SpecialK

Jamie, glad to hear that they verified what fill level you are at. Yes, I do think some docs doing fills aren't verifying what amount is in there before they fill but my doc withdraws what amount is in there to recheck the level and then adds that back in with the .25 cc or whatever adjustment he feels is needed based on my discussion of my eating capability.

My restriction level now which is good for me allows me to eat about 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup of good solid Protein, or a fruit or something nutritious before I'm full. I can eat Soup or mushie type foods in greater quantity but I try to make sure I am eating whole foods as much as I can. Today I was able to eat 4 oz of steak in very tiny bites and about 3/4 cup of smashed sweet potato over more than an hour's time of eating and chewing very slowly. I took the other half of the potato and the steak home.

I have had to learn to stop eating about 3 bites before I really think I'm full because if I eat until I feel full I am really over full.

Surprisingly I tried to eat about 1/4 cup of raisins last night and I got way over full because it didn't occur to me they'd reinflate inside my stomach and plump back up to their grape size!

We meet at 2-4pm in the corner of the food court by Chik-fil-a and Great Indoors.

What a week!!!! 3 Snow Days fom school and sick with the stomach bug the whole time. We went back today with a two hour late schedule. (Thank goodness)

I did not post of the Friday weigh in. Although the scale looks pretty good, I did not think having the stomach bug is a true picture of how much weight I have lost this week.

Everyone seems to be having a pretty good week. Keep up the good work. I definetly need to get back to exercising.

I can't believe my one year anniversary is just 6 1/2 weeks away. (March 24th) I would like to lose at least another 10 pounds by then.

How much weight do you want to lose between now and your One Year Anniversary?

I'm trying really hard to hit my -100 lb mark by St. Patrick's Day -- my bandiversary. I'm at 89.6 now so I think its doable if I really keep my butt in gear on the exercise.

I haven't had any trouble with the cold, but I did find that I had trouble with a cold. I've had a terrible cold the last 2 weeks, and I think all the coughing has swollen my stomach some. Also, I find that coughing can induce an unexpected pb. I'm ok with it though becuase it's time for a fill, and I've been able to put it off for a while due to the increased restriction.

speaking of fills, my doc is concerned because it has taken so much Fluid to reach restriction, and he wants me to have a barium swallow before he'll put anymore Fluid in. I have 10ccs in a 14cc band. He said that most of the studies stop at 9ccs. I've put it off because the band is working so well... I don't want to jinx it. It's time though, and I'm going to make an appointment next week.

Thanks for the advice Fenton I have a pedometer, but it won't work if I don't wear it.

School's starting and kids are arriving... gotta run.

Lafs -- don't worry I have 10 cc in my 14cc band and I consider myself right at my sweet spot at this point and my doctor isn't concerned at all and in fact is thrilled with how I'm doing. I'm okay though that your doctor is being conservative and checking things to be sure -- that is a good sign of a good doc as far as I'm concerned instead of just filling and filling and not knowing if it really is okay.

Tell him there are several of us on the lapband board at 10+ in our 14cc bands and we are doing great. I haven't heard of anyone at the max of 14 but 10-11 isn't unusual to hear about.

aJoneen.......................-1 75 pounds LOST!

BrandNewLisa............0

evelas5000.................-.5

Desdemona..................0

Fenton........................-3 100 POUNDS LOST !!

HarleyGirl.................. -3 75 pounds LOST!

Hopeinapril................0

Lynn1215.....................0

NurseNiki...................0

Nycm00.......................0

Potatie.........................0 100 POUNDS LOST!!

Scrappy_Friend......-3 150 POUNDS LOST!!!!

SpecialK......................-2

Sugarbean..................0 100 POUNDS LOST !!

Sharona......................0

stellabella...............-3.4 HALFWAY TO GOAL!

Tess415......................0

Thin2bme................- 2

WestCoastMom........0

Wishin4......................0

Kpodski............-5

Actually I think the band tightening for those of us in these cold climates is maybe the Barometric Pressure exerting force on the band and making it swell -- kind of like air inside a balloon having more pressure exerted on it. When the barometric pressure is higher, I feel tighter.

I thought it was interesting how Bob and Jillian interjected comments when the returning contestants weigh ins were done and told them ... hey,it is what it is, now get to work!. And Jillian wasn't happy with her lady Aubrey I think, that said I think I build muscle weight and ... nope, you didn't burn enough calories for the calories you ate. Accept it and be thankful to be on the ranch to get the help you need.

