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Everyone is different I lost 10 lbs.

I totalling agree with you. I read these post where people say they have only lost 50 pounds in 2 or even three month since their surgery. They complain of being frustrated that the numbers are not greater. I am 27 days out and have lost 20 pounds since surgery date. Since my daughter was born almost 27 years ago I have been trying to lose weight. The most I've lost is 9 pounds and promptly gained all back. I told my doctor I hope to lose at least 10 pounds a month. I hope I do that, but I'll take 5 a month. Either way it will be 100% better than what I have tried to accomplish over the past 27 years. Heck, I'll take any downward movement of the scale.

10 days on CLEAR liquids?? Wow, that's not strict, that's Draconian! YOU are a rock star if you can make it through that.....that's essentially NO nutrition for 10 days? Are you feeling ok? I'm weak and tired on just Protein shakes. Now I feel like a wimp!!!! Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

I am the plateau queen. Hang in there, it will start up again. I lost 19 pounds in 10 days and then nothing again for about six weeks. It's tough to "wait" but eventually everything kicks in.

Yep, lesson learned, right? Bread took me forever and I still only eat a tiny bit of it when I do have some. Pasta and rice are my real no-nos, even 19 months out. I can only eat a few bites and I swear they swell in my stomach and cause me discomfort every stinking time. I always overindulge, forgetting that my limit on these foods is only a Tbs. or two, not half a cup. Guidelines are there for a reason, cheater cheater! No, it won't be this way forever. Eventually you'll be able to eat pretty much whatever you want but not in nearly the quantities you used to eat. Once you heal, it's a different story. I'm in the minority but I advocate eating a normal diet without restricting carbs or sugar down to Atkins levels. I suggest if you wish to eat this way to accept that 1) you'll have slower loss and 2) you'll have to track your intake religiously so you don't exceed your nutritional guidelines. I think too many of us approach the sleeve like a diet and get burned out. Restricting our diet drastically builds the expectation that we'll see a drop on the scale every single day. Not so - this is a lifestyle change. You removed most of your stomach. Be responsible and healthy and you'll reach your goals. But for now? Heal! Follow those guidelines and drink as much liquid as you can each day. ~Cheri

My psych eval was about 10 minutes long. I couldn't believe it. He asked me things like "have you ever hallucinated or had delusions?" I don't know if it was like this because I'm a psych nurse, or they are all like that at this place. Maybe it was because I emailed the vice president of surgery in the corporation and let him know that I had been getting the run around from the bariatric center for 3 months, so they had already made up their mind ahead of time.

Hi Everyone!! I am so glad to be here and start this process. This site is so informative and has been so helpful already. I just recently made the decision to have the lap band procedure after debating for the last two years. I am so happy that I have made the decision. I feel like there is light at the end of this tunnell for me.I just started the process, I got the referral from my family dr to go see the bariatric dr - that came highly recommended so I think I made a good choice and he is in my insurance plan. I had to fill out a complete questionair from the bariatric dr and it took a while and and it really confirmed for me that I am making the right choice for me and my life.I have lost and gained 100lbs on my own a two times in my life. I am 34 years old. I have gained and lost the same 20lbs more times then i can remember....I hope to put an end to the roller coster.I know I am an emotional eater and I am also full blooded italian - so my family eats to celebrate everything - even just what day of the week it is....lolI am 248 pounds and about 5ft 5inc tall. Most of my life my weight was 180 - I spent my twenties at 145 for about 10 years....I spend a majority of the time caring for my husband over the last 10 years who was ill, but is on the road to a full recovery!!! So now it is time to take care of me and I am happy to be able to do that...I am so looking forward to this. I wanted to find out if anyone was able to tell me how the insurance part of this works. I am hopping it is covered but not sure how long the approval process takes? Does the bariatric doctor work on getting everything approved? I figure it will be a 6 months process from beginning to surgery? But not sure....Any help would be greatly appreciated.Looking forward to hearing about everyone and their success and struggles and making new friends.Jackie

