keithf

There are also low-calorie protein water drinks.. Special K's K2O comes to mind, and there are others. That'll help supplement your protein without loading up on liquid calories, and you'll be getting in water like you should.

That.. sounds.. really.. good. :frown:~~~ Can't wait until I get back on solids. I'm getting plenty of different flavors, but I want texture back in my life.

And I still haven't had my first fill yet -- I can toss Water back like crazy. Purees, too. They start getting thick and I'll top off at 4-5oz. But two petites, and I can't hold water down for a while.

Today, perhaps. People are a little more wuss about survival skills than they used to be, but I know the reason I don't eat much fish has more to do with annoyance at fish oil and bones than in any trauma I sufferred while gutting them. Can't say as I've killed anything large with legs, though the carcass probably wouldn't affect me. One guy I know -- very vegetarian -- try to put his dog on a vegetarian diet (he'd never had a dog before). Poor thing was getting sick all over before we convinced him that those canines were there for a reason.

I've PBd twice on those in the past 2 days. My surgeon told me to try them whole when I felt up to it -- obviously, my stomach disagrees on the matter. Hence the question :confused:

I could recite what everyone *I* knew ate as kids on welfare, and say instead that you are absolutely wrong. The fact remains that the cheapest foods are by and large also the least nutritious. My food budget about 10 years ago was about one or two bucks a week, and I was working at the time. With that, I could buy.. - 2 large apples and have a two Snacks (or 2 meals, now). - or two dozen packages of raman (as low as 10 cents each) and eat for a week. The cheapest I can find chicken at the store is currently about 90c/lb. While chicken and apples would be great, it wouldn't last long enough. Also, I had no kitchen and no refridgeration. Shelf stability was a requirement. Cashews, currently, are around $7.50/lb locally, and even peanuts are a couple bucks per pound. It strikes me that, growing up, that was probably not far removed from what my family's per-capita food budget was. Of course there will be exceptions. That is why I said "generally". My mother was known for her apple pie as well. But she only made it maybe once or twice a year. There are many things many people consider good for me that I consider gross. Beans.. brussel sprouts.. oysters.. tofu.. oatmeal.. cooked cabbage.. Cool on scoring the books and mags. I've got a couple books from somewhere 1895-1905ish (I'd have to re-check, the one in particular I could name is Tale of Two Cities), and I used to have a geometry book from not much later. I any case, I wouldn't expect a magazine to provide examples of typical cuisine. I wouldn't even consider most recipe books to do so, either. Most of them have historically been geared toward social occasions, not anthropology. Even old recipe boxes are going to contain items more likely to be occasional dishes: all the common ones would be memorized, and simpler. The fact that what you mention is pretty dessert-heavy makes me believe this is true with them as well. There are exceptions, of course -- I have a cookbook put together by the local Sons of Norway. It could be retitled "1001 ways to cook with cream of mushroom soup". I'm sure Laura's access to sugar and chocolate -- both imports -- increased greatly after she moved to the large city, but I doubt Caroline was able to provide her with regular desserts in the years before that. Rose, maybe.. but she was working in San Francisco IIRC. The invention of the car also would have increased access. Anyway, you should post some of the recipes. I have friends who I'm sure would love to play with them. Anything for stewed bison.. maybe with some rosemary? I'd settle for lamb if LHJ contributors were too east coast for it. This reminds me: I still have some wild boar in my freezer I need to eat (Thanksgiving). ... But back to something resembling the original thread -- has anybody found any Calcium citrate pills that *can* be swallowed whole without PBing? I can take my ursodiol no problem, but the only chewable calcium I've been able to find as been calcium carbonate, which I'm warned against by virtue of the decreased uptake it provides.

Mild disagreement. I know what you wanted to say, but I think it's less putting-it-back than it is replacing it with something that actually benefits the folks that need it. I think, though, we're in agreement. You wouldn't have enrolled me in algebra year after year -- I could have taught it. So why enroll the athletes in PE, provided they continue to meet a standard of fitness? Surely some of them could use additional time to study algebra.

