Dave_NW

That's the one. But I think it affects more than one thing. I may be wrong - I haven't messed with mine for awhile. Dave

Jess, you're kicking A$$! Congrats on breaking the plateau, and keep it going! I don't know if having the surgery was a wrong choice for you. You've dieted before, with various degrees of success - for awhile. For me, anyway, the band is giving me compounding results week after week. I chose to have surgery because I had no trouble LOSING the weight, it was KEEPING IT OFF that gave me trouble. I think you'd be in a similar situation. But remember, after you reach your goal, if you decide the band is not what you want, you CAN have it removed. The Bodymedia FIT armband does take a bit of adjustment. Have you played around with adjusting how much it says you're burning? From the Bodymedia website, on the Activity Manager page, in the lower right corner of the screen is a Settings list. Playing with the links under that heading let you adjust how your band records things. You may be able to fine-tune it better than it is now. I find mine also doesn't record things as accurately as I'd like when i'm working out, so I just kind of go with its numbers, but keep a better tally in my head. I think it's about how it responds to how your body is reacting to the workout, rather than the specific things you're doing. You may also want to adjust where it sits on your arm - I find mine sometimes records nothing if it gets twisted a bit out of optimum location. Putting it back, and tightening the band just a bit seems to help. (Seems my life is all about tightening bands these days. LOL! ) Dave

I've been drinking lightly with my meals from the beginning. I don't drink a lot, but I do sip as needed with meals, to keep things moving. I've had no ill side effects. If the logic of not drinking is to allow food to sit in the pouch longer, thus reducing your appetite, then what if I'm using portion control and have a fixed amount of food on my plate? If it's a bandster-sized portion, and I know that when the food is gone, I'm done eating, no matter what, then it makes no difference to me whether or not I drink with that meal. I don't cheat or graze or snack between meals, and I eat on a regular schedule. My weight loss results support that attitude, and the RN who does my fills says there is a lot of recent data that brings the "no drinking" thing into question. He says if I want to drink with my meals, I should go ahead and drink with my meals. Dave P.S. And I didn't reply to your other thread, but I also use a straw with the one Protein shake I drink every morning. I've done that since I had my surgery. No side effects of that, either.

After losing and regaining the same 20 pounds about a dozen times, I finally decided it was time to take a firmer stand against my excess weight. Band surgery was a big step, but it was the best thing I've ever done for myself. I was ready for the life changes required to be successful, and I'm amazed and very pleased with my results so far. My only regret about having had the surgery was that I waited so long to do it. Good luck with your choice! Dave

Not sure if you're interested in numbers from male bandsters, but here goes: Yesterday marked nine months since I had my surgery. I've lost 118 pounds so far. My old pants were 46-48 inch waist. Now I'm wearing 34 inch waist pants. I started with size 3XL and 4XL shirts. Today I bought size Large shirts. Am I happy? Beyond words. Dave

I didn't see your earlier post, and I won't tell you what to do or not do. I'm the last person who would presume to preach to anyone. But I wonder if you fully understand the physical process your stomach is going through right now? When your band was placed, it was stitched to your stomach wall. Things are very sensitive to any sort of stress in the first weeks after surgery. The point of the liquid diet after surgery is to give your stitches a chance to heal up. Digesting "real" food causes stomach acids to slosh around, back and forth between your lower stomach, and the area in and around where the band is located. Those stitches are not healed yet, and overactivity in the area can cause physical issues, including infection, causing the stitches to come loose, and your band might even slip. To give you an answer to your question, during the three weeks of my liquid diet following my surgery, I did eat some turkey lunch meat a couple of times after about two weeks. I was so afraid of doing damage to things, I really tried to stick to the liquid diet. When I was cleared to go onto soft foods, I went onto solids pretty much a week ahead of schedule, but that was more than three weeks after my surgery. I was pretty vigilant during the first couple of weeks after my surgery because I didn't want to screw something up. Hope this helps. Good luck with your journey! Dave

Thank you, Joe, for at least answering a portion of my questions. I hope you find people who are willing to provide what you're looking for. My point in asking what I did was to try and help generate some interest in your project. Your reply demonstrates to me that whatever it is you're trying to produce isn't something I'd be interested in supporting, even without your sarcastic response to my sincere post. Considering the thousands of people who read this forum, and the meager response you've received, obviously I'm not the only one who feels that way. Best regards, Dave

