SaraJaneQ

According to my calendar, the group for the first six months or so meets a week from today. Anybody attending?

Well, this is where its all about willpower. Lets be honest, you will be able to eat things like Cookies even with restriction. You need to make the decision to not eat them. I am just under 6 weeks out myself. So far no cookies but I did have a small Peppermint Patty. An occasional small oops isnt going to kill you, but I stronly suggest you find healthy low cal Snacks availble. Four oreos is a pretty bad choice - One and a slice of turkey woulda filled you up (probably better as the Protein takes longer to get through your band) and would not have been so high in calories. Good luck with learning to make good choices - it is a struggle for all of us. They gave us a tool but didnt fix the habits that got us this way in the first place!

Hey all...its a gray nasty day out there, but Im still hoping to get up the enthusiasm to meet up with a bunch of you at 6 tonight at St. Raphs. Gosh would I love to bring a big ole coffee with me, but I guess my water bottle is a slightly better (if less comforting) choice!

The premixed EAS ones are the best to me too, but they get kinda pricey. I have tried a lot of shakes that I just cant get over the smell, but designer whey protein is pretty good that way. Also, if you like coffee, you can mix in some instant coffee or something like the international delights powders and it will mask the smell a bit.

Im with Jennifer. Its impossible for us to guess if the band slipped. You were indeed naughty! But my doc says you have to be pretty darn naughty to make the band actually slip. It sounds like you got stuck (been there, on scrambled eggs of all things!). Getting stuck does not necessarily equal slippage. Take it back a step, go with liquids/mushies and let things heal! You will have follow ups with your doc and you could always bring up this incident - they will check it out if they are concerned.

My honest advice is to go visit a surgeon who does several different procedures. I honestly do not know about/understand all of your medical conditions, but it may be healthiest for you to do a surgery that you lose weight more quickly with. That said, one of the great things about lap band is that they can keep adjusting it, so can hopefully keep you at goal with little exercise better than other surgeries can. Good luck do you - but the best advice I can give is to see your doc - only they can really know what would work best for your body.

Hey all, I have been banded for three weeks now. I lost 10lbs the first week, 3 the second, and none the third. I am not particularly upset by the lack of loss this week - my body is healing, but I journaled my calories most of this week now that I am on mushies and found that I am only getting between 500 and 600 calories in a day. That seems awfully low. I want to avoid my body going into starvation mode and hording calories. I was wondering what calorie goals successful bandsters live by. It seems difficult to me to get in too many calories (from healthy food of course) on the portions we should be eating, but I am wondering if maybe I need to add a protien shake or a fourth "meal" to my diet to be doing the healthy thing. I DO feel tired a lot, but I don't honestly know if that is lack of fuel or the fact that my body is still healing. So....any input guys? Do you have a number of calories you try to stay around for your daily intake? Thanks in advance for your help! sj

My doc says yes, but some docs are concered about caffene. I imagine herbal tea would be just fine, but every doctor has different rules.

Jaime, I can't even venture a guess why chewing salad would make you gag. BUT, do not let this one episode dissuade you. Try the chewing thing on more normal after band food (protein!) and see if you still have a problem. If you do, it could very well be in your mind. Chewing your food properly should not make you gag. My only thought is that maybe the shreds of carrots or lettuce were the problem. Good luck! sj

Yes Ma'am. Small world, huh?

Hey Heather, I most certainly did go to MHS. Patty, Dr. Valin has his own practice at St. Raph's. There are two practices there, but both use the Diana/Chris combination. I only have lost about 10 lbs since surgery - the first 20 were preop. I can't imagine 30 in week...ouch!

Hey Jeremy, Ill take a stab at most of these. Do you feel the port? Well, there are two parts to this answer. I can put my hand on my tummy and feel my port. I expect I always will. I can also feel it inside every once in a while if I stretch or lay on it, but I am only ten days out. Friends who have been banded long says that they do not feel their port from the inside now that they are healed. I am still on liquids, so I can't really speak to being "full", but I can tell you that I get to a point where I clearly feel satisfied. I get halfway through a cup of Jello and usually my body tells me it does not need anymore. Generally, pills need to be crushed or opened during liquid phase unless they are very small. Your doc may have you temporarily change meds too. My acid reflux was controled(ish) by two prescriptions and right now I am on one chewable OTC and having no reflux. My doc swears that there are no long term restrictions. Im a nervous girl, so I will probably protect my port for a long time, but nope, my doc says no worries. The pain is different for everyone. When I woke up from surgery I had an AWFUL backache. But just a normal really bad backache. I got myself up to walk about a half hour after going to my room and was in and out of bed at least once an hour that first night. By one week out I could just about sleep on my tummy again (at a week and a half out I can mostly sleep on it, but if I lean wrong my port aches a little). I took my prescription pain killer my first day home but since then I just take tylenol. now thats ME. Some people hurt worse, but it seems to be unusual that people are in real agony, just different levels of discomfort.

