AlysonRR

Welcome! I haven't talked to the doctor about a goal yet, but after starting at nearly 350, I'd be happy to be under 200! Well, actually, I'm happier with every few pounds dropped - I'm down about 10% from my highest weight and it's made a huge difference in my mobility level. I'm imagining I'll get perkier and perkier with every 10% lost :-) I didn't think I had much restriction after my first fill, but the weight is coming off again and my portions are usually smaller (I was up to ~1 cup and now 1/2-3/4 c is more typical, so I guess I do! I'm scheduled for another fill in about 10 days. I buy most of my clothes online, at www.junonia.com and Quality Plus Size Clothing for Women of Style, 2X - 8X, 22W - 46W Making It Big, MIB Plus Size Natural Fiber Clothing for Women of Style Though with the cost of them, I think I'll be trying to take some pants in as I go down in size. Good luck!

B: Fage yogurt with Kashi Golean and honey L: Turkey and cheese sandwich with spinach on whole wheat Mountain flatbread D: blackened salmon caesar, glass of wine, couple small bites of ice cream S: Soy crisps

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Too Much Information, lol I find kind of a fun challenge to make meals with the seasonal foods, and it's amazing how long it lasts - I've had mesclun greens last almost four weeks! I'm not too enthusiastic about canning, but we freeze quite a bit of the excess, particularly berries, which my kids eat almost every day. And we still buy organic bananas year round - definitely not in our 100 mile eating zone! Cool - our costco has organic ground beef! I was shocked, too. Sounds like fun! I can't wait til I am thin enough to ride a bike again...

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LOL, now you got me going again! I tried to explain to my husband why I was laughing - he didn't get it.

I swallowed approx. half a piece of Orbit gum (ie., pretty small) but it is just sitting there, not going down. It felt like it was just at the back of my throat, so I tried to cough it out, hack it out, and finally vomit it out... That was dumb - I should have phoned my doctor first. He explained that the esophagus doesn't have full sensory output, so even though something may feel like it's at the top, it could be at the bottom end of the esophagus. So I'm on liquids after a single day of mushies (waah...), waiting for gravity and peristalsis to take it's course. I probably won't stop chewing gum - I only have a piece every week or two - but I will be very, very careful the next time I do! Just wanted to share my cautionary tale...

B: Fage yogurt with kashi golean and honey L: Goldfish crackers :biggrin: D: Kavli with cream cheese, avocado, and smoked salmon; baby zucchini

Great topic! We recycle everything our county takes, compost our produce trimmings, and instead of driving himself 80 miles to work, my husband bikes 15 min to the bus station, takes the bus to the ferry, then walks from the ferry to his job. I drive the kids around in our 45mpg civic hybrid. For cleaning, instead of paper towels or sponges (I'm a microbiologist and I hate sponges!!!) we use cleaning cloths that we can wash. Same for mops - cloth covers on a flat surface mop. I got both from The Clean Team. - Efficient Housecleaning and Environmentally Friendly Cleaners, but some types of fabric rags would work well, I imagine. After using cloth diapers on my children, at the risk of TMI, I switched to cloth menstrual pads. They're much more comfortable than the paper ones. We're building a house and using as many energy saving techniques and technologies as we can afford. We wanted to use a geothermal heat pump, but they're too expensive at this point, so we're using an air source heat pump instead. The house has many passive solar features. All the lighting will be CFL or LED. The flooring will be sustainably harvested bamboo and cork. The fridge, washer, and dishwasher will be energy star certified, and we'll have an energy-saving induction cooktop. There's a root cellar for passive cooling so we can store more of the veggies we hope to grow in a year or two. Another thing we've done that has been really worthwhile for our family is joining a CSA - community supported agriculture - a share farm. We pay for a share of produce from a small local farm, giving the farmer the surety of a paid crop and giving us lots of organic produce and eggs for half the year. We buy natural meat and some fish from local people plus we're lucky that my parents have a small non-commercial oyster farm and also catch dungeoness crab and are willing to share. We belong to a food co-op to reduce the overhead on other grocery items. We found freecycle.org before we moved from MD to WA and it was fun meeting people who could use the things we found to be surplus for our new lives. We enjoy finding new ways to save energy, reduce/reuse/recycle, and buy locally, and we're always looking for new ideas, so I'm avidly reading this thread!

