Jean McMillan

You need to ask your dietitian about that. Mine says baby food is OK in the puree/mushy phase, but you're going to have to find a way to get some protein in, and I doubt that any fruit or veggy baby food product will have enough protein to help you heal and meet your nutritional needs. As for a long term food choice, absolutely not. Pureed food is OK when you're healing post-op, but for the rest of your life, you'll need to emphasize solid food, because that's what gives you the early and prolonged satiety you'll need to lose weight and maintain your weight.

It does seem like the bigger bands need more fill before you reach optimal restriction. I would try talking to your surgeon again about your frustration and do your best to negotiate a bigger fill, but keep in mind that as you get more and more fill in your band, you'll need smaller and smaller fills to reach the infamous green zone. And as impatient as most of us get to find the green zone, getting huge fills is a bad idea because of the potential for eating problems, side effects, and complications. Hang i there!

Yes, sweets go down entirely too easily, but how to get away from them depends on a things that we don't know about you. Are you making them, buying them and bringing them home or to work, telling yourself you're buying them for your family, sneaking them, etc. etc.? Are you attending a WLS support group? Have you considered attending an OA (Overeaters Anonymous) meeting where you can find a sponsor or some new friends you can call when the sweets are calling you?

I'm glad you both found a WLS solution that works for you. I hadn't heard of silicone allergy - I thought it was used in all kinds of medical implants because it's durable and biocompatible - but some people seem to have a sensitivity to it, perhaps related to an immune system disorder. I loved my band, but I've seen many people struggle with the too-tight, too-loose business.

Maybe have it tattooed on the back of your hand?

A forum is, by definition, a place dedicated to public discussion of matters that concern everyone present. So if you want to post about how you're feeling and are bothered when other members voice their own feelings about it, perhaps you should consider posting your feelings in a blog rather than in a forum.

Sounds like you might have soft calorie syndrome. When you can't eat solid food and favor soft and liquid foods, you don't experience enough satiety to keep hunger at bay. Plus a lot of soft and liquid foods are high in sodium, sugar, and starches. So I agree with the other folks who replied to your thread - go back to your surgeon, tell him/her what's been going on with your eating, and talk about a small unfill. Even taking just a few drops of saline out of your band can improve your eating and quality of life without sacrificing your restriction.

I have never in the past 5 years seen anyone on any WLS forum advise another member to emulate Jane Fonda. We've all struggled with eating so much that we qualified for WLS and when we post the kind of comments that you seem to object to, it's out of our own personal knowledge that weight loss and weight management takes a lot of work and that we can't expect our bands to do all of that work. Whether you call post-op eating a diet or a lifestyle change is a matter of semantics. I do not care even a tiny bit if John Doe and Mary Smith are doing the exact same thing while John calls it a diet and Mary calls it a lifestyle, especially if they're both happy and losing weight. I'm happy to hear that your doctor and nutritionist are helping you to live your life in balance and I hope that you're able to live that way until you're laid to rest. In the meantime, keep in mind that making posts that state an expectation of bashing is (in my view) a passive-aggressive way of inviting other members to bash you.

You're doing awesome, Jim. I love that John Maxwell quote. I think attitude is half the battle.

In what way(s) have you been having a rough time? Having eating problems, or making poor food choices and/or overeating?

Your surgeon threatening you with band removal does not sound like an appropriate response to your situation. It sounds like he's playing head games with you. I suggest that you get a 2nd opinion from another bariatric surgeon.

I can gain 4 pounds overnight, especially when my sodium intake is high. I'm sure that gain is frustrating for you, especially considering the fact that you were without insurance coverage for so, but in the long term, 3 pounds up or down is not medically significant. I think it's way too soon to jump off a bridge over it. Hang in there, keep doing what you're doing, and if your weight isn't down in another month, go back to see your surgeon. P.S. - if you're exercising regularly, that 3 lbs could represent muscle, and since muscle burns calories faster than fatty tissue, a 3 lb gain is actually good news.