Drink more Water. Exercise more. Get rid of the "grazable" food. Force yourself to ONLY eat from a plate at the table - do not eat standing up, in front of the TV, away from the kitchen, or eat anything you can eat with your bare hands. Serve yourself a normal sized portion, then step away from the food. Plan your meals so you eat a few ounces of dense Protein every three to four hours - it will keep your appetite under control, and if you aren't hungry, you're less likely to binge or graze or overeat. Focus on how you feel before putting anything into your mouth - are you truly hungry, or are you eating out of habit or boredom? The thing about the band is that it won't stop you from overeating, or from making bad food choices. All it will do is dim your appetite, so you can use your common sense and willpower to control your eating, and promote your weight loss. If you take your focus off of food, and develop new habits, your weight loss will amaze you. If you allow yourself to repeat the bad habits that got you fat in the first place, you can guess what results you'll have. Your band gives you a great opportunity to change your life, but in order to do that, you need to actually change your behavior. Old habits die hard, and this is a prime example. Good luck! Dave

Well, Joe, I mean no disrespect, but to be totally frank: You aren't providing any details at all in your request, so I, for one, am immediately skeptical. I'm sure I'm not alone. The Internet is filled with scammers who only want to take advantage of unsuspecting folks, and I'm sure others here are wondering what angle you're working. You don't say anything about who you are, or what it is you're trying to produce. How will these articles be used? Is it a one-time publication, or something that will be used in perpetuity? What kind of money are you offering to pay? Will the writer's full name be attached to the article, or will it be one of those "first name, last initial" testimonial things? Will the writer retain copyright ownership of their work, or would they have to give that up? Some bandsters are quite shy about publicly admitting they've had surgery, so without knowing what wll happen to them or their identity, it's not at all surprising that you've had little response to your request. I'm a published author, and I'm interested, but not until/unless more details are provided. Dave

My surgeon put 3.2cc in my 14cc band during my surgery. He said it helps the band heal in place more easily, and it is less likely to slip. I had no problems during recovery, or since. Mine has pretty much been a textbook case. Dave

I was on liquids for three weeks after surgery. I found I had tremendous issues with powdered Protein shakes, and I stopped trying to drink them. Not only were they sickly sweet tasting to me, but I had incredible gastric problems after the fact. Using soy milk and similar liquid to mix them with did nothing to alleviate the lactose-intolerance type of issues I was having. I finally settled on Muscle Milk Light ready-to-drink shakes from costco. They tasted fine, they weren't too sweet (to my taste buds), and they gave me the protein I needed. I've since graduated on to Premier Nutrition ready-to-drink shakes (also available at Costco), and they're still a part of my daily diet. I drink one shake every morning on my way to work. I didn't go for fancy recipes or anything else. I was told I could only have Clear Liquids or a "simple" Protein Shake. No pudding or Instant Breakfast or pureed fruit or whatever else added in. So I toughed it out, and managed to get through it. I found that drinking 2 ounces of shake every hour, from the time i got up to the time i went to bed, worked well. I could "knock it back" in a hurry, and I was done for another hour. Then I drink Water or Crystal LIght the rest of the time. Drinking 2 ounces of shake every hour for 16 hours a day gave me 32 ounces of protein shake every day, and it wasn't that hard to do. One thing I found interesting was that my taste buds were all kinds of screwed up after surgery. Everything tasted sweet - even unsweetened liquids. It was weird. It was several weeks after I started back on solid foods that things began to taste normal again, and that only happened after I had "retrained" my sense of taste. I've never had such a problem, before or since. Hang in there. You can do it, and you'll be better off for having followed your doctors instructions. Good luck! Dave

NSV = Non Scale Victory. When something positive happens that isn't related to the number on your scale. Clothes that suddenly fit great, comfortably wearing those pants you could never quite fasten, riding an amusement park ride and having the barrier bar close without crushing your stomach, easily fastening an airplane seatbelt, a compliment from a total stranger - it can be anything. And yes, yours is definitely an NSV! Congratulations! Dave

