DonnaB

Be prepared 3loves, kids learn QUICKLY! Next year who will be the April Fool in your house? lol Have a fun day!

I'm afraid I wouldn't make it out of Dunkin' Donuts alive. :faint:

lol - I wondered the same thing. I'm thinking it's a 'fat fingered' associated? (fat fingered means typo)

Chriselda, The purpose of the pre-op diet is to shrink your liver so that the doctor can retract it out of the way during banding. If he can't get your liver out of the way or you have too much fat in your liver, you'll wake up from surgery with all the symptoms and scars of surgery but without a band. You really don't want that, right? As far as the diet soda goes, the current belief is that artificial sweeteners, while they don't add calories to your body, increase your desire for sweets and carbohydrates. Further, the carbonated gas in the soda stays in your body for a period of time. The surgery will be introducing enough gas into your system that you'll be uncomfortable, do you really want to inflict even more gas on yourself pre-operatively? Just say no. You do know you won't be able to have carbonated beverages after being banded, right? Take a deep breath. Stay the course. You'll be glad you did. If you don't think you can handle a movie without popcorn or diet soda then my advise is to stay away from the theater and rent a movie for home. Sorry for the sermon, I really don't intend to preach at you. The answer to your question about the popcorn is, no, it probably won't hurt you to do it once. The question is, will you be able to do it once? Or will it trigger your reflexes and cause a binge? Try to make it to surgery without breaking your diet. I think you'll be glad you did. The closer you can follow your doctor's orders, before and after surgery the better your chances of success. I think most bandsters will agree with me. Good luck on your weight loss journey.

Hey Janet, hey GinnyWhite, Dr. Maese does have an office in Ferris but Ferris is only about 30 minutes south of Dallas, that's kind of a long drive from San Antonio. Sorry Ginny. Check the bottom of the LBT home page and click on the Texas forum. If you ask in there I'll bet you get some answers. Good luck.

I had surgery in Mexico so I haven't seen my surgeon since post-op day 2. My support group is right here on LBT. Sorry my reply isn't going to be much help. Did you check out the state forums down near the bottom of the LBT home page? That's the best I've got for you except to say you've got a bunch of people here who are more than ready to support you, just say the word. Good luck on your weight loss journey.

Thank you Janet for getting us organized enough to meet. It was great to get a chance to meet everyone in person and I hope we'll continue to get together. It's so nice to have a group of people that can relate to all the little tics and idiosyncracies common to us all. I voted for April 22 but for no specific reason other than it's about a month away so whenever people want to get together I'll be there. Mike and I (my Mikey! lol) are looking into getting Dance Dance Revolution on your recommendation - sadly it's going to be a bit pricey and I've spent more than my share of the family funds here recently if you know what I mean! lol. Mike wants to get it because he knows the exercise will be good but I'm feeling guilty about all the money. I say that but then I can't see buying the less expensive dance pad only to have to replace it shortly but we may go that route because the more expensive one is about twice the price! Yikes. Oh well, we'll keep looking. Thanks for the avatar Janet. I think I'm going to stick to my Selma Simpson cartoon avatar for now. I don't think anyone noticed but I was having a near panic attack with the whole photo thing. I am definitely phobic about it. Hopefully as I lose weight I'll lose my anxiety about pictures. I never had a problem with pictures before but now I start sweating and getting fidgity the second a camera shows up. I didn't realize how crazy the weight was actually making me. (Little voice in my head just said: "What makes you think it's the weight making you crazy? Maybe you're just crazy!" ) P.S. I can already see myself becoming obsessed with FitDay. I spent a couple of hours (or 3) playing with the online version yesterday. Yep, I'll be buying it. Thanks Janet.

Benefiber is good stuff, you should definitely get some. I'm now 19 days post op and I completely understand about the PF! You're just about at the end of it I'd say but it will still be another week or so before you'll have a normal feeling BM. At least that was my experience - I finally had a normal one today! LOL Who knew I'd someday be online telling total strangers about my bowel habits. I will add this: Prior to surgery my husband had never heard me toot. Never. I would rather have exploded than fart in front of him. During the past 19 days it has become just a normal thing. Ain't life grand?

