Dr. Gerald Kirshenbaum - Considering Dr. Kirshenbaum

[PrtyAntOvrYt 6]

Yeah, I think my chronic dieting has really messed with my metabolism. I worry about the same thing with maintenance. I'm hoping this WOE I'm doing will help rev up my metabolism a bit. I think on the "carb up" days you end up with more calories, so maybe that will help.

I know my years of fasting and not eating for days really messed up my metabolism