with the surgeon. 6. Planning your food -- YES YES -- very important to try to plan to take what you know you can eat if you pack a lunch for work until you get a better strategy and it becomes second nature to think about what you can eat and still get in your 60-80 grams of Protein a day. I am lucky in that my job has a good cafeteria with Soup, salad, baked potato, yogurts, etc. so I keep Protein Bars, pudding snack packs, crystal lite drink mix envelopes, and healthy things at my desk for mid-morning and mid-afternoon Snacks so that I don't go anywhere near the vending machine full of candy and high fat, high calorie snacks. 7. Eating out -- I do it all the time and it takes practice to get used to this new restricted eating thing. I just automatically plan to take HALF my meal home. I order lean protein, salad, work on those first, then if I have room nibble on the potatoes or whatever else it came with. Chinese is my hardest restaurant because I love the Won Ton soup and if I eat that right before the entree comes, I only get to eat a tiny amount of my entree and take the rest home. I don't even consider eating the white or fried rice at Chinese places anymore - focus on the meat/veggies entree part. Skip the Bread they always give you at places like O'Charley's. You can get yourself full on a single doughy roll/hunk of bread, and not have room for your real food. My Fast Food place of choice is Wendy's -- I can get a salad, a baked potato or their chili and all are reasonable choices I can eat. I love Panera's for their Soups and salad as well. Bottom line, you and your friends and family will just have to try and see what you can do but still enjoy going out! Okay, sorry if this is too much info to digest in one session. Personal Message me by right-clicking on my Special K avatar and you can ask me other things off line or we could meet for coffee 1:1 sometime.

Hi Amy, glad to have another lapband friend in the Westerville area joining onto this site. Well, you've found the one thing that I keep saying Mid Ohio Surg Assoc needs to improve on and that is really good follow up by their office/insurance coordiantor for the bariatric surgeries. Its been about the same story for a couple years now on each patient needing to follow up repeated phone calls and keep track of when you called and how long it took to get called back, etc. You can call Mt. Carmel's Melissa Webb, the bariatric program nurse coordinator, and leave her a message if you get frustrated and want help moving things along, and there is also a David as the office manager there that can help intervene when delays happen that you don't feel are reasonable. I found that by being really diligent with my own follow up, I got through that process. She let me choose my surgeon I wanted to see. I had Dr. Price and lots of folks on this board have had Dr. Choban. I see Dr. Miller for all my follow up visits now on fills, etc. and I like all three doctors. I wouldn't do the psych eval and nutrition things until I had my first surgeon consultation but its whatever preference you want. I had to do a cardiac clearance and that ended up being the thing that took the longest for me to get through before things could get submitted to the insurance. When they were all submitted, I got approval pretty fast. Good Luck! Kathy

I want to commend you for two very positive things you shared... one you recognize that you need help with the eating end of the use of the lapband tool and you have joined Overeaters Anonymous and also have an appointment with a nutritionist. Keep logging your food eaten every single day no matter how bad a day it was. Hold yourself accountable. Putting it down on paper is the way to do that. Use an online food tracker like fitday.com or dailyplate.com or whatever is best for you. Good luck!

I'm just hanging in there around the same number. Been under a lot of stress and working overtime lately but doing pretty well staying in control eating wise. aJoneen.........................-080 pounds lost! Bandana....................... 0 92 lbs lost BrandNewLisa............0 80pounds LOST forever!!! evelas5000...................0 50 pounds Lost Desdemona...................0 Fenton...........................0 100 POUNDS LOST !! HarleyGirl....................0 85 pounds LOST! Hopeinapril................. 0 55 pounds lost Kpodski......................... Lynnt1215.....................0 NurseNiki......................0 Nycm00........................ Potatie............................0 140 POUNDS LOST!! Scrappy_Friend........ -3 160 POUNDS LOST!!!! SpecialK........................-0 110 lbs GONE forever! Sugarbean....................0 117 POUNDS LOST !!! Sharona.........................0 stellabella......................0 75 POUNDS LOST! Tess415..........................0 Thin2bme...................0 100 POUNDS LOST!! WestCoastMom............0 Wishin4...........................-2 86 pounds gone!!

Fenton -- I hope you were kidding about your surgeon even suggesting they could show you how to do your own fills. That is crazy. Don't do it. Invest in your health for a fill when you need it. You know you would drop $200 on a fancy meal with drinks in the blink of an eye so keep that in perspective. You're worth the $200 for a fill if it gets you on track with losing. I only pay my $25 co-pay but the surgeon's office accidently sent me a billing and it showed it is about $150 they are billing to the insurance company when they turn it in with a fill included. I don't pay any different for an office visit check-up than if he does a fill or not.

Scrappy -- sending healing wishes your way! Glad to hear the surgery wasn't as bad as you feared. Take care. Your Shrinking Shamrock friend, Kathy

Interesting question, as I am 53 now and figure I'll be about 55 maybe by the time I'm at my goal of losing 180+ and I definitely am thinking its going to be worth it for my own self esteem. Yep, surgery costs will probably be in the range of $20K (tummy tuck, arms, and breast lift) and I'm going to do payments for 4+ years to pay it off so I got to be sure I'm going to be happy.