Body Fortress (Wal-Mart) vanilla flavor, mixed with 1 cup of Braum's Fat Free Milk (Braum's concentrates their fat free milk so it's less watery and tastes like 1% milk), add in 3 - 4 tablespoons of prepared Jello Instant chocolate pudding (sugar free, fat free, of course), and 1 - 2 tablespoons of Peter Pan Reduced Fat Creamy Peanut Butter. I agree with 'doubletrouble' the peanut butter is what makes the difference. If you stick with the reduced fat peanut butter you'll be getting about half the fat of regular peanut butter and the taste is exactly the same. If you eat the pb by itself you'll notice it's more sticky or dry than regular pb but putting it in your Protein shake you can't tell the difference except in your waistline! I've tried several brands of protein mix and the Body Fortress tastes the best. As far as the Slim Fast goes, my doctor says Slim Fast isn't a good choice because of the quality of the protein and the number of carbs per ounce. Good luck to you in your weight loss journey.

Here's the thing, with a pre-op and post-op diet you'll probably only be about 20 pounds away from your goal. Lab-band surgery is a pretty drastic, expensive step for 20 pounds. The band isn't a miracle cure, you still have to diet and exercise. Surgery isn't something to undergo lightly, it can be dangerous and is definitely painful. I'm not in your shoes but from this side of the band I don't think I'd take such a drastic step for 40 pounds of weight loss. I think you should take the (over) $11,000 (and that's for surgery in Mexico) and hire a personal trainer, a dietician, and maybe even some counselling. I'm not suggestion that your fear of weight gain is immaterial or unwarranted, I'm just saying maybe you should start with a more moderate approach to weight loss. The band will always be there if you need it. Right now I don't think you need it.

I don't mean to highjack the thread but prclndoll - I'm the Queen of Halloween too! LOL Tell me about your Halloween 'rituals'. (Don't get excited people, I don't mean rituals like devil worship or eating the head off a live bat! LOL) What kind of stuff do you do? All the neighborhood kids know me as the witch - in a good way. I put on full makeup and costume and put out a cauldron with 'fire' under it. My yard becomes a graveyard full of headstones, bones, and creepy ground fog. My husband even built a pinch-toed coffin for me which I lined with red satin (that's satin NOT satan! *heehee*). Last year he made an EXCELLENT Count Dracula so I think he's going to do it again. This year we're either going to add an 'iron' picket fence around the graveyard OR we're going to build a 'living scaffold' which is a scaffold with a harness so you can have a real person who is 'hanged'. The kids would love that. I'm always careful not to scare the little ones, but the older ones look forward to our house all year long. When kids see me doing yard work they always ask about the witch! LOL Sorry, back to the regularly scheduled program. Nothing to see here folks, move along. :biggrin1:

Yikes! How much time you're allowed? Perk for being the bread-winner? Morsaille, maybe you should do some price-checking on the cost for daycare for kids, maid service for housecleaning, and meals on wheels for food service. I'm not even going to mention laundry, concierge or that all-important 'quality time'. Maybe it's time to present him with a bill for services rendered. Sorry, I'm not trying to criticize you at all. I'm trying to point out to you how much you're contributing to your family - how much you're really worth. You're certainly entitled to spend some time on yourself, even if it's just sitting in a support chat room. How can he resent you needing 'outside' help? If you didn't need outside help you wouldn't have needed the band, right? Sorry for hijacking the hijack.

I think my saliva is more slippery than water. Washing away the saliva seems like it would make things stick more. Hmmmm.

If you do chocolate pudding make sure it's sugar free, fat free and made with fat free milk. I'm practically living on the stuff right now. (Post op, full liquids till next Wednesday.) Fat free milk from Braum's is best - they concentrate it so it's less watery and tastes more like 1 or 2% milk. You're going to be OK and you know what? You always were. -From a full time 'Big Cry Baby' having nothing to do with surgery - either before or after! LOL

Hey Penni, I was just talking to my husband and threw in a casual, "Hey, you wanna go to Jamaica in August?". He said, "Heck ya! Let's go." That was easy. I've never been, but it sounds like fun to me. Shall I start researching package deals?

