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LOL!! Actually, Asparagus is one of those things I was told not to have post-op..and asparagus is my favorite veggie!! Actually, one of the only ones I like. If you looked in my cabinets, I have 10 cans of Asparagus.. and rice. So.. I will miss it ::sniff::

I'm not really good at exercise, but I try to ride my bike 10 miles a day. I usually have 1/4 c. (dry measure) oatmeal for Breakfast or a Fiber One bar, then Soup or chili or a lean cuisine for lunch, then meat and vegetable for dinner. Portions are small--a couple of oz of meat and maybe a half cup of vegies. I sometimes have a 100 cal. bag of popcorn for an evening snack, a sugar free pudding, or even a spoonful of Peanut Butter. I try to keep under 1000 calories a day. I don't get hungry except for once in a while before I get up in the morning, which I credit to little in the way of carbs in my diet. I take a couple of fiber pills in the morning with my coffee (two cups a day, with creamer and sweetener) and my doctor's nutritionist suggested a couple of chromium picolinate tablets. My band is pretty tight for me, although I only have 1.9 cc in it. If I eat too fast or don't chew enough, I pb fairly easily, so I don't know as what I am doing is the healthiest way to go about it. I have my treats--an occasional gelato or cookie, but don't bring home much junk. There's no sugar, potatoes, rice, flour, chips, Pasta, or anything like that in the house. I've learned if it's here, I'll eat it, so I don't buy it. If I start overdoing it on the peanut butter, I have been known to toss a nearly full jar in the trash. There's no doubt I am still a compulsive eater at heart. I think we each have to try to learn about ourselves, our weaknesses, and our strengths to figure out how to make this tool work for us. Good luck on your journey! it definitely can work for us.

Well, I'm 10 days post op now....I also had gas pains, sometimes worse at times than others. The heating pad helped, GasX helped, and walking around helped. The biggest helper is simply time.....it has to work itself out......I was out today and had a bubble like feeling in my chest...more rare now, but still gets ya! It won't last forever...I noticed a nice change in the amount of gas by the end of day5..... AmyK

Yes. I have a 2 year old son. I took 2 weeks off as well. You cannot lift more than 10 lbs for the first 2 weeks, so be careful. It's hard for the 2 year olds to understand. I constantly told my son about Mommy's boo boos. I even showed him the incisions. He started to understand and then would ask to see the incisions. He was very careful around me. Good luck!

My name is Jessica, this is my first post, although I have been reading this website for a couple of months now. I will be banded Tuesday, July 10, 2007 in San Antonio, about 20 min. from my house. I have BCBS (I am a teacher in Texas) and I have to pay about $1900 which is 20%. I was supposed to be on the Atkins diet for the past 2 weeks but I have not been very good on it. I have never been successful on Atkins because the only Protein I really like to eat is lean protein (I don't care for red meat, pork, etc) and I just can't eat turkey and chicken all day every day so my options on Atkins are very limited. I hope I have lost at least a few pounds by Tuesday. I am so excited to have this surgery, I have been overweight, going up and down for the past 9 years since I graduated high school. I am looking forward to going clothes shopping! I have been researching WLS forever and the second I found out my insurance covered it, I made my appointment. It has been 8 months since my first appointment, I had to complete a 6 month Dr. supervised program for my insurance.

Good afternoon. About a year ago a friend of mine mentioned Tiajuana, Mexico for a possible place for surgery for her hubby and now that I actually have it scheduled for the same day trust me I consider myself a brave soul as well, lol. Seriously though after meeting with the surgeon and his staff I was convinced to having him peform this. I was more nervous before the consult, now all excitement. As far as the diet my surgeon with most of his clients requires a 10% weight loss before the surgery...according to him the amount of weight you lose initially when losing weight is the fat you have near your liver where he will be working around so this weight loss will be an advantage to him not having to move so much of my insides around and means less discomfort for me. I believe because of my high weight and stature this will be good so yeah I have about 40 lbs to lose by July 18th!!! I'm done about 15 so I should be good to go. I'm on Atkins right now and will be until my surgery...so far so good. I think every surgeon is different so I don't think it's bad that yours isn't putting you on a diet. If I were you I'd get every craving out of the way for a full week 2 weeks before surgery then take it light the week of, know what I mean? In other words be bad bad bad then light. I know I would do that. I actually plan being bad a few wks before my surgery and get some pizza in my tummy before it's shut down, lol. Health is my main concern and goal in this surgery. I don't want to be super thin or with rock hard abs but be at more healthier weight than I am and be comfortable in my own skin. So what are you going to splurge on before your surgery?

