LindaD

That is just awesome!! Congrats to you!! I'm not too far behind and hope to join you soon. You should be so proud of yourself. Sure, the band is part of it, but the person with the band still has to do the actual work, right?? What an accomplishment!

I find it so interesting the varying approach surgeons take. I wasn't given any restriction on liquids or mushies after my fill - I even asked and they told me "Nope, just take it easy, but if you over-do, you'll know and then you won't likely try THAT again." LOL They're right! I got stuck really bad trying to have little bites of a toasted bagel half with Peanut Butter. (I know, I know!!) and I'll not do that again. I still haven't been brave enough to try beef (other than ground) or salad. My doc asks that we wait 8 weeks after surgery, and I'm there, but I'm having tightness problems and so trying those now is scary. I have 2.4cc's in my band and just that .9cc's that were added has made a big difference. I MUST take smaller, slower bites and chew really good. Today, I had about 1/2 cup of pistachios for brunch and 6 shrimp for dinner. The shrimp were not jumbo or anything, but they were decent sized. I could not have possibly taken another bite. And each shrimp was cut up into 3-4 bites. And STILL I had a minor incident with feeling stuck for a bit. Working on it... getting the hang of it.

I was banded 5/29 and it has only been in the past few weeks that the port tenderness is finally gone - it definitely took longer than the other incisions. But now it's all good - I can lay on my front or my port side (as opposed to my starboard side? hahah) without any issues. It just took extra time. The other incisions are just closing up your small wound, but the port is also stitching the port to the abdominal wall - so it's a bit more to heal, I'd think. Hang in there!

I was REALLY sleepy those first few days, which may have to do with the pain meds more than anything. I stopped taking those after Day 3 and I was fine. Depending on the ages and the need to lift them, I would imagine it might be OK... my youngest is 5 and I had no problems. If your kids are not babies/toddlers, I would imagine you'd be just FINE.

This past weekend, my husband and I did a getaway without the kids. I wore a short-ish skirt and a nice (non-stretch) blouse. I wore heels, with an ankle strap and I buckled it myself. It is so much easier to shave my legs and I do it almost daily now. And I find it easier to assume various positions during our getaway, if you know what I mean. Ahem. As for travel... my airplane seatbelt has a long tail now! And I can use my tray-table or even open my laptop and work on the plane. I'm thrilled. Every single day I find something that is better or easier because of the weight loss. I'm still riding on cloud 9 with regard to this whole thing. I couldn't be happier...

I had that tightness in my chest for the first month and it eventually lessened. I'm not sure mine was nearly as much as yours, given that you're having trouble with fluids even. I didn't have any issues drinking. Did your surgeon put some amount of fill in the band at the time of surgery? It could be that you may be tight already just out of the starting gate. My surgeon put 1.5cc's in at the time of surgery. My first fill post-surgery was July 8th and I now have 2.4cc's, and it does feel tight - I am working on getting used to this, but just that .9 cc's of Fluid makes a HUGE difference in how I eat and how much. Good luck! (From Linda who is really still to new at this to be giving advice, so take that into consideration when you read my post! LOL)

I am about 6 weeks post surgery and I haven't gone to one yet. I have young children and work full time and so it's difficult to sneak away too much. I've preferred my away time to be at the gym. Does this board take the place of a face to face support group? Does it fulfill the same purpose? Or is there something about a face to face meeting that I'm missing? I want to optimize my success, and I think this board gives me what I need to stay focused, to learn, to compare my experiences with others. I believe that's what a face to face support group would do. However, I want to make sure I'm not missing something. What are your thoughts? Are they different, do you need both? Or does one suffice to meet the need for connection?