Dianne - I posted about it already (#38), but it went down sometime after I stopped feeling restriction, thank goodness. I didn't ever have a moment when I realized it was gone - I still felt a little irritated and thought that was the gum still. But when they did my fill under fluoro we couldn't see any obstruction to the flow of liquid, so it's gone. Thanks for the interest :-) The first post I saw today when I logged in after a few days away was the "swallowed a fly" thread, and I though we were going to have a Flywatch, lol.

B: Fage yogurt, Kashi Go Lean, and honey L: Tuna melt - tuna, cottage cheese, dill relish, WW light english muffin, reduced fat monterey D: turkey roll-ups with cream cheese and spinach S: raspberries

B: 2 eggs, 1 oz reduced fat cheese, 1 light english muffin L: McDonald's grilled chicken ranch snackwrap D: crabcake plus spinach and a little tartar sauce S: a handful of goldfish crackers

Here's mine: 1. I'm walking much better and using my cane less frequently 2. I can bend over to pick things up off the floor 3. My stomach isn't right on the steering wheel, and my seatbelt has more give 4. I've lost 25.5 (!) inches off my measurements compared to pre-banding

B: 2 eggs, 1oz reduced fat monterey jack, light english muffin L: 1/3 c teriyaki tofu and 1/3 c sweet potatoes S: 2 oz pea crisps D: crab cake, 1 c spinach, 2T fat free dressing S: 2 glasses pinot gris

B: 90% of a 1/2c eggbeaters omelet w/2 oz goat cheese L: 1/3c teriyaki tofu and 1/3c sweet potato fries D: 1/3c Fage yogurt and 1/3c Kashi and 1 tsp honey

I'm the person who started the "Crud. I swallowed a piece of gum" thread above. I'm glad you don't feel it - that was not a pleasant feeling! My doctor said that if it happened later he would have me in for an unfill and flush the gum through. I think I had a significant amount of swelling (I felt pretty restricted in both amount and type of foods) at the point when I swallowed the gum, and that it went down sometime after the swelling decreased. HTH!

I know my doctor recommends 2 days of liquids after a fill, but do you think that is 48 hours, or do you think it means to eat a mushie/solid Breakfast on the third day after a fill? Thanks for any input -

The fill wasn't bad at all. To me it was less painful than a vaccination. It was a little weird to have a needle hanging out while they syringed the Fluid in and out, but not particularly painful. You might be one of the lucky ones who has restriction right away and doesn't need a fill. I thought I might be, then I went from totally satisfied on 4 oz at three weeks post-op to feeling hungry despite 8 oz servings and a snack or two at four-and-a-half weeks post-op. So wait and see how you're doing - maybe you won't need a fill :-) HTH-

B: Shake w/protein powder, Silk Vanilla, Fage, mango, and a little honey L: Butternut squash soup with light laughing cow cheese mixed in D: Baked ricotta

There were two videos made in the 90s called Yoga for Round Bodies: [ame=http://www.amazon.com/Yoga-Round-Bodies-set-vols-1-2/dp/188131104X]Amazon.com: Yoga for Round Bodies (set-vols.1 & 2): Video: Genia Pauli Haddon,Linda DeMarco[/ame] I don't think they've been re-released on DVD, but they're pretty good for beginners and anyone who needs to modify yoga positions. There are also a few yoga studios around the country that teach classes inspired by the videos, and the realization that rounder people can do yoga, but they may need help figuring out how to modify the poses to get around their roundness

Have you seen Calbee Snap Pea Crisps? One serving (1 oz ~ 22 snap peas) is 150 cal, 8 g fat, 1 g carb, 5 g protein. Much better than chips and they satisfy my crunchy, salty cravings when I'm PMSing. Amazon has a pretty good price if they sound good and you can't find them locally.

Thanks for sharing - I was wondering about this!

I had a fill this week - 5 ml in my APL (14 ml) band. I can definitely feel cold Water going through slower than it did before the fill, and I can only drink about 4 oz, compared to the easy 8 oz before the fill. I'm not expecting this to be perfect restriction, but I'm hoping once I start solids again I'll have at least a little more than I did! I have a second fill appointment in 3 weeks, on the 13th of Feb.

Thanks for the advice! In another ten or twenty pounds I think I'll get out my old "Yoga for Round Bodies" videotapes :-)

I'm feeling a bit restricted, like I did when I was swollen during the first couple weeks after surgery. For example, I can feel cold liquids going down slooowly compared to the last couple weeks when I was definitely wide open. Ouch on the cough drop! My doc didn't have any warnings about gum or hard candy in his literature, but it does make sense! And the breath mints he has in a dish in the office are teeeny tiny.