Michelle, I had no pre-op diet. My surgeon did ask me to do only Clear liquids the day before surgery, to empty my stomach out, but otherwise, no pre-op diet was required. I did fine, and had no complications. Post-op I did three weeks of liquid diet, which was fine since I was healing from a multiple surgery (hiatal hernia, ventral hernia, and the band placement - it was a lot to recover from.) Since then i've had zero issues, and the band for me has been very successful. Good luck with your surgery! Dave

This is not a prescription item. As I indicated in my post above, go to www.bodymedia.com to learn about this armband, and what it does. You can buy it from them directly, but I found them cheaper at BestBuy.com and costco.com. They also sell that on amazon.com. Shop around to get the best deal. Dave

Getting a fill can cause swelling around your band. The liquid diet for two days is to give your system time for any swelling to go down. After that you may or may not feel some degree of restriction. It usually takes several fills before you'll notice dramatic differences, so don't be disappointed if you don't feel much of anything at this point. You also should be aware that the point of the band is not to achieve restriction in your eating. The point of fills in the band is to cause a dimming of your appetite, so you can use your common sense and willpower to prevent overeating. The band may limit the volume of food you can swallow at one time, but it won't stop you from overeating, or from making poor food choices. And liquids tend to go through the band very quickly, so the point of drinking Water at the surgeon's office was only to ensure you "could" swallow and process things. This article may help you put things into perspective: http://drsimpson.net...estriction.html It takes time for the band to get fine-tuned for your body, so try to be patient. Follow your doctor's orders, and let the process happen at its own pace. As has been said before, you ddn't gain this weight overnight, so you shouldn't expect to lose it overnight. Good luck! Dave

I've worn mine daily since February. It helps me stay on track, and I don't need to worry about every little detail anymore. (Oldiebutgoodie2, go to www.bodymedia.com to learn more about this cool tool.) I'm active enough every day that I have my Bodymedia FIT plan configured for a 1000 calorie deficit. That translates to two pounds a week, which is what I'm losing, more or less. I'm not as fanatical as I once was about the numbers, and I find general numbers are good enough for me these days. My life is too busy for me to track every calorie in or out. Depending on the day, and what I'm doing, I eat between 1000 and 1500 calories a day. I try to get ten percent of my calories as Protein grams. That is to say, if I eat 1200 calories in a day, I shoot for 120g of protein. I try to keep my carbs 50-60% of that gram number, so if it's 120g of protein, I try for 60-72g of carbs. This seems to work well for me, because if I eat too many carbs, my weight loss slows or even stops. Jess, what I'd recommend is wear the FIT daily for a week or so, track everything you can track, and make adjustments accordingly only after you have an idea of how the armband is recording things. You can adjust how easily (or not) it tracks your movement, so you can get more or less movement to be recorded. But give it time to show you some "normal" activity before changing your diet or exercise regimen. You may find tweaking the armband settings will give you the numbers you want. What blew me away was tracking my calories with the food log it has. I recorded every calorie I ate at first, and I was amazed at how they added up - not so much the food calories, but the other nutrition parts, like sugar or fat. Even eating "healthy" it was amazing at how much sugar I was eating. All in all, the Bodymedia FIT armband has been a great helper in this journey of mine. I won't be without it. Dave

This topic comes up time and again. My fill PA says there is a lot recent data about this, suggesting that it's not the big drama thing it was once thought to be. The lack-of-hunger thing is caused by pressure on the vagus nerve, and the weight of the food in the pouch is what causes that pressure - the pouch does not need to be stuffed with food to get the result. Just the process of eating is enough to put that pressure on the nerve. Food tends to pass through the band in a short amount of time, and drinking with the meal has virtually nothing to do with it. I find if I don't sip liquids with meals, I have trouble swallowing. My PA told me, (just last Wednesday, in fact), that if I want to drink with my meals, to go ahead and drink with my meals. I don't guzzle liquids, I sip them, but I do it throughout the day. Some people (like me) have no problem drinking with meals. I do not feel like I get hungry any faster, and I've certainly lost a lot of weight. The trick for me is portion control. I put ONLY a normal bandster-sized meal on my plate, and when that food is gone, I'm done eating. Period. I don't snack or graze or cheat or whatever. I plan my meals and eat properly when I do. The trick is to NOT eat what you shouldn't. Dave