Well, I made it through the rest of the trip OK. Whew. It's going to be an adventure because I have 5 weeks of travel in the next 10 weeks. Yikes. I'll be paying close attention over the coming week to see how things are and try to determine if it's too tight or if I'm just not eating carefully enough. Wish me luck. Also - does one's cycle (period) impact tightness at all? I mean, it seems like a dumb question but what do I know. LOL

I went to the gym today for the first time since the week before my surgery. I've been working out nearly every day at home on my treadmill, but I was waiting for the 6 week mark to go to the gym and do a more rigorous workout. The day was today. It felt great. The good news is that I tested my blood pressure while I was there. In fact, I did it 3 times over the course of my 2 1/2 hours there because I kept thinking "Surely, that can't be right." LOL I am well below the hypertensive and pre-hypertensive levels. I AM IN THE NORMAL ZONE!! It was 112/75. It felt so damn good to see those numbers. :smile:

Just adding to this.... I am traveling for work this week. I wore a top that was size 14/16 yesterday!!! I picked it up at Lane Bryant on clearance. I never try things on - I just figured it was a good find and I could wear it once I get to that size. Well, I tried it on at home and it FIT! Not too tight - it fit WELL. So I packed it and wore it yesterday and I felt so good all day. It looked so cute. I have no scale this week while I'm out of town and it's making me nervous. LOL I'm just trying to be good so that when I get home, I'll be happy when I step on the scale.

I had the issue with deep breaths for the first few weeks after surgery. It eventually went away. :smile:

Awesome!!! Good for you! I always still did that stuff - I would put a suit on and swim with the kids, etc. But recently was the first time I looked FORWARD to wearing my brand new size 18 swimsuit. :lol I enjoyed it so much, I order another swimsuit - a tankini. These will do fine for summer '09, but I'm already looking forward to buying 1 or 2 more next summer. In a smaller size, of course. LOL

I'm not sure how to answer. I was banded May 29th and he put 1.4ccs in at the time of the installation. I just went in a week or so ago for my first fill, 1 more cc. So I'm at 2.4 ccs. In the 6 weeks before my first fill, I lost something like 12 pounds, I guess. And though I could feel a bit of restriction, I could still eat just about anything. Now at 2.4ccs, I can DEFINITELY feel restriction and it has impacted what and how I eat. So I think this could be it?? I don't know. I'll see how it goes over the next few weeks. If I'm losing weight and if I can continue to eat decently but not too much, then I guess I'll call it. I haven't tried steak or salad yet. I had a deviled egg the other night and was really surprised when it caused me an issue - I thought it would be soft enough not to. I'm still getting the hang of all this.

I'm here now, after my first fill. I'll eat and totally feel too full. (I need to learn to gauge the amounts better so I don't keep doing that! But my first fill was just last week so it's only been a few times.) And then I'll go and log every bite of food and realize it wasn't hardly anything. I think that's what I mean by surreal. (In a really, really awesome way! haha)

I talked to my doc about this because I travel a lot. I had the need to go to India. He suggested I wait 8 weeks for that trip, because food and Water in India is a bit risk - many travelers over end up getting ill and he didn't want to chance that. But domestic travel he told me was OK once I had recovered from the procedure. I was just in Argentina a few weeks before my surgery - food there is fine - I'd imagine you could easily find/order things that would work post-op.

I was banded in May. I still haven't tried beef (other than ground beef) or salad. My surgeon asks us to wait for 8 weeks for that and I'm not yet there. And I haven't tried rice. But I find that I can eat most other things, and yes even a bit of bread. I'm still new enough that I have a lot to learn on what works better than what else, but I feel like I can still enjoy food. My appetite is diminished and my ability to take much in is significantly restricted, but that's all good. This past weekend was my first real test. We were hosting a large group of guests, big BBQ. I was hungry, I put one (pork) rib on my plate, a few pieces of Pasta from the pasta salad, a tiny piece of garlic bread. It seemed like such a reasonable amount. I had one or two bites of each and that was it. (I had earlier had hummus and pita chips, so that's probably why.) It's really weird. I mean, it seems so surreal. I'm still adjusting to it all.

