HeatherO

Everyone else's responses were great so I don't have much to add . . . only that you can still eat after banding. It is not the end of the road, only a new beginning. Don't think of it as "life as you have always known it will be drastically different." It is only like that during the early stage. You can do this . . . and a few months out when you have restriction, you will find that it is not so difficult.

I started out like this but have gotten over it. I just allow myself no more than one outfit a week, but then I am really selective over what I choose and it is more fun that way. I also know that in practice, I only wear a mix and match of 6-10 outfits. My favorite things are definitely worn weekly, so I don't want to buy anything that may not make it up to par as one of my favorite things. It is hard not to go a little overboard when you can all too clearly remember the days where all clothes that fit were for women in their twilight years or just not flattering at all. Now I am wearing medium tops and size 10 pants . . . and that means that I can now wear anything . . . nothing is off limits. Shopping itself has become a joy instead of a tearful experience in the dressing room when nothing at all looks good.

I would certainly tell him before you have it done. It may be more damaging to your close relationship to not tell him before-hand. You know your father best, and after all these years, you can probably find the best way to present it to him. Perhaps you can feel him out. First have an in-depth discussion with him about how you feel about your weight, how it affects your life, how it is certain to impact your health in the near future, etc. Later, maybe the same day or a different day, proceed to steps you have taken to combat it . . . and when you feel the time is right, go into how you plan to make a change in the future. Perhaps you can have some information printed out and available in your purse regarding what is involved, risks, statistics involving complications and success rates, etc. Make sure that he understands that you can really use his support. Also, if he is not immediately accepting, don't lose hope, just remember that sometimes people need time to digest things. First response may be one of fear or just not understanding what is involved, after all it is surgery and the word itself is enough to bring fear into the hearts of any loved ones. Good luck.

I wouldn't worry about it. You still have a lot of swelling. I don't think I could easily feel mine until about two weeks out. Also as you lose and the fat on your abdomen diminishes, it will be easier and easier to feel. I can feel mine very distinctly and easily without trying now.

Thanks everyone for your input :0). I think most of it is that I am a quiet, reserved person that does not share personal details with strangers. I am just not used to strangers asking me personal questions. I know if I say 70 pounds and the response is "OMG, 70 POUNDSSS!!!" I know I will be blushing beet red down to my toes in a way that only pale red-heads can blush. I think saying "I lost a bit" or something more non-specific is better than a number.

I agree 100%. Thanks, Denise. :w00t: I also spend 95% of my time on any forum here on Lapband Talk because I like the positive outlook of most posters, and the structure is friendly. I can probably count on one hand the number of times I got annoyed that a thread here had descended into pointless squabbling, on some other sites it seems to be a daily event. I really don't think it matters so much in that threads grow on their own and as long as things are categorized in such a way that you can get to topics of primary interest, all is hunky dory with me. This site focuses on Lapband so the majority of posters will be bandsters. I started off on a couple of other forums but soon lost interest in that most people were R&Y and there was just not enough going on with bandsters to keep me hooked. I think that people with other wls procedures will gravitate to other forums in the same way so that they find something that more closely match their interests.

I agree with what every one else is saying. I am 7 months out, have lost most of the weight, and I can eat just about anything as long as I am careful. Don't feel like you are giving up everything. Plus there is no reason to wait for the band to get started on getting healthy . . . many people lose quite a bit before banding which gives them a head start.