Chimboree, I'm from Covington, KY and having surgery in Floence, KY, about 10-15 minutes from me. At least I had no more bad dreams last night. I told my friend today about the dream. She thought I was going to tell her I dreamed she was pregnant (she's 63) so we laughed it off. I turned in my medical leave papers today. I'm taking 4 weeks off. I have a physical job, and on my feet all day, and I get 15 weeks medical leave paid at 66% so I figured I'll take off 4 weeks. This way I can do all the liquids at home, and hopefully be on mushy's when I go back. I'm looking forward to having a month off over the summer. I plan to sit outside and soak up the sun while my son swims in his little pool. Sunny, any word on a date:confused: I guess that's a stupid question, because you'd want to post that right away. I'm praying you get one soon, and will join us in bandland. Lynette

:unsure:I have 6 cc in my 10 cc band. I don't feel any restriction at this point. Is this normal?

Lane Bryant has them as well. I'm not sure about Macy's. They are $25. Target sells a cheaper similar brand called Assurance (or something like that). They are $10-15 depending on the type (regular, footless, etc.). I have a pair of those and i like them.

OMG , just watching 10 o'clock news. Has nothing to do with Dr Millern but the hospital itself. Apparently a 70 year,old woman was given an overdose of Fentanyl a little over a year ago, and they're accused of doing this multiple times instead of just once. Somebody is in deep doo-doo there, not sure if it is General Surgery or one of the other departments. Guess the info is slowly trickling out!

My surgery was 10-15 and staples are still in ...... They come out tomorrow but itch really bad..... Anything I can do?

That's a lot steep isn't it? I thought higher than 10 grams of sugar was a no no?

I would say 4-6 days it lessened - but I never had major pain - I didn't take any pain medicine once released from the hospital after day 3. 10 days I could lay on my side .... Major pain - maybe do a quick call to your surgeon just to check and make sure they check out what you are feeling Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

Thank you for replying. The drainage has just about stopped now but boy it sure did scare me. They said 10 days for stitches to come out, it will be 7 days tomorrow, I'm making an appt to have them out. My port is to the left. I'm sure I'm OK and nothing to worry about.

I had one of those "moments of clarity" the other day and thought I would share. I used to share my house with my uncle (who is also very overweight) and cousin (who is only slightly overweight). One of our staple meals was the good old spaghetti bolognaise, which I always saw as a very low cal, low fat meal. I used high grade minced meat (very low fat), never added oil in the cooking and had myself convinced that this was one of our "healthier meals". I would cook up a huge pot, my cousin would eat a "normal" plateful and my uncle and I would pile our plates high, then go back and polish off the remainder for "seconds". They have since moved out to their own houses and I cooked up a batch for myself just last week. The recipe I use doesn't make it easy to cut down the quantity, so I figured I'd just put the leftovers into containers and freeze them for instant on-hand meals over the next little while. I ate one cup of meat sauce/pasta mix for dinner that night and 1/2 to 1 cup for lunch the next day, then put all the rest into 1 cup servings and froze it. The epiphany came when I saw how many one-cup servings were in that huge pot!! Even after taking 2 band-sized meals out, I had EIGHT cups left over!! I had to go out and buy more small plastic containers to fit it all. There was a total of 10 cups of food in that pot! I think my cousin would have eaten about 2 cups worth, and my uncle and I would have polished off 4 cups each in one sitting! What's worse, is that quite often, I would have made an even larger pot, if we were all feeling particularly hungry, and that would likely have made 12-14 cups - and we ate it all! NO WONDER we are fat!! Have any of you had a moment like that, when you finally fully realised how screwed up were your previous perceptions of "normal sized servings"?

Congratulations to you!!! Isn't is funny? Before the surgery I wouldn't get within 10 feet of a scale... Pretended they didn't exist... Now it's an exercise in willpower to not weigh everyday (if not a few times a day!)!!