As the others have said, you probably just need a fill now. You've lost a lot of weight very quickly. As you lose weight, the fat surrounding your stomach (and other internal organs) shrinks, so the band feels looser and you need more fill. I want to share this saying (which I didn't invent, but it's very true): just because you can eat as much as you want doesn't mean you should. Overeating can cause complications like band slippage

It's hard for me to respond to your post because I don't know you and I'm not clear on exactly why you hate your band so much. Band slippage is rarely an emergency. It's often fixed with a complete unfill and rest period. Some slips do require surgery to fix them.

Where are those people? Personally, I believe they're all camping out on another WLS site right now, but they'll show up here sooner or later, because misery loves company.

I could write a book in answer to your post. But wait! I did write a book! But seriously...None of us here are medical professionals, and we don't know enough about you (your weight, your BMI, your health, medical conditions, medications, hormonal status, etc. etc.) to advise you. I think you need to talk to your surgeon (or whoever does fills) at your appointment this week. Say something like, "I'm disappointed by my weight loss so far. What can we do to take it up a notch?" About exercise...lots of people struggle to balance work and family and other responsibilities and still find time to exercise. I think you have to make an appointment with yourself to do it, just like you'd make (and keep) a medical appointment. Or find a workout buddy and make a date to exercise together. Even if all you do is walk for 5 minutes several times a day (then for 10 minutes, then 15, and so on), you'll be better off than you were before. And if your job is stressful, you may just find (as I do) that exercise is excellent stress relief. Jean

Your surgeon didn't mention erosion before your surgery? Before my band surgery, I had to sign a release that listed possible complications (including erosion & slippage) and stated that I was aware of the risks and giving my surgeon permission to do the procedure. If your band has helped you lose weight, you haven't had many side effects, and have had no complications, why do you want to have your band removed? I'm just curious.

Unless your surgeon tells you otherwise, that's up to the both of you. Just don't do it swinging from a chandelier.

Not me, but the standard advice for post-op hair loss is to increase protein intake and/or take a biotin supplement.

Sick, sick, sick. And almost as sick are the media vultures who "report" a story like hers.

I never felt "full" during the liquid diet phase following surgery or fills. [Actually, I never ever felt "full" again the way I did pre-op, because that kind of full is what made me obese.] But I did find that crunching on SF popsicles helped. And I didn't waste my time worrying about how many calories I was consuming. All the SF popsicles and Jello I wanted! Yahoo! When I had to do clear liquids as prep for a colonoscopy a few years ago, I bought popsicles and Jello and had to force myself to eat them. I think I ate a lifetime and a half's worth of that stuff when I was a baby bandster!

Sounds like you're still in Bandster Hell, that awful time before our bands are working optimally. And to be honest, my band didn't start reducing my physical hunger until I was 3 years post-op. I survived by planning healthy Snacks (protein, complex carbs) into each day, so that I was eating 3 small meals and 3 snacks every day. It made a huge difference in my quality of life. It also helped prevent poor food choices and eating problems because I didn't get so ravenously hungry that I would gobble everything and anything in sight as fast as I could when the time came to eat. And speaking of time...there's a lot to be said for eating when you're hungry, not when the clock says it's time to eat.