Okay, I still splurged last night by fixing non-crust pizza and ate a good size portion but it tasted good to me and I haven't had pizza in maybe 3 months or more and it used to be a every Friday night thing where I'd eat most of the pizza by myself. I put pizza sauce in a pyrex dish (the sauce was 20 cal for 1/2 cup) and then put shredded mozarella cheese/italian cheese, then pieces of pepperoni on it and baked it until bubbly. Next time I do this I plan to make a personal size serving because I found I liked the taste but could have done with much less quantity if I had only made a smaller amount.

I did weigh out the Doritos to get the package amount for 1 serving -- it was a miniscule amount of chips and really not worth it for the calories it took.

So with my two weekend days of eating quite a few calories but also burning off more calories than I had eaten, I'm showing a maintain this a.m. and I'll take that.

Keep moving everyone, I'm convinced the exercise is helping me mentally and physically.

Yep, the arm batwings are definitely here for me too. I don't want to gross anyone out too much but when I had a particularly bad rash in those special areas, I took my own digital pictures and showed them to my doctor on my last surgeon visit. She said yes, this is a very good idea to document the rash problems and to talk to me about it because it will help you get approval for the panniculectomy portion of the surgery. So, be sure you mention this for the next year or whatever to your doctors if you're thinking of going the plastic surgery route eventually. I did see a show about a woman that had the full 360 body lift procedure and that looked excruiciatingly painful and I don't think I'm heading for that. Going to have to save money and do what I can in steps but my first goal is to have the insurance cover the tummy surgery. They will upgrade panniculectomy to Tummy Tuck at my hospital/surgeon and just charge you the slight upgrade in price but at least the rest is covered on insurance.

I LOVED the SuperBowl game last night. Best and most exciting one I have seen in a long time with the game going down to the last seconds. I'd rather watch a game like that than a blow out score game any day.

Okay I did the Fenton-thing last night -- super buffet dinner with tons of delicious food but I tried to eat as small amounts of things as I could including only 1/3 of the slice of cheesecake that came for dessert after a dinner that started with a glass of white wine, prime rib, etc. etc. I did skip the rolls -- not worth it. So, the total for that one meal was 1200 calories. Beware, it adds up fast at a fancy dinner. Fortunately I had done over 3500 calorie burn yesterday with two big snow shoveling hours burning up alot but I still should have gone for less.

My NSV this morning is that I'm wearing a pair of jeans for the first time in years and years. Yes, they buttoned up without having to lay on the bed to zip them. Woo hoo!

Okay, gentle reminder for myself and others -- no big eating today for SuperBowl parties tonight. I looked at the small bag of Doritos I bought and it said 170 calories for a serving and I thought okay, for a special treat, then I read the bag has 3.5 servings in it and it isn't a very big bag! OMG! I am going to have to count out or weigh a serving to not eat the whole bag.

Go Steelers!

Belated Happy Birthday SpecialK! Hope it was a good one. You are doing a fantastic job with the weight loss!

Hi Debbie, sounds like we are having the same problems. I can and do eat way to much. I have only lost 37lbs... But without the band I might have gained that much, so I am not giving up! I am convinced that when it warms up so I can get outside I will do better. On the bright side...I can't believe how much better I feel just losing that much!

Hello to all the new people!! :thumbup:

Good to hear from you Sue. I havent' heard lately from GregW but he was close to 90 lbs last time he did check in. Hang in there. Go see Dr. Choban for a fill because it sounds like you aren't to your sweet spot on restriction yet. Take care and keep the faith.

Hi, I am a patient of Dr. Curry's too. I will be going to the Columbus office on Feb 27th for a fill.I live in wayne county and wish we had a fast track. Denise

Hi Denise.

Hi. I'm 10 months post op now and down 87 lbs and thrilled. We have a local Columbus OH group of bandsters from several different practices including a few people who went self pay with Dr. Curry. Our next group meeting is at the Polaris Mall 2pm Feb 14 in the food court area corner by Chik-fil-A and Great Indoors. Great group and lots of support. PM me if you want more info.

Kathy

aka SpecialK

Tekdiva and any others new -- yes this forum has a ton of information but here is how I tackled it for my use and found it helpful.

