riley4183

Thanks, Candra. Feel great! How do we keep the momentum going? Well, that's the great thing about the band - at least for me long-term. When I am sick and tired of being good and all of this crud I have to do, and I just "give up," my band does't let me. I COULD go pig out on a bowl of sugar-laden soy ice cream I guess, but that just doesn't appeal. When I "pig out" now it is on hummus or pine nuts! I start to munch on something (last night it was tamari almonds, too soon after dinner) and after about 4 or 5 bites, my band reminds me that I don't want to be eating! It hurts; it's not the pleasant experience that I was seeking. I might be a bit pissy about it (last night I was pissy enough to just go to bed, and it was only 6:30!!!!), but it stops me! And in the morning I get up and I feel great because I've stayed on plan, and my momentum has not changed. It's an AMAZING tool! SO happy about it right now. NOT happy with my secretary's bowl of M&Ms sitting on his desk right next to me, though. He's a brat! I'm chosing to go for a walk

Good morning ladies; a lot to do at work today but of course I had to come check the boards first! Starts my day off right :-) Candy, you were stuck good and hard! You do exactly what I do, with the drooling & the sweating . . . full-on PBing ('Productive Burping') is when it actually comes back up. It's not vomiting, exactly; your stomach doesn't spasm & you don't wretch, your esophagus just sends it back - along with all the saliva that you've produced that's sitting above whatever is blocking you. I usually try very small sips of warm water as soon as I feel it; usually it works (slowly) but sometimes that's just more to come back up! I also PB when I have eaten too much now. It's not pretty, but it does get rid of the pain between the breasts. And you sure don't want to try eating again for a few hours! On my walk with morning, I realized that it has been exactly 7 months today since I went to orientation - and weighed in at 285. I have lost almost 84 lbs. in 7 short months!!! Not to mention that I have totally gotten my health back and I am more fit than I have been since high school. When I think back to all of the 7 month long periods in my dieting life when I sat on my butt and whined about how diets did not work for me and it was too hard to lose weight, I am just amazed at what I have been able to accomplish these last 7 months . . . thanks to Kaiser, my support groups, and my band!!! :redface: Riley

Candra so happy the pedometer work for you! I totally depend on it to keep me puttin' in my miles every day :-)

I don't even drink H20 before appointments! The only thing I eat is freeze-dried apples, because they weigh nothing & fill me for an hour or so, lol. Boy are we obsessive or what? Seriously, I easily weight 3 lbs more before bed than I do after my morning constitutional. . . Speaking of weighing, Tina IMPORTANT question for you! Do they weight us at Pinole @ the group fill? And if so, is it a "no bare feet" scale so you have to leave your shoes on unless your brought socks?

Just when I thought it was safe to eat again . . . had not PB'ed in almost 3 solid days, and bragged to my support grop about it just last night . . came home from the meeting and ate about 1/4 of a burger patty . . . PB'd that right back! It is SO variable for me, when I have restriction & when I don't . . . not just tight in the mornings, somethimes I am tight late at night, seems like I am always tight when I go out to eat in public, LOL. I hve GOT to get a handle on my head hunger and my "fat" ways of thinking, I ordered that Beck Diet Solution book & got it yesterday (who told me about that one? It was one of us, THANK YOU!) and BOY! Does it hit the spot! I did a "reading" out of it in my support group, they were shocked! We don't think like normal people, did you know that? Cognitive therapy worked really well for me when I had depression, so I am just eating this book up. SO FRUSTRATING to be so close to onederland and not be able to get in!!!

YAY Pam, so glad you called & went in! I am going to have to buck up and do it too. I just get so TIRED of this st!

Yay Chris, you are back! Holy brocolli, that's a LOT of birthdays! Happy birthday to you, AND happy anniversary! Hey what size are you in now? I am bringing clothes on the 25th . . . .