WANT VERSUS WILL You know me: I’m the girl who spent hours reading the dictionary for fun when I was a child. I’m fascinated by words, their meanings, and how their meanings change depending on the context in which they’re used. Take the word “surrender”, for example. An army surrendering to the enemy is (to many) a shameful act. But when the enemy surrenders to our own army, that surrender is (to many) a triumph. A small change – the order of words in a sentence – can make a huge difference in the meaning of one word. The words I want to talk about today are WILLPOWER and WANTPOWER. Wantpower is a word coined by my friend Valerie. She was banded with plication on June 6, 2012 and has lost 73 pounds. She has a lot more to lose, but she’s off to a great start by following the “rules” to the very best of her ability. Valerie says that’s not because she has any willpower. It’s because she has wantpower. I hear people bemoan their lack of willpower all the time. Even control freaks like me can regret their weak or absent willpower, especially when they’re trying to sustain weight loss momentum over months and years, and after that a lifetime of weight maintenance. It’s such a common lament that I sometimes wonder if willpower truly exists in humankind. That lacking may hold a spiritual message for us, about surrendering (there’s that word again!) to the will of God or to our Higher Power. Spiritual messages can take a lot of time to process, so what are we to do in the meantime? First, let’s make sure we’re clear on the meaning of the word willpower. Webster’s defines willpower as strength of will, mind, or determination. When we use willpower, we choose our own actions rather than submit to someone else’s will (including God’s). These actions are conscious choices. We’ve thought about them, considered the costs and consequences, decide to act on them. In the world of weight loss, that might represent a decision to follow the Atkins diet and to act upon that by eating mostly protein, a fair amount of fat, and very few carbohydrates. In that scenario, we must use plenty of willpower to resist temptations like cookies and garlic bread. So far so good, right? This is a good thing that’s going to move us closer to our weight goal. Every day we ignore the candy in the vending machine at work is a triumph of willpower. But did you know that the word “will” also has a negative connotation? Willfulness means doing as we please, out of sheer stubbornness or defiance, whether our actions are good for us or not. It’s hard to say where willpower leaves off and willfulness begins, but there’s a value judgment somewhere in there. To follow your diet-du-jour to perfection represents willpower, but to eat a giant piece of birthday cake despite your doctor’s admonitions about your sugar intake represents willfulness. One is considered good, the other is bad. In the bariatric world, willpower has another meaning, and believing in that meaning can actually take you further from rather than closer to your weight goal. As Presbyterian minister and author John Ortberg says, "Willpower is trying very hard not to do something you want to do very much." Read that sentence again. Can you detect the pitfall? Let’s look at it again. "Willpower is trying very hard not to do something you want to do very much." It’s no wonder that so many of us struggle with insufficient willpower when it involves avoiding something you want badly. It’s a battlefield generously mined with bombs, because every second of every waking hour of every day of our entire lives involves making choices that go against our own desires. Those desires, wishes, needs and cravings appear to be dangerous, and we fear that giving in to them will send us to hell. But the wantpower they represent can be put to good use, and may be easier to come by than the willpower we think we need but lack. In my own case, my will makes my executive decisions and my want gives me the fuel to carry them out. WHAT SHOULD I DO? Even if you’re blessed with (or have cultivated) a great deal of willpower, that alone isn’t always enough to power you to your goals. First you need to identify your goal (in very specific terms), and then you need to really, truly want it. Not just because it’s a good idea, or because your doctor or friend or partner wants you to have it, or because you think it will solve all your problems. Using your wantpower means reconnecting with that feeling of wanting on a frequent basis. It means keeping your goal always in sight, like the proverbial carrot on a stick (see, even donkeys are motivated by food). It also means disconnecting from the doubts and fears and negative thoughts that can pop up to ask you if that goal is even achievable, desirable, or otherwise deserving of your effort. A few weeks ago I wrote a Bandwagon on the Road newsletter article about knowing your limits, and I’ll be the first to point out that the ambition of a 59-year-old woman like me to lose (for example) 200 pounds, become America’s next top model, marry Tom Cruise, give birth to octuplets and become a reality TV star is probably not achievable. I hope that when identifying life goals, you subject your dreams to a reality check and/or carefully consider all it’s going to take to make them come true. There’s nothing wrong with the top model goal above as long as you realize that achieving it will require climbing a mountain instead of strolling across a meadow. When packing your luggage for that trip, don’t forget to pack your wantpower. It will take you a lot further than a long list of “shoulds.” And doing something because you WANT to is a heck of a lot more satisfying than doing something because you (or someone else) think you should. WANT is the fire that cooks your life’s meal, seasons it to taste wonderful, and provides the fuel to keep you moving forward. So the next time you’re tempted by a donut, ask yourself this: Is this little thing I want going to make me happy for more than 2-3 minutes? Is it going to get me closer to the big thing I really, really want (weight loss)?

Of course not. I believe that the only stupid question is the one you don't ask.

My (unscientific) theory is that 5 days of that diet can make you think your pouch has shrunk because once you stop the carb cravings (which are insatiable), you're better able to judge your satiety, stop eating sooner, and stay satisfied longer.