I today is day 3(of 10) of my pre-op liver reduction diet. Day. 1 was a Valentines day "sweets" day at work. I managed just fine. Day 2 we came out to my in-laws in another town to spend the night. They are Italian and every single conversation is about food. It was a hard day, but again, I managed. I am laying in bed right now on the morning if day 3 and all I can smell is the damn bacon cooking downstairs! Come on people.... Really??? I can do this. I will do this.

WoW! I'm 35 and haven't had my period in 10 years (since I had cancer). It would be so cool if it cam back n I could have another baby

Stella, TWO more days! I know you're excited.. I remember being a bit anxious (nervous) the last day or so as well! It's all those small pesky questions you think about... Did I buy the right things for liquid phase?, what should I wear to the surgicenter?, etc.. Dr Spivak performed my band surgery in Oct last year... Just today I went in for another fill, I've lost a total of 50lbs over the past 10 months. I'm happy about that, it's great to "find" so many clothes in my closet I haven't been able to wear the past couple of years and I steadily outgrew them! want2lose, I wish you all the best on your upcoming surgery also! Keep us updated, Karla

There are literally more things that impact weightloss (and fatloss) than you & I could count together, so I'm not sure where to start. Your info says you're down 22 lbs do I'm assuming you lost some pre-op. That has to be factored in. Losing is losing. You don't lose "before" and "after". It's cumulative. So don't inore the weight you lost pre-op. You also have to factor in an average over time. You're going to have rapid loss, and slow loss, and no loss. But are you maintaining a good rate on average? It's also fairly common for weightloss to slow a biut when you hit solid Proteins, and if you're already eating lean meats and vegetables then it sounds like you hit them pretty early. That might be playing a role. 10 pounds in 3 weeks is over 3 lbs per week. That's above the average rate of loss. There's a lot going on inside your body. A lot of things changing and adjusting. Almost all of them are based on Fluid, and fluid is heavy. I ate under 650 cals for 10 weeks and lost nothing. Obvioulsy I can't truly lose nothing on that intake, or no one would ever be able to starve to death. But there were things going on in my body that kept my weight (not necessarily my fat) unchanged. There are also "rabbits" and "tortoises". Men tend to lose a lot faster. People with more to lose tend to lose faster. Etc. Just be patient.

In the last 10 years more and more American women have become obese. Yet obesity among men has not increased. In your opinion, what factors are causing this gender difference? From The Week: Obesity surges among women More than 40 percent of American women are obese, a 5 percent jump over the past decade, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports. "It's a really alarming figure, and it's alarming that it's continuing to go up despite government calls to action on weight loss and healthy eating," UCLA Medical Center dietitian Dana Hunnes tells The Guardian (U.K.). Obesity is calculated by measuring a person's body mass index, a ratio of weight to height. For example, at 5-foot-4, the average height for U.S. women, someone who weighs 174 pounds or more is considered obese. The condition is more common among African-American women, 57 percent of whom qualify as obese, compared with 47 percent of Hispanic women, 38 percent of white women, and 12 percent of Asian women. The rate of obesity among men remains 35 percent, with no increase since 2005. After analyzing information compiled on more than 5,000 adults, the CDC found no explanation for why women struggle more than men do with this serious health issue, which is associated with heart disease, diabetes, and certain cancers. What's clear, however, is that the billions of dollars spent on weight-loss devices, drugs, research, and community programs have done little to curb the nation's 30-year-long obesity epidemic. Researchers suggest no progress will be made until the food and restaurant industries apply their marketing skills to promote healthier options.

