DonnaB

LOL P'nut! They're STARTING to? You gotta love Boise! I think I might have to move there. Just teasing you Susan. Boys have been wearing them that way here for years and years. And years. lol

OMG! That was terrifying! I'm still trying to hook my eyeballs out with my fingernails! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Never do that again! LOL

*wading in rolling up my sleeves* Don't YOU tell me how to pronounce que-min! It's a free country and I can prounounce que-min any way I want! hee hee hee BTW, loved the spice porn! lol

*wading in rolling up my sleeves* Don't YOU tell me how to pronounce que-min! It's a free country and I can prounounce que-min any way I want! hee hee hee BTW, loved the spice porn! lol

Here's my biggest tip: www.FitDay.com Journal your food. You'll be suprised about your calorie consumption if you haven't been keeping a food journal. Wish I'd known about FitDay ages ago. There is a free version you can try out to see if it's useful to you but the $20 downloadable has better and MORE features. It's the best $20 I've ever spent.

I've been using Maderma and it seems to be working pretty well. I got it at Walmart. Here's what my scars looked like at 8 weeks post op: Could be better - could be worse. I'm 11 weeks post op now. Maybe next week I'll take a 3 month anniversary pic!

Hi Altoonasoup, Welcome to Lapbandtalk. The best advise I can offer is to do a lot of research so you'll understand what the band will and won't do. The biggest thing people considering the band need to know is that the band won't do it for you all by itself. You have to do a fairly substantial amount of the work yourself. As you are probably aware through having friends who've had the bypass, that surgery limits the amount of food you eat AND causes a percentage of that food to pass through the body without being absorbed. The result is rapid weight loss with only a small amount of effort by the patient. The band limits the amount of food you can eat, but because everything you eat is absorbed, the weight loss is slower. One of the hardest parts about weight loss with a band is that YOU have to control the calories, fat, carbs, etc. of the food you ingest. In other words, you have to take responsibility for the quality of the food you choose to eat. It sounds very simple, but it's critical to having weight loss success with a lap band. If you're someone who likes to graze all day, the band probably won't help you. If you eat a lot of sweets, chocolate, ice cream, etc. the band probably won't help you. If the problem you have with food is quantity, the lap band is the right WLS for you. Sorry if you already knew all that, but this is something that comes up again and again here on LBT. I think the best way to look at it is that the lap band is like any common manual tool you might find in your garage, if it's the right tool for the job, it'll work. If it's not the right tool, it's worse than useless because it will only frustrate the user! Does the lapband work? Is it easier to pound in a nail with a hammer or with a rock? With a hammer of course--but you STILL have to POUND! So it is with a band.

No catheter for me. Ask your doc about it though.

I haven't yet. I'm wondering what all is involved and if it's something I can do with my compromised knees. Any input there?

OK, so I guess no one is doing Pilates.

Hey Gayle! You did the hardest part - yay for you! The next hardest part is to do it again! Seriously, that first step is a killer! I started out by making myself step up on my Treadmill every day and turn it on - even if I turned it back off again after one minute. After you're on there, it gets easier to go another minute, or even two. I'm up to 30 minutes every day at a pretty good pace, 3 mph, and have on occasion gone for an hour or longer. Even 10 minutes a day is a huge improvement over what I used to do. NOTHING! lol Congratulations on taking that first step. Follow it up with another one and meet me back here tomorrow. If you'll post your exercise here, I will too. Just to keep us "underachievers" in the game! Can you believe what these people are doing every day? If I thought I had to keep up with them, I'd just give up right now. Hopefully, I'll improve as time goes by and I'll be right up there running and biking and all that craziness right along with them!

Too bad you didn't do any research. I had my surgery done in Mexico and couldn't be happier.

wyldvelia, Heres a heads up for you - be very careful with scrambled eggs. I slimed and PB'd for six hours on 2 small bites chewed very very carefully. I'm three months post op and don't even have a fill! Apparently scrambled eggs are difficult for a lot of people. The patient advocate in my doctors office told me that the protein in eggs, when quickly heated to a high temperature, a la scrambling, turns into dry, solid, blocks. The perfect recipe for a PB! Conversely, I've had no problem with eggs done over-easy or hard boiled and made into egg salad. Between us we may have solved the age old question of which came first, the chicken or the egg? For you it was the chicken, for me it was the egg! I'm convinced that scrambled eggs are satan's food of choice. LOL

Sounds like you're doing great to me. The post op liquid diet is really a time for healing, not so much about weight loss. This doesn't mean you should eat ice cream or anything but you shouldn't be overly concerned about calories right now. Liquids go right past your band into the large part of your stomach. Unless you're drinking so much that you're literally filling yourself up to the band, you're probably OK. What I'm trying to say is that liquids aren't going to stretch your pouch or cause problems passing the band. I think the only way liquids could harm you is if you gulp or guzzle so fast that it can't pass the band fast enough and you end up throwing it up. Sip slowly and you'll be fine. I don't want anyone to think I'm offering medical advise, so I think you may want to call your doctor's office and discuss this with him or with his nutritionist. Personally, it sounds to me like you're doing great but it really can't hurt to give your surgeon a call and talk about it.

