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When my nephew was a toddler he would try to pick things up that were to heavy. Like his baby brother. My sister would say "that's to big and heavy for you to pick up". He would then ask her to pick up what ever he wanted to move. He would say "Big and Heavy Momma pick it up!" My sister has always been a normal weight so I know this had to really irritate her!

I did'nt have one either. Almost would have been nice because with the IV fluids overnight I was in the bathroom All Night.

I can only tell you what I did. I went back and forth between shakes I made with whey Isolate powder (and fat free milk) and Premier Brand Ready to Drink Protein Shake from Costco.

Okay, I have a thought but I don't want people jumping me. First I am a very fiscally responsible person. When I bought my house I spent a lot less money then the bank said I could afford. Would it possible for you to take out a home equity loan? Though admittedly you would have to have enough equity built up to cover that.

OOps did not notice your screen name. My guess is thingirl is a girl.

Hi. Are you self pay? If you are going through insurance they usually have a variety of tests they want done first. Not sure if you are female or not but my doctor even wanted to make sure I'd had my yearly mammogram and pap smear. They also wanted on file a general physical and EKG. If you have recent tests on file they should accept those. My doctor had a 10% BMI loss requirement. I had accomplished that in about 3 months. He also required attending 3 mindful eating group sessions with a Psychologist. My surgery had to be postponed for other health reasons. If things had gone according to plan it would have taken just over 3 months from consult to surgery. To be truthfull the waiting can actually be good for you. Half of this battle is mental. You need to embrace a new relationship with food, you have to learn to eat slower, you need to identify emotional situations that lead you to eat; and determine what foods trigger you to eat more food. It took me 6 months to get restriction. So for six months I was on a diet. I had been on a very strict diet before sugery but I found this to be more difficult. Presurgery I did not weigh food. I thought I was eating low carb but I would say I am eating even lower carb now.

I had been on a strict diet for 7.5 months so my doctor's office said to continue what I was doing (had lost 50 pounds). For the 2 weeks prior to surgery I did a Protein shake (breakfast and dinner), and a low fat/carb protein based lunch. If you were to make your own shakes (and you might want to do that so you know what you like for the post op diet) make them with fat free milk, and no add ins (except for sugar free pudding powder, spices, sugar free syrups. The reason I say that is people talk about adding fruit like bananas which are high in sugar. Oh and Peanut Butter is high in fat. Don't do a last supper mode, it's just fat you are going to have to lose after. That said I did have a sensible lunch the day before surgery since I knew it would be a month before I had solid food again.

I would consider doing a musher mushie. Try the low/non fat cottage cheese (chive or pinapple are nice), and low/non fat ricotta. You can make italian bakes with meatless spagetti sauce. Other options could be individual packages non sugar added applesauce. I also added greek yoghurt at that point. Greek yoghurt is higher in protein than regular. I used the non fat fruited version but used a stick blender to chop it up, and used a tablespoon of milk to thin it out. I would lay off the canned chicken/tuna for now. I think it's to heavy for your stomach. If you eat something that aggrevates your stomach it will swell and then the swelling with make eating even harder.

Many people get very bad gas pains froms surgery. This is from them blowing gas into the body to help move the organs. Some people say to take GasEx but my doctors office said that would'nt do anythign. The other thing I've heard is to do a lot of walking and moving around as it disperses the gas.

A bit nit picky but are you at the start of 3 weeks or end? At day 15 I was able to move to cottage cheese and ricotta. On day 22 I could add canned chicken. Is your doctor allowing solids at this point? I wonder if you step back a bit to softer foods it might help you.

For me that's a loaded question. Here's a breakdown: Bariactric Seminar -explained surgery Eligibility meeting with Nurse, Psychologist, Nutritionist Nurse 2 Meetings Surgeon 2 meetings Nutritionist 2 Meetings Mindful eating Group Sessions 3 Meetings Presurgery Tests/Post Surgery eating class 1

I also brought up the subject of a liquid diet having read it here. Thinking it would be a two week thing. Well, he said "If you WANT to do a liquid diet then you can do HMR 500." So, yes a 500 cal. special diet that had to be purchased from the hosipital. I spent $230 and after 5 days of losing no weight (I had been losing on my own); being super obsessed with food (was not previously), and having a reaction to the shakes I gave up. I went back to my own diet. In 7.5 months I lost 52 pounds; before surgery.

It's not that I don't like Fish (which I do eat more of now), Beef or Pork; but I really prefer chicken. Some people have trouble with Chicken breast but I don't. There must be some veggies that you like. I eat most of mine raw: romaine lettuce (make chicken sandwich wraps), baby carrots, Sugar Snap Peas (in the pod), sweet potato.

Stores like GNC and Vitamin Shoppe often will let you return Protein if you try it once and don't like it. Personally I like Gold Standard Double chocolate. Also do some research on things to add in. For example: sugar free pudding mix, Davinchi sugar free syrups (coffee isle). Also freeze milk cubes (2 is about 1/3 cup) mix shake with a blender which give it icy texture. For ready to drink Premier from costco is good (160 cal, 30 g protein)

For fast food chili from Wendy's is good. Also once you are on solids and if you have to eat fast food KFC can be a good choice. I buy grilled chicken breast and take the skin off, two of the following green beans, corn, potato no gravy, my treat is to eat the crunchie outside of the biscuit (and leave the soft inside).

Oh and do you have one of those small roller overnight bags that you can take as carry on luggage? That would be perfect for your laptop, since they have built in elastic things for holding your clothes in place. You could also put your purse in there. Also you could put your lunch stuff in a sealable baggie and put it in there are well.

