lellow

I didn't have as many problems with getting stuck after my op as I have now I've had my first fill. I sometimes still forget and it ends up being an excrutiating journey down. I am learning to eat MUCH slower now! It's all a learning curve, isn't it? A colleague and I went to lunch yesterday and he just about hoovered his lunch up while I slowly and daintily cut my food into small pieces and spent ages chewing. We ended up being late for a meeting because of me, but like I said to him, if I ate any faster, I'd throw it all back up on him!

Lost this week : 0.4kgs (about 1 lb) Exercise the week: 90 kms on the stationary bike 1 hour on the regular bike Ate: well all week except yesterday when I went to a course and ate FAR too much dessert at lunch. Happy to still be losing, albeit slowly. My first fill is today!

well done everyone for your efforts this week! Edel, you don't fret too much, matey, this is the hard time for us, those last few weeks before our first fill!

Sunwyse, you need a op, therefore you need the time off. It's as simple as that. Your boss can't say you cannot have sick leave, and you will have a medical certificate to cover you for the time, so either way you're in the clear. She cannot sack you for taking time off sick, if you have a certificate which will prove you are sick. I hope the time passes very quickly for you too. But I have to admit, the waiting never seems to end. First you wait to start the pre-op diet, then you wait for the op, then you wait for the fills, then you wait for restriction. I suppose you eventually stop waiting once you reach the sweet spot and lose all your excess weight. :thumbdown: But I know what it's like to feel like you just want to START your new life. So I do honestly hope it goes super fast and you're at your op before you know it.

I don't know who else is going for their first fill on the 29th, but I know Claudine is, and wanted to wish her all the best!

Good luck for tomorrow and we can't wait until you are all back and telling your stories! Sending massive speedy recovery vibes to Roheryn and her dad, April410, zenfy, claramae, lamvmomof4, Kathy1991, MrsEOD, jeannierk, Ready22706, lolo619, Luv2prayz, sd2tx2006, JgCraighead and angcal26!

Last year I dieted and exercised, lost 10kgs and got down to 85kgs (187lbs). I started wearing an Australian size 16 in most clothes, so when I went to the shops one day, I found this lovely pair of jeans reduced from $90 to $20 in a size 16, and bought them without trying them on. Imagine how upset I was when I got home and they were so tight I couldn't do them up! I then proceeded to gain back all the weight I lost over the next 12 months, plus some, and my bargain jeans sat in the bottom of my drawer never having been worn. This morning, I weighed myself and I was 88.1kgs. I went to put on my regular jeans for work and they looked ridiculous, hanging off me. In a panic, I emptied by drawers and came across my bargain too-small a size 16 jeans, and said to my DH "I definitely can't fit into those! I'm 3 kilos heavier than when I bought them!". He looked at the jeans and said "sure you can - they look like they'll fit" AND THEY DID!!! I'm wearing them now! The buttons did up without any problems! I don't get it, because I'm 3 kilos heavier still, but I'm not complaining - IT MADE MY DAY! WOOOOOOHOOOOOOO!

Nat, I've been meaning to ask you for ages - when did you get banded?

Actually I'm fibbing. I also walk 30 mins a day at lunch and on Sundays, I cycle for an hour with my DH. I just keep reading that to be successful in losing all your excess weight, you need to exercise and exercise a LOT. Now I leave for work at 6.30am and don't get home until 6pm. I then cook, clean, spend time with my toddler and my teenager, then study for university from 8.30pm to 10.30pm. I withdrew from uni this semester because I wanted to concentrate on getting my fitness up, but I'm mindful of the fact that I need to fit my exercise into my schedule of work and uni next year, so have been doing 25km on my bike (takes me about 30 mins) Tues and Thurs. More than that, and it'll start impacting on my study time, and my schedule is already very very tight, and I cannot afford to slip in my uni work. I would like to exercise more but once uni starts again, I honestly will be struggling to fit everything in. SO, I guess the main thing I'm asking is: is 30 mins minimum walking 7 days a week, 2 x 30 mins on a stationary bike and 1 hour on a regular bike enough to get me to my goal weight?

Lol thanks for replying Jachut. I admit to so NOT being a morning person. I prefer to stay up after study and exercise than wake early in the morning. Morning's are hard work for me. And my 2yo can hear a door close from all the way in the back of the house, so wakes up as soon as he hears people stirring. I wanted to get a treadmill as well as a bike, but we just don't have room for a treadmill. My bike is in the middle of my study, like a huge elephant. I'll see how it goes on what I'm doing now, I guess. I feel fitter, and I'm liking that, but I know how exhausted I was when I was working all day and studying all night, and I don't want to set myself up to fail at continuing to exercise if I put unrealistic expectations on myself. Though I can see myself getting addicted. In fact I'm sitting here thinking I could surely do another 25kms tonight, even though I hadn't planned to cycle tonight.....

I've been buying pears, apples and strawberries (in season here atm YUM) and what I've doing is drinking a cup of Water before my meal, eating my cupful of Protein and veg (I've gone up from a half cup), then if I get hungry before my next scheduled meal, I'll have fruit. I've done that this week and lost a kilo, after gaining last week while feeling starved all the time. Now I'm hardly ever hungry. Feels wierd feeling full almost all the time but still losing weight, but I think it's the kinds of food you eat that help.