My surgery was on a Friday, so I took that day off, of course. :lol On Monday and Tuesday, I worked from home. I wanted to stay close in case I needed to lie down and rest or whatever. It was fine, though - in retrospect, I know I would have been fine going to the office. (My job is a desk one - very sedentary.) I did go back to the office on Wednesday. So in total, I missed one day of work, the day of surgery. But I worked remotely (and am very lucky to have the option of doing that with my job) for two additional days.

Yeah, the breath thing is normal for a low-carb way of eating. I'm dealing with that too. I had my first fill over a week ago and it still feels tight. I'm still trying to figure out it. Like, right now I just ate some pistachios for my Breakfast. They are controlled bite sizes and I chewed well. But I can feel the tightness, like I'm waiting for them to go down. I don't think that's the same as a full episode of being "stuck" but whatever it is, it's happening quite frequently. I can't see a pattern. Like, some people say they're fine in the morning and tight in the evening (or vice versa). It seems pretty random. I have a business trip next week - 5 days in the company of others for most of my meals. I need to be REALLY careful and very selective. I think I'll pick up some prepackaged Protein shakes to help keep my nutrition up because I imagine I will refrain from eating for worry of being stuck. On the upside, I expect the scale to move next week. :lol One other thing - I'm cold a lot. My feet have been so cold. I feel like I've lost my ability to properly regulate my body temp. I hope that passes....

I'm finding my way. I feel like I have had the good fortune to have access to a short-cut map that many do not have. It doesn't mean I don't have to do the work to get through the maze, just that I have a much better chance of success than I did before. Things are great for me. I believe there is WAY too much misinformation out there and I worry for other people who continue to struggle without the benefit of this tool that I have. I wish that those who lead us in this area were more forthcoming with the truth - including all of the things they DON'T know and are just guessing on - rather than being driven by ego and money and patents and grants and such. I wish we could trust our government and research institutions on the topic of obesity and nutrition. I wish there wasn't so much crap information out there.

I agree that education is the answer. When you know better, you do better. When you learn, doors open in your mind and then you know how to go open doors in your life, hopefully. When you get down to core nutritional philosophy, though, I still don't believe we have a full consensus on what the right answer is. So many approaches look to maximize the nutritional potential of what we take in without really considering how well it satiates the appetite. Until we can help people quiet the roaring lion inside (and no amount of carrots will do THAT), they will struggle to follow an eating plan that leaves them constantly wanting. This part is less about education, I think, and more about trying to find your way through a dark maze with many dead ends and a lot of frustration. At least that's what it has been for me.

I couldn't afford the exorbitant prices of 7-11 :lol but sometimes it's all I could get to. I got home from work at 6PM and the kids needed to go to bed by 8. If I had tried to take them with me on public transportation, it would have meant, what, giving up baths? Having NO down-time at all? A grocery trip with 2 young children in the dark of the evening on public transportation in the city where I've already compromised on where to live so I could afford the rent... Hmmm... Not a good idea. Plus, as I said, I was a teen mother. I was young and certainly had not yet acquired a whole lot of wisdom on the ins and outs of cooking and nutrition. This - ignorance - is another thing highly associated with poverty. Not stupidity, but ignorance. I didn't have a subscription to Good Housekeeping nor time to read it. It's all sort of inter-dependent. Shortage of time, shortage of money, shortage of knowledge, shortage of means/mode to seek better options. I'm quite sure my salvation was that I had grown up middle-class and I had the education of my childhood, which meant I always knew what I was striving for. Some people don't even have THAT. No, I wasn't boiling up leftover veggies to make and freeze soup. Perhaps I should have been. Being poor and trying to make ends me takes all one's energy. Something has to give, and sometimes corners are cut in certain areas just to get through the day. Sure, the poor SHOULD do better, take the bus with the kids to buy the veggies and make the soup and freeze it. Perhaps they should use birth control better and finish school and take jobs with advancement instead of jobs close to home and and and.... I hear what you're saying. I don't mean to make excuses for poor choices (mine or others) but it's just easier to armchair quarterback it (as we say in the States) than to do it all right when you're in the thick of it. I appreciate everyday that I'm no longer in such dire circumstances, but I also remember and appreciate the difficulty of them. (And lest I be viewed as over-dramatic, my 'dire' circumstances were not nearly so dire as those of others, nor did I have to endure them for very long compared to the many years others do... I was lucky, relatively speaking. My poverty was mild and fairly short-lived. I can't imagine how much harder it would be to live that year after year. It must stuck the hope and will to do better right out of you...)

