StephanieF

Ooooh, oooh, more things. Lox rolled up with cream cheese :thumbup: If you have any shabu shabu restaurants like Gyu Kaku around you the paper thin steak slices and zucchini slices worked too. Meatballs work. Oh the campbells southwestern corn soup was a staple and the progresso Pasta e fagiolini with a few second with the hand blender was divine. Froot Loops worked great til they went and added fiber. the wawa thin crip wafer crackers were a great vehicle for stuff like really creamy tuna salad. but what are we talking about here? A single meatball, a handful of frootloops with a squirt of milk, one cracker with tuna. No matter what you eat, you aren't eating a lot of it, bottom line.

LOL..we're like the evil bandsters. If this was easy everyone would do it! A friend of my mom's got banded and lost 20 lbs. She had one fill and couldn't handle the feeling of not being able to eat everything she wanted. She is seen eating pastrami sandwiches regularly and whining she didn't lose weight. I'm sorry, but there is a certain amount of misery involved in such a sweet end. They have a chart in the docs office which I can't believe I found online from three years ago, it tells the tale. So, what did I eat...well...nachos! I swear. The crunchy chip and the mushy Beans and guac and sour cream and cheese all went down. I couldn't eat a quesidilla cause the soft flour tortillas get all gummed up. But a hard taco shell and ground beef, all good. I used to be able to get a salad and if you take a pizza slicer and run it back and forth a couple times you get perfect chopped salad. If I could have brought my Cuisinart hand blender with me and stuck it in everything everywhere I went I would have, but my boyfriend said he would laugh at me. But I swear. I used to go for mexican food almost daily and then I would get the components and make a small plate of it in the microwave in 1 minute. But this isn't taco bell. It's corn chips, and preferably the solid ones and not the crumbly ones, guacamole, sour cream, pinto/refried beans and some cheese...I'm salivating thinking about it. Eventually I just got sick of it. There were days the band was just mad at me, and I endured about three weeks before an unfill, during which time I lost about 17 lbs, but all I ate was vanilla haagen daaz. Hungry Jack potatoes with heinz fat free chicken gravy..yum. At one point oatmeal was too heavy for me, but cream of rice with butter and salt, yum. Okay, I'm getting hungry and there is no eating at this hour or I'll be sitting vertical for the next 4 hours. Lately it's fried cod/fishsticks, or this place makes mashed potatoes with spinach, or yellow rice. Brown rice torments me for days, but yellow rice, I dunno. I now have to deal with the how it's going to go down and come out aspect since getting the IBS, so my choices are more limited. But since shortly after being banded I was not able to eat apples, peaches, pretty much fruit. I haven't eaten a sandwich in 3.5 years, or more than the tiny triangle at the bottom of the slice of pizza in as much time. Late night munchies after drinking, um, no thanks. Munchies after getting stoned, OMG...just make sure you aren't alone. Let's be real, we all know how to PB when we need to. There have been times I will just NEED to take a big ass bite of something I know won't go down and I just chew it out and spit it out. That is rare, but do what you gotta do. They're gonna ban my ass for being a bad influence, don't listen to me! :thumbup:

Zimmersdream, you remind me to bring up a good point. It took me 3 years to lose this 115 lbs. BUT, I've never gone backwards. I plateau, get fills, unfills, events in my life keep me more distracted from eating than others. I can only attribute the fact my skin has adjusted as it has to the slow weight loss. I kept a very close charting of my progress, and in the first year I lost 60 lbs, next year like 25, past year another 20. All of a sudden I drop another 5 lbs and another size every few months. Looking at other people's progress I was a slow loser, and I didn't really get good restriction until maybe 6 months into it. My doctor was very conservative with the amount of fill, but very liberal with how often I could come for a tweaking. I was going every two weeks. One week I went for a fill, an unfill and a slight fill. He thought I was nuts when I would say I want .1 cc today, but it always did the trick. (I have an old school band of 4cc, so my sweet spot was somewhere around 3 cc). I don't plan on loosening it. My body has adjusted to this level of caloric intake and if I loosened it it would once again be up to my will power and control to make good choices with food and exercise, which again, is not why I got this band. The thought of even gaining back 2 lbs is something that is not going to happen. At size 6, 2 lbs is the difference between the jeans fitting and not at times, lol. Plus note, I am one cheap date. I've been debating whether I should infuriate the masses by revealing my diet and the one food that I lost 60 lbs eating daily, but I haven't decided if the "judges" can handle it. Stay tuned, lol

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Finally, some real people! Amen. I know I didn't get banded to struggle, I did that my whole life. And if ever I feel like something's not right I email my doc and he says come in and get an unfill. But then I learned if I wait a day and just chill out everything calms down. Right or not, let's face it...if you're not eating many calories, you don't have many to burn at the gym. I did try it, but I was in calorie deficit and feeling so weak. We are a society that overeats. You can go to countries all over the world where not eating a lot is the norm.

I choose to let it control me. If I was in control of everything I'm guessing I would not have been 265 lbs. I am a healthy person..moreover, I really cannot believe I am sitting here defending myself. This is a tool, you use it, obviously in conjunction with your doctor's knowledge since he adjusts it, in different ways and what works for you. I've lost 115 lbs, and other than obvious problems that a lot of people have due to reduced food intake, I am a very healthy person. I'm going to stop responding to these posts. I know I am not the only person who went this route, and it is really those people I was interested in connecting with. For the rest, honestly, this is my reality, and I'm really not all that interested in your opinion on it. AGAIN, LOOKING TO CONNECT WITH PEOPLE WHO KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT. Sorry to be so abrasive, but seriously...

Larraine, I think the question was pretty clear. And without knowing my health history, please do not assume exercise is the best option for me. :smile:

It was/is the ultimate sacrifice. I basically gave up the enjoyment of food, ate what I could get down, and have altered my life in many ways from what I eat, to when I eat it, to how I have to sleep at night. As time has gone on my skin has actually pretty much caught up with the weight loss. Granted, if I meet a rich man one day and he's willing to pay for the lower body lift and new boobs, I'm in! It basically took all the will power out of the equation. It controls me, I respect it, I know what it will allow and what it won't. Granted it has given me a host of other problems involving constipation, but I am truly hopeful that I will find the right combo of stuff to get myself back on track. It's not that I can't eat, just what I eat isn't very bulky. Mind you, I rarely PB. I'm not saying this is the healthiest way, but it's what worked for me, and despite aforesaid mentioned health issues, I wouldn't change a thing.

If only I could tolerate the acid from fruit, I would be able to eat it. The words grapefruit and orange juice is giving me heartburn just reading it. :smile:

actually you can get the kids versions of the folic acid as well as the fish oil...the folic acid kids is chewable. if you go for the fish oils, i don't remember the brand, but make sure you get the one that is lemon flavored, otherwise any sort of repeating is really gross.

Oh yes, and when your guy all of a sudden tosses you on top of him backwards style like you are a doll, that's the moment you know you're not still the same heavy woman in bed. Being tossed a little is good for the ego, lol...not only that, but all the male hormones directed your way and all the attention, well, yes, it makes your sex drive go up!

Hi. Okay, same thing happened to me, and I started freaking out. I went to a nutritional MD and they did all sorts of blood work on me, and being this was three years ago I'll tell you what I remember. I do remember I was on about 17 vitamins, which newly banded without the restriction I could actually tolerate, but as time went on, not so much. Despite the attempt at protein my iron was low, folic acid low, b1, b6...i was taking fish oil capsules, b1, b6, SILICA, had a few b12 injections and this doctor did IV vitamin infusion. to be honest I don't think much of it helped. Some people react to the surgery itself, some people react to the sudden loss of calories. It's like if the body thinks it's going to die of starvation it puts its resources into organs and not things like hair and nails. I think it did mellow it out a little, but it wasn't until I stopped the dramatic weight loss and stayed in a 5 lb range for a few months that it really stopped. I don't think it will ever be as thick as it was, but it's not falling out anymore. It's really freaky, I know. try not to focus on it, don't put your hair back more than you need to. My dermatologist also gave me a mousse called olux to try and calm the follicles. My first stop for you would be an endocrinologist or another doctor who can take a whole blood workup of you and interpret the results in a way that makes sense for you. Good luck :smile: If you're in the NYC area I can give you the nutritional doc's name

Okay, well, I got some raisins and ate a bunch...I'll hope for the best, although sometimes stuff with skin is even more torturous, but I won't hold ya to it...I'll try anything