I chose banding for many of the same reasons listed above, but also because I didn't have a whole lot of extra weight to lose. I was told bypass was a better choice for people who are more heavy than I was (I had a max of about 150 pounds to lose. In reality, I'll be at my adjusted goal long before then.) As for the slow weight loss, be careful. I've been banded eight and a half months, and I've lost nearly 115 pounds. That's an average of more than 13 pounds a month - pretty fast. I'm working things properly, but my weight is definitely moving quickly. Dave

Your enthusiasm is appreciated, but you're getting WAAAAAY ahead of yourself. You need to relax, slow down, and wait for things to catch up with you. At one month banded, you're just now getting healed up from the surgery. Your band is barely settled into place. Like any good tool, the band needs to be fine-tuned, and then worked properly to provide results. One size definitely does not fit all, where a band is concerned, and you need to understand exactly how the band fits into your system, and your daily life. It will take several fills before the band is properly adjusted, and you begin to feel the effects of being banded. One trait every bandster needs to develop is patience. And it's obvious you were not told about the length of time it takes till the band is properly adjusted for your system. It'll happen, and you'll be pleased with it. But it takes time to get to that place. Hang in there. Dave

Cindy, you're living proof that this is a "journey," and not a "destination." Someone said that we're all on the path, just in different places along the way. and I have to agree with that. I'm new enough at this, and have had such an easy time of it (relatively speaking), that I can only presume what some of these issues are like that I read about. But it doesn't lessen things one bit to know others are going through things. By being willing to share in the good and bad of this, we all learn from each other. I try to encourage others in their journey, but I also take encouragement by reading of what others are going through. It's a pretty cool thing. Dave

I can say that from my perspective, I feel as though I've gotten my life back. I look and feel years younger, and I have so much more energy than I used to. I take great pride in my appearance these days, and I'm genuinely happy most of the time. I look forward to working out at the gym several days a week, and I look for ways to challenge the "new" me. I weigh less than I have in about 15 years, and my only regret about this surgery is that I waited so long to have it done. On the other hand, I think I needed to get "down" to the point where surgery was the appropriate course of action to get my weight under control. So surgery was the right choice at the right time for me. Everyone who sees me is blown away by how much better I look these days. What's not to like about being very healthy again, and a steady stream of compliments from family, friends, and coworkers? Dave

Do a Google search for your favorite clothing store. Spend a few minutes on their website so your browser cache gets filled with their web pages. Then your ads on LBT will be targeted toward that instead. You'll see ads for them, not for food or WLS stuff. "Targeted marketing" is just the latest in the browser wars over the user dollar. And since you can't turn off the ads that make LBT a free site, you may as well redirect the ads to things you'd enjoy looking at. Have fun with it. Dave

well, you're getting closer to your green zone. Swelling after a fill happens for a few days, and you'll have artificially tight restriction. After that swelling goes down, usually within a week or so, you'll have your new "normal." Take it easy for a bit, and see how you do. But yes, this is how it feels. I can absolutely relate to the 100+ pounds lost guys. It's an awesome feeling, and those guys you met have every right to feel that way. Congrats to all of you. Dave

You should talk to your NUT about this. Everyone's recovery is different, and the first six weeks post-op are about healing, not about weight loss. If you're only getting 300 calories a day you need to evaluate what you're doing, and raise the level. But even with that, Protein is more important than calories. Contact your NUT and ask for help - that's why they're there. Good luck! Dave

I found that if I'm eating a fixed portion size, drinking with the meal was irrelevant. I know when the food is gone, I'm done eating till the next scheduled meal time. So I drink with my meals, and have been doing so since i first went back on solids after my surgery. I found zero conflict or problem doing so, and I'm able to swallow food normally without problems. The PA who does my fills says there is a lot of recent data about the drinking with meals topic that has provided conflicting evidence about it. He says my weight loss has been so "textbook," that if I want to drink with my meals, to go ahead and drink. This is yet another reason to figure out what works for you, and follow your individual plan. With the band, one size definitely does not fit all. Dave