But it's not just "what"... it's "how". "Eat It" was a tragically amusing song for one specific reason, which I think is very salient here: pretty much every lyric Weird Al put into it was something I'd heard *constantly* around me (and, occasionally, to me). "Have some more <cake, pie, whatever>", "Finish your plate, because people are starving in <name some random country that would never notice whether you ate less or not>", and so forth. In school and hourly jobs, we're encouraged to spend as little time eating as possible, but we still somehow need to fit in a meal whose size and content are pretty much invariant. This results, generally, in over-filling the plate with low-grade food, and stuffing it down as quickly as possible. If you're in poverty, the only foods you can generally get are primarily variations on starch mixed with more fats than needed for flavor, nutrition, and satiety: rice, potatoes, white bread, Pasta, ramen, with oil, butter, cheese-colored-substance, salt. If you're in a culinary backwater, you're pretty limited to what your neighbors eat, because it never occurs to you that there's something else. I'd never heard of romaine lettuce until college, and had pretty much no concept of broccolli as anything other than the mushy, bitter monstrosity Bush Sr would eventually decry, again until college when I discovered Chinese food was more than just chow mein. I'd never touched cilantro until after college, and just this year I introduced my brother to Indian and Thai food -- he's almost 30. All these things pile up, and additives or not they really complicate matters. I highly suspect most folks you're referring to (farmers, etc) didn't have much in the way of desserts, except on rare occasions when they could afford them (I certainly don't remember Laura Ingalls mentioning frequent desserts). Bacon, eggs, meat, potatoes absolutely -- this is what they could grow themselves. Sugar? Not so much. Maple syrup? More often, but you had a limited harvest time if I recall (eg, winter). What sweeteners they could grow would be most likely: berries, fruits, beets, all of which have much more to offer than straight fructose. Sugar and hard candies were available, but how often could a family afford it in the volumes we'd consider "normal"? We have more purchasing power for stuff we shouldn't eat than existed in the past. We've become very efficient at making cheap swill. Overall, of course -- definitely much more active. But the quality of the food was also different, and the price a bit more dear. I used to pop Vitamin C pills *as* candy when I was younger :tongue_smilie: I agree on this point. There are a lot of folks out there feeding their kids soft drinks. Even infants. It doesn't help that you walk into a store to pick up something to drink while you're out, and discover the Water is more expensive than water that's got a lot of flavorings added to it. A couple weeks ago. I actually scolded someone else's child (pre-teen, but more than old enough to know better). I caught her under a closed check-out with her toddler sister, snarfing down a candy bar. Her excuse? "But it was just lying on the floor!". Can we count how many things are wrong with that statement? I mentioned it several times, loudly, in the direction of her mother (at the next check-out, trying to figure out how to write a check), who didn't notice. But the girl gave me such a look of hatred, it was precious. What I really wanted to do was grab her mother by the hair and drag her over so she can see some specific points of failure-to-parent. I read (tried Romeo and Juliet by seven, and War and Peace by eight -- got lost in the first party or so). Revenge of the Nerds was pretty accurate. I also did marching band, which was much more enjoyable than PE, no offense to my uncle. PE was just a way for the jocks to exclude the nerds even more. PE in college was much more interesting: rifle, fencing, scuba.. no rope-climbing, dodgeball, or other ways to set up the non-athletes for failure and humiliation. Physical Education needs a drastic overhaul -- there is life outside of ball sports and track, and it would better target the folks that need it. But for most folks, that's a very accurate assessment. Cut out flour, sugar, corn, and rice. How large would your local grocery store have to be to hold everything that remains? Eating healthily means spending more per bite. The fact that we can afford to take fewer bites is a seperate issue. I think you allude to this when talking about your local dollar store. A few weeks before surgery I hopped onto Amazon hunting for WLS cookbooks. Have you *read* the customer reviews for some of them? There was one book that dared to step outside of Middle American cuisine, and suggest such things as Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, or East Asian foods. Complaints ensued from unimaginative (and unassertive) housewives. Primarily: - "I can't pronounce this un-American, heathen word. How can it possibly be edible?" - "I live in <cultural ghetto>. I've never heard of <insert spice other than salt and pepper>, therefore I can't possibly use this recipe." - "This isn't macarroni-and-cheeseburger-pizza! My kids would never eat this!" (did she ever try telling them to eat it, or go to bed without that can of caffinated corn syrup?) Mmmm... rabbit. :frown: You can keep the Beans and aphids (they primary source of Protein, and significant one, every time I went to an organic vegetarian restaurant run by a Buddhist monastary in San Francisco). Oof.. My BMI when I entered my bariatric program was just under 50 -- I'm a little on the lighter side for what my surgeon typically works on. Did you tell her she had to change, to save her daughter? I would have, in no uncertain terms. But afterward, I would also have gone to her daughter's physician and slap the hell out of him for not reporting this as a form of child neglect. This child *didn't* get this way overnight, and probably not from something like Cushing's syndrome. The child's food intake is primarily dictated by the parent. I'm glad she was thinking of ways to reverse her child's condition, but yes -- very disturbing that self-sacrifice wasn't immediately seen as an option, and moreso that a third party didn't force aggressive correction of the underlying parenting issue. Hell, *my* dad at least tried to put me on a low-fat/high-Fiber diet when I was that age, and between he and his wife even altered their food to match (toward turkey from beef). The state should have been involved much earlier, to enforce the proper care of the child. "Parental rights" be damned. That said, none of this surprises me. I have a dim view of the vast majority of new parents of the last 20-30 years.