Do some research and find a reputable lap band surgeon. Since your insurance company has already approved the surgery, it's very doubtful that a surgeon will want to wait to move forward. If your first choice of surgeon DOES want to wait - look for another surgeon! lol Of course, if there is a medical reason why you need to be on a long term diet plan in order for the surgery to be safe or successful, that's a different story. In all honesty, even that reasoning doesn't really work for me - if you could stay on a diet for 6 months without a band you wouldn't need to have surgery. I seriously doubt this is worth time worrying about. Find a surgeon and go from there. Good luck on your weight loss journey.

I say pelt her with something foul and sticky! LOL Not really, it wouldn't help the situation between the two of you. This is exactly why I didn't tell anyone. I just don't need the added stress of someone watching me like a hawk. Since she already knows you've had WLS, sit down with her and tell her that her comments are hurtful and are adding pressure to an already difficult, stressful, life-changing, struggle you've chosen to take on. Has she always been this outspoken about your weight? You might just ask her to refrain from making negative comments or even from making any comments if that would be a more realistic dynamic between the two of you. Friendship is a balancing act which needs constant adjustment on the part of each friend. Your friend may not even realize that you need her support right now - maybe she hasn't realized what a life-changing event you've been through, and just like every life-changing event, your perspective has changed and will continue to change. Hopefully she's a good enough friend to adjust to the changes and make adjustments to keep the friendship going. Good luck and thanks for starting this thread - it's something that a lot of people may not have thought about.

Hi aussie_jode, Sorry, I'm not up to date - did you have complications? Congratulations on your new baby and getting to be back home with all the other ones! (I'm including your hubby in that list of babies!)

Anyone here do Pilates?

Sister, For me it's not about being ashamed or about having to defend my decision to have WLS. I just don't want people watching everything I eat. Asking how much I have lost. Suggesting foods, exercise, Vitamin regimens, etc., etc., ad nauseum. Down the line I don't want people asking how I'm doing, any side effects yet? The band is allowing me to lose weight gradually enough that a lot of people won't realize I'm even losing weight for a good while. It's funny how when you see someone day to day you become blind to what they actually look like. Why deal with other people's expectations, disappointments, comments, or prying, when you'll be losing weight at a rate which can easily be accepted as old fashioned diet and exercise? You said it yourself, "People LOVE to tell me their concerns, or about a less drastic diet I could do." I'm going through a big enough change and dealing with enough of my own issues that I really don't want to have to deal with someone elses or convince them that while WLS might not be the right choice for them, it was for me. Why waste my time and energy on it? I don't think it's necessarily a bad idea to tell people, I just question whether it's anybodies business - kind of like you do - but from a different angle. To each their own I guess.

Can it be possible that the 'grain of truth' in the National Enquirer story is that Oprah is researching the procedure for a segment on her show or an article in her magazine? Hmmmmmmm. I'm more likely to believe this than that Oprah actually backed out of anything once she decided to do it. lol I think that after all of Oprah's public disapproval of WLS, for her to now HAVE WLS would damage her credibility. UNLESS she researched it A LOT and PUBLICLY first. Have a public change of heart, dip her toe into the public pool, see how the water lies, then surgery. Having made all that conjecture, I think that, at best, there will be a segment on her show about WLS. At worst, it will focus on all the negative aspects of it.

LOL! OMG - Is that Jack's smile on half those guys? I'm laughing hard! Well 3loves, is he reflected in their sunglasses too? Just when I'm getting nervous that this thread has stepped off into weirdsville, it gets yanked back to hystericaland! Thanks for the laugh.

Oh, I agree, honesty IS the policy, besides that way you don't ever have to feel remorse over lying when eventually they find out! I really meant that by telling them of your eating plan - call it a diet if that is more natural - you ARE telling the truth. No one says you have to share every intimate detail of YOUR life. By all means, tell the truth - just don't feel compelled to 'confess' details of your own private business.

juliek, we're all on tenterhooks hoping to hear from you soon. I'm hoping all is well.

That depends dianamae, Have you ever tried to lose weight with a personal trainer? If so, how did it work out? If not, give it a try first. Lapband surgery will be here if or when you need it - who knows, you might be one of the lucky - or maybe they're just more tenacious than I ever was - ones for whom diet and exercise works. Rereading I think that may sound like I'm being snotty, but really I'm not. You really MIGHT BE one of the ones the traditional weight loss methods work for. Good luck on your weight loss journey.

FitDay is free. Well, there is a free version which I used until I decided I wanted all the features which only come with the $20 version. How is SparkPeople?