Wheetsin

I've not heard from Cate but she's reading the thread now so I know she's around. :eek: Nice to see you Diane, I got your frozen Protein recipe just the other day. I can't wait to try it!

I watch the show and I've always thought she is very pretty! Too bad you didn't get to meet Nunez *drool*. :eek: Looks like you had a great time!

Holli - I'll get in touch with you. Thursday would probably be better for us anyway, so since it works best for you maybe we'll just plan on doing it then. I just need to double-check against my school schedule (two more projects and the semester is o-v-e-r!)

I can meet up pre meeting, no problem, I just need to know in advance. I can leave work any time, but I work north of the river, so depending on time of day it can take me a LONG time to get down by the hospital!

Cynthia, you're doing great. Just remember that things really do happen one day at a time. Just one day, and before you know it, it's a month later and you've done fantastic the entire time. Ok, here are some food ideas to help you out... (warning, don't read unless you're still doing Atkins!) One of my Atkins "secret weapons" was jicama. I ate it when I craved something sweet. It's hard to describe. Maybe like a cross between a potato and an apple. If I was craving potatoes, I would grate it up and cook it in a frying pan with some butter, season it just like hashbrowns. It doesn't TASTE just like hashbrowns, but when you're deserpate, you're desperate! I would also slice it into sticks and stew it in some butter, sugar free hot cider mix, cinnamon, and applie pie seasoning and make faux "fried apples". I liked it well enough to just chop up and eat raw, too. I also discovered that I REALLY liked turnips! I'd never had them before, so if you haven't tried them, give them a try! I sliecd them and deep fried them, called them "fauxtato fries", and dipped them in ranch dressing. Mmmm. And as counter-intuitive as it seems, remember than when you're following Atkins, especially induction, the more fat you eat the more weight you will lose. So if you really want to go for it, then add that little bit of fat every chance you get. Use real mayo if you're making tuna, and buy the tuna packed in oil instead of water. Cook things in butter. Use salad dressing whenever you have something you can dip. I swear, every time I stalled I'd just go to the casino buffet and eat crab legs in melted butter, and I'd wake up to a 4 lb loss. :eek:

Wow, you really misunderstood what I said! Unfortunate, because I think the more people we can know who share our experience the better. But best of luck to you on your band journey! Robyn - so when you use your finger and force your gag reflex, do you actually vomit or can you stop at PB? Holli - how far are you from Nebraska Furniture Mart? We have to run down there tomorrow night or Thursday night to pick some stuff up after work, so if you're anywhere near there, and going to be free, I thought we'd stop by and I can go shopping in your boxes of fat clothes.

I stalled for about 5 weeks between my eating/food stages transition. Then had a week of the most amazing loss. And since I've pretty much levelled out and am losing somewhat regularly for the first time in my entire life.

Make crustless pizza. It's yummy! I know I've posted the recipe so just try searching on my username and pizza, or something like that.

I'm going to say that preliminarily the 6th works for me. I fly out to Tampa the following week. There's like a 20% chance I will need to leave Sunday, and an 80% chance I will need to leave Monday. So chances are the 6th is just fine. I'm hoping to know by COB whether I need to be there Mon or Tue, so should be able to say for sure later on. Hi doinit4me, Dr. Hoehn's patients have this thread pretty much monopolized, but there are several others in the KS area who use this forum. You might want to start a new thread titled - whatever you want - and seek out locals. I'm pretty sure there are lots of meetings going on with all the different little "groups" of people who get together. Starting a new thread will keep your info from getting lost in a sea of chatter, and give others a place to "sign up", so to speak, for some kind of informal event or something. :eek: Ok Robyn - "I get it over with immediately so the food isn't so "deep" down in my stomach around the band." HOW? (I mean that seriously - I want to know!) Have you just lived with this long enough that you can "make" yourself irp the food? (A friend who had RNY can do that... purge on demand, basically...) I'd love to be able to get rid of it as soon as I know it's stuck. FORTUNATELY I've never had one of those hours & hours of pain PB... mine are generally over after about a half an hour.

Hey Robyn, they're not doing it right now - I should have checked before I opened my mouth (they have different restaurants this month) but 96.5 VERY frequently sells Melting Pot gift certificates at half the face value, so you can buy a $100 certificate for $50.

No more meeting for coffee without the rest of us.

No real issues, I was just blabbing. I think that's where my needle phobia comes from... the follow-up spinals that I can still remember having to "sit" through. Don't expect me to be coherent or make sense when I'm blabbing b/c I'm bored at work.

I'm a diver. I asked Inamed pre-op and they said it was OK within recreational depths. Since then I've heard that below 60 requires an unfill. I actually emailed Inamed again this weekend and am waiting to hear back. I asked them specifically about what depths, if any, require unfills.

I was banded by Dr. Hoehn at SMMC. There are threads for KS and MO, you may want to ask your question there, you'll probably get a more focused audience.

Hi Susan, I'm hoping this goes down more. I'll see if I can take some comparison pics tonight.