Each day varies of course but an example of a low calorie day would be something like: Breakfast: String cheese with grapes or half a banana Lunch: Two egg omelette with a little reduced calorie cheese with onions and green peppers inside. Dinner: Salmon or chicken or steak baked or cooked on the stovetop with non-stick cooking spray and either a salad or broccoli or some other veggie. A higher calorie day might be as follows: Breakfast: 1/2 cup of cottage cheese with a little fruit thrown in (maybe half a peach or banana). Lunch: Salad with lean meat such as turkey, chicken, tuna, salmon, etc. Dinner: Small steak cooked on the stove top with non-stick cooking spray. Maybe a small baked potato with fat free spray butter, salt & pepper and sometimes a little sour cream, cheddar or parmesan cheese depending on what I want. A salad with guacomole added or veggies such as cauliflower or something along that line. Snack: Maybe a little hummus or cream cheese on a couple of crackers some point throughout the day. I never eat canned veggies because the best part of the nutrition is leached out in the canning process. Frozen veggies are rare. Almost all veggies, and we eat a lot of them, are fresh. Because of the expense we buy them in alternative places like Arabic or Indian stores or farm markets where we can find them cheaper. Salad is the most frequently eaten item in my diet and it is one food that is not varied often. My family is Turkish so when I reference salad, it is not the typical American salad but more of a Mediterranean variety. Lettuce is a minor ingredient. It is usually equal parts lettuce, parsley, onions, tomatoes and cucumber all chopped finely. Sometimes I have green peppers or other things added on when I have them. Sometimes I will roast an eggplant which is later chopped finely and forms the base of the salad. I never use dressing but use the traditional Turkish salad topping of a teaspoon of olive oil, some fresh squeezed lemon and salt.

Physically you should be fine I think, but you might tire out a little easier than usual with the walking around part. Your incisions should be well healed at that point. You will definitely need to take some food with you that fits the post-op diet for the stage you are on. Just a word of caution, last time I went to six flags, I packed a lunch and they confiscated any liquid beverages other than water. I was pretty annoyed with this because the only reason I could think of for this behavios is that people are thirsty walking in the sun all day and at $3-$5 a drink they must be making a lot of money on top of the $$$ for the tickets. However, I found that they will give you water for free. I would suggest checking the website or giving them a call to make sure that you can bring something in the park. You may be able to find soup in a cafe but most food I have seen there is by no means post-op band friendly if you are still in your liquids-to-mushies stages.

It seems fairly straightforward that you need a fill. There is no way you should be able to ingest almost all of an entire pizza if you had appropriate restriction. It is not like a slider food that goes straight down. In the mean time, you want to choose healthy choices for what you are eating. A tostino's pizza has like a gazillion calories and is very high in fat. You may need to just go back to basics. If you are hungry, eat, but eat healthy things. You can eat a ton of veggies without butter or oil and not ingest many calories. Your base should be lean Proteins and veggies while limiting processed carbs, really high fat foods, slider foods, processed carbs and sweets. You can definitely get back on track with a fill and eating healthy with exercise thrown in. Binging behavior is something most of us bandsters have dealt with. I found the best way to combat this for me is to eat when I am hungry. I don't deny myself, I just make healthy choices. Good luck.

I have indeed had the problem where the fill seems tighter and I keep getting progressively stuck. I found that it was from not going on liquids long enough after a pb. I need 1-2 days to recover completely or it just keeps happening. Without the break, my stomach never had time to recover from the irritation. So go on liquids for a day, mushies for a day and carefully work your way up to see where you are. You might be just fine if you can get past the pb cycle.

Everyone loses sooo differently. Our journeys are all unique to us . . . the primary difference in obtaining ultimate success is sticking with it. It really doesn't matter so much if it is fast or slow, as long as you are losing. H owever, when it is faster it is so much easier to stay motivated. I know I had a couple of plateaus that made me very depressed early on before I reached restriction (which lead to eating a little off plan which kept me on the plateau). The best thing about the band is that if you follow the rules, eat healthy foods and get exercise, success will find you.

I have had occasional bouts of it as well lately and am thinking about a slight unfill. Not eating late or drinking late have a definite impact on it. I think I have to accept the fact that after being a bandster, I really should never ingest anything directly before bed.

Even if I could get childs plates everywhere without question or a second glance, I wouldn't. Have you noticed what is on most children's menus . . . hot dogs, cheeseburgers, chicken tenders, pizza, mac & cheese, fries, etc. I can eat some of this occassionally, but as a whole it doesn't appeal to me. I never see much for vegetables, if at all. No wonder some people grow up with a lack of desire for healthy food when all most places offer for kids is junk food. What is up with that???