Wow Tina, what a great review on Dr. Baggs! I wish I had your way with words, he sounds great! And it is all true; I researched and chose him for the same reasons you did. I just wish I had wrote it! I'm ready to hire him & have surgery all over, lol! Good job :-) Found a much easier way to get there, click on "find a surgeon" in the little orange box on the top right of any page, then click on the bandsters tab at the top, THEN on create my profile. WHEW!

Candy I had the same thing, lost a bunch at first then gained back weight before my first fill! They put the band around the fat pad on the outside of your stomach, and when you lose weight that pad melts and yes, the band gets too loose! (Christine can explain this better!) So you lose some, they cinch you up, you lose some more, they cinch you up some more - it's a GREAT system when you think about it! Soft foods are better than purees - although I'm a puree rockstar, I'd put ANYthing in my magic bullet - and it will get easier, tofu is what worked best for me on softs. and egg salad! Then you will be ready for your fill!! When is you fill appt.?

I don't think Fisher has any ratings on there, just Dr. Baggs I think. I think he is the main lap-band guy, although I have friends who have had both Parks and Im for lap-bands and really liked them!. I had Dr. Fisher at my orientation.

Holy brocolli, did you know that this thread has over eighteen thousand views??? 18,000+!!!

oh crap "bandsters" is not at the top of this page, it is one of the tabs at the top of the surgeons pages. What a pain . . . .

Hey I found out how to rate our surgeons! It's round-about . . .click on "Bandsters" at the top of this page, to the right of the search screen click the button to create a profile for yourself, once you have done that and said who your surgeon is, a link appears on the right to "rate your surgeon!"

Candra I did read that recipe for rolls on our group site, YUMO!! I'm bummed that they limit us to 1,000 calories tho! Maybe you could put the ingredients in one post and instructions in the next one?

Oh Tina yay - i mean, i'm sorry this sucks for both of us, but it's so nice to know I'm not the only one feeling this way! The top part is full to hurting, but the bottom part where satiety lies just feels so . . . empty! Nonetheless, I managed to put away 900 calories today, drank some of it though. Hit the soy milk pretty hard trying to get the Protein up to 60 grams w/out meats. It's hard to do when I can eat so little!! Will we be ready for little baby fills in 3 weeks? Well, if we keep not being able to eat, you betcha! I am 2 days without PBing now, but I force myself to stop way before I want to! And honestly I'm not exactly starving . . . . as long as the PBing is gone, I think I will be able to take another .5 cc in 3 weeks. But if he comes in with 2cc's in that thing, I'm gonna flip!

Yummo, I want the recipe for that lentil loaf. It is SO nice to be transitioning back to veggie, and SO much sooner than I thought! Really hard to be lo-carb vegetarian tho, and that's the rub. I can't do wheat - not the amount in like bread, and definately not seitan - so it's even more of a challenge. But as long as I can have enough soy I'll be fine. I have to limit myself to 1/4 cup also right now, which just makes me eat 6 times a day instead of 3! For me, "full" - this new "full," which I DO NOT LIKE - feels like I am going to get stuck, just not as intense. Definately not the old full satisfied feeling down in my stomach, this is up near my throat!! The problem is that I usually have another bite chewed up & ready to swallow by the time I get that feeling, and it is HARD to not swallow that bite, but if I do, I am guaranteed to PB. Unfortunately, I can also drink a little something to move things through, and then eat several bites more, RATS! What does "full" (or "done") feel like to you? Do you have any signs, like burping or hiccuping or anything?

I was wondering the same thing . . . . some of them still have tickers that reflect a pre-surgery weight loss, but then I don't see any of those "not updated for 30 days" messages, either . . . it does make you wonder! I worry too much as it is . . . Hey I found something high protein (20 grams) that I cab consistently eat without PBing, and it sticks with me too! Robin got me started on lentils, I cook 2 tbs. dry (makes 1/4 cup cooked) in water on high in micro until almost done (8-9 minutes), take it out & nuke a Morningstar original veggie sausage patty for 1 minute, cut/crumble it up into the lentils and cook them the rest of the way, add salt & pepper, YUM! Talk about comfort food. I think lentils make the whole house smell good! Actually cookies make it smell better, but that's SO not gonna happen. I make ahead to take to work, too.