Hello all, This is my first time here. I am 45 y/o and retired military. My lap band is scheduled for 10/9. I am excited to get this jumpstart to better health. Looking forward to learning from everyone. - Steve -

10 pounds is what i have lost since one week before surgery...So you are way ahead of me! thats awesome. Are you still on liquids? My dr allows all soups obviously strained from the begining..as long as it can be sipped he said anything was fine including creamy soups. So now im wondering if thats whats holding me back from dropping weight. But seriously though, i take a few sips and im full, maybe all day long combined I have one large bowl of soup, you would think the weight would be just melting off with a bowl of soup a day. We shall see. Thanks

Hi i got my surgery on 28/01 ( i am from belgium so sorry for my englisch????) i didn't lost a lot because i drink to little. Do you take vitamines?

Once you get your Doctor issues straight may I suggest you ask them about a CT Scan when you said Lower left Pain in the pelvic region It struck a cord with me as I went through the same symptoms, gas, bloating, constipation and then had 2 days of the pain L/L pelvic region saw my Internist and he said Diverticulitis. I had 2 episodes of severe sharp pain, then smaller less frequent episodes. They did a Ct Scan of the abdomen/Pelvis, 10 days of Flagyl and I'm scheduled Monday for a Colonoscopy to rule out any other problems. Hope your feeling better soon!!

Im a may 3rd sleeve patient. Loving the feeling of getting better everyday. Im still having low blood pressure, doctor tells me to drink water. Im drinking about 3 1/2 to 4 bottles a day of water a day. Today was my last of the 10 day blot clot shots on my belly so excited.

I have been allowed mushied since day 10. However, I have restriction with no fill yet and can only eat certain things and not very much. I don't think you hurt yourself but you should try to follow your Dr.s guidelines. Before you know it you will be allowed real food. Stay strong.

I'm really confused at the variations in the length of time different doctors are requiring for each stage as well. My surgeon adheres to a 10-day per stage plan. I'm doing everything I can to figure out how I can rationalize shortening this stage 1. Today is day 4 for me, and I'm having a horrendous struggle with getting enough clear liquid protein in. I may manage 45 gr. today if I'm lucky. Once I get to the full liquids stage, I'm not concerned, as there are several ways I know I can get in the protein without the taste problems. It's hard to imagine struggling with this all day long for 6 more days. Any comments?

I am 5 weeks post op and i just got my second fill. This seems a little fast to me, but my doc said get you butt isn here if you can eat more than a cup and can not go 4 hours between meals. Well, I have wanted to eat everything in site and everything goes down just fine. So now I am up to 4 cc's. Just wondering how many cc's everyone else has and when they started to really feel restriciton. I h ave a 10 cc band. Have a great Christmas everyone.

I am 10 days post-op & Unjury whey and soy protein powder makes me extremely nauseated. Thought it was the whey but soy did the same today. Now I'm at a loss to why.

Hello... My pre-op diet consists of three Meal Replacements and one meal of lean protein/veg....all of which should not go over 1,000 calories a day. I've been doing it since 10/14...and it's been a real biatch, but worth it since I've been losing weight. I'll find out tomorrow if UHC has approved my surgery....I'm hoping they do, because I really don't want to have to do this pre-op diet twice.

Alexandra, I too was that way about six weeks after surgery. I however waited until I was 10 weeks post op to have a fill. I have the 10cm band and my first fill was 4cc. I always felt like I was eating too much pre fill and was ( I guess) expecting some kind of miracle after my first fill. Well, that miracle didn't happen! About two weeks after my first fill it was as if I had not been filled at all. I am not trying to be negative but please don't expect it to fix it all. I had my fill on June 11th and by the end of June was right back to eating way too much. I was so depressed that I just continued to eat (and it sure wasn't protein). I knew I wasn't eating no where near what I had pre band but it was still way too much and I couldn't seem to stop. Sometimes it takes more than one fill to really get the ball rolling. I only lost weight for three weeks after my first fill and I fought very hard after gaining about 12lbs to get it back off. I have since had another fill and am happy to say that I have dropped another 6lbs since then. I have perfect restriction (for now). This fill is quite different from the first in that I know I cannot push it to the limits as I could after the first one. I guess somewhere in all this rambling I just wanted to say to not expect your first fill to do the trick. Good luck and I hope all goes well.