1. Checked out all I could read under the Mt. Carmel thread since that was the surgeon group I was going with.

2. Checked out all the Columbus things I could find so that I could compare what folks going through Mt. Carmel, Barix, and OSU and self-pays said compared to what I was finding.

3. Checked out the Insurance thread stuff especially when I was going through the pre-approval stages. See what others were finding they had to do and how they got approved for surgery.

4. Pre-op surgery - all the things to especially consider right before surgery.

5. Post-op surgery - all the things to especially consider to be ready for just after surgery.

6. Monthly Support Groups -- we started a March 2008 band surgery group thread and there is one for each month now even the 2009 months. This group has been especially helpful because it represented a huge cross section of people around the US and other places too like Austrailia that were going through every step pre-op and post-op that I was since we had our surgery in the same time frame.

7. General Lapband Discussion thread - check this every so often as I have time.

8. The Pictures Only thread where people post their progress pictures -- this is huge motivation to me to see what it looks like visually when we are losing.

9. Plastic Surgery thread -- yes I know because of the amount of weight I have to lose I am going to need a Tummy Tuck and maybe some other things done to help my self confidence once I have lost weight. This thread gives you the full details and don't look if you are squeamish because they sometimes post pictures that are tough to realize its going to cause some pain to get to the end result.

10. BMI over 50 -- I thought it would help me to follow some with others who had well over 100 lbs to lose and I've occasionally done this but not that much really since the March group has several of us in that category and the Mt. Carmel and Columbus groups do too.

I haven't found it as helpful to tie into other threads by religious group, age, or just the women, but some might.

Whatever encourages you.

I have to tell you I also joined Obesity Help and Thinner Times web forums and found myself always coming back to Lapbandtalk as my primary source of lapband only focused info.

I think Scrappy should start posting her exercise and food diary so we can follow her diet and exercise plan and start smoking the pounds off like she is. Congratulations. It is so encouraging to see all of us losing. My doctor was amazed at my progress and said I'm way ahead of the lapband average so she'd be blown away by some of you.

aJoneen........................-3

evelas5000.................. -.5

Desdemona.....................0

Fenton.........................-2

HarleyGirl.......................0

Hopeinapril.....................0

Lynn1215......................0

NurseNiki.......................0

Nycm00.......................-3 Yippee

Potatie.........................-9 100 POUNDS LOST

Scrappy_Friend..............-3 150 pounds lost

SpecialK.......................-1

Sugarbean.....................0 100 POUNDS LOST

Sharona........................0

Tess415........................0

Thin2bme......................0

WestCoastMom..............0

Wishin4........................0

Thanks for all the birthday wishes. I did have a good check up with Dr. Choban today, no fill adjustment needed because she is thrilled with how well I'm doing, she said you are way ahead of the curve for lapband patients. Keep working the tool. I see the docs next on March 16, right before my 1 year surgery anniversary. I told her I'm working to be at -100 by then. I had lost 12 lbs since about December 2 at my last tiny fill adjustment and she thought that was great. Very good encouragement.

I have seen some folks talk about their bodybugg but I never knew what they were looking at on the computer or how things worked so I will post some info here if you are interested. If not, skip on by.

Fenton - I am a fanatical food tracker for the last 2 years and I am finding in the first two days that the Bodybugg website is pretty good on having the things I eat in their food catalog and they have the same capability my other tracker does where you can enter a food you eat, its nutrition label stuff, and then it keeps it in your favorites so you can keep reusing it. That speeds up entering Calories Consumed. For me, it is saying I could be eating about 2000 calories a day and my Calories Burned goal is 3000 calories a day for a net deficit of 1000 calories a day, or 7000 calories deficit in 7 days which should equal 2 lbs (3500 cal = 1 lb).

So today, I had the big snowstorm to deal with too in Ohio so I worked at home sitting on my backside until about 10 am then went out and worked really hard shoveling snow for an hour and then came back in from about 11 am - 2pm and then went out and did about another hour shoveling from 3-4 pm then took a nap! Well, when I uploaded my Calories Consumed readings out of the Bodybugg I was pretty shocked to see how it had exactly picked up the time and effort level of me during the day...maybe this thing is accurate or at least 90% accurate is what they project.

Anyway, I'll attach a sample food day listing so folks who want to see it can and a sample of the calories burned graph hour by hour thru the day.