Hi. Depending on your work environement it may be easiest to bring campbells drinkable tomato soup (since it's one serviing. Some of the other brands that have heat and eat soups put Two servings in the container.). Also for protein shakes you can buy shaker cups (have a small wisk ball inside) that you can used to mix up the shakes. Or buy ready to drink which would be the easiest. I like Premier brand from costco 160 cal. 30 g protein. Other thoughts are sugar free jello, individual applesauce containers if you can have it.

I don't know if this will be for you but I can tell you what I have evey day for lunch. I use whole romaine lettuce leaves, grilled chicken breast strips measure out 3 OZ (I buy them at costco), low fat laughing cow cheese triangle, squirt bottle mustard. I spread the cheese on the spine of the lettuce, add chicken, add mustard. Eat as a wrap. I guess the question is whether you can take the 30 minutes to stop and eat or if you are looking for something you can prepare in the morning and eat on the run.

Okay I am not a doctor nor do I play one on TV. What I can tell you from my own experience is I believe I am at restriction. It has taken 6 months, lots of fills (now at 10.6). The band has been tightened to the point where the opening between the small stomach (pouch) ands large stomach is smaller than it was when the band was just "placed around the stomach". When it was installed it was just sitting there not doing anything. This explains why after surgery people say "How come I can eat as much as I did presurgery?". Because there is absolutely not difference in your physiology until you have several fills. At restriction I get a satiation on less food then presurgery. By less food I mean 3 oz solid Protein, half cup veggies, 5+ grapes etc. Some people get upset that they are not full on a couple bites. 3 oz of protein should be more than a couple bites! Depending on what I'm eating I may or may not feel full when I stop eating (I measure my food and stop when it's gone). After a few minutes I get a sensation of being full. I feel satisfied for 4 1/2 hours. Some people would say the Vegas nerve is being pressed on by either the food or the band which causes this full sensation. I don't know why but I do know it's happening so do I need to know why to accept that it works? It could boil down to a leap of faith. Since the band works differently in different people it will be very difficult for you to get hard and fast rules/results. It's not like having a hip replacement where the broken body part is replaced. Also so much of band success is mental that the physical aspect is only part of the equation. The band does help me to turn down food if I see it. There are times that I get head hunger because I'm board, lonely. I have conversations with myself "We have carrots that's a healthy snack." "Yes but do we feel hungry enough for a snack?" "Uhhh, well not really". It's giving me the will power to not eat food that before I would have eaten (since hey it was healthy right?) but that I really did'nt need. And if you don't physically need it those calories go in the deficiet column.

Even it you are following the rules it can be easy to rationalize problematic behavior. I was diligently following my doctors food orders. Once I got to solids though I started to have peanut butter cravings. That eventually moved to honey nut crunchy which was disasterous. I was eating a small jar a week. Keep in mind thats like 160 cal for 2 tablespoons! But I was telling myself it was protein so it was okay. It could be but not in the amounts I was eating. Luckily I appear to have lost my interest in peanut butter. I was making my nephew Hershey Kiss cookies and tasted my PB to see if it had gone bad. It was fine but I had no desire to eat it.

I agree CIB are not a good source of protein. Day 15 I was cleared to move to mushies like cottage cheese. For meals I would have a cup of tomato or sweet red pepper soup (about 100 cal) and then an hour a so later a serving of cottage cheese. I think you are slowing down your loss if you are only having 3 servings of CIB. Also some people do gain weight when they go from clear liquids to semi solids. Keep in mind your body goes from 400 cals a day to more reasonable amounts. Who would'nt loose weight on that kind of intake?

I don't know whether it's good to stay in it for really long periods of time. My concern would be when you hit your goal weight if trying to add in carbs might be problematic for you. Will you start to gain even on low calorie levels? Also you would have to be very diligent about your protein levels; at low cal. levels your body will eat muscle (read heart). When I was in high school and on a very low cal diet (read eating disorder) I went in for my precollege physical. The nurse came crashing in and asked if I was on some kind of diet. I would guess becaue my urine test showed I was in Kenotosis.

Pretty, At my last fill the nurse said "if you can't eat 3 oz solid protein you are too tight. If you get acid reflux to tight, if you have trouble laying down (coughing) you are too tight." It can take a couple days for a fill to take effect. Remember getting an unfill does'nt mean a complete unfill. Let's say you are at 6.5 CCs and your last fill was .5. They make take out .2. Many people on here have said that just a smidgen of unfill makes all the difference in the world. It is very very bad for your stomach and band if you are filled to tight for too long. It can lead to having to have the band removed. Please call your doctor asap.

PackersFan, another thing to consider is that a fill can take up to 2 weeks to "hit". You mentioned being fine and then 5 days later having trouble eating. Personally I have grilled chicken 90% of the time so not being able to eat that would be a major red flag.

I think you trying to go back to work to soon. I have a very low impact job. I talk on the phone all day and work from home. While I had been going out for shopping trips on day 2-3, on day four I went to the gym and walked on the treadmil low speed for about 40 minutes. I came home and had to take a Nap! And I had been doing an hour of cardio a day presurgery. I had a very uneventful post op (except for being allergic to the surgical tape) and I think taking 5 days off and having the weekend are a minimum. Does your work know you had surgery? I would call your doctor and say you need a note to be out the remainder of this week. Call your work and tell them you have a doctors note, you are sorry but you are not fit to return to work. Another thing to remember is companies don't want someone at work who may fall down and get injured because then they are liable for workmans comp. So if you have a doctor's note they should'nt moan to much. I would however be proactive about the doctors note. This way it does'nt look like you are milking the situation on your own for no real reason.