BetsyB

The last 15! How exciting is that?!?! I am torn. I guess I will give it a try, and if it's too much of a pain, I will do my food journaling on Fitday (where I have years worth of custom food entries) and use the bug to monitor calorie burn. I mostly need to know what's effective in terms of ramping up my exercise; I'm pretty controlled with regard to food. Filet sounds really good--I am starving today!

The redness is pretty typical, but it should not be warmer to the touch at this point. I'd give the doc a call; s/he will probably want you to start antibiotics. I know this is worrisome, but it's common, and just a blip--it will be okay.

If I were doing it, I'd veer toward their Filling Foods program--or, even, their old Core program. It de-emphasizes points, and emphasizes making the right food choices. (Weight Watchers has gotten a lot of criticism in recent years due to its "eat what you like! just count the points!" approach. While this increases compliance, it does so at a nutritional cost. Core was developed to address this criticism. Its newest incarnation is very similar.) I can't lose weight using Weight Watchers's point system. I can be 100% compliant, and gain--it's simply too much food for me. There's NO way I could meet the point allotment with a band in my body! But if I were to follow the other plan, and focus on lean Protein and veggies, it'd work. (There would be no room for using activity points for the weekly point allowance, though.) I personally don't think it's a terrific plan for people who are banded. I think that lots of doctors recommend it because they don't really know much about diets, in general, and it was for years the gold standard. (It is returning to that status again; it was less favored by those in the know for about a decade, for good reason.) I use Fitday.com to journal my food intake. It gives me much more information than WW Online or WW eTools does: calories, how much protein/carbs/fat I've gotten, and so on. It's free. Once you approach restriction, you will need to rely on willpower less and less---but it will remain important that you get the right nutrients. Weight Watchers really does not ensure that. But if you keep an eye on things with a program like Fitday, you can see, at a glance, when you need to make changes. Just my 0.02

Well, milk is a good food---but it's just that: a food. And as such, it really should be used in moderation. In other words, it's not really a beverage that you should "drink a lot" of; it should be approached as a whole food that is part of your meal plan. It is important to get plenty of Fluid, and you certainly can count milk toward your fluid quota, for hydration purposes. But for nutrition/weight loss purposes, most of your beverages should be non-caloric. Drinking milk in any quantity can pretty much wipe out your calorie allotment for the day. At 110 calories a cup, it adds up. (Even skim, at 86 or so per cup adds up.) Still, I would try to make the switch to skim--you can start by mixing 1% with skim, then slowly decreasing the amount of 1% you use. Calorie concerns aside, your body simply does not need the saturated fat that 1% provides. Your heart and blood vessels will thank you. I have been using almond milk because it's lower in carbs than cow's milk (which may not be a concern to you) and also because I've become lactose intolerant postop. It's really good. But when I use it, it's my meal---I mix it with Protein powder for a meal-replacement shake when my band is tight.

Sounds good! And it really packs a Protein wallop, doesn't it? Bariatric Eating has a line of coffee/tea drinks called BElieve. When you're able to add caffeine back in, postoperatively, they're worth a try if you like the bottled Starbucks drinks. You can order them at bariatriceating.com.

Even if you don't have comorbidities, with a BMI of 38, you are at far greater risk for them down the road. You are making a smart decision to avoid obesity-related disease. You and your doctor know your diet history. You know that, even though you don't have a super-high BMI, your efforts in the past have not given you the results you need to be healthy and comfortable in your own skin. You know that, without surgery, you're likely headed down a path of more gain, and more health problems. It doesn't matter what other people think---you know what your body needs. And you have a bazillion people here who understand.

Well, I broke down. After waffling, convincing myself I didn't need to have such precise information, and waffling some more, I just ordered the BB. With the sale + coupon code, it was just too good a deal to pass up. Even if I use it only short-term, to get an idea of what I burn with certain activities, it will be very useful information--worth the cost. (Especially since there are a couple of people in my family already clamoring to have it as a hand-me-down when I'm done with it!) Leigha, is the food journaling aspect easy to use?

Leigha, mine tightened up after a couple of weeks, too--I was really surprised!

Great post! For a while, I was rewarding myself, for pounds lost, with money. I "paid" myself in quarters. Why? Because each roll of quarters weighs half a pound. Each week, I went to the bank and got rolls of quarters equivalent to the amount of weight I lost. This was really helpful for me. Even on weeks when I'd only lost half a pound, I got a real appreciation for my achievement----carrying half a pound of quarters in your pockets for a while, and you decide that it's not insignificant!

Leigha, quick question: how much of that 2150 calories represents exercise above and beyond activities of daily living? The 2150 minus 1790? It should be pretty easy to rack up 360 calories, exercise-wise, even on non-running days. Especially with your gardening and bike riding!

Denise, congratulations--that is a heck of an NSV! Doesn't it feel great?!

I have not had this problem. My scale says the same thing no matter how I move, or where I stand. It was pricey, but it was well worth the $$ spent. It's a Terraillon. I've had it for a number of years, and it weighs me exactly one pound lighter than my surgeon's scale, each and every time I go in. That's consistency!

For this surgery, I had staples, and they were kept in long enough that the incision did not pop open. I have had, in the past, experiences like yours---and everything healed up just fine. It is disconcerting, though, isn't it?

I would guess that, even though you intellectually knew that you would not hit sweet spot, you really did kind of expect a bigger change---and that simply is not achieved, for most of us, with the first fill. In reality, the band is like a little noose. Even without restriction, it does limit capacity. (It may empty rapidly into the stomach below, but it can only hold so much at a time.) If you really think you're hungrier, be sure to be careful with your food choices. Avoid sliders---without restriction, they can swoosh right on through, leaving you as hungry as before eating. Lean toward lean Proteins and nonstarchy veggies and heart-healthy fats---things that will stick with you without triggering more hunger. I know it's frustrating---it does get lots better! Hang in there

Congratulations!

Karen, I'm sorry you're facing a potentially scary situation. I've been in those shoes--and I have to say that it's just SO amazing that we have the screening we now have to identify potential problems (and rule them out!). I am sure you will get good news--but we are here for you no matter what. AF--welcome! My doctor wants us to have at least 2 liters of water/day. I'm only now flirting with restriction, and can drink Fluid without thinking about amount--it moves right through without stretching the pouch, as long as I don't have food in there. (My doctor's rule for that is NO drinking for 90 minutes after a meal.) I started walking again right after surgery--not as far as I walked preop, but I was up and at 'em right away. I was cleared to exercise without restriction after 4 weeks.

It's completely normal. Our incisions are tiny, but they do not reflect all that our bodies have endured. You had general anesthesia, 5 incisions were made in your abdomen, your organs were manipulated, and your mode of nourishment was pretty dramatically changed. Your body has a lot more to recover from than the surface tells! You will feel much more like yourself very soon.

Oh, there were lots of reasons, going way back to preschool years and my weight-obsessed mother. But really, it boils down to eating too much. I do have a metabolism that sucks--I require only 800-1000 calories to lose and, when at a normal weight, to maintain. (This is with daily, vigorous exercise.) My gain came mostly as a result of fighting THAT cold reality tooth and nail. I had a great deal of help from programs like Weight Watchers that insisted I must eat more---information I happily accepted, even as I watched myself expand, because I didn't want to believe I had to pare down to 800 calories---and would do anything to disprove it. But my journals don't lie: years of gain-loss-maintain patterns showed me what I could no longer ignore: that, like it or not, I had to drop down to the level where MY body loses weight. This physical fact, coupled with a couple of emotional wallops, fed me quite nicely, all the way up to 246.8 pounds. Thank GOD for the band. It makes doing what I should have been doing all along possible long-term.

My doctor handles nutrition education the same way. We have a class and are given a CD-ROM with more detailed information for reference. He also has follow-up classes after surgery. All are taught by the nurse coordinator, though the dietitian has had cameos.

You weren't denied coverage. You were simply told their "rules" for coverage. And that includes the 3-month supervised diet for which the clock starts ticking with the first weigh-in in the surgeon's office. It's all spelled out pretty definitively in your insurance contract. (I have the same BCBS coverage.) Your surgeon's insurance specialist should have known that Weight Watchers records, or even records of monitoring by your primary care physician, would not be sufficient for BCBS, and told you this so your hopes would not have been raised. I'm sorry you were disappointed---but the ball is now rolling, and you will be amazed at how rapidly the time goes by as you do all the hoop-jumping required preoperatively. (You will be busy doing things like getting clearance from a psychologist, having pulmonary function tests and seeing a pulmonologist and cardiologist, and so on.) Really, your surgery would not likely be scheduled any sooner if you didn't have to wait for BCBS approval---even self-pay patients have to get these clearances, and they take time. Before you know it, you'll be banded!

Lisa, I'm so excited for you! You will have a wonderful experience with Dr. Joyce. He and Dr. Lahmann are the best--and Silver Cross is wonderful. I will keep you in my thoughts and prayers on Tuesday!

The mind stuff is hard to tackle--but really, it does improve when you have restriction. There is just something about knowing that a food won't work for you that makes it far less appealing. Food really does take a different place in your life--it's not at the forefront any longer. That said, it's really important that you rein in your impulses as you approach surgery. Your liver needs to give up as much glycogen (stored carbs) as possible before surgery so that it is easier to maneuver around. You can do it--just a few more days! It sounds as though you've gotten right back on track, so don't dwell too much. Just make good choices from here on out. ETA: It's probably a good idea to prepare yourself for the possibility that you WILL be able to eat fairly freely postop. Most people do not experience significant restriction until they've had 2-4 fills. That said, some of us DO tell ourselves, "Nope, can't have that!" and lose really nicely during this phase, never the wiser. (If we don't try Froot Loops, we don't know that they can go down, kwim?) I tell myself, during this limbo of not-quite-restriction, that just 'cause I can eat doesn't mean I should.

Protein is very important--and there are lots of ways to get it. You say that . It's time to move beyond "pretty sure" you're eating less to being certain. You can do this by tracking your intake on a site that helps break down what you're eating in an easily-understandable way, such as Fitday.com. It will help you make sure that you're not sabotaging yourself by making common mistakes such as making smoothies that are too high in calories and fat. I'm not suggesting that you must be doing this---in reality, it's very common not to lose much weight right out of the starting gate. I'm just suggesting that, in order to evaluate how you're doing, you really need to have concrete information that journaling can provide for you.

If scarring were a concern, your surgeon would likely have brought it up to you. I would not worry about it; I know many, many, many women who've had both CS and cholecystectomy for whom scarring was a total non-issue during banding. The surgeon will be well-equipped to handle any scarring/adhesion he finds, though.