Hell.. *I* would say it. As would several of my coworkers and a couple women I know. What was that about solid sources of Protein?

I hadn't developed one of those yet. But within the first week of my two-months of pre-op dietting, the sides of my belly caved in. I'm wondering if I could use them as satellite dishes. They're about the right shape -- just add aluminum foil. :smile2: I'm glad to hear it. It really did help out my friend. His LiveJournal account is at Adult Content Notice, but the posts about caring for his father (Adult Content Notice) are locked to friends. Also, some posts are tagged not-safe-for-work for a reason (adult content). That said, he does seem to pick up friends, and is good about keeping things behind warning cuts. It's at my uncle's. My uncle was my junior high PE teacher. I'd count myself lucky if he didn't make me do laps (last time he did, he was also the guy with the bactine cleaning out a seriously trashed knee after I fell en-route). Who would? :wink2:

I watched "Bill Cosby: Himself" last night. I'd forgetten his monologue about people getting wasted on the weekends. It was pretty much as you summed it up. Now why we don't do moderation well can vary. I don't recall how much current research there is on children receiving and recognizing the signal that satiety has been reached. I'd hazard a guess that most children in the US nowadays never even get the chance. Once upon a time -- I think I was 7 or so -- my well-meaning mother changed my "small chef salad" order to a larger portion. She was surprised and upset that I didn't finish it. After all, we didn't have that much money to waste food with. Too much non-reinforcement, and you've reinforced against an appropriate response. Now here's the thing that floats around my mind. My mother spent her life growing more and more overweight. Toward the end, she had developed a variety of medical conditions including, eventually, diabetes, asthma (thanks to spending 3 years smoking secretly) and COPD. Yet her diet was primarily vegetables (raw broccoli, often enough), because she couldn't stand long enough to cook. Her primary problem, though, was brittle bones due to steroidal treatment for another syndrome, so she couldn't be particularly active. She broke ribs a few times over nothing. Basically she had reached a threshold where the normal courses of treatment (even typical WLS patterns) could help. Her younger sister is *very* interested in knowing my progress, since she's got a hundredweight of her own she needs to lose. Her son even more. I'm planning on taking her my bariatric program materials soon. As I recall, and it's been a while: Induction, generally < 20g/day (to trigger ketosis) Main course, generally < 60g/day. Maintainance, whatever level maintains your weight. It's a primitive approach to glycemic load. The grams of carbs typically sought is calculated from the nutrition label as Total minus Fiber, and so fiber is free. Starch, of course, is not, and the foods that are primarily stach or sugar tend to be weeded out. It makes no statement regarding post-, proto-, or pre-agriculture foods, monocots vs dicots, or anything like that. Though, again, those lines tend to align near the same place. If there's a variance, I usually notice it as the presence or absense of starchy vegetables.