Ke Bear, I have to admit first thinking about the band 6 months before I made the call. I too kept thinking if I exercised more and ate better, I could do it all on my own. In fact last year I ate well and exercised and lost 10 kgs. But then I broke a bone in my foot and gained all 10 kgs back and then some. I realised that every time I've EVER lost weight I put it back on eventually. I was sick to death of it. To me, it was the realisation that to have some success, I needed help. And there is no shame in that! If we quit smoking, we use nicotine Patches. If we quit alcohol, we need support. If we quit drugs, we need medical help. food is my addiction, and I needed help with my addiction. Being banded means that I cannot physically give in to any cravings to eat more than I need. Of course, I can still sabotage myself by eating 'around' the band with milkshakes and high fat 'slippery' foods like potato chips, but if I am honest with myself, hunger was my problem, both physical and mental, and at least with the band, I'm not fighting both physical and mental hunger, just mental hunger, and with 50% of my 'enemy' being kept at bay with the band, it gives me a fighting chance of conquering that other 50% of my enemy - the head hunger! Yes, I still get cravings, but tbh when I know I can only eat x amount of food, I really don't want to waste that space on junk. So I tend to eat well, because I want eat like a queen, and queens don't eat KFC. I know some people can lose weight with exercise and diet and keep it off forever. But there aren't many of them out there. And once I admitted I wasn't ever going to be that sort of a person, the band became a no brainer. I've lost 10kgs already, and I'm only 1 month post op. My only regret now is not doing this sooner.

I hope you don't mind me jumping in Ke Bear. I had a BMI of just over 35 when I went to see my Dr for my referral. I'd already lost some weight and I sure he would say I wasn't fat enough, or that I could do it on my own. So I was prepared that if he didn't give me a referral, I would look for a GP who would. He referred me in the end (in fact he was surprisingly supportive) but like I said, if he didn't I would have found one who did. Don't be scared of fighting for what you want. GPs will sometimes be opinionated, but they're not the only ones practising out there. Gastric banding is a long term solution and is a viable and legitimate medical procedure in the fight against obesity. If you're obese, why shouldn't you have access to it?

I was banded by Dr Watson on the 1st of August. He fit me in because of my work and uni commitments, and I had my pre-op appt 3 weeks after my first call to him, and my surgery 1 and a 1/2 weeks later. I'm with HBF too so paid $1950 to Dr Watson, nothing for the anaesthetist and $136 out of pocket for my hospital stay. Call HBA again and ask if they cover gastric banding specifically - I know HBF does not consider it cosmetic surgery. Also maybe speak to Dr Watson's receptionist to see if they deal with HBA often. They deal with so many patients that they may have some idea of HBA's policies on the surgery. Good luck and I hope the surgery rolls round quickly for you, and your insurance issues are resolved.

I bet you do. I felt like a complete wuss for feeling like I'd been hit by a truck, when others here in our Allstars group were saying they went home the same day! But we all react differently, so while it's no fun being so sore, the jobs now done and it'll only get better from here. I'm almost 1 month out from my op now and feel nothing. Not my incisions, not my port - nothing. :biggrin: I sometimes feel my tummy for the hard lump of my port site just to remind myself I've been banded!

Glad to see you back, Ro. I have to admit I was miserable those first few days too, and felt a lot of pain. But it does get better, so I know in a week, you're going to feel more human. Good to see your dad pulled up okay!

I can't wait to hear! My fill is scheduled for next Friday, the 5th, so will be looking to you for your experience of it!

I too am not shy about lifting up my top and showing people my scars. The main reaction is that they're surprised by how small and unobstrusive they are! (luckily the scabs have all fallen off and they're just pink and slightly puckered now) In the last week, I've had 4 people comment on my weight loss, two of them virtual strangers. I told every single on of them about the lapband. One lady actually was thinking about doing it herself, and grilled me with questions, which I was more than happy to answer! I don't even care if I get a negative comment anymore (haven't had any though since I started losing weight, except perhaps that I didn't need to lose weight - yeah right!) because people can see it working. A bit hard to argue with success, even a little success (like mine).

Lol so it's your mind rebelling about being TOLD what to eat!

And tell yourself you'll get to eat all those foods you're craving...eventually. It won't be lost to you forever. If you convince yourself you'll never be able to eat those things again, it will be massively difficult to resist the carvings. So REMIND yourself you will be able to eat 95% of things in a month, but just in smaller quantities before you're satisfied!

I can't say I've had anything like that innotu. Maybe you should give your Dr a ring, just tobe on the safe side?

I agree, I was banded on the 1st of August and now can eat quite a lot (though I don't). I also get hungry much faster than when I first got my band. And that's a sign that your stomache is healing, which is what it's supposed to be doing post op and prior to your first fill. My Dr's post op notes warns his patients that in the 3rd or 4th week after their op, their appetite returns to close to pre-op levels and they will be surprised by how much they can eat. But he also suggests not eating until you are full, eating slowly so your body has time to register it's satisfied and then only eat again when you're actually hungry again. So I only eat a cupful or so, and won't eat until my stomache is growling again. When you start getting fills is when you actually will start to feel restriction. Hopefully, with enough fills, you get to your 'sweet spot' where you only feel as hungry as those first few days post op -in other words, not really hungry at all! So just remember this is a long game, and it's not all going to happen for us in the first month after surgery. I completely know the frustration you're feeling right now, because I've had it too, but I'm reminding myself all the time that the fills will help, and not to lose hope.