btrieger

Thanks folks!! I really need to think this over. I don't need the stress this is causing me but at this point; I don't know if I am stressing out over nothing. I don't want to blame my surgeon. I did all kinds of homework before even giving his office a call. He is renowned and the hospital thing has to be political. His nurses and nutritionists are top notch also. It seems to all come back to the same legal assistant or whatever they are called. I am however going to look into other surgeons. I didn't think about the approval like that. I am going to find out if it means approved for any and all surgeons in the network. Thanks!!

It is funny that you ask this question now. They toured the B&M factory in Portland, Maine on the History Channel's Food Tech last night. The showed how they make and can Ortega refried beans. But you don't need to do a few hundred thousand servings at a time, so try the link below or Google, "refried beans recipe". Refried Beans Recipe | Simply Recipes Canned taste great but are loaded with sodium. Way more sodium than anyone should be consuming in one meal.

I just finished my 5th day of Optifast only and think the stuff is absolutely delicious. I've been doing 5 a day. One every 3 hours and haven't been hungry. I've lost 6 pounds since Monday. What is killing you? Hunger? The taste?

Got a call from my insurance company this morning telling me that I was approved and would be covered 100%. Great news. I just called my surgeon's office to ask if they knew I was approved. They said they knew but there was a minor complication. My surgeon was no longer operating in the hospital they were scheduling me at and they don't know which hospital will replace it. I asked how long she had known this and she said she just found out this week. I told her it would have been nice if she would have called to tell me. This is the same person that was supposed to have called my cardiologist to get the ok for me to stop my blood thinners for a couple of weeks prior to surgery and did nothing. I ended up doing it myself 3 weeks later. I probably won't have surgery for over a month. I've been drinking expensive shakes for a week now. My roommate delayed his move out of state to give me a ride to and from surgery. I've already cleared my calendar and scheduled my vacation. This is more than an inconvenience to me and the assholes don't have the common courtesy to make a phone call. I told her to call me the minute she knows anything. If I don't hear from them by next Friday; I quit and they lose out on the huge chunk of change they would have made on my surgery. I'm down 82 pounds without them. Surgery isn't as important to me that it is to a lot of people. I will just have to muster that much more willpower and hope I can keep going.

Cutting small means cutting to about the size of a pea or pencil eraser. You're supposed to chewed each of those erasers 20 - 30 times before swallowing. Have you had your pre-op consultation yet and signed the paperwork?

I've been living on these Optifast protein shakes for 4 days now and I love them. It is like having desert 5 times a day and I have not been hungry...yet. Better yet, I have dropped 5 pounds in the past 3 days. I'm down 81 pounds since I started and I am showing no signs of slowing down. I'm feeling better than I have in years and should be close to 100 pounds down by surgery. I finished cardiac rehab yesterday. I started on October 12th weighing 346 pounds with a body fat percentage over 61%. My final weight was 285 with a body fat percentage of 46%. I haven't been approved by insurance yet but have a surgery date. If they deny me, I won't mind but I'd like to get this over with before I slip and start gaining the weight back as I have in the past. I can put wight on in record time. It only takes a diet of pizza and Guinness. The first picture is 2 years old and the second taken yesterday. It is starting to show a little. For instance, that is the same shirt and there is no more fear of popping a button and putting someone's eye out. Also, I don't have to wedge myself into the chair. PS. My secret is out, my profile pic is 10 years old :tongue_smilie: PPS. I am tilting my head in the second pic to try and assimilate the same position as the first. It is not because my brain is so big and heavy as many of you would assume.

I am happy that you have figured this out but you shouldn't have had to. Your surgeon should have told you everything that you needed to know. Each and every bariatric surgeon should be making sure that everyone of their patients understands what will be required of them to make the band work prior to operating on them.

This is a little off-topic but if you like WW cookbooks, check out this site: BariatricEating.com Health & Nutrition - Bariatric recipes Great recipes there!

Greetings from snowy North Texas. I'm about 2 and a half weeks from having surgery and the best advice I can give is read, read, read. Do as much research as you possibly can in those 3 months and make sure you know what you are getting yourself into. Good luck!

Good luck and a speedy recovery!

The $25,000 question is,"are you ready?" We all have our reasons for wanting to lose weight but you have to be sure you are ready to modify your eating habits for the rest of your life or the band isn't going to help. Go ahead and sign yourself up for surgery and if you are lucky, you will have a 3 month waiting period to do soul searching. It's not too late to turn back until the hunk of plastic is in you.