The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

Oh, and no - I don't get nauseous w/ hospital smells... well sure, those hospital smells (!), but the smell of isopropyl alcohol will raise my blood pressure. I associate that smell with needles, and although I'm a little more desensitized to them now with the surgery & fills, there was a point in time where that smell was enough to get me light headed (because I strongly associate that smell with a particularly bad experience I had once, when a needle broke off in my arm during a blood draw, and I managed to douse the walls, nurse and myself before they could cover it & then work on getting the needle out... I never realized before then that the blood continues to come out even if the little tube isn't hooked up... I always thought the needle was just "there", but the tube somehow formed a vaccuum and SUCKED the blood out... silly ,but I was a kid... quite traumatic at the time, and sent me on my downward spiral of hating needles). BTW, since I'm bored at work, did I ever tell you guys that I had spinal meningitis? I had it when I was a newborn. Actually I was born a little over 2 months premature, and diagnosed when I was about 2 weeks old, so I had it before I should have even been born. They had to run something like 20 IVs in the fluid sac around my spine & brain, and do a LOT of spinal taps... enough that at one point they told my mom they couldn't do any for whatever amount of time, because I didn't have enough fluid to tap. My mom used to be as bad about needles as I am, but sitting with me through all of that cured her REAL quick!

So Robyn, when is your bandiversary? Holli - sorry your daugther had to have surgery, but I'm very glad to hear about how well she did. Sounds like she took her surgery a lot better than I took mine. Cynthia - is Atkins induction the way you're going? I did that for a LONG time. Lost a lot of weight. Please feel free to post any questions you have!

Wow Holli -- now I'm thinking maybe I PB way too much. I've already hit 5 or 6 times, and I'm not even 5 months out. Once was my immediate post-op accident... then on regular foods every other time. I get stuck at least once a week. I'm starting to get gun shy about what I eat because I don't want to hurt any more. I think the travel et. al. exacerbated things during the last few days.

I am coming... just shy of 90 as of this morning. Can I go ahead and reserve a place in this thread? HOPING to be at 100 by my 6 month bandiversary...

At one time I was 5`11, now I am coming in at 5`10. Maybe that weight holding me down a little? I am hoping in the range of 180 to 200, and get my inch back!

Hi Klynn, I started at 382. Don't be concerned about the sizes, they will come. Think of it like an onion. When you're working on the larger outer layers, you may need to peel several of them before the onion looks smaller. When you get to the under layers, every one of them will make a big difference in the size of the onion. We're the exact same way... being 200 lbs overweight and losing 20 lbs isn't going to show, but being 50 lbs overweight and losing 20 lbs will make a HUGE difference. The size changes will come, just hang in there!

How easy it is will be a factor of a few things. This is all just "my opinion", and really they all trickle upward to one overarching factor -- your ability to understand why you overeat, define what it is that you get out of it, and then find other ways to address the behavior outside of food. You will likely have several (number varies) visits with Dr. Sabapathy before your surgery, and this is likely a lot of what you will discuss. Any other factor is going to be associated with making key behavioral changes. For example, your ability to differentiate between head hunger and physiological hunger. Also how quickly you comply with reinforcement factors... so you'll still be able to eat more than you need to stop the hunger, but if you eat to a point of excess, chances are your band will strike back. Think of it like reaching your hand into the cookie jar. Your hand only gets slapped so many times before you'll start to reach into the jar less and less, and soon -- not at all. Or, depending on the severity of what happens - maybe it will only take you a time or two to change your behaviors. How quickly it happens can depend largely on the level of trauma associated with the consequences. Maybe it's 10 slaps before you quit reaching for a cookie, but you're only going to put your hand in the fire and get burned once or twice. I did not feel that the band would make me change my ways. I went into this knowing I would have to change my ways. What I expected the band to do was act as portion control, give me a feeling of satiety on less food, and teach me what things I can or cannot eat. And so far that's exactly what it has done for me. You're still going to have to make the changes. There are ways to eat around the band, and if someone is determined to remain an overeater, or eat poor food choices, they can continue to do so even with the band in place. I had my surgery on a Wed. Friday evening I was out at a store walking around, and Saturday we went out of town. I still had a lot of pain with getting up and down, so Monday and Tuesday I worked from home (I can telecommute) but I could have gone in to work if I'd needed to. So for me a week would have been plenty, but I didn't have any gas pains, no problems with infections, etc. Never had a C so can't help there.

Hi Chantay, welcome to our thread. I don't remember you, but I'm really bad with names. Notoriously bad. But I'll do what I can to answer your questions: Hmm... kind of a tough one to answer, because "what to expect" is such a big area/broad topic. Any chance you can ask something a little more specific? Are you wondering about the surgery itself? The first few days after? Something entirely different? Before your operation you'll meet with... can't remember her name... something McDonald I think... and she basically givs you a run through of what will happen during the surgery, what life will be like the first few days after, and what's happening on the medical side. Your appointment with her will probably provide more insight toward your question. Personally - no regrets at all. And no problems at all, so far, but I'm only 4.5 months out. This varies completely from person to person. Robyn can't eat chicken, I eat chicken daily. I can't seem to do eggs, but a lot of people continue to enjoy them. It's completely individual. You'll get a lot more information about this when you meet with the dietician. She'll give you a big information packet, including foods that are likely to cause problems. From there, it's trial and error. For everyone who says, "I can't eat this" there's someone else who will say "I can." Can't help, I don't have big or saggy boobs. I know you can lose some of the excess fat in the breast area, but whether or not they stop sagging will depend on the remaining elasticity of your skin... which in turn is controlled largely by genetics, the amount it has been stretched, and the time it has been stretched for. Hope this helps, at least a little.

I should add - the combination of pain & sliming -- sounds like you got stuck. So maybe welcome to Stucksville? :eek: