Mikey

ME!! Ok - so I'm probably not famous yet... but my wife likes me :eek:

So in terms of the actual brand/type of Protein drinks, I just drink whatever Janet buys :eek: But I can say that just about all of them can be improved drastically by adding stuff to it. I've added some of the stuff Jason just mentioned, and we've also invested in a variety of extra flavoring. At the moment, I have vanilla, coconut, banana, and maple extracts - and a variety of sugar-free syrups (the kind you add to coffee, for example) like hazelnut, rasberry, etc. These things are sugar-free, and almost all of them are carb-free, so they're ok nutritionally... and they can radically improve even the worst protein mixes.

Welcome aboard - I think you'll find this to be a great bunch of folks!

I used to be a big fan of haunted houses - even now, I enjoy them. Unfortunately, there are times when they don't agree with me... and in fact, I've been kicked out of them on 2 different occasions I'll tell the story of the 2nd one... I was around 28, and getting close to my top weight... so I was 6'5" and probably around 485 pounds. This particular haunted house was very well done - with all the appropriate creepy crawlies and scary things jumping out at you and stuffed scarecrow-like psychos weilding chainsaws that you can imagine. I was with a small group of friends, all of whom were jumping and screaming at all the right places - and I was having a ball. At one point, we were ushered into a relatively small room - maybe 10X10 - with a ceiling that was maybe 3 inches above my head. I don't know exactly how many were in the room with us, but it was very crowded - and with the low ceiling, I was starting to get claustrophobic. Then the fun started - we heard some big machine start humming, a tape-recorded scream ripped through the room, and the ceiling started to come down! It was awesome!! For awhile... After a few seconds, I started thinking "Ok, this was really cool, but surely they'll stop now." They didn't. The folks in the room with me were obviously having fun - and I was too at first, but then it got to be too much. Before long, I was bent over nearly double - remember I'm tall to begin with. At that weight, it was getting really really hard to stay in that position. My back was starting to ache - my hips were cramping - and I knew that I was about to fall down. Given my size, I knew that if I fell down, I'd take a few folks with me, and it would be tough to get back up. So I said to myself "enough." I stood up. I set my shoulders against the ceiling, and heaved. I'm a big guy - and fairly strong. Almost immediately I could hear the machinery start to whine, quietly at first, but quickly growing louder. Then I started to smell smoke... and soon the rest of the folks did too. People started yelling - and a couple near the door starting pounding on it. When I was nearly vertical again, I guess someone on staff hit the right button - the ceiling quickly moved back up on its own, and the door opened, and the house employees started to rush people out of the room. As I went through the door, someone said "Would you come with me please?" They took me a different way toward the main entrance, refunded my money, and asked me to leave. It was embarassing - but I do look back on it and giggle occasionally.

Welcome aboard!! If you're looking for a wide spectrum of ideas about this whole lapband concept, you've definitely come to the right place! You'll find folks from all walks of life, with all kinds of different experiences... as Janet said, feel free to ask anything that comes to mind. I'm guessing that anything you ask/experience/worry about will be something that someone here has gone through as well...

Top Ten Reasons I Haven't Lost Weight This Week: 10. My addictions. Meat, cheese, bread, my couch, my diet Coke, my need for external validation from my fellow humans, my intravenous creme filling habit, etc. 9. My 'stories.' (House, Bones, NCIS, Numbers, Injustice, E-Ring, American Idol, Law & Order, Law & Order Special Victims Unit, Law & Order Criminal Intent, Law & Order Traffic Cops, Law & Order Fashion Police) For some reason, when I watch these programs, I am possessed by the evil Chip&Dip Demon. 8. Terrorists. I don't have proof, but I have it on good authority that an elite paramilitary platoon of trained enemy guerillas snuck into my kitchen and laced all of my loverly powdered whey protein containers with a sinister white powder: Powdered sugar!!! 7. Trained Twinkies. I swear - I was sitting on my couch, minding my own business (see # 9), when this small herd of Twinkies shed their wrappers in a provocative dance set to Vogue (by Madonna), and jumped straight into my mouth! 6. Media-induced depression. After watching the news for approximately twelve minutes, the cockles of my heart weren't warmed. They were smothered in a mind-numbing onslaught of soul-crushing despair brought on by images of war, chaos, financial panic, and Jessica Simpson casually flinging tasty bite-sized bits of cheesy goodness at someone who can only be described as a 'minor.' For shame. 5. Uninspired excercise. Yes, Dance Dance Revolution is a fun way to get a body moving - combining aerobically complex dance steps with the compelling competition of a video game. However, the brain-eating proponderance of psycho-trance-industrial-house-techno-moron music is enough to drive me to the buffet with a pitchfork and a garden trowel. 4. Holidays. Inauguration Day. My wife's birthday. Valentine's Day. Predidents Day. Mardis Gras. Mom-in-law's birthday. Those are behind me - but coming soon: Mom's Birthday. Parents' anniversary. We just started Lent. Easter's coming. I'm not even Catholic, but I'm dooooooomed!!! 3. Work. Do I tell folks the truth? Or do I tell them that I just had a simple routine surgery to fix/remove my hernia/gallbladder/spleen/third nipple? What do I do when the gang heads to lunch at the local Deep Fried And Dunked In Chocolate Hut? How do I turn down all the birthday cake/cookies/brownies/side o' beef? 2. Friends and Family. Is my mean Aunt Bertha jealous that I'm actually taking a step toward becoming the size of a normal human - or at least a smaller rhinocerous? Have my friends stopped inviting me over for fear that my diet-induced hunger will put their small wiener dogs at risk? Will my fragile male ego splinter into a bazillion small pieces when someone notices my wife's weight loss, and fails to acknowledge mine? 1. And the #1 reason why I'm probably not losing weight this week is something so frightening, so dreadfully scary, so horrifyingly paralyzing that I won't even have to supply a description - we all know the terror, panic, and band-crushing hysteria innocently called... Girl Scout Cookies!! Disclaimer: I don't actually own a scale. The size of my ... um... personality keeps me from being able to use a normal scale, and I'm just not willing to buy an industrial strength scale. So I don't actually know that I haven't lost weight - I just wanted to be silly. I do currently have a handle on the buffets, trained twinkies, and bite-sized bits of cheesy goodness... I don't have powdered sugar in my protein cannisters... and the Chip&Dip Demon knows that I'm a carnivore - I could eat him whole in a single sitting! So just laugh :confused:

Eventually I could use that 400lb. scale - but not for awhile... I get to weigh at my surgeon's office at least once every 2 weeks for our support group, and that's enough for me.

Dunno if this will help you much, since I'm a guy, but it looked fun 6'5" in the morning - the Evil Gravity Overlord ensures that I'm down to about 6'3.5" by bedtime. 490 pounds - down from 515 66" waist 6X or 7X shirt 15EEEEW shoe

Yes it does!

Janet's other half is doing great!! Thanks for asking!! This has actually gone incredibly smoothly for me... I haven't had any problems - no residual gas pain, no initial restriction, no issues at all! Now I just have to hang on until time for my first fill - and try to stick with my food and excercise plan... which is still easier said than done. Overall, I am still very excited - and very glad that Janet and I are doing this together!

Unfortunately, it really is an individual thing. My surgery should have been difficult: I was around 500 pounds at the time of surgery, and I'm male - with all of the notorious 'horrible patient' stereotypes truthfully applying to me. My wife's should have been a breeze: she's much smaller, and has had significant surgery before, and she's female - with all of the notorious 'high pain threshold' stereotypes applying to her. I could have driven myself home from the surgery if they'd allowed me too - and I was back at my studio working within a couple of days. Within a week, you'd never guess that I'd had surgery at all, unless you looked under my shirt :eek: My wife, on the other hand, has had some trouble with the gas referral pain. The process didn't go as smoothly for her at all - and yet, she was able to work within 3 days... All things being equal, you should be fine - particularly if you have the type of desk job that will allow you to get up frequently and walk around a little. Of course, I'm assuming that you are relatively healthy to start with... this is rightfully considered 'major' surgery, so I'd double-check anything you read here with your surgeon

Date banded: 2/13/06 Country: USA Doctor: Dr. Robert Sewell (Southlake, TX) Eroded: No

I'm still pretty new - my loverly band isn't even 2 weeks old yet, and I haven't had my 1st fill - so I don't have a lot to contribute at this point. I am trying to excercise - but I don't really like it. There are some things I truly enjoy doing, and I will eventually get my world situated so that I can do those things, but for now I do what I can. I walk some, dance some with my wife, and have re-started my attempts to build some ab muscles via crunches and the like. I am trying to contain my snacking - at the moment, I'm usually able to limit it to Protein drinks, yogurt/smoothies, and (when it's more 'munchy' than hunger) sugar free pudding. But again, I'm still on the post-surgery mushy phase of things... there's more than just my willpower keeping me in check.

Thanks - you guys have given us a pretty good start... We have a couple of built-in advantages to help with our fight against measuring... first of all, we can't weigh all that often. Because of my enormous... um... personality... I can't use a regular scale - and it just seemed to be a waste of money to buy a more... um... talented scale. I know that the cost of a new scale is nothing compared to the cost of 2 self-pay WLS events in the course of a week, along with 2 years of follow-up, but not all music producers are 'big time' music producers :welldone2: The trips to the doc's office are sufficient for us to get an idea of our weight. And we are fairly advanced dieters... we both learned to count at a very young age, and we can apply that esoteric skill to all kinds of things: calories, carbs, fat grams, Protein grams, percentage of our RDA of riboflavin, etc. But since we're doing a pretty good job of following our menu, we're not really obsessing about that anymore either. One thing that we considered - and eventually discarded - was the use of measurements... specifically inches lost. Janet dragged out her old weight loss journal and started filling in the blanks again: waist, thigh, knee, calf, hip (natural), hip (realistic), chest, bust, ribs, bicep, wrist, neck, ankle, big toe, aura, ego ... ok, so I made the last 3 up, but you see where I'm going... So I think we'll look at some of the suggestions you guys have thrown out... in particular, the 'good person' concept. We'd already started talking along those lines. I do realize that it's important for goals to be measurable - so our challenge will be to isolate some appropriate actions and identify some targets for them - and of course some rewards!

When I started all of this, I was at 515 - and my BMI was nearly 63. I had my band 'installed' on Feb 13 - just over a week ago. My 1-week post op appointment was yesterday, and I was at 490... not a bad start! For me, the band was the only choice. Fortunately, I was self-pay, so I didn't have to rely on the rocket scientists of the insurance industry to determine my course of action... :welldone2:

There's a lot of potential depth in this question - and I certainly don't want to presume that I can answer all of it. I'll just hit one small part... If you do consider moving in the direction of therapy (or even counseling), please do a little homework and find someone who is qualified - and even recommended. Bad therapy is WAY worse than no therapy at all...

It's my calm, soothing voice...

Yep! Our doc has several different things going in terms of support groups. We have a group meeting with a psychologist every other Thursday night, and a group meeting with a nutritionist once a month... there might be more, but those are the ones that pop into my head... I'm not sure what his policies are about folks from other surgeons, but he and his staff have been fantastic to us...

Maybe a quick phone call to your surgeon to make sure that particular medicine is ok? I'd think you'd want to take something - big coughs can definitely hurt...

Just a quick reminder - a lot of the gas pain isn't digestive, so Gas-X and other similar remedies may not do a lot for you... In most laproscopic surgeries, they inflate your diaphragm with carbon dioxide so they have more room to maneuver their instruments. A little of it escapes by the time they close up the incisions, but definitely not all of it. So the gas stays inside your body for awhile - and it takes a little time for it to dissipate. Since we don't have much in the way of nerve endings in our diaphragms, most of the shoulder/upper back pain we experience is actually referral pain... The gas really isn't in our shoulders - it just feels that way. The movement these folks are recommending (walking, etc) helps speed up the osmosis process - so it definitely helps. I just had my surgery on the 13th - and my wife had hers on the 15th. She is still having some significant pain from the gas, but I got very lucky. As it turns out, I'm really big I was nearly too big for the doc's instruments to reach effectively - so they didn't have to use much of the co2... which means that I have had almost no gas pains after the 1st couple hours of recovery. Yay for me... bummer for Janet...

No Protein drinks? Hmm... that sounds kinda odd to me. 8 days on Water and Vitamins sounds scary. And regarding our decision to do this within 2 days of each other - I don't think this would have worked if we were forced to do it further apart. Even the 2 days is a bit tough for us... It's really hard to be on a different diet than Janet. If I had been on this new regimen, and she'd been able to come home with real food, I would have freaked out!

Great thread - I appreciate the honesty! I realize that my few posts have mostly been goofy, but I think this thread deserves a real response. Whether I can write a real response or not remains to be seen - but I'll give it a go... I'd like to address 2 main parts of this... 1st, the tone of the forum, and 2nd, my opinion about the specifics of the band's role in our weight loss. Loulou, you're right - a lot of the posts on this forum intentionally minimize the impact that the actual band should have on our weight loss. And Aimze, you're right - quite a few of the posts on this forum have been very effective at pushing the 'guilt button' - a mechanism that is very well-developed in most of us already, and doesn't need any help. There's an interesting psychological phenomenon that pops up when we're spending time reading these forums. It seems that our individual backgrounds and experiences become a filter that we look through when we're reading. These filters often cause us to zero in on certain topics, key phrases, buzz words - while overlooking other topics, key phrases, and buzz words. At the risk of sounding too "hippy-peacenik-can't-we-all-just-get-along" I need to point out that there are all types of people on this forum, posting all types of things. If you are sensitive to guilt-trips, you will certainly find them here... I've seen some that are painfully effective. If you're aware of the danger of pop-psych shortcuts that make it seem like one quick change of thinking will totally reverse 20,30,40+ years of bad decisions, then you'll certainly find plenty of Dr. Philisms here. If you're worried that you're going to find evidence that folks here are doing significantly better than you, you can find all kinds of excited posts that will lead you down that path. But remember that much of this can be attributed to your filter. You don't have to work hard at all to find exactly the opposite. There are a lot of posts that are encouraging and helpful, with language that could help counteract the worst guilt trips. There are a lot of posts from people being honest and real and open, and avoiding the pop-psych crap, and recognizing that this is a very real lifelong struggle that won't be 'fixed' by one brief shining moment of clear healthy thinking. And there are a lot of posts from people who are sad, hurting, wounded, and wondering if they made the right decision in the first place. You'll find posts from veterans - folks who've had the band for 2+ years - who will say that this was relatively easy, and some veterans who'll say it's still hard. You'll find posts from newbies - folks who've had the band for 3 months or less - who say that this whole process has been a breeze, and some newbies who are struggling every day. My point is that it might help us to be aware of the filter we look through when we're reading this forum. Try to see more of the overall motivation behind some of the posts. Most of the folks here are genuinely trying to help - and are genuinely interested in the success and health of everyone in this community. They really want us all to do/be better. However, since we all come from different places, with some different experiences and personalities and abilities, we all can have different styles of communication. What one person clearly sees as a guilt trip will be seen by someone else as a caring kick in the butt. One person might see shame where another might see empathy. We're all different. It might be worthwhile to take a little time and search for the posts that speak your language. And when you read the buzz-words that trigger your gag reflex, maybe try to step back and see what they're really saying. And if that doesn't work - just skip it altogether. There's no rule that says you have to read everything. Especially if it might cause you to ruin someone's nice new pair of shoes... And secondly - to the specifics about the band - here's my way of looking at it. Remember, this is just my opinion. I hope that it will help you - but if it doesn't, feel free to skip it It seems that some see the band as a miracle - it's a spectacular device that will magically solve all of my problems. It will erase my craving for pizza and replace it with a strong desire for small amounts of soft green vegetables and gallons of lukewarm tap Water. :hungry: Others seem to see the band as nothing more than an encouraging reminder to continue on this radical path to health that I am taking. This small sign on the road gives me the mental fortitude I needed to make a full U-turn, and now I can make all the healthy choices my life requires. It's easy, now that I'm on the right road. I think it's clear that the band is neither of these extremes. The cliché is that the band is a tool - and that tools can be either used or misused. It's not a cop-out... it's true. Is it possible that you could bypass the band's effectiveness entirely with bad choices? Absolutely. On the other hand, is it possible that the band's restriction could give you the help you need to lose weight and become healthy? Absolutely. The band won't solve all of our problems. And there are some changes that are required in order for it to be fully effective. And there are varying degrees of success that the band gives people. However, don't believe that you need to completely change your entire life overnight. It's just not true - or even possible. Don't believe that you have to become perfect in order for this to work. It's just not true. Changes must be made... and some of them are significant. And your success will be effected by these changes. But the band can absolutely help with the changes, if you let it. I just had the band a couple of days ago - I'm still on liquids - so I haven't really seen what will happen in my life. And I recognize that I have to do some work to make these changes. But I also recognize that the band had better keep it's side of the bargain!!!

I'm a musician, teacher, and journalist. I am a music critic for the Dallas Morning News, the United Methodist Reporter, and a couple smaller publications. I teach piano, voice, and music theory. And I just started a record label which released my first solo album. After having worked on other people's projects, I decided it was time to start doing my own thing... If you're interested at all in Christian music, specifically mellow piano-ballad type stuff, you might like my CD. You can hear snippets - and order it online if you like it - at www.mikeycunningham.com

And there we are... had my surgery yesterday - so far so good. Now we'll see what happens!

Had my pre-op session today (surgery's on Monday the 13th)... I'm down 13 pounds so far... not too bad... It's going to be a good year! :clap2: