Ilovebeagles

Hi Cathy, It sounds like you are doing great on your pro-op diet. Welcome to the loser's bench! I hope you have a speedy recovery.

I felt something similar too, it ended up being my port : )

Hello Everyone, I'm Trixie and I'm new here. I signed up for the LBT forum last month and have been lurking around trying to figure this site out and reading a lot of the threads. A little about me: I live in Michigan and had my surgery in August of 2009. I've had a very slow time of reaching restriction and just this last month finally got the band adjusted to a good level. It's been terrific and the weight is coming off a lot faster now, which is obviously more exciting : ) Having this surgery has been one of the best things I've ever done. Nice to meet you all, Trixie

Hi, I'm going to share with you what my surgeon's office shared with me: A lapband patient is expected to lose an average of 1lb per week once proper restriction of the band is achieved. They fully expect the weight loss to go on for 1 to 3 years and were very honest and upfront with me about this before surgery. I am not sure all surgeons tell their patients this. I am 8 months out now and had very little restriction until 7 months out and just now reached optimal restriction earlier this month. Up until now I've lost on average .9lbs lost per week. Now I am averaging 2lbs per week. Based on a lot of what I read on message boards here and OH I gather that most people think an above average weight loss rate is the "norm" and what is expected. Of course you can always get faster weight loss by rigorous dieting and exercising and many people do and are very happy with doing that and that's okay too. My point is that you likely feel bad because you think you are not on par with the above average losers, but you shouldn't compare yourself to others and start worrying or belittling yourself. I think you are doing awesome! Especially since you are not at a point yet where the band is helping you out as much as it can be; that makes a lot of difference.

This is sort of what I had for lunch today -- tuna salad. I eat mine on triscuit high fiber crackers or some Kashi ones that are similar. But being on soft stuff, you could try to get in some veggies, they are important too. I had butternut squash with mine, about 1/4 of a cup.

It sounds like too tight and/or swollen from all your stuck episode. You should not be sliming like that. It means your food is getting stuck, and having a very hard time going down. I would just do the liquids for a couple of days like others recomend and then mushies for a couple of days. If after that you still can't eat real food than it would be a really good idea to check with your doc. Hope you feel better!

Welcome! Congrats on your surgery; I wish you a speedy recovery.

I was really nervous before surgery too. When the surgeon's office called me to sheduled the date that really solidified in my mind, "Yes I will be having someone put something into my body and cinch it up around my stomach.... eeeeeeeekkk!!!" I wanted to run for the hills! I put the lady off and said I would have to call her back in a day or two (once I could calm down and think rationally and weigh the pros and cons of surgery and remind myself WHY I wanted to do this). Part of me was really afraid of the surgery it's self and the fact that having it, forced me to admit I needed help to lose the weight and just could not do it on my own, no matter how much I wanted to be able to do that. Plus I was afraid that even though the surgery works for thousands, I would be the oddball and have it not work for me and then I would waste all that money and be embarrassed. Oh, that was such a trying time! Surgery is such a big step! After I calmed down, I called and scheduled the surgery and have never looked back! Now my only wish is that I had done it sooner. Best of luck to you, Trixie

I "cheated" on my 2 week liquid pre op diet. Our diet consisted of a wide variety of high protien liquids (soups/shakes/mochas) and one "meal" which was 3/4 cup of some kind of casserole microwavable thing-y. We were also alowed to have one of their bars each day. Yes, this diet was very challenging! I was starving for the first few days and had very little energy. I learned really quickly how often I wanted to turn to food at the office to soothe my stress. It was murder when I couldn't do that and I was honest to goodness hungry to boot. During the whole 2 weeks I was desparate to just chew something -- all those liquids you know. So I started adding 1 cup of raw veggies everyday eaten in 2 half cup increments at Breakfast and dinner with my dietian's permission. Then I added lettuce and made a 1 cup of salad to eat with my micro dinner. It made things a lot more bareable. It helped a lot, and it was a safe modification of the diet. Eating veggies sure beats a trip to McDonald's. Try talking to the dietian and explain what's going on. He/she might be able to let you do something like this. Good luck!

It took me 8 months to achieve good restriction. I have a 14 cc band and have had 6 adjustments. I kept thinking something was wrong too! But my surgeon assured me otherwise. He said sometimes it does take awhile to get to this point and many fills. For fills 1-4 I didn't notice much of a difference at all. On fills 4 and 5 it was great for the first 2, maybe 3 weeks and then back to almost eating a house and hunger returning soon after eating a good bander meal of dense protien first. On this last fill, # 6 (not sure how much he put in this time; doesnt' matter to me as long as it is working!) I'm really noticing great restriction for the first time and it is wonderful! Up until now it was more like dieting because I was hungry a lot of the time, now I stay satisfied for 4+ hours after eating and am not so very hungry when I do eat. That alone helps me to make much better food choices. When I'm starving I tend to grab anything and try to eat too much.

Wow, what an inspiring story! Thanks for sharing. Trixie

I kind of get where you are coming from on this post. For me it's the excersize issue. Since forever, I have been very physcially active. At least 30 minutes of good excersie (sweating) a day 6 days a week. During my presurgery classes and appointements they all kept stressing I would need to do at least 30 minutes of excersize 3 days a week. I kept thinking, this is terrific; I've already got my excersize more than covered! Fast forward to one of my first post surgery check ups -- they told me if I had already been doing all of that for years and years prior to surgery, my body thought it was "normal" and that I needed to double it to an hour a day. Goody. Now, obviously, I like excersize but I was a little miffed by this. I feel like I'm kind of cheated. Everyone else gets a gold star for 3 days a week at a half hour and I have to do an hour for 6 days? Well, I'm not every enthusiastic or gung ho about that.