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Yes, it does take courage. But I must admit I look lots better (and years younger) with my old warmer hair color back and the gray (which was mostly right in front!) gone. If we were neighbors, I'd come with you for moral support. I asked my visiting sister to come with me for the first big haircut. :-) If you can do surgery, you can do this! Orea

30 pounds is fantastic! Congratulations! Orea

I haven't talked to anyone about that yet, as it is so far off. I just made up a number for now! LOL My weight at 21 was 190, which is high for someone as short as I am. I figure I'll know it when I get there. Orea

The new habits are very doable, just choose one and start working on it now. I got a bunch of baby spoons off of Ebay and started eating my yogurt with it every day. One day I picked up a regular teaspoon, and it felt weird!! All this long before my surgery. Then pick another skill, like tiny bites and paying attention to how much you chew. I see no point in waiting until the band is in, and doing total immersion when you can get your feet wet gradually. As for the port, it depends on the surgeon. There are two bariatric surgeons in the practice that banded me. One puts it on the right, The surgeon I drew places it front and center several inches below the breastbone. I was careful to ask about this because the one place I didn't want it to be was on the left. Lying on my right side hurts my hip, so I wanted to have my left side available for sleeping on. Hope this helps! Orea

Sexy undies??? What a concept! I don't think I've evr owned undies that could be called sexy. Sounds like fun!

That's great, PDX! Two more pounds gone, never to return! I like that last part best.

CONGRATULATIONS! Doesn't it feel great!!! :welldoneclap:

Very few people lose consistently week after week. I don't know about you, but my body has always stopped to rest for a while after dropping some pounds. I don't know why, but it seems to need to regroup of something. There's not much we can do about this except respect our bodies (perhaps for the first time!) and give them the space to adjust. Keep doing what you are doing and know in your heart that you are doing all you can, and that even if your body resists, you will win in the end. Don't let the scale ruin your day or your week. It's only a number. You'll know by how your clothes fit, how your face looks in the mirror, etc. Or use a measuring tape and keep track of your measurements. Often they change, even when the scale stays the same. Hang in there! Orea

Wow, that is one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me. To be completely honest, I'm really scared I'll mess this up. I'm afraid small transgressions will turn into big ones and I'll blow it completely...stretch out my pouch, cause a slip, or something. I really hear you on the patience thing. I had to learn patience when my son arrived, or he wouldn't have lived to see double digits! (He's 25 and wonderful now.) But this...this whole process from researching to waiting for the new year to change insurance companies, to jumping through hoop after hoop, to learning to eat small amounts in tiny bites and chew chew chew, to waiting to heal and get off mushies, to waiting again for a fill that probably wont do much at first...this is a whole new level of patience (and courage) being called for. The time will pass whether we are using it constructively or not, so we might as well use it well, right? One thing that might help you is to remember the rules aren't being imposed from the outside by some authority figure. This is a choice you made as an adult. You decided to do this and you can decide to give it the best possible chance of working for you so you can succeed perhaps beyond your wildest dreams. I've never been too big on self discipline, sad to say, but it's time we mastered it. Okay, past time! :youcandothis: But, think how proud we will be of ourselves for learning self control and a little delayed gratification. Let's not trade what we really want, for what we want right now. Hugs, Orea

Thanks for you kind words! That other picture was a couple of years old. Last year I finally was able to convince a stylist to cut off my long hair. They were scared to do it. I love it short! Then about a month later we started working on recreating the medium golden brown of my younger days, and we finally have it tweaked so that the very resistant gray in front doesn't blonde out in a few weeks. This picture was taken several days ago. I'm pleased with how much slimmer my face looks. And this is just the beginning!

Thanks! It was taken a few days ago. The other picture is a couple of years old. I got my long hair cut short about a year ago and started coloring it to return to the medium golden brown of my youth. That's all very nice, but what pleases me is that my face looks slimmer. :-)

I was told no more than four ounces! I'm doing it, but I'm having more than 3 "meals" a day. I refuse to be hungry any more than necessary. I'd rather have more, smaller meals and protect my pouch for now, while things are healing.