Terri - that is a Great Idea about the Gold Card with the Shamrock behind it as the image. I will definitely try to see if she'd do it when I get there hopefully by my bandiversary on St. Patricks' Day.

Well, I give the Bodybugg folks credit for getting on the site and clearing the block that was on from me saying I'd had lapband surgery on my medical questionnaire thing. They had blocked me activating my device until the nutritionist cleared it and that was done today. Unfortunately, I took the cable to synch it to work today along with all the other stuff and left the cable at work and now I'll have to wait until tomorrow to try to synch for the first time.

Fenton, I hope I'm not too disappointed in the food tracking part. I've been paying $9/month for MyFoodDiary now for 2 years because I liked it so much for food tracking. I was going to turn that off and just pay the $14 for the Bodybugg website when the initial 6 months ends. We'll see.

:Banane27::w00t::Banane27::Banane27:

Finally got my acceptance letter from Dr. Choban's office yesterday!!!! Yea!! One step closer to hopefully reclaiming my life! Now I guess they will get my 300 dollars this week,and then be calling me for an appointment? I wonder how many clearances you have to go through...Does it depend on each individual? Did you all decide the band was the surgery you wanted,or does the surgeon suggest which surgery would be best for you? My sister had the rueny <sp>several years ago,and has had lots of problems including a revision after the pouch stretched out from overeating...Just don't think that is the route for me. Also,somewhere on this forum somebody suggested a book concerning the food intake after surgery-anyone know what the name of that book is without me going back through all the pages to find it???? Then someone mentioned hair falling out;does that happen with everyone? I already have thin,fine hair!!! My mind is racing!!! I am excited,and scared,but moving on... Thanks in advance from whatever help you can give me!!!!

Joyce

It is so neat to see how excited you are -- I was right there a year ago. Wow, time flies. I'll try to answer your questions but keep asking, that is what we are here for.

1. Yes, you inevitably will have some kind of clearances to go through if you are going to have insurance pay for it. It does vary alot. I had to do a cardio clearance, psych clearance, sleep apnea clearance was waived because I had already done that and use a CPAP and the hardest clearance of all is either 6 months on continuous diet program evidenced by a medical doctor, nutritionist. They wouldn't just take WW weigh ins, etc. I also had Aetna and they wanted 5 years of weight history showing I had been attempting weight loss with a doctors guidance and had been obese during that time. This nutrition stuff and weight history seems to be what is the trickiest to finish off but you'll get there.

2. Thin hair -- I also have thin hair and this is an issue for those who are losing weight fast like we are doing. You can help minimize it by taking Biotin (I get mine at CVS) daily and also by being totally dedicated to getting at least 70 grams of Protein a day in. People who are cutting calories can find it tough to meet the protein requirement unless they use some Protein Bars or Protein Drinks (I do) to help make up the difference.

3. There is actually a good book called Weight Loss Surgery for Dummies and it has some pretty good practical info in it.

4. I used alot of the receipes and ideas that were on this website for the Full liquids and Mushies stages of eating and that was a help.

5. I had Dr. Price as my surgeon and I went in there being pretty sure lapband was what I wanted because I knew it was a considerably safer surgery from the complexity of the procedure, the mortality rate, I didn't want my stomach and intestines permanently rerouted, I like sugar and I heard about dumping and no sugar at all for RNY patients that had gastric bypass. So when I talked with him at my initial appointment, I told him why I thought I wanted lapband and why I didn't think I wanted RNY. He asked me if I knew it would take longer to lose my weight on Lapband, that I'd lose at a slower rate and maybe not lose as much in total as RNY and I said yes, I'm willing to take time to lose. He said, okay, we'll do a band on you. You're a good candidate. ...and the rest is history about -86 lbs now in 10 months.

I will tell you it is financially more of an incentive for doctors to do RNY, more surgery costs, more hospital costs but if you know what you want, stay strong. I did have a friend on this site that chose RNY and had some health reasons to do so and I supported the decision that was right for her. You are the one who has to live the rest of your life with the decision you make. I also had a couple other friends on this board who are still fairly young and have young children, and wanted to go with the less risky surgery and future lifestyle flexibility and the doctors seemed to be very supportive of lapband for younger mothers/fathers.

Best wishes in your journey. Be sure you take some Before pictures - front, side, and back and a close up of your face before you lose and you will be astounded at the change.

