Sunwyse

The reason we need to be on liquids only for the time stated is to allow the stitches around the band to settle. Eat 'normal' foods too soon and you cause the stomach to swing into action digesting it all. That motion can cause the stitches to pull. That can lead to band slippage and I've been told you don't even know straight away, necessarily, that it has slipped, but might not know for a year! I can understand the hunger. I have it. I can also understand that I am an adult who chose to do this. If you eat solid foods before time, then you aren't really doing your part in this.

Paragirl, they aren't band rules, just rules put in place by American doctors.

Thanks Blocka, you are so right!!! I have this permanent indigestion pain in the middle of my chest. I only just discovered that I haven't been taking in enough to maintain my body, so I've had to up my intact calorie wise! Feeling very sorry for myself right now and have been wondering if getting a sleeve done might not have been a better idea! I have noticed my clothes are roomier on me though. I took a photo of my face the day after surgery and another yesterday, and I can see that I have lost weight. Just that my tummy hasn't gone down at all. That's not me talking, that's going by measurements and also my clothes!! But then, my tum was always the last thing to be affected, so I'm not too worried.

Hi Sunshine, well, the dietitian asks you about your diet history and eating style. They will discuss with you the dietary changes required after surgery and give you some insight into the road ahead. The psychologist will ask you about your diet history and why you want to lose weight. They are trying to find out if you are mentally ready or suitable for the op. When I was asked, I was honest. I said I wanted to lose weight for health and flexibility, but I also wanted to be more sexy.

That when I went home I'd have to use suppositories on myself :biggrin: C'mon, I had enough trouble doing stuff "there" before, now you want me to do this with pain????

I think I've got this obsession with food going on. Not food per se, but cooking and doing stuff with it. I'm cooking all the meals for my partner at the moment and wanting to do lots of baking. I don't have all that much interest in food for myself and I don't crave it while I'm doing it or he's eating or anything. I'm also starting to feel bored. My energy levels are coming back up, but I'm still not quite ready to be doing much. And my hunger has come back. Anyone else experiencing this?

I'm still on liquid phase so having the optifast shakes to get my needs, but today I wanted something approaching 'real' food, so I made up a soup. I call it Hodge-Podge soup and its under the liquid phase recipes thread.

Hodge-Podge Soup 2 medium tomatoes 1 medium carrot Handful (about 10) of green Beans 1/4 onion, chopped I pkt instant soup Pinch flavour enhancer 2 dessert spoons of Protein powder 1 tsp oil 1 tsp butter Salt & pepper Method Chop all veggies. Melt butter and oil in saucepan and when starting to sizzle, add onion salt and pepper. Cook until you get 'cooked onion' smell, then add tomatoes. Cook for a few minutes, stirring often, then add rest of veggies and fill saucepan about half way with Water. Add soup mix and flavour enhancer. Allow to simmer 30 minutes then remove from heat. Let cool a few minutes then blitz in blender and add Protein Powder at this stage. Blitz until smooth. Return to saucepan and add water to desired thickness. Put back into blender, then return to saucepan, straining through a sieve to remove any lumps. Heat and serve. I added a chicken instant soup mix, which gave it some 'body' and a slight chicken flavour, but if you want to keep it vegetarian, then just use a vegetable soup mix. The flavour enhancer I used is called Vegeta, but I don't know if its available outside Australia.

Are you aware they aren't bandster guidelines? There are no "guidelines" as such in Australia, simply eat a variety of foods and make it healthy. Absolutely no order to eat them in either. Must be American guidelines.

Absolutely, I agree with you, but what I was saying is its the perception of most people that it all takes too much. Its their perception that needs to be changed.

Mostly dreams are about what is going on subconsciously. If you are like me, then the surgery has also triggered some psychological stuff. I have already seen my blaming shift from fat to my age *sigh*. Because of all this, you are likely to get some weird dreams til it all settles down. Keep a journal of them though, what they are about, because its an insight into what sort of issues are under the surface. Emilie, I like the one about feeding a body to the animals. Sounds like you were getting rid of that fat person to me! lol The only vivid dream I had so far was last night. I drempt my partner and I had a very steamy session in bed. I woke up feeling quite happy. Now that is my kind of dream :thumbup:

You say these are guy friends. Well, I think they most likely think of you as "one of the guys". You probably fitted into that role to begin with because you were hiding behind the fat. We all do it. Problem is, they can see you've changed, but they haven't changed the way they see you. You are still one of the guys to them. Have you changed the way you see yourself? Do you see yourself as one of their pals? You need to work on yourself inside first. People will respond to you the way you expect them to. You give off vibes to everyone you meet about who you think you are and how you think you should be treated. So you lost weight, what else have you done? Have you done anything to pamper yourself yet? Do you think you deserve to be pampered? If not, why not? Take a bubble bath, get some nail polish and do those toes! Work on your inside first. Then don't hang around the guys for a few weeks. Might be hard, but keep away from them. Get yourself a sexy FEMININE little outfit and then call a few and arrange to go out clubbing with them. Taking a break for a few weeks will allow them to see the change when you meet back up. A new clothing style and a new setting to see it in, will help them see you differently. Going to a club will allow men who don't know you to approach you, but you will feel safe because you have your buds there. One of these guys may not ask you out, but they may have a mate you don't know, so changing their mind this way could lead to other things later. And certainly, ask a guy out. I've done the asking my whole adult life. That way I got to pick the guy. Mind you, I've always been big and I've never had a problem getting a date, but like I said earlier, it was to do with my attitude to myself.