Recipe Summary Cook Time: 1 hour Yield: 8 to 10 servings 1 3/4 cups sugar 1 tablespoon flour 4 eggs 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened 1 cup buttermilk 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lime juice 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract 1 tablespoon ground nutmeg Pie Crust, recipe follows Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In metal bowl, combine sugar and flour. In another bowl, lightly beat the eggs and add them to the sugar mixture, combining well. Blend the butter into the mixture using the back of a spoon. Add the buttermilk and blend with a whisk. If the butter has not incorporated by this step set the bowl over a pan of simmering Water to help soften the butter. Add the lime juice, vanilla and nutmeg. Blend well. Slowly pour the custard filling into the pie crust. Set the pie on a baking sheet and place it in the oven for 1 hour. Remove pie and let it cool before cutting. Pie Crust: 1 cup unsalted butter 1 cup solid vegetable shortening 4 cups cake flour 2 cups all-purpose flour 1/2 cup sugar 3 teaspoons Kosher salt Combine the butter, shortening, 2 cups of the cake flour, and 1 cup of the all-purpose flour. Blend together. Stop mixer, scrape the sides and add remaining 2 cups of cake flour and remaining 1 cup of all-purpose flour. Blend to combine completely. Mix sugar and salt into 1/4 cup of the water and add it to the flour mixture. Blend briefly and add the remaining water if needed. The dough should not be overworked and should make a solid piece when held in your hand. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured smooth surface and knead it several times. Divide the dough into portions and flatten it. Wrap unused dough in plastic. Roll out the dough to fit a 9-inch pie pan. Reserve any unused dough in the freezer for another use. Preheat oven to 475 degrees F. Prick bottom and sides of pastry with fork. Bake 12 minutes or until light brown. Cool on wire rack. Does this sound like your recipe?????

We are all so different when it comes to sizes. I told this " story " on another thread but I think it is appropriate here. I have a friend who wears a size 8. She looks chubby and her rolls really show through her clothes. Don't get me wrong, she looks good and I am envious. However, I also have a friend that wears a 10/12 and looks fantastic. She looks slim and lean and everything is where it should be. So, I guess it shouldn't matter what the scale says or what the size on the tag says. Believe me, I know thats harder said than done. I just got back from Kohls a little bit ago. I tried on several pair of pants. Some size 18's weren't even close to buttoning and other styles/brands zipped up, no problem. Go figure!

The sizes are dropping so much faster for me now, in the smaller sizes, then they were before. It took FOREVER for me to get to an 18. I think I was 210 pounds and still an 18. But now it's like every 10-15 pounds I drop a size. I went from a 16 to a 14 in one month, and now the 14's are getting pretty loose. I'll probably be a 12 in mid-January. So... my point is that in the beginning, even for awhile, your size doesn't seem to change a ton. People don't even notice the weight loss sometimes, too. But when you get down there, things change rapidly. My face shape changed from round to heart-shaped in like 2 months. People don't recognize me... people I know well but haven't seen for awhile. It will happen for you, just keep on it!

If you are only taking BC to regulate periods I have a healthy and successful alternative (at least for me). There's a product called Fem20 at www.Advocare.com that regulated my period naturally in about 2 months. Be careful though, I got pregnant after 5 months on this product (after being married for 10 years and off BC for 7) and got pregnant again the last time I took it after 2 months. Each time I had lost over 50 pounds prior to. The last time is right now. It's not marketed to get women pregnant. I took it because it was supposed to regulate hormones, especially for pms and bad periods. It just regulated me to pregnancy. Just an idea. By the way, the product is 100% guaranteed with no time limits. It's a very good nutrition company.