You know, I remember reading that many, many years ago. I think I was 9 or so. Some children's story out of Japan. Before I replied, I did verify it, and spent half an otherwise sleepless night (cat in the hospital) learning much about sumo's ranking and social structure. Fascinating, actually. I really have no idea why the description of sumo training stuck with me this whole time. There are other choice bits of random trivia that come in useful every once in a while. I once won a trivia contest by stating the only baseball player whose name I could remember -- Lou Gehrig -- whose name I only recall because it's the common name of the disease afflicting Stephen Hawking. And did you know the Space Needle in Seattle was originally painted "Galaxy Green" and "Orbital Orange", if I remember that documentary from way back? Now if I could remember my age when I need it, that'd be something. Absolutely. When I finally went to bed last night, I was starving, and ice cream was calling, but I knew I would get some very, very disapproving looks from Person Who Matters. Next Friday (assuming I end up going), there's a wedding. They scheduled it in the hopes that I would be well enough post-op to attend, and have already stated they're providing lunch meats. But there's still that cake. And those butter mints. And if my great aunt shows, probably lefse and krum kake. I do hope I don't develop any intolerance to that. Once, maybe twice a year is all I ask. (grilling lunch meat with a krum kake Iron.. that would be wicked) Sorry if it sounded like I thought you were out of control. I didn't: the big brother in me is a bit sensitive to people starting back down the path when some more immediate support for them would help. You went through surgery, and you're having to deal directly with the results. Shouldn't that be enough? Having someone there to help you through *not* having to engage your band sounds like a good idea to me. :smile2: I hope things resolve as they ought for you. It certainly looks like all the more reason to get all the support you can. I have a friend in a similar situation, who eventually was forced to call in for help, which has allowed him to help himself in a few ways. Notably, he's working on his own (non-surgical) weight loss program and doing well by it, I hear. I send him recipes I come across every once in a while (he's still the only person I know to have made truffle enchiladas).

And I'd guess (not yet tried them with the band) they probably are tolerated better by more people. I used to snack on them and queso, studying for my physics exams. My fellow majors just couldn't wrap their head around mushrooms as a snack, but they dip really well. I imagine blending up some cottage cheese, tomato, and peppers would have a similar effect.

When I was in college, I had friends who'd go out mushroom hunting and return with those nice, large, disc-like caps about the size of english muffins. They would frequently be turned into pizza substrates. Turns out they also have a much more interesting nutritional profile than whole-wheat bread: Nutrition Facts and Analysis for Bread, whole-wheat, prepared from recipe Nutrition Facts and Analysis for Mushrooms, white, raw It won't have the crunch factor.. but maybe we can see if Alton Brown can conjure up something along those lines.. :smile2:

Reduce stress at the source? Be mindful? I know it sounds trite and terribly unuseful, but every possible answer is going to be some variation of being mindful and reducing stress. What got me through pre-op was knowing that there was an end-result I was going for that wasn't some far-off, abstract thing. I had to: improve my liver panel (for myself, not my surgeon), reduce my liver size (for both), reduce my weight by some amount (I set myself 40#, and met it almost to the ounce). I took great, detailed interest in how my body reacted to variations in caloric intake, as I'm sure my partner could roll his eyes at. It also helped, significantly, that I kept my friends and family appraised of my progress, and that they were all very supportive. I didn't directly involve any of them beyond that (except for my partner, for obvious reasons, and two of my coworkers at witnesses on my advance directive), but it did build a sort of accountability in the back of my mind. "Do this for yourself" will apply when I get plastic surgery. "Do this for others" is more motivating. Additionally, the good results I was able to maintain fed (sic) on themselves. Hope is tremendously motivational, but direct evidence goes much farther in convincing me that I need to keep up what I'm doing. So.. do you have access to someone who'll help cheer you on, and who'll act as good cop to help police your food choices while you progress? It's hard for anyone *here* to do that: by the time you tell us, it's already done. It's probably more effective to have someone in your household, especially if they're willing to share your cuisine (even if they eat twice as much).

Of course carbohydrates aren't evil. They're one of the fundamental sources of energy available in food. We're just not equipped to withstand the rediculous amount that our culture (with no small help from industry lobbyists) believes we should injest. We're humans, not hummingbirds, and didn't develop eating sugar or cultivated foods: agriculture is only a couple thousand years old. The "gatherer" side of "hunter-gatherer" meant opportunistic berries and herbs, not corn and rice, and even hunter-gatherer was a later invention to replace nomadic scavenger. External carbohydrates are necessary? Even Karo syrup was lobbied as "healthy" for inclusion in every child's meal, and I'm sure some of you remember the Nutella-at-schools debacle of recent memory. Both are wonderfully dense sources of easy-to-metabolize carbohydrates. But perhaps that isn't what you had in mind. So while we're at it, let's distinguish between carbohydrates (the biochemical construct by which life on this planet stores energy, as well as the primary constituent of the cellulose that forms dietary Fiber, both of which are called out on the nutrition information label), and the food products in which we find them (vegetable matter, including among other things grains, starchy roots, and saps/juices), which happen to also contain other things which actually have some value (carrots and carotene, broccoli and broccolene.. err.. Vitamin C). Now most people don't understand Atkins or low-carb in general, which was developed for diabetics, and later refined for overweight patients. Such people often focus on the "zero carb == zero veggies" myth, never realizing that Atkins, and most other low carb diets, encourage (nigh require) a good sized salad each day, so long as non-fiber carbohydrate intake is generally only around 1/5 or less of the total calorie intake. The books are available for people to read, but people almost never bother, trusting instead in the rumor mill. I suggest borrowing copies of the various different diet manuals out there and reading them. I'm late for lunch and distracted, and I'm sure you'll thank me for deleting the brief chemistry lecture I'd started to type :smile2: But, if you understand (at least conceptually) the biochemistry involved, then it becomes fairly straightforward why many WLS patients are in fact told to switch to a low-carb lifestyles regardless of whether it's labelled "Atkins" or "South Beach" or "Zone" or "The Frobnoz Special" or simply "eat all your Protein first, then consider your vegetables" (and note the word "vegetables", not "carbs" was used): priorities. - We require sleep. 8-10 hours, no matter what your grandfather said about "four's plenty for me, so it's plenty for you". - We must consume a large quantity of Water *at minimum* to maintain healthy levels of hydration. This is the first thing, consumption-wise, that could kill us for any number of reasons. - That, in conjuction with the pouch-centric admonition against mixing food and water, limits how much time each day we can spend eating solid food. - We must get protein from food (at least, I know of no other available source). At least about 60-70g of it. We require this to maintain cellular structures among other things. - Pretty much everything else we can (as noted before) get from a non-food source if we have to. It is notable that many of us entered into this with at least some severe vitamin or mineral deficiency despite eating large quantities of varied, supposedly "healthy" foods. - Our ultimate priority: consume the existing fat on our bodies and, when done, don't store new fat. If you want the biochemistry involved, read the literature. It's fairly well documented by this point, and it is those metabolic pathways which low carb diets in particular to target. Now, if you want more "extreme" low-carb diets without the "Atkins" label, you can try variations of Paleo, where the qualification for vegetable matter is indeed what was available to our pre-agriculture era ancestors, that does get more exclusionary than most people have patience for. I have to admit, the food is quite good, if a bit repetitive compared to contemporary cuisine. But bison steak and roasted nuts is a good combination. Now, given that the band, and indeed all weight loss surgeries, give us a lot of seperate targets to meet: - water intake (required for life) - rate of solid food intake (mandated individually by the surgery itself) - protein intake (since this isn't easily supplemented) - nutritional profile (often made up by supplementation) - calorie reduction (otherwise what's the point) .. it seems foolish to pack in raw, non-fiber carbs, which is what starch is, when there are more nutrient- (and fiber-) rich food sources, often with fewer calories. You could do worse, of course -- adding sugar in its myriad forms when sugar supplies nothing but a chance for the body to use that source *immediately* (raising insulin levels sharply, eventually causing the storage of everything else from the food for a later use which never arrives). Don't get me wrong: I'm addicted to mashed potatoes, and have been known to put them on lefse. But I also have spent a couple years on various different types of diets, except for raw food and things in Oprah and the Star. I know how my body reacted, and I *know* my brain didn't need rice to run. It actually did run better after I cut most of that stuff out and stuck to meat and greens, and I didn't gain weight during that time, either. Now, I know that we would *love* to eat like a "normal person", but that presumes "normal people" eat properly. In the United States, "normal" is increasingly overweight. So, given the decades over which this has happenned (let's call it the past 4-5), and noting the rise in conjuction with the "OMG eat all rice no fat!" reaction that started in recent (and increasingly obese) history, and noting the variety of people who actually do respond well when they go contrary to what the anti-low-carb groups state, why again would I trust "normal people" and agriculturalists on this matter? They certainly didn't help me when I *was* at a healthy adult weight and, looking back, eating many fewer carbs, and probably as much protein and more fat and alcohol, than I was going into pre-op. [Note to self: Feline chemistry and human chemistry are at odds in a very particular and potentially fatal way with regard to weight loss. If a cat starts feeding off its fat stores at any significant pace, it will *cause* fatty liver disease. In a human, it would cure it. Don't let a cat get away with not eating for a couple days. There is cruel irony in having to force-feed a cat with more calories than I'm suppose to have to treat the same liver disease.]