There are a ton of options on losing the weight quickly. Just eating similarly to the way you would after banding should help as well. Eat lean proteins first in a reasonable portion size, followed by tons of veggies. You can't go wrong with eating a lot of veggies as long as you don't add a lot of high calorie butter, oil, etc. Make sure you are drinking only no calorie beverages, but even better stick to water. You should get in a minimum of 64 ounces a day . . . another measure that is suggested is to take your weight, divide it in half and that is the number of ounces of water you should take in. Also, if you are drinking caffeinated beverages, this doesn't count as water and you should add an additional cup of water too offset the effect. Good luck.

I think a lot of it has to do with what you put into it. Exercising, watching calories, eating healthy non-slider foods, following band rules, drinking lots of Water, etc make all the difference in the world to whether you make your goals or not and how quickly you attain them. Is it possible to make your goal . . . 112 pounds over 52 weeks would require losing 2.16 pounds a week . . . so it is possible but it is also a very aggressive goal which means you have to be aggressive in following the plan to lose weight as well, both in the beginning and during the times throughout the year when it gets a little harder. Now if you had a more moderate goal, perhaps 18 months to lose 112 pounds, you would need to lose 1.44 pounds a week which is entirely possible if you stay on track. If you take 2 years you would need to lose 1.08 pounds a week which is certainly doable and much easier to attain. You have to also keep in mind that the first six months provide the most rapid weight loss so what you are averaging there would have to offset later months where you are closer to normal weight and it is harder to take it off. You have to consider that you are automatically burning more calories a day to support the excess weight and this will not apply quite so much as you get smaller. I am at 7 months today and have now lost 81% of my excess weight of 85 pounds that would bring me to a normal BMI. If I could keep losing every week at the rate I have been losing for the past seven months . . . in a 1 year period, I think that would be 118 pounds. I also follow the plan 95% of the time, I don't eat processed carbs, and workout vigorously for at least an hour daily. However, I am finding that it is getting pretty darn hard to keep losing as steadily as I did in the beginning now that I am close to goal. Everyones body is sooo different. What works great for one person may not work well at all for another. It is difficult to say how your journey will progress until you have done it . . . but no matter what, if you follow the plan and get your exercise in you will definitely lose.

That is a little over 16 weeks. By 16 weeks I had gone from 225 to 184 which was 41 pounds down. If you lose exactly as I did, you would exceed your goal. 38 pounds lost over 16 weeks would require an average of 2.375 pounds per week. Most people stay within the 1-2 pound weekly loss range. It is definitely within the realm of possibility, but it is an aggressive goal and you will have to work hard for it. Daily vigorous exercise, following bandster rules, limiting processed carbs, drinking enough Water, and getting your Protein in can definitely set you up for losing and reaching your goal.

I agree. If the doc did not give you a pre-op diet, it doesn't sound like he is too concerned about losing or gaining. However, that is a relatively big gain in a short period of time . . . are you keeping your eating under control? If you are dealing with the "last meal" syndrome and eating a lot of fats or unhealthy foods, your body may not be prepared for surgery. The pre-op diets are usually liver-shrinking diets in preparation for surgery. If you go in with a fatty liver, you may not get the surgery. You might want to consider a preop liquid diet at least for the next few days in preparation. It seems odd that the doctor would say go off your birth control, but all doctors are different and it is important to follow their advice. Most of our doctors told us to make sure we are on some form of birth control because your fertility shoots wayyy up when you lose a lot of weight in a short period of time. If you read the pregnancy thread, there have been a lot of bandster babies conceived directly or within a few months of banding . . . even for people with difficulty conceiving before. If you are not ready to become a mommy or remain abstinent in the next few months, you need some backup.