I am supposed to have one PCP but finding one taking patients in this area is becoming impossible. More and more doctors refuse to take Medicaid because it sometimes takes a year to get paid from them. And this isn’t one or two situations either. This is been over 5+ years with 6 different doctors. I live a 45 minute drive away from the edge of the capitol city of my state. This is NOT the boonies by any means. GM's major auto plants went under and this whole area is dying. I never said anything about universal healthcare. I'm all for that. At least in a universal healthcare system the doctor’s office, wouldn't triple book appointments constantly. (and yes my office does this AND takes walk ins I was told by the secretary they triple book ALL appointments so if even half the people show they can get 3-4 hours behind) In universal healthcare this wouldn’t be an issue because they would be getting a fixed salary. And in some countries get paid BETTER for being proactive and solving problems early. My time is valuable also and I don’t see any $$ from the doctor being 3 hours late. And follow up in a normal manner is not possible with this group. As If you call the office you get a complex automated answering system that makes it VERY clear they do NOT do any kind of phone business with patients AT ALL. Except make/cancel appointments. Make an appointment. If you have a prescription problem they will only deal with the pharmacy direct. And even then your lucky If the pharmacy gets any where. My pharmacist has had to repeatedly call them for 3-4 days in a row to get prescription mess ups fixed on more then one occasion. Anyhow I can't remember exactly how many times I've had the doc get up and walk out saying they would be right back and not come back. Or flat out tell me that they don’t WANT to deal with that right now. I have even gone as far as printing out a list of things so that it wouldn’t get overlooked. I never said it was only Medicaid doctors. And actually this isn't even remotely part of the issue. I got annoyed with having to ask her to speak up and repeat stuff. Not because of the accent because she spoke at a near whisper. She seemed well educated and friendly and that’s what matters to me. I suspect that the reason I haven't heard back on my application/questionnaire for the lap band is ALSO because I'm on Medicaid. I bet if I had normal insurance or was self pay they have gotten back with me in a week or less. Now my kids..TOTALLY different office different story. They have had the same doctor for 13 years now. Since we moved here. And I have NEVER had to wait more then 20 minutes in that office. The staff there is super competent, and timely on more then just appointments. My son (who’s 19 now) had a major problem when he about 11. Vision blackouts and major headaches started suddenly over a weekend. So on Monday I called they got him in as soon as we could drive it. The doc spent well over 45 minutes checking him out and quizzing us about it. Sent us immediately over to hospital for a CAT & MRI and had the results before 4pm that day and had my son scheduled for surgery the NEXT day. With a specialist. Then called me back personally at 9pm that evening to check on him and to make sure he had nothing to eat or drink except the liquid pain medicine he had prescribed. Then showed up after the surgery that evening around 6pm because he was worried and wanted to check on him himself. They had to open him up behind his ear and remove an infection that had grown into a solid mass and had started to spread into the bone of his skull. This Medicaid doctor is in a similar set up the pediatrician and 2 practical nurses run the children’s clinic here. You can call and get same day appointments for sickness. You can call and talk to them over matters if needed. They do referrals and such quickly and timely. Often making the appointments for you themselves then calling you and telling you where/when to be. Heck the 1 of the practical nurses and one nurse even run the office solo on Wednesdays when they are technically closed to handle things. So I know that they aren't all totally mismanaged. And probably aren't this way in other areas. But they are here. Well least the adult ones are. And that’s what ticks me off the most. I don't expect an adult’s doctor’s office to go to the same extents as children’s but they should at least be competent in what they do.