Hi living2large, What time is your seminar? I'm asking because there's a group of bandsters meeting tomorrow for lunch at 11:00 am at Jason's Deli at 635 and MacArthur. I was banded in Mexico and would be happy to talk with you about my experience. Try to make it to Jason's tomorrow. If you can't we'll talk about it here on the board.

Hi Kelly, I wasn't disgusted or offended AT ALL! What I WAS and AM, is awed by your bravery in sharing your pics with us and inspired by the committment you've clearly made to your health and wellbeing, not to mention more than a little bit jealous that you've reached a place I am still only dreaming about. Congratulations! Keep sharing pics please.

Hi Susan, I live in South Grand Prairie, right where Grand Prairie and Arlington meet at I-20. I was banded in Mexico by Dr. Roberto Rumbaut on March 7th so I know how you're feeling right about now! Welcome to Lapbandtalk, it was (and still is) a GREAT resource for me. Do your nerves a favor and don't spend too much time on the complications forum. It's nice to know what kinds of things can go wrong but it definitely rattled my nerves - I worried WAY too much about the surgery. You'll do great. There are a group of lapband people meeting tomorrow at the Jason's Deli at 635 and MacArthur Blvd. That's tomorrow, tomorrow, Saturday March 25th at 11:00 am! You should come along, have lunch, and meet some other DFW bandsters. Good luck to you on your weight loss journey.

maryb, My surgery was exactly one week before yours. Applesauce is still something I have to be careful with. Take very small bites and move it around in your mouth a little bit. After that it should go down no problem. For me, eating is more difficult when I first wake up for an hour or more. If you have a cup of hot tea, small sips, it helps with the food following it. There are lots of things that cause my chest to feel tight that I wouldn't have expected. I can't eat Jello Gelatin at all yet. Jello pudding (sugar free, fat free of course) goes down about the same as applesauce so I take small bites. How small? I usually just dip the spoon into the pudding and then lick the spoon - thats how small! Every day is getting a little bit easier for me, but I'm still on liquids until next Wednesday before moving on to mushies. I don't know if I'll be ready for mushies but I'll give it a try. Good luck to you.

This seems appropriate here: Whenever life gets you down Mrs. Brown, And things seem hard or tough, And people are stupid, obnoxious or daft And you feel that you've had quite enough... Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour, That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned, A sun that is the source of all our power. The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see Are moving at a million miles a day In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour, Of the galaxy we call the 'Milky Way'. Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars. It's a hundred thousand light years side to side. It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick, But out by us it's just three thousand light years wide. We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point. We go round every two hundred million years, And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions In this amazing and expanding universe. The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding In all of the directions it can whizz As fast as it can go, the speed of light, you know, Twelve million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is. So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure, How amazingly unlikely is your birth, And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space, 'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth. Monty Python's Galaxy Song - Brilliant!

I'm a big fan of the his and hers computer method of marital bliss. My husband is happy I have a place to connect with other bandsters. He knows I'm a worrier and since he has no answers when I have questions, LBT takes the pressure off of him.

Hi everyone! Count me in! I'll be there on Saturday at 11:00 - I can't wait to see you all. Should I call Jason's do you think? Janet, thanks for working so hard for this, I've been waiting for someone with more drive than me to put it together for us all. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I've sat down to more 'Last Supper's' than Jesus on black velvet! LOL Sorry, just a little humor (I know, Very little!). Relax and remind yourself that you'll be able to eat most food again, just a lot less of it. Try to think of this journey as a hiatus from your favorites, rather than a farewell. Something you probably won't be able to have (and shouldn't try) after banding is carbonation. Give yourself permission to drink a couple of sodas (diet will help with that post banding 'starting weight' thing), have a couple of beers, have a glass of champagne. As you drink these things, ask yourself if you would rather continue to have them or if, instead, you'd rather have your body, health, cute clothes, sexy (or even comfortable) lingerie, and your self-esteem. Even though I love beer and the occasional glass of champagne the choice was easy. It will be for you too, you'll see.

Eficka, I was just banded earlier this month. My doctor told me the same thing. He said that the pressure of the band from the outside, combined with too much food in the pouch causing pressure from the inside cut off the blood supply at the stoma which causes erosion.

That was great - thanks for the laugh Penni!