Ewww! Sushi!! I don't think that counts as cheating. It would be more torture to make me eat sushi than starve me. :frown: Why'd you buy pajamas? They won't even fit you in a couple of weeks!

The head honchos were coming down from Boston and my management took it upon themselves to put all of my toys in my drawers while I was on vacation because they weren't professional. :frown: There were a couple of 2 foot Sponge Bob pillows on my desk too . Here's my cube in Boston where said head honchos' offices were a couple hundred yards away: Picture is 2004ish as I started putting weight back on from last big loss.

I am not even banded yet and it was one of the first questions I asked me surgeon. Give his office a call and ask, "will I be numbed before my fill?" It will only take you a minute and will relieve some of your anxiety.

Sodium is another thing that has to be taken into account. It causes fat cells to hold Water and sugars as well as raising your blood pressure. I think the Smart Ones and Healthy Choice dinners average about 600mgs each.

I've been living on these Optifast protein shakes for 4 days now and I love them. It is like having desert 5 times a day and I have not been hungry...yet. Better yet, I have dropped 5 pounds in the past 3 days. I'm down 81 pounds since I started and I am showing no signs of slowing down. I'm feeling better than I have in years and should be close to 100 pounds down by surgery. I finished cardiac rehab yesterday. I started on October 12th weighing 346 pounds with a body fat percentage over 61%. My final weight was 285 with a body fat percentage of 46%. I haven't been approved by insurance yet but have a surgery date. If they deny me, I won't mind but I'd like to get this over with before I slip and start gaining the weight back as I have in the past. I can put wight on in record time. It only takes a diet of pizza and Guinness. The first picture is 2 years old and the second taken yesterday. It is starting to show a little. For instance, that is the same shirt and there is no more fear of popping a button and putting someone's eye out. Also, I don't have to wedge myself into the chair. PS. My secret is out, my profile pic is 10 years old :frown: PPS. I am tilting my head in the second pic to try and assimilate the same position as the first. It is not because my brain is so big and heavy as many of you would assume.

I'm doing great. Thanks for asking! I guess it's about time I added another entry.

Well, the day is finally here. I started my 3 week pre-op diet this morning with a strawberry Opti-fast shake. This may come as a shock to some but I thought the consistency was great and is was delicious. If the chocolate and vanilla are just as good; I am going to have no problem drinking 5 of these a day. We'll know by the end of the day how well they suppress my appetite. * Gained a pound since yesterday and I am not going to kill myself over it. I will probably lose 3 tomorrow. So, I am officially starting pre-op at 289. My goal is 275 after 3 weeks.

Anyone that hasn't asked themselves those questions or been scared over getting surgery is a damn fool. I have no problem losing lots of weight. I've lost over 100 pounds multiple times only to gain it back. I will have lost around 100 pounds by the time I get banded and the lapband is my best alternative to stop or slow the weight gain once I stop losing. I've researched plenty. I am not going into this without knowing every detail and doing plenty of soul searching. Take your time, the lapband isn't going anywhere and will be around if you make the decision to be cut open and have a foreign object wrapped around one of your internal organs. It is NOT a decision to be made lightly.

There is no better option for a lot of us. It is a much safer choice than the alternative of letting our weight kill us. I've had a heart attack, it is not fun. You are right in a way about common sense though. If I had common sense I would not have let myself go so far as to require surgery. I, like most of you did this to myself by sitting on the couch or a bar stool filling my face with crap.

45% stills seems kind of high but I am guessing that includes the old-fashioned bands being replaced with the newer, permanent ones. If so, the number will drop drastically in the next few years once most have been replaced. The failure rate is more than 50% and this concerned me. When I questioned my surgeon he kind of played it down a little but also said the majority of failures is due to patients not modifying their lifestyle as recommended. After reading these boards for 6 months, I cannot argue with that logic.

There's never any harm in asking but always be prepared for answers you may not expect of agree with.

25 + 45 = 70. Are you trying to say that 70% of lapbands are removed or did I miss something?

Happy birthday!!!

Congratulations on your decision and make sure to do as much research as possible during your waiting period. There are far too many people that have had the surgery and still have absolutely no clue what they need to do to make it successful. Good luck!!