They recommended tossing out all my large clothing but a single pair of jeans and a shirt for this reason. The problem: - I *like* large, baggy clothing. Even when I was a kid and in shape, I never liked the skin-tight look. I'll do it for a suit, but everyday wear: gimme a tunic and trous and I feel comfortable. - It took me a long time to find materials and patterns I liked. I'll keep these until I maybe find something that is closer to my eventual size. Eventually. I will have to trade/tailor my utilikilt, though. I got it last summer, so at this point I'm not convinced it'll stay on my body. Thankfully, they're not far from where I live, and around the corner is a great mystery bookstore.

There *are* feeders and chasers out there, but the details of what keeps you and your husband together are certainly none of your friend's business. But if that's all it would take, then there's something more fundamentally wrong than one party no longer being the other's fetish. What was the basis for the relationship again? As our orientation class warned: good relationships get better, bad ones can get worse. None of us should be involved in bad ones, so there's no argument to avoid weight loss.

That *would* also make a great start on plastic surgery, if you're thinking of going that route.

"Instant pain, just add water"? I was told to eat my Proteins first. When I had all my proteins, then I could consider nutritious vegetation (such as broccoli). Starch is not particularly nutritious, and considering my energy needs are already supplied (hence the weight loss), and my nutrition needs otherwise met by a combination of (zero-calorie) Vitamin pills and food Protein, there's pretty much no call to waste my calorie budget on what is, effectively, not doing me any good. I just tend to remember -- despite all the fabulous dishes you can make with it (ah! chicken biryani...) -- rice (and beer) is still central to getting sumo wrestlers to their rather prodigious state.

