Jachut

Weight watchers do a good one which is pretty cheap, well they do in Australia, cant imagine they wouldnt have done it in the US first. But of course, it's tailored to their points system.

Well that was the impression I got Jess, because of my lower BMI it wasnt really necessary but I could "do it if I wanted to". But everyone else involved in the process has gawped at me when I've told them that, so I rang to check and his secretary said she'd never heard of a patient not doing it. Oh well, I"ll know tomorrow. Wont die in the meantime, even if it feels like it.

How are they really going to know you didnt follow it exactly anyway? They dont really know exactly how big or fatty your liver is without more extensive testing than they do (here at any rate, nothing but the normal run of the mill blood tests). They dont actually look at the liver. You could have an enormous, fatty liver on surgery day having followed the preop diet closely, depending on how bad it was before. It takes more than 2 weeks on Optifast to undo the effects of years of obesity! Not that I'm advocating cheating but it makes me wonder.

Ok, you've convinced me! I am going to have dinner tonight, lol. I've actually been very good and havent gained any weight over the past few months.

Naughty naughty, lol. Anyway, tomorrow is soon enough to start if he requires it but I'm fairly sure he didnt. I suspect he'll ring tomorrow and say it's not necessary, otherwise surely he would have told me to do it. I actually think that unless there's real need, its probably not very good for you. There's not a lot to be gained by starving yourself, afterall we all would have lost weight if that worked long term.

Well that's what I thought - but I've changed my mind. If he rings me and says I dont have to do it (which is pretty much what I thought he said in my consultation) I dont know that I'd be able to keep it up knowing that it wasnt necessary.

Isnt it funny how we can all identify with those tiny, personal little thoughts. I've spent many evenings at BBQ's and the like shivering outside at night because I didnt bring a jacket. Now I'm not really enormous compared to other people, and most everyone I know has expressed great surprise that I would consider weight loss surgery. I always get the "you're not fat, your just big boned" type comments. Yet I've refused offers of jackets - always from the man of the house, because of course, the size 10 jacket my girlfriend could offer me wouldnt fit - and I've refused because I've known the jacket wont fit me. Little things like that make a big difference to how you feel about yourself dont they?

Its one of those questions I wouldnt ask the doctor because I may not want to hear the answer, lol. If its only very occasional, I wouldnt worry, but I fully intend to go back to my glass of wine 3 or 4 times a week (but it'll be pre dinner now, not with dinner) after I'm back to regular food.

Popcorn is a hard food to eat when you're not banded I think. It would be very hard to chew to mush. Hopefully it was just that and no other reason.

I've been working really hard over the past month or two - my current rotation includes Leslie Sansone on the rebounder with handweights - you can really UP the intensity of the workout, some spinning, deep Water running classes, and swimming laps, probably a good hour of exercise six days a week. I'm doing ab work and a lot of stretching on the floor in front of the telly at night. I've made great gains in fitness and affected my blood chemistry quite positively over a 3 month period. Now I'm sad I'm having surgery and will have to disrupt it all :think Plus I have to have laser refractive surgery on each of my eyes in January and February, that will cause a week's disruption each time. Now I know to walk around as much as possible after surgery and to probably start going out for reasonable walks as soon as I can, but how long till you get back to vigorous stuff? I'm quite fit, I really like harder exercise and I"m going to miss it, not to mention I'm afraid I'll undo much of my hard work.

Unfortunately I think there are people the lap band cant help, it cant control our heads, we have to do that. Some people are just too unwell to be able to help themselves, its just tragic. It is every bit as horrible as any other addiction, and every bit as deadly.

I think if you keep them long enough, they'll come back in, lol. I dont know about over there but those awful stovepipe jeans of the 80's, those tiny skinny jeans that fit the legs right down to the ankle, are back in here. Good lord, I'm NEVER going there again! What next? Acidwash?

Good on you. Lots of fresh food and you cant go wrong.

The USA is an enormous country and the sheer number of people here mean that these stories do appear often. On Australian boards, where there's way less people and way less bandsters among the general public, you barely hear these stories. It really is a very low risk operation.