Someone explained this to me and I think it makes a lot of sense. During the pre-op diet and while on the liquids phase, your body is completely empty of any food stored in the stomach or alimentary canal. (tum to bum). When you start eating again, that volume slowly is built back up. Any extra weight put on at this stage is to be expected and is simply the body doing its usual thing.

I agree with MacMadame, I do think they have based it all on assuming people will exercise. The difference is how much you are expected to exercise. I think originally, it was set up with the intention that people will do the recommended 30 minutes a day 3 or 4 times a week. Some people though, have gone far beyond that and then I think you do need to look at added more. If you are adding weights workouts, then I don't think you'd need to add more, but if you were weight training, then definitely I'd add more protein and carbs.

In Australia the government is instituting obesity tests on 3 year olds. I'm not joking - 3!! The problem is complex. I knew one mother who gave her 3 year old fat reduced milk, mistakenly believing it was good for him. She was very looks conscious herself. Parents today often have no or very little, contact with extended family memebers, so don't get the knowledge and help passed to them. They are working much longer hours nowadays. And its not a luxury, many have to do it to survive. Life is so much about convenience, its so much easier to run passed Maccas (Mcdonalds) on the way home than it is to cook once you get there. Cooking healthy food doesn't take long at all. Most things can be done in less than 30 minutes, but people view it as too much hard work. Grab take-away on the way home, grab something from the freezer and zap it. So much easier and no thinking involved.

In Australia, all surgeons for this procedure require you to stay overnight. Its standard procedure.

Olinka, good luck with the op tomorrow.

You are not going crazy! What you are craving is intensity of flavour. You are mostly likely used to having quite rich foods, with a lot of taste to them. That's missing now. One of the ways to get a quick flavour hit is with spicy foods.

Are you breast feeding? Your body requires a lot more energy right now, just to recover from pregnancy and giving birth. If you are breast feeding, then you need even more calories. Stop beating yourself up. Having a baby changes your life completely. Its a lot of stress. Its ok to slip up a bit, its ok to not lose weight for a time. Just enjoy having bub right now. If you don't have time to prepare healthy meals for yourself, what about buying some ready made ones? Sure, not as good as making it yourself at home, but not as bad as having quick & easy junk food either. You've done really well, so relax.

Who is dr de bruyne and how would you contact them?

Well, I was done on 29 Oct, but I've only just found this thread :tongue: While all of you were posting, I was in hospital recovering - our 29/10 is about 24 hours ahead of yours. It was a bad trip for me. I had to stay in hospital over night. Didn't get any sleep though. If it wasn't obs being done every hour, it was my "Jewish Grandmother" waking me. That's the name I gave to my drip machine. I had a drip in and every time I bent my arm, it would set off an alarm. Of course, the only time it would actually do this was anytime I was just getting into a deep sleep. I had gas pain all over the place, both shoulder blades, my spine, top of my ribs, along the shoulder and up my neck to behind my ear. About day 3 I started to get pains in my liver and kidneys, which I put down to gas as well. Its day 7 now and just about all the pain has gone. I was burping and farting like a trooper there for a while. For the first 24 hours after surgery, I was on clear fluids only. Well, I was a bit confused on this, so I had Water, apple juice and gatorade until I could call my dietitian on Friday morning. I was then told I could go onto thicker liquids. I'm having the Optifast for most of my nutrition at the moment, along with my 8 glasses of water, a dissolvable Vitamin supplement, cup-a-soup, and chocolate custard that I add milk to to make it really runny. On Friday, I see the dietitian again and she will advise me to the next step, which I think will be full liquids next week to prepare for mushie stage. I've not had problems with BMs. I had diarrea the first few days, which stopped yesterday, so now I've added powdered fibre which can be mixed into my coffee and has no taste. It seems to have helped. The pain the first few days was like someone shoving a knife in me - I swear someone had a voodoo doll! and I was seriously regretting what I'd done. When I got home from hospital on Thursday I even had a little mourn for what I had done to my body. Now, at day 7 everything is on track. I'm using a moisturiser I made myself with all sorts of good oils (mango butter, cocoa butter, jojoba, etc) to rub into my scars so they can heal well. It seems to be working fine. Now I'm just waiting for the end of next week before returning to work.

Downward dog is extremely easy. Its basically like bending over and with any yoga position, you only do what you feel comfortable with. I think the whole point here is to get your head lower than the pouch, so you could easily do similar by hanging your head over the edge of the bed. As for unstucking a stuck - not happened to me yet, but many people I've spoken to swear by having a fizzy drink on hand and simply taking a large mouthful. The gas seems to do it.

I've had pain in the kidneys and also my liver. I put it down to the gas pains just moving around. They seem to be fine now.

Don't copy and paste the url. When you make the ticker, there will be code at the bottom of it, you copy the code and paste that into the signature part of your control panel. I don't remember if you need to copy the bb code or the html code, but try one and if it doesn't work, then try the other.

Stace, has anyone told you you should go back to liquid phase for 24 hours after a fill? The stomach becomes inflamed and it gives it a chance to heal. Digesting solid food could cause the band to slip at this point.