Wishing you the best of luck! You know, one thing that strikes me as odd is that your Kaiser probably asked for a 10% weight loss, while mine only required 3%. Which at the time was a little over 10 pounds. Go figure. You'd think they'd be more consistent. I've been working hard at weight loss for 16 months with varying degrees of success. Finally this year I got it figured out with the help of the dietician at the hospital, whom I saw as part of the Aetna 3 month intensive qualificaton program. I was almost there, but had stalled, and she helped me tweak what I was doing. I had already long since cut out sweets, sugars, white flour products, etc. And I was eating lots of veggies, both cooked and in salads. So I was doing a lot of it right. I was eating too many fats, for one thing. And she said to look for easy ways to cut 100 calories. That got me really looking at what I was eating and where I could pare it down. I joined CalorieKing.com and started journaling every bite I ate. I found out some of the things I was eating were far worse than I realized. I was screaming periodically for the first two weeks! For example, my favorite Panera sandwich is over 1,000 calories! And that didn't include the chips or the lemonade I usually had with it. I was shocked at the calorie count of plain cooked rice! I started finding which foods satisfied me for the least cost and highest nutrition. This past March 9, when I joined Calorieking, I weighed 364. The day before my surgery, I weighed 321. I'm proud that I did this much myself, and I have to say that the way I was eating, with the lean Proteins, all of the piles of veggies and whole grains and Beans and such, I felt better than I have ever felt. Period. Now that I am on pureed/mushies, I'm adding in those beans and soft veggies because I love them and want them. And I missed them! Let me know if I can help you further in any way. Good luck! Orea

I'm thinking the apple may have irritated the stoma. I'd go back to liquids for a day or two and see if that lets it settle down. The move on to mushies. Repeatedly trying to eat when it is irritated may make it worse. Is there a problem with apples? I haven't heard of one, but there can be a problem with anything if we take too big of a bite or forget to chew well. Good Luck! Orea

Good for you for starting your new life now! Orea

I have "Aetna Open Access HMO" and i live in Northern Virginia. My surgery was done at Fair Oaks Hospital, by Dr. Daniel Tran. I've had no major gas pains, only minor discomfort, and no left shoulder pain. My problem was with drug induced nausea. I started feeling pretty good by day 5 and today have only minor soreness. The weight is falling off this week! Long may it last. :-) Orea

I have two notebooks of information, one from the hospital dieticians and one from from Brittany, my surgeon's dietician. They are similar but slightly different. The hospital says to puree everything. But even they say scrambled eggs, mashed, are okay. So I am seeing that the line between pureed and mushies is pretty blurred. Brittany's notes say it's okay to not puree really soft foods like canned peaches as long as you chew them to an applesauce consistency. I think this is reasonable as long as we approach this sensibly and don't try to get away with things.

ROFL I'm the kind of person who loses, stalls, loses again. The 15 pounds includes, I believe, one such loss, two weeks of Optifast hell, the surgery, and the week following it. I'd gladly give back most of those pounds to have skipped the Optifast. The sugar content messed up my blood sugar and left me ravingly hungry. I don't know how long it will take to regain my sane appetite; so far it is nowhere in sight. :thumbup: The say those of us who have more to lose, lose a bit faster at first. I hope it's true! My surgeon's protocol is full liquids as soon as you leave the hospital after an overnight stay. Seven to ten days later, you have your first postop appointment and are cleared for four weeks of pureed/mushies. Then an appointment with the dietician to start on solids. I'm keeping my meals to 1/2 cup but I'm eating more than three times a day, I can tell you that! I made a good little meal tonight with 2T rotisserie chicken, 2T leftover steamed green beans, 1T light cottage cheese, and a little light mayo with seasoned salt. I'm allowed to have 2 Ritz, Townhouse, or saltine crackers sometimes, so I did have that with it. The result was moist and tasty. But that was an hour ago and I am hungry again already! Or hungry still. I'm doing some drinking, then I'll have my second protein shake before bed. Good night! Orea

I'm so glad to hear you are doing well! Take good care of yourself. :-) Orea:thumbup:

Jazzey, don't give up! I left Kaiser for Aetna this year to get this surgery because I was very unimpressed with the program they offered. I was banded July 30 by a wonderful surgical team. I didn't have to lose weight successfully (although I did!), I just had to jump through the hoops as prescribed. My surgeon's office and the hospital were fabulous help with this. You can make this happen! Orea

My appointment went great, I met the nurse practitioner and like him. We had a good conversation about things like, how do I tell when it's time to cut back on my BP meds. I'm cleared for purees. I just made hummus! :-) Life is good. Oh, I forgot to say that according to their records, I lost 20 pounds between this appointment and the last. This isn't quite true, as I weighed in really heavy last time due to water retention, eating a good lunch, and drinking plenty of fluids. I calculate it as closer to 15 actual pounds. Either way, it's good, and I'm down another pound today! :-)

BRAVO, TPB!!! That's the attitude! Orea

Welcome, Vera! I'm newly banded, myself. :-) Wishing you all the best! Let us know how you do and how we can help. --Orea

Stress can cause you to retain water. Get off the scale!!! -Orea

WOOHOOOOO!!!!! Congratulations!!!! :thumbup: <throwing virtual confetti> Orea