C first place to start is do your grocery shopping and prepare your food at home. Dont buy out and on the run, be prepared. Breakfast is an easy peasy meal to start off the day well. Most people can eat breakfast at home. Wholegrain cereals, fruit and yogurt, a fruit smoothie, if you're doing lo carb, eggs, egg white omelettes, include some mushrooms and tomatoes, go easy on cheese, salt etc. For Snacks, fruit, dried fruit and nuts, a low fat frozen yogurt, avoid pastries, cakes and the like. Frozen dinners and the like are junk foods. they're full of preservatives, chemicals, artificial everything. Your body doesnt need them. What about yogurt and fruit, sandwiches (if you can eat bread) or wraps with lean ham and salad fillers, fruit salad, tossed salads with tuna or salmon, a bit of olive oil and vinegar dressing, if you're locarbing, fresh home made stirfries, or a piece of grilled chicken and salad. If you're out and about and cant make your own lunch, take fruit and a Protein shake or something like that. Your dinner would be fine as long as you didnt eat all the fat on the pork chops. Ok, so I dont always follow my own advice, but overall I do eat that way and I've still become overweight becuase I just eat too darn much. But I'm healthy and have no cholesterol and blood pressure issues. Hope that's the help you were looking for and it doesnt sound preachy.

I would think too that for those banded for 2 or 3 years, banding was relatively new in the states and Mexico back then, as time goes by doctors do gain more experience, its like anything, they get better, learn new things with practice. I'm feeling comfortable with it because it has been done here for 10 years or so AND I'm being operated on by a surgical group headed by the guy that invented it. I would think as time goes on though, surgeons become more experienced, they learn more every year about how to avoid possible problems and your risks reduce all the time.

Yes, I mean for post op! I dont have to do anything preop.

That's good to hear. I hope and pray I will find it easy too, I'm blessed not to be burdened with real food issues, I just eat a little bit too much to stay at normal weight and I have trouble depriving myself. But I eat regularly and I eat well, so I have no chocolate or ice cream habit to give up or anything like that. And I LOVE exercise :-)

My doctor has given me quite a guideline - basically a 3x daily Meal Replacement plan - Optifast- supplemented by some fruit juice, some vegetable juice, some milk (make the shakes with milk not water), a thin fruit smoothie and a Multivitamin. I'm being banded in about 2 weeks. He's explained to me to make sure I get all that in (and that that may be hard) in order to keep the calories at about 1200 a day, and to try to avoid massive rapid weight loss. He acknowledged we all want that but he said I'll have significant loss at that level anyway and that really, it does stuff all for your metabolism or your long term loss as its only Water and muscle and very little fat. So you're doing absolutely fine and could probably squeeze a little more in if you can manage it.

Golly, what rotten luck. You are right though, I simply cannot understand that if you use your head, use the band the right way and bloody well teach yourself some decent eating habits, why there is any need in the world for you to gain weight back. Keep up your exercise, keep up your new sensible habits and you should be right. Get right onto any small weight gains immediately. For the record, I find it much easier to avoid gaining weight than I do losing it. I managed to get through my third pregnancy without gaining anything significant, and since I realised 10 or so years ago that I could easily gain 7kg on a 2 week holiday, I've never gained a gram on holidays since. It doesnt require quite the same deprivation as dieting does - for me I find it requires a big commitment to loads of exercise. Then I can afford a treat here or there and I dont gain. You can do that too. You know you can. Surely with banding there's an element of it being a crutch, to allow you to work on your head issues without that exhausting expectation of failure. You've done the hard yards, now you can just keep going! Good luck and I hope it goes well for you

I'm phasing in Decaf Teresa! I'm such a coffee drinker that all that coffee has no discernable effect on me whatsoever. I could eat instant coffee out of the jar with a spoon! I had cut down to all decaf with only one or two real coffees in a day when I was pregnant, I dont know why I went back to so much caffeine.

Sometimes your stomach can growl but you're not hungry, but generally if you've got tummy rumbles and you feel hungry, its not head hunger. You are hungry. Not that you necessarily should do anything about it just after a fill while you're still on mushies, but ignoring physical hunger is much easier than ignoring head hunger for me.

40lb in just over 4 months is pretty good actually! You may have hit a little plateau but I bet your fill will take care of that.

These posts alarm me - 5 chicken nuggets and potato skins as your only intake for the day? Where's the fresh food - where are your Vitamins, your Calcium? If you only eat once a day at least make it a healthy meal. Weight loss aside, you're going to become malnourished on that sort of intake. I cant comment on tight bands in the morning, etc its still a tad over 2 weeks till I get banded. But could you try to get, say, a thin fruit smoothie in in the morning, and some thin vegetable Soup for lunch? Even if you really cant manage solid food at those times? Someone posted a week or two back on this topic though, about how eating a large meal at night, inflames your stomach, causes over-restriction in the morning and that this pattern becomes a viscious cycle. I wish I knew where it was for you, perhaps the poster will see this.

It's worth it for things like that, it does make you feel SO much better. As to the other, well between now and when you get the fill that makes all the difference, this is the last time you'll have to rely solely on willpower. You can do it.