Ha ha, I was just reading back on page 8 of this thread, it was back in December and I was freaking out about fills, I did NOT want to do that, the videos were totally grossing me out! lol, Christine is telling me it's no big deal, just close my eyes, lol . . . Well ladies, we have come a long way and Christine you were so right! They are NOTHING! And I don't even close my eyes . . . I giggled through the last one . . . what would I ever have done back then without you girls?? THANK YOU SO MUCH for all of your support since we began this journey! You have no idea how helpful and reassurring you all have been.

Lindsay, I TOTALLY hear you! I was very well prepared, months of classes, and i still freaked the week before surgery. The one thing that really, really helped was listening to the "Preparing for Successful Surgery" CD that Kaiser gives us, I think you can download it here Healthy Living To Go Audio Library or try something similar from a record store. I started listening to it 2 nights before surgery as I went to sleep, and there was a HUGE difference in my anxiety level! My the time surgery day rolled around, I was relaxed and smiling! They even let me listen to it during surgery on my MP3 player, and I had a super-easy time of it with a super-fast recovery and very little pain. I am sorry for your friend and I pray she comes around, but like everyone else has said, this is about YOU and you must make you the focus. Best of luck! Riley

Morning Candra! Goodness. I still forget my breakfast & lunch half the time, it seems. Safe bets for eating out pre-op: Breakfast: Starbucks for a decaf soy latte (or a skinny latte if you do milk). Or drop by a grocery store for a pint of berries - lowest carbs, highest fiber of the fruits. And of course, you do not have to eat breakfast foods for breakfast! Lunch, I would ask in any restaurant for a plain grilled chicken breast on a bed of lettuce, no dressing (I carried my own packets) or olive oil & basalmic on the side. Eat the chicken breast first! Or I would go to the salad bar at a round table pizza, fill my plate with 2 hard-boiled eggs, pickle spears, sliced cucumbers and sunflower seeds (I put the sunflower seeds on the cucumber slices and pretend I'm having pizza, lol!) Should be more ideas on here!

Good morning beautiful ladies!! Pam, I was just talking to the gal who led our Santa Rosa 14-week class for bariatric surgery patients yesterday, I told her I needed to have a refresher "mindful eating" lesson! She says that I can call psych & just tell them I want help & support with eating issues after bariatric surgery. I want to bring clothes to the Pinole meeting the 25th, do you think Robin would mind? I have 14/16 through 20/22, anybody interested? Mostly career stuff from Avenue, and mostly tops.

Tina, I didn't know there was a fill schedule . . . I know they told my PCP I would have follow-ups about monthly for the first year after surgery. Don't know if those are all fills, I know that Dr. Im had Pam come back in like 3 months, so ??I totally don't know! I think that because the whole beauty of the band is that it's fully customizable to each individual, they would be defeating the purpose if they had a set schedule and a set fill amount - clearly we are all different.

Cauliflower pizza crust, boy that sounds GOOD!! Please let me know, and send along the recipe if it's a fitting vehicle to carry yummy pizza toppings! Has anyone ever made that Hungry Girl no-potato potato salad? Sounds great, but a lot of ingredients . .

OMG. Just got back from this training hike with Team Thrive (all Kaiser weight loss patients), it was STRAIGHT UPHILL for like 4 miles, I about died! Now you guys know that I do a LOT of walking and hiking, but this was like, you have GOT to be KIDDING! I had done the first half before and it was bad but not TOO bad, this time we did the second half too and now I cannot MOVE. Seriously! Oh boy. Kicked my arse. Not feeling too addicted to this excercise crap right now! So we had a picnic afterwards, everyone brought pouch-friendly food and it was fine, I did not PB at all, YAY!. All I want now though is a popsicle, a hot tub and a nap!