Hmm.. As long as I turn into Wolfman Jack and not Harvey Fierstein, I'm fine with that. I don't have the stature or wardrobe to do Bea Arthur.

If so, how long did it take to return to normal? Mine's gotten breathy and weak to the point that it's a little hard to understand over the phone. It's improving slowly, and everything else is doing great a week out of surgery.

And your avatar is entirely too appropriate for this thread. I looked like that a bit, myself.

I PB'd and slimed a few times during the past week -- I was still on liquids at the time, and misjudging small container as well as not noticing the difference between that tightness in my throat from having too much versus the similarly-felt ache from just having the surgery a week ago. I felt like hell. It was one of the least dignified and humiliating experiences of recent memory. But I'm getting the hang of it, I think. I'm sure I'll have others along the way. But what I'm mostly concerned about is the six-inch sub. Plus the Cookies. The cookies shouldn't even be on your plate, I'd wager, but the sub? I could see the non-bread portions of the six-inch sub, maybe spread over two meals, but the bread itself isn't doing you that much good: too many calories for too little nutritive value. You have a limited budget -- physically, if nothing else -- and you need to spend it wisely. Even switching from hoagie roll to a low-carb/high-Fiber tortilla would probably be better. Switching to a lettuce wrap would be better yet (if you can manage lettuce -- this is a way I've enjoyed sandwiches in the past). Thin-sliced discs of apple? There are a variety of better choices that should be able to substitute in some measure for what the sub loaf provided, and perhaps excel in ways that loaf cannot. You have to remember that the band only helps through your efforts and good choices. I'd be concerned that if what you described is your typical pattern, that it will lead toward recklessness that'll derail you. I know for my own part that this is the sort of behavior largely responsible for getting me where I was when I started pre-op. So just because you *can* have a sub and 3 cookies doesn't mean you should, restriction or no. I know that can be difficult -- I'd love to have a rather slab-o-meat and gnaw on that for an hour right now. But even if it were fat-free, and despite all the wonderful Protein it'd provide me right when I need it to heal, it would still be a bad choice, right? Dividing it among many, appropriately-sized and -spaced meals -- good choice. Do you keep a food diary or somesuch to keep track of what your food intake is providing you? Do you have the support of a nutritionist or other qualified person to help guide your food choices post-op, and to who you can feel accountable to? I know a lot of people don't -- I do, and I have to say it's helped to have someone scold me (gently) in between praising the parts I've done well, and of whom I could ask questions about how I should approach certain foods (preparation ideas, suitability, problems noted by other patients, what I medically need at this stage, etc). Don't take this as criticism -- it's more concern. I've heard of and seen a lot of folks crowing over being able to revert to the same eating habits that led to their weight gain in the first place ("I just managed to eat a whole cheeseburger with PBing!", "I just ate an entire Hershey's bar without dumping!"), and in the same breath complain that they gained back some of the pounds they fought very hard to lose. This post (and a few others) raised warning flags. Good luck with the fills. I'm expecting my first at the end of the month, if they decide I need one.

The thing to remember is that you can gain weight with *any* existing WLS. If your problem is that you graze continuously throughout the day, no band, bypass, or sleeve will help you: you'll have a continuous stream of calories in without it building up in the pouch or remains of your stomach. If your problem is that you eat all your food at once, and you eat too much, then existing surgeries can be effective. If you have diabetes, consider RNY -- it has better remission rates for diabetes. There are also other diabetes-specific gastric problems that the band isn't well-suited to cope with. The gall stone problem is real, and as pointed out applies for any rapid weight loss. I'm presently taking ursodiol for six months to reduce the odds of stones from 30% to 3%. I chose the band because I wanted the option to have it removed if something went terribly wrong (or if something much better were offered). I wanted, in the end, something of an undo feature: neither bypass nor sleeve offer this, though sleeve comes closest. The fact that the restriction can be readjusted to my body also makes me more confident that it can more readily adapt to imprecision on the part of the surgeon (no matter how skilled).