CarrieRN2006

Hello everyone! I am finally getting back on track with my food and so I am ready to start concentrating on exercise. I was wondering if anyone has tried the Turbo fire. Lets be honest at 270lbs no exercise is easy and on the videos the people are like 120 to start so i was wondering if anyone closer to my weight has tried them and are they too hard at this weight or did you do just fine? They look like a blast but really hard so before I waste my money, I wanted some opinions! Thanks!

Honestly I have no idea how I drink with my band...It just works. occasionally when I do, it causes me to get sick but mostly I am fine. There are multiple reasons why i am not successful. The first is the obvious of not following the rules. Secondly my follow ups were here and there after the first year...mostly my fault. But as far as my doctor-he abandoned me. I saw him in Oct and he was like we can do this blah blah blah...I want to see you next month. Then like a week later I got a letter in the mail that he left and was replaced. I failed to make an appointment like a dumby and just kept pushing it off until now. I hope that I can get back on track. Thank you for your support and good luck to you sbaillie-Welcome to the forum! I am glad you turned to other banders for support! Congrats on your giving up sugar-regular pop is my downfall...I am weaning myself back off of it! It is so hard when you have these little voices in your head thinking everyone is judging you. I know i am so guilty of it! I know that everyone I care about is super supportive but I still cant get those darn voices out of there! I seriously need to get back to where I was immediately post surgery and I have been doing a lot of reading on this new website according to eggface that someone early suggested. she is amazing. She has SO many recipes and so many different ways to incorporate your protein whether its food or shakes. You should check it out. I hope your son is ok and good luck to you! Keep in touch!

the world according to eggface is the site and she is incredible! as soon as I started reading I told me husband we need an ice cream maker hahaha! She is a ton of information!!

Melissa- Thank you for all of the amazing references in your post. I started checking them out and I LOVE eggface. She has so many recipes and helpful hints. I appreciate your encouragement/advice and preaching is different than being negative haha.

yes

I appreciate everyone's kind words and wisdom. It is definitely a relief to hear that I am not the only one struggling after the surgery. Meats are really hard for me too so I usually stick to shredded chickens, tuna, or crab meats. If i cut pasta up small enough, it has seemed to be an easy food to keep unstuck. I think at this point in my journey, I am to the point that I would much rather grab for something that goes through easy like "junk" food then take the time to work on a high protein meat. I think one of my biggest issues in this situation is that now that I am over the immediate period and back to work and my daily routine, I find it hard to take the time to plan anything so I am just grabbing at what works. I am also the type of person that hates leftovers and gets bored easily with the same foods. I noticed that a lot of people have a routine down and eat the same foods for breakfast and lunch. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to make it less boring???? Any websites/advice is welcome. I need to make this commitment to myself to take the time out of my busy day. I am a nurse and hear everyone else's stories and struggles all day. I care about people and their outcomes but somehow keep pushing myself to the back burner. We all need to put ourselves first.

My story: I am a 26 year old female from Pittsburgh, PA. I am a registered nurse at a local hospital. I am married to my high school sweetheart-married 3 years, together 10.5 years. When I was in high school I went through three deaths of people that meant the world to me: my maternal grandfather (Jan 2000), maternal grandmother (June 2000) and then my father (Nov 2002). I have always been overweight but the stress and depression in my life sent me to not caring about most of anything esp what I ate. Also within the last couple of years I was diagnosed with PCOS and my thyroid is borderline hypoactive (as if my family history and childhood obesity wasnt enough LoL) I consider myself a happy person in most aspects of my life but I am miserable about my weight. I am an emotional person and I find that food is comforting. Throughout my life I have used food for every emotion and so do most of the people around me, which is why this journey is so hard!!! Anytime we celebrate/go out its around food. After getting married and feeling constricted on my honeymoon due to my weight, I decided that I needed to make a big change. I started looking into weight loss surgery. In Feb 2009 I went to the local seminar to learn about my options. I was scared to death but my husband was really supportive and went with me. I did not tell anyone about going besides him and a close friend from work. We went and I decided on the lap band because in my opinion it was safer, less invasive, and seemed to be a slow progressive change that could be reversed much easier than bypass. My husband and I discussed the options and he was 100% supportive on whatever decision I made. I started doing the preop requirements and finally started telling people a month or so before the surgery. my mom was mad at first. She has been overweight most of her adult life so she understands the struggles but I think at this point it was more of being scared that I was going to have elective surgery and she had heard a lot of horrors stories post op. After I sat down with her and explained my side of the story, she did not agree with my decision but did agree to be supportive. I am also very lucky to have an amazing mother in law that jumped on board the day of my surgery to support me as well. I was banded October 21, 2009. I lost 20lbs the first two months and I was feeling so good. I almost made it to my 30lb mark and I fell off of the boat. Since then I have been between 20 and 29lbs lost. I just cant seem to make the scale go to the 30lb lost mark! My husband is really supportive but he doesn't understand what I am going through. He is overweight but nothing like I am. We keep making commitments to each other to get on track and lose weight and eat healthier but so far it hasn't lasted long. I know everything that I NEED to do, its getting the motivation to DO it that is the problem. I can make 100000 excuses as to why this isn't working for me but the real answer is that I am just not doing what I need to do. The band is tool but it can not work alone. I am looking for someone, positive, that has been through this similar situation and has found a way to overcome it and be successful. If you are interested please please please let me know! I know this was like a book but I wanted to put everything on the table before someone took on this situation with me. Thank you for your time :heart:

One of the things you have to understand is that the port is sutured to your muscle. So now the muscle is trying to recover and so is the band. Every time you move, those muscles are as well. I hope that helps to put it into perspective. I am almost 2 years out and there are times when I can still tell the port is there and it is sore because I lean onto it or move a certain way. good luck with your journey

There are a lot of times when i hate eating now, but there are also times when i miss the things I loved the most so I am frustrated. When you first get banded, it seems like no one is hungry. when I was in the hospital and they gave me clears for the first time, the nurse was like eat and i was like I am trying! haha...but eventually the swelling will go down and you will want to eat again. then you start filling and its the same process over again. I think for the most part though, everyone will agree that you will feel that the weight and your body are more important and pleasing than what foods you are missing. just dont get into the habit of drinking while eating, its a TOUGH habit to break-I am struggling. when you are throwing up what you eat, it does take away from eating it. one of my favorites before surgery was a hoagie, now I cant eat them because the bread and everything is too much-one bite doesnt even make it down. If you are truly going to be happier with less weight and a healthier body, then the sacrifice is worth it. good luck on your journey, know that we are all here for support.

By petunia not having the band yet, it is hard for her to say what kind of experience she IS going to have. she is looking from the outside in at this point and cant say well this is what is going to happen and this is what you have to do. There are a lot of foods that work for some but do not work for others. God made us all different and we are going to be different with this. I understand where Petunia and wheelchair are coming from but the problem with this is we are all here for SUPPORT and it sets a lot of people off because those words, even if they are harsh reality, are not SUPPORTIVE. People come on this forum to get encouragement and support and POSITIVE thoughts. The way it comes off is NEGATIVE. No one wants a person to tell them they are dumb, fat, and stupid. We all need help and maybe negative is the way wheelchair and petunia like their support but most of us prefer friendship and positive support. Obviously not everyone that has had this procedure has the same experience.