Hello everyone!!! My gosh, I hate when our group is unhappy! It is one of the frustrations of our online friendship (maybe the only one?) when one of you has a problem, needs help, whatever, I cannot just hop in the car and run over to your place to help. I truly wish I could. Betty--I am so glad Alan's tests went well, and hope he is healing well from the angiogram. It is a relief to actually SEE the rest of everything is working, and know they consider it nothing major! I hope the schedule works so he can get it done soon, and have the Spring and Summer to begin walking again, and building up his strength. Rick had his in August, and it was too doggone hot to walk outside some days, and then before we knew it, fall was upon us! I loved being banded in the Spring, it was the perfect time. I think it would be for him as well. I hope your stress levels ease some---I can so remember the fear. ((((Big giant hugs)))) Eficka--The very last thing I said to my former friend was "Friendship requires trust, we have none, so we have no friendship." I see her around, she avoids meeting my eyes. She looks like what she is---an alcoholic. She has several years on your friend--we are 46, but time will do it to her as well. It is a hard life, and one I would think is hard to live as well. My brother had alcohol issues for awhile, and he was horrid to be around. I chose not to be around him often, so why would I choose someone knowing that about them. I am not anti-alcohol. I am anti-abuse. When it causes problems---it IS a problem. You will mourn the friendship---or at least what you thought the friendship was. It is normal for you to be able to think of little else. It IS a major issue in your life right now. While the inside you is not changing as drastically as the outside, it IS changing. You are gaining in self confidence, as you lose in size. It is good. Just as Fiona deserves better, so do you. And here is your ((((big, giant hug)))). Yep Amourette---you deserve better. You could have had much worse, but you deserve better! Your job, makes it such a different possibility! I mean for myself, if I were single, in the rural area I live in, I could go to the next town over, go to bars, or to events, like local rodeos etc. but I would have definite limitations. You have the world at your feet--literally!!!!! You could meet a man in the USA, or one in Italy......oh the possibilities!!! And you like Eficka are changing, your self confidence, although it took a beating this week, Is going to soar! Self confidence attracts people---even male people!!! I am so sorry you are hurting....but better to know now, it is for the best. I send you ((((big, giant hugs ))))too! Julie---I have no doubt Onederland is sitting there waiting for you with open arms! I cannot get there!!! I think my GPS is broken! I think I would have made it, but I am in a place where I am building muscle now. I have dropped from a 16 to a 14 in pants, and my body fat percentage has dropped by over 10 points. Measured on the same machine, at the same time of day. I have gone from being able to do 5 sit ups to doing 2 sets of 20...underneath that layer (and it is a pretty good layer still!!!) of fat, I can feel muscle. I also have a bicep to be proud of!!! Triceps are still hiding under the wing of fat, but I feel them there!!! The biggest change is one only I notice---it is in my lats. I used to have a roll over my bra on the side/back---it is gone. My bra band has dropped another size as well. BUT the scale sits tight, it jumps from 202.5-205---not over, not under!!! I hate to go for another fill, I am in a good place eating wise. I can eat most things, I can likely eat more than is ideal, but it is less than I did by far. I do not want to worry about food. When I am tight, I stress over what will work and what won't. So I want to do this without another fill at this point. I know Spring will help, lots to DO!!! Boo---WOW!!!! 110/51!!!! I thought I was doing good---mine closked in at 118/72. I see I have more work to do!!! You have done such an awesome job!!! Bluehill---how you doing? Hanging in there? How much longer til they think you can get home? Roberta---where ya at? Ok I need to get some things done. My Mom is having knee surgery tomorrow, I am battling with my oldest DD---and feeling like hell for it. It is not starting out a great day.....hope it improves! TTYL, Kat

Molly, that is a great start, and exactly how I started last September when I joined this challenge. Betty, hang in there! We are still thinking about you and Alan. Julie, enjoy your last few days before the surgery. You had the courage to face the band, you can face this, too. Of course, we will be envious of your flat stomach. Bluehill, where are you? How are you? I hope you are healing and not getting too down. You've been through a terrible ordeal. I hope things are going better. Roberta, how are you feeling, now that spring is in the air? Susan, are you up for some exercise? I am just starting to get my strength back after being so sick! I'm supposed to run a 5K in a month, so that is my goal! I doubt I will make the challenge this month. I'm just glad that I can tolerate liquids and that the band didn't slip! If I have another surgery, I want what JULIE is having!!!! TODAY'S EXERCISE: Cross-trainer for 48 minutes at level 10, bike for 10 minutes.