The following is a condensation of a series from the Investor's Business Daily explaining 'What Caused the Loan Crisis': 1977: Pres. Jimmy Carter signs the Community Reinvestment Act into Law. The law pressured financial institutions to extend home loans to those who would otherwise not qualify. The Premise: Home ownership would improve poor and crime-ridden communities and neighborhoods in terms of crime, investment, jobs, etc. Results: Statistics bear out that it did not help. How did the government get so deeply involved in the housing market? Answer: Bill Clinton wanted it that way. 1992: Republican representative Jim Leach (IO) warned of the danger that Fannie and Freddie were changing from being agencies of the public at large to money machines for the principals and the stockholding few. 1993: Clinton extensively rewrote Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's rules turning the quasi-private mortgage-funding firms into semi-nationalized monopoies dispensing cash and loans to large Democratic voting blocks and handing favors, jobs and contributions to political allies. This potent mix led inevitably to corruption and now the collapse of Freddie and Fannie. 1994: Despite warnings, Clinton unveiled his National Home-Ownership Strategy which broadened the CRA in ways congress never intended. 1995: Congress, about to change from a Democrat majority to Republican, Clinton orders Robert Rubin's Treasury Dept to rewrite the rules. Robt. Rubin's Treasury reworked rules, forcing banks to satisfy quotas for sub-prime and minority loans to get a satisfactory CRA rating. The rating was key to expansion or mergers for banks. Loans began to be made on the basis of race and little else. 1997 - 1999: Clinton , bypassing Republicans, enlisted Andrew Cuomo, then Secretary of Housing and Urban Developement, allowing Freddie and Fannie to get into the sub-prime market in a BIG way. Led by Rep. Barney Frank and Sen. Chris Dodd, congress doubled down on the risk by easing capital limits and allowing them to hold just 2.5% of capital to back their investments vs. 10% for banks. Since they could borrow at lower rates than banks their enterprises boomed. With incentives in place, banks poured billions in loans into poor communities, often 'no doc', 'no income', requiring no money down and no verification of income. Worse still was the cronyism: Fannie and Freddie became home to out-of work-politicians, mostly Clinton Democrats. 384 politicians got big campaign donations from Fannie and Freddie. Over $200 million had been spent on lobbying and political activities. During the 1990's Fannie and Freddie enjoyed a subsidy of as musch as $182 Billion,most of it going to principals and shareholders, not poor borrowers as claimed. Did it work? Minorities made up 49% of the 12.5 million new homeowners but many of those loans have gone bad and the minority homeownership rates are shrinking fast. 1999: New Treasury Secretary, Lawrence Summers, became alarmed at Fannie and Freddie's excesses. Congress held hearings the ensuing year but nothing was done because Fannie and Freddie had donated millions to key congressmen and radical groups, ensuring no meaningful changes would take place. 'We manage our political risk with the same intensity that we manage our credit and interest rate risks,' Fannie CEO Franklin Raines, a former Clinton official and current Barack Obama advisor, bragged to investors in 1999. 2000: Secretary Summers sent Undersecretary Gary Gensler to Congress seeking an end to the 'special status'. Democrats raised a ruckus as did Fannie and Freddie, headed by politically connected CEO's who knew how to reward and punish. 'We think that the statements evidence a contempt for the nation's housing and mortgage markets' Freddie spokesperson Sharon McHale said. It was the last chance during the Clinton era for reform. 2001: Republicans try repeatedly to bring fiscal sanity to Fannie and Freddie but Democrats blocked any attempt at reform; especially Rep. Barney Frank and Sen.Chris Dodd who now run key banking committees and were huge beneficiaries of campaign contributions from the mortgage giants. 2003: Bush proposes what the NY Times called 'the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago'. Even after discovering a scheme by Fannie and Freddie to overstate earnings by $10.6 billion to boost their bonuses, the Democrats killed reform. 2005: Then Fed chairman Alan Greenspan warns Congress: 'We are placing the total financial system at substantial risk'. Sen. McCain, with two others, sponsored a Fannie/Freddie reform bill and said, 'If congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system and the economy as a whole'. Sen. Harry Reid accused the GOP ;of trying to 'cripple the ability of Fannie and Freddie to carry out their mission of expanding homeownership' The bill went nowhere. 2007: By now Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee over HALF of the $12 trillion US mortgage market. The mortgage giants, whose executive suites were top-heavy with former Democratic officials, had been working with Wall St. to repackage the bad loans and sell them to investors. As the housing market fell in '07, subprime mortgage portfolios suffered major losses. The crisis was on, though it was 15 years in the making. 2008: McCain has repeatedly called for reforming the behemoths, Bush urged reform 17 times. Still the media have repeated Democrats' talking points about this being a 'Republican' disaster. A few Republicans are complicit but Fannie and Freddie were created by Democrats, regulated by Democrats, largely run by Democrats and protected by Democrats. That's why taxpayers are now being asked for $700 billion!! If you doubt any of this, just click the links below and listen to your lawmakers own words. They are condeming! [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68D9XrqyrWo&feature=related]YouTube - Fannie & Freddie: The Real Story Behind The Economic Crisis[/ame]# http://www.youtube...com/watch?v=pIgqfM5C8lY# [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9juJr8CSY4&feature=related]YouTube - How democrats lied to America, while using community reinvestment act and acorn to destroy the American financial system.[/ame]# Postscript: ACORN is one of the principle beneficiaries of Fannie/ Freddie's slush funds. They are currently under indictment or investigation in many states. Barack Obama served as their legal counsel, defending their activities for several years. Please share this with everyone you know. Send it. Print it. Talk about it. America needs to know!!!