Well, this depends on your tolerances and doc's orders but I have to take bitter nasty prozac. I take about a teaspoon of my liquid tylenol (but if you are on anything liquid the doc prescribed I am certain that would work too) and stir it into that. The medicine is thick enough that it actually gets suspended in the "syrup" and the liquid medicine has enough artificial flavor in it that I can not taste the prozac.

My mom had RNY and did not have anything like that, so I would say no, that is not "normal". But as pretty much all of us here are LapBand and not RNY, maybe ObesityHelp.com would be more useful? I have heard that they are wonderful, and it would be good to ask people who have had the same surgery as you.

I had surgery with Dr. Valin at St. Raphaels on 10/3. I missed this month's support group because well...I was still not allowed to drive, but I expect I will be joining you ladies at the 11/6 group meeting.

Candi, Losing weight too fast is generally not a good idea - not healthy and harder to keep it off. BUT, you may want to check out ediets.com. I had so much to lose that I got discouraged eventually and fell off the wagon, but when I was following it I had excellent results. What I liked is it told me exactly what to eat and while I got hungry it was never "omg Im starving" hungry, more like "gosh, I'm glad I will be eating again in 20 minutes" hungry. You are right - the surgery is way excessive, and if you think you can lose on your own you truly should try to do that first. With 160lbs to lose I am VERY pleased with my decision, but I am discouraging my sister who has about 65 to lose (and did so once about 6 years ago before getting pregnant again) from going this path before hitting the diet harder. sj

Hey there- being new at this, I can not speak from experience but I can tell you that LOTS of bandsters in my YouTube community find that they do liquids or something in the morning but need more to fill them as the day progresses. What I HAVE done a lot of is dieting. Plateau is an ugly thing, but it is what it is. Also, your cycle (which may be misbehaving based on the fact that you are hormonal) can REALLY mess with you weight wise. All that said, do you journal your food? I expect because you know what you are taking in calorie wise that you are doing so to some extent. Why don't you experiment with types of foods and see if some work better for you than others. I can tell you that both myself and my male boss tend to gain/stop losing if we eat flour based products. We could eat half the calories but include bread and we wouldnt lose. Dunno why. But I do know that we all process different kinds of foods differently. Maybe if you tried switching things up a bit you would break that plateau? Good luck and stick with it - your loss has already been impressive, and once you get through this spot you will start moving down the scales again.

Hey Sandy, Unfortunately, we all heal differently. There is someone on these boards who had the same surgery as me by the same doc, same hospital, etc about two weeks before me and she seems to have healed a bit more slowly. BUT, in my experience, a week should be enough. I had surgery on Friday and as of Monday I was back visiting work for like an hour a day. Yesterday (Wednesday) was the first day I didnt sleep during the day and was up for 14 hours without feeling the need to rest. What is your work like? Office work can be anything from reception to serious decision making or filing/running errands. I would say that if your work is light/moderate you should be ok, but if you spend a lot of time doing light physical work, you may find it very tiring. I hope that helps. sj

Hey all, I realize this may sound like a silly post but I am making myself nervous. I had my surgery at 7am yesterday, and went home about 2pm today. Today at 11:30am I got my first liquids post op - they had me drink 6 ounces before I could leave the hospital. Now I am home and not on their medicines and trying to eat and my tummy is rumbling, which says eat, but my head says I am nauseous, which says do not eat. I was wondering if anyone had this problem in the few days post op? I am about to eat another popcicle - so far that and Jello have gone down ok, but I am terrified of getting sick - the hospital made it sound like it would be awful!

I am even more thankful to have that tidbit of info, Tamara! I was brought up very "ladylike" to avoid burping - can't figure out how to make myself do it. I was thinking maybe it was just me. Good to know it will go away in the next weeks!

My surgery was Friday at 7am. No liquids at all until after my upper GI (Saturday at 9:30am), was allowed water at 10:30, jello and broth at 12:30 (Saturday, so 27ish hours). Protein shakes as soon as I woke up on Sunday, so about 48 hours.

Thank you all for your kind responses. It feels sooooo good to know that I am not alone in this. I am doing a lot better today, although I keep getting this pain in my chest like I need to burp but it doesnt happen. thats annoying! I am doing ok with my Protein shakes, so I can only hope that things continue to progress. Emmica - if you are not already, walk! I know you are sore, but it really really does make a difference!

Getting ready for the hospital. I tried putting it on snapfish and I will try attaching it, but I will be honest - I am not at my smartest this morning! :tongue: http://images2b.snapfish.com/232323232%7Ffp53635%3Evq%3D327%3B%3E85%3A%3E543%3EWSNRCG%3D3239326454%3A63vq0mrj

I am a Connecticut girl, I will be having surgery in New Haven, CT