Well I oops today and headed to the Dr. office to see Dr. Miller for a checkup and hadn't checked my home voicemail since Friday and they had let me know my Monday 8:30 am appt was cancelled because he wouldn't be in. Silly me... maybe another senior moment since my birthday is this week. Very nicely, they gave me 8:30 am with Dr. Choban instead this Thursday so that was perfectly fine with me to reschedule.

The Mt. Carmel Bandsters thread has been pretty quiet lately. Everyone doing okay?

I just got a Bodybugg - like the people on Biggest Loser wear to help track calories burned. More as I learn and get it set up and see if I think its helping.

I will be going to Holzer in Gallipolis. My surgeon wil be Dr. Grandia.I'm getting really excited. Is there like a list of things I should get before surgery? Thanks for the welcome.

I have done alot of genealogy work on my family and many of those ancestors trace back to the early days in Gallipolis and I've want to go down to that area on a history expedition but have just never made it. Anyway.

Things I took to the hospital -- a handheld game or book to read, magazine, etc. I ended up waiting 3 extra hours in pre-op due to a really difficult case of some kind that backlogged the surgery schedule so it was nice having my brother to talk to for all that time but once I got back to my hospital room, he took off and I was on my own the rest of the evening so the game/book was handy. Someone also had told me to consider taking a bottle of Chloraseptic mouth spray to use on my throat after surgery because you have a sore or dry throat from the tube being down but I really could have done okay without that. Someone else told me to buy some liquid Tylenol in advance in case I was having any pain or headaches and didn't want to try the pill form of Tylenol, etc. during the liquids stage. I actually again, didn't need this. I just used the hospital's nightgown, robe, slipper socks and went home in the same clothes I came in, didn't bring a nightgown, robe, slippers of my own. I did bring toothbrush, toothpaste, mouthwash, deodorant as I remember it.

Is that what you were asking?

Century Cards http://swords.cc/ohcc/oh_card.html If I make it message me: Lbs lost, Name on the card, background (see below) I will send you the link & instructions. Heart, Butterfly, Lotus, Rose, Plain Gold, Pink Ribbon, OH symbol.

I'm sneaking up on 90 lbs but probably won't make the 100 mark until our bandiversary in March but I'll be thrilled just the same. Congrats to those of you who have already lost 100+!

There is something called a Century Card from the Obesity Help website you can get made with your name on it. You can choose from a Heart, a rose, or something else as the background and it it gold with 100 lbs lost Century Club member on it. See link below.

I weighed this a.m. right before heading off to the surgeon and was happy to report I broke into the next set of new numbers...Yea

Friday, January 23, 2009

aJoneen.........0

evelas5000......0

Desdemona.......0

Fenton.........-5

HarleyGirl......+.5

Hopeinapril.....0

Lynn1215........0

NurseNiki.......0

Nycm00.........+1

Potatie.........-1 100 POUNDS LOST

scrappy_friend.-2

SpecialK.......-3

Sugarbean......-2 100 POUNDS LOST

Sharona.............-1

Tess415........-8

Thin2bme.....-3.2

WestCoastMom....0

Wishin4.........0

My Bodybugg came Friday and I am in the midst of getting it set up and using it. I forget if any other Shamrocks are using one? Also, when you go to activate it has a medical history questionnaire and it did have a question if you've had any type of bariatric surgery and when I answered yes on that, it blocked me from finishing my activation until I consult with their dietitian and get a clear to keep going and let them develop the program. Bummer but I am wearing the Bodybugg itself now and its no big deal, I slept with it in bed last night without noticing it so that is good because you are supposed to wear it for as close to 24 hours as you can so that it measures your whole day of calorie burn. Then you connect it up with a USB cable to your computer and upload the data to empty the device memory to the website that does the tracking. So far because I have the dietitian block, I can't do the food tracking on their website for the calories eaten part so that when it does calories burned against calories eaten it should tell if you are getting deficit going meaning more calories burned versus eaten means losing weight.

Chime in if you are using one and what you think and I'll post here how its going for me.

Next surgeon office visit for me is Monday 8:30 am and I'm staying off the scale until Monday before I go so I'll update our tracker after that. Congrats to all who are doing so well. I really slowed down in the last month thus the even more dedicated tracking of calories and activity and food eaten. I'm committed...maybe a little obsessive about it at this point.

Whatever it takes....