Overweight Shortens US Citizen's Lifespan and Costs Society Billions What many Americans eat and how little they exercise could wind up costing them – and American taxpayers – some serious money. Moreover, the overweight and obese may lose months from their lifespans.26-10-2007 Health care analysts predict an epidemic of weight-related diseases, as more baby boomers become senior citizens. A new study warns that the cost of treating such diseases through publicly funded programs such as Medicare and Medicaid could increase significantly. “The changes in expenditures will be substantial,” said lead study author Zhou Yang, Ph.D. “Based on my current research, an elderly person who is overweight at 65 may spend $16,000 more and the obese person may spend $26,000 more than those who are a normal weight at age 65.” Given that 35 percent of the adults in the United States are overweight and another 30 percent are obese, the total extra cost of treating them could jump to hundreds of billions of dollars as they age, according to the study in the online issue of the journal Health Services Research. The study shows a direct relationship between body weight and cardiovascular disease, respiratory system disease, most forms of cancer and diabetes. Treatment costs were 6 percent higher in overweight men and 12.5 percent higher in obese men, while overweight women spent 10.7 percent more and obese women spent 16.8 percent more than normal-weight peers. Life expectancy for a man of normal weight is 76.1 years; for an overweight man it’s 75.9 and for an obese man, it’s 74.2. For a woman of normal weight, life expectancy is 74 years; for an overweight woman it’s 72.7 and for an obese woman it’s 71.6. To minimize additional financial burdens, prevention is critical, said Yang, an assistant professor at the College of Public Health and Health Professions, University of Florida. “We must do a better job of informing the general public about the health risks associated with obesity and promote a healthy lifestyle.” According to Nancy Wellman, Ph.D., a registered dietitian and director of the National Resource Center on Nutrition, Physical Activity and Aging at Florida International University, the key to lowering these health risks is universal access to quality nutrition information. “Everyone should be able to check with a registered dietitian about diet and health lifestyle choices in order to prevent the worsening epidemic of obesity,” Wellman said. “We give a lot of lip service to prevention, but are not willing to pay much [even] when such a payoff can be huge.” Health Services Research is the official journal of AcademyHealth and is published by Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the Health Research and Educational Trust. HSR is available online at http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/loi/hesr. Yang Z, Hall AG. The financial burdens of overweight and obesity among elderly Americans: the dynamics of weight, longevity, and health care cost. Health Services Research online, 2007. Source: Newswise Source: Health Behavior News Service It seems like you have similar issues as the UKLinks Buddy of the Week the kitten Website produced & maintained by USP Networks - All materials are Copyright 2006 © their respective owners - Terms & Conditions |

Since I haven't shared my decision to get banded with Facebook, I will do my status update here. Had my two week post op today. Got my stitches out, lost 19 lbs since surgery (12/21/12) and have my first fill scheduled for 2/1. My appetite is finally coming back but have been using MFP to track (great app!!) - okayed for mushies too. Hope to keep up this positive start til hit the green zone. Happy weekend all!

Hi all I started my 6 months pre op diet on the 1st of this month so I am looking at having the gastric bypass in or around March time I think all being well is anybody able to explain the whole process please on what should happen from now and my surgery please? And also if any one is able to give me any advice or helping tips for the stage I'm at would also be very very helpful I am currently weighing in at 19 stone and feel so miserable so really hoping all goes well for me on this chance to being slim & healthy. Thanks in advance to anyone kind enough to leave me a reply xx