Thank goodness Wednesday is so close, only a couple more days. Sorry this happenned . . . just hang in there a little longer. I would be feeling the same as well if it had happened to me.

I agree with the last posts. He has moved on, and you should too . . . this man and the past relationship continues to exert too much influence over you by keeping the lines of communication open . . . and who is the one who is hurting??? Sending messages to him over the weekend is really just causing you to think more about the situation and will just make you more unhappy in the end. Many, many people who go through a serious life transforming event end up changing partners anyway. Who are you going to be when you finish with this journey??? You may find that you have outgrown the things that originally attracted you to this man. I also agree with the name change. Eeyore always had a "woe as me" attitude. Tigger always had a good attitude (which got him into trouble from time to time) but he enthusiastically moved ahead. Be strong and move beyond this as difficult as it seems. Focus on yourself and becoming stronger, healthier, and more balanced emotionally to help build up your self esteem. You are under a lot of stress right now and counseling may definitely help you move ahead to the future. Who do you want to be in the future??? How would you like to see yourself down the road??? Visualize it and then make it happen.

I am down to the last 20 myself . . . and I am still consistently losing. It is getting harder however and I find I have to "tweak" things regularly. I will stay on a particular "plan" for a week and if I see that my weight is moving in the right direction, I stay the course. When I start to stall out or don't see movement, I make changes to exercise, calorie intake, Protein intake, food choices, etc to change things up and hopefully make them move again. It seems like keeping my body "guessing" seems to be the best way to peel off the pounds at this point. I also do not keep my calorie intake the same every day to avoid a rut. I have very low calorie days (800-950) mixed with higher calorie days (but never above 1250 calories). I usually do two low, then one high but it is not always the same. At six months out, I have found that I stall at any calorie level if it is always the same. I also can stall if I eat the same foods every day (which is in my nature to do). This works for me, but of course our bodies are all different. I suffered through many plateaus in the beginning, and once I learned how to break them, I turned plateau busting into part of my regular routine . . . and it is working beautifully for now . . . who knows if it will still work the last 5-10 pounds to goal . . . or if it will work when I bypass my original goal and go for the smoking hot goal of 125???

I found forums such as this to be more helpful than support groups. It is important to be able to reach out and understand what other people are going through. Does she have a computer at home and would she utilize a forum? Perhaps you could help get her started if she was up for it. The support will be helpful once she is through the honeymoon period.

What she said I didn't do this and had terrible, pounding headaches due to caffeine over consumption. I was really, deeply regretting it while prepping for surgery and having such a miserable headache but not being able to take anything for it. Banding is not the end, only the beginning. We all, including myself, went through this stage. You want to limit it however because it can have a negative effect on your liver which is the last thing you want to do directly before surgery. I am starting to wonder how much of the pre-op diet is trying to fix the "last supper" damage we inflict on ourselves. Without this diet, how many of us would have overloaded on fats/carbs/etc from our final indulgences the day before surgery??? Don't say farewell to your favorite foods, because you can eat them again. In fact, they will probably be even better than before because you take the time to eat them mindfully and they taste so much better this way.

I have had it occasionally. It seems to be brought on if I eat or drink something just before bed . . . so I try to avoid doing this. You have already cut out eating after 7:30 so that should help some. This could also be a warning sign of being too tight. You should give your doctor a call to let them know what is happening.

I agree with calling your doctor. After being banded, your acceptable medication list has been drastically reduced. I don't know if anything in that medication could irritate your pouch. For me, I would rather lose slow than take more dietary supplements. I have taken tons of diet enhancers over the years before banding . . . and what did they get me . . . only heavier over time. One of the best, proven effective and healthy techniques for upping your metabolism is to build muscle through exercise. Increased muscle mass will increase your metabolism even while you are sleeping. This will also improve how you look as you lose the weight with better muscle tone . . . not to mention that you feel better after exercise as well. It is also a great way to reduce stress while giving your body a natural high feeling. I have been using this method to boost my metabolism and it is working beautifully.