I beg to differ about poverty and its association with low-nutrition foods. I was a teen mother and I spend a few years under the poverty line. I had two children and was pulling a single mother gig. I worked full time, didn't have my own vehicle for a period, etc. I absolutely could not buy foods that would go to waste (ie fresh fruits and vegetables). The only market I could walk to was a Seven-Eleven convenience store (where price inflation is the norm). When I did get to the bigger market, I had to stock up on items that would go far - last long, cost little. We ate a lot of ramen Soup, pot pies, mac-n-cheese, Cereal, Peanut Butter and jelly (often on crackers as they were more durable than bread). There is an UNDENIABLE association between poverty and low-nutrition. It's not just because someone is too stupid or too lazy. In my case, I was doing it all alone with 2 kids, a full time job (6 days a week) and no vehicle. I was merely making the best decisions I could to get by. Fruits and vegetables were a BAD decision when I couldn't get to the market regularly and they would be likely to go bad. We shouldn't over simplify it and act as if the poor are just lazy idiots - they have some very REAL challenges in the area of access to places to acquire "good" food and the costs the surround them. I buy TONS of fresh stuff now and to act as if it's not more expensive is an exercise of denial - at least in the US. Prices don't drop at the close of the market. If the items get over-ripe, they toss them in the rubbish and put new ones out but the price doesn't change - all of that is factored into the costs we pay. I could buy 20 packages of ramen or 8 pot pies for the same price I'd pay for a few bananas AND I wouldn't have to worry about loss due to spoilage on the ramen and pot pies.

I've never been sensitive to caffeine. I'm not addicted. I might have one cup of coffee in the mornings maybe 3 days per week. That's it. I don't do tea, cola, etc. I'm nearly a week past my band placement. Yesterday I came back to work and had a cup of coffee at 8AM. I noticed the shaky-caffeine effect right away. (Before, I wouldn't have gotten that unless I drank 3 or 4 cups of coffee, which was very rare). All day and all evening, I was buzzing with energy. Which is SOOOOO not me. :redface: At 11:00PM, I went to bed and I could NOT fall asleep. It was past 1AM before I finally fell asleep. Then I woke up before my alarm at 5:30AM. I came to work and had a cup of coffee again, and the buzz is strong. I'm taking no other meds - I've been off the pain meds (which made me groggy) for a few days now. Where is this ENERGY and perhaps newly found sensitivity to caffeine coming from? What's it all about? Anyone else experience this? Could it be because my body isn't getting food right now (except oyster crackers)??

Caffeine affects different people in different ways. It's been used to treat ADHD before because of the reverse effect it has on some people. I'm 44 and have enjoyed one cup of coffee on workdays for much of my adult life. I know exactly how caffeine impacts me - I've never been sensitive to it at all. It wasn't because of fewer carbs as I had been restricting carbs for quite some time prior to this. For whatever reason, in the first few weeks after surgery, it had a much different effect on me than usual. Everything has gone back to normal now.

I highly recommend the book Good Calories Bad Calories by Gary Taubes. Yes, he, like anyone else who writes on this, clearly has his own bias. But the book seeks really to question the bias of many of those who set policy and write the food pyramid etc. He questions many of the theories that have been adopted as Truth but are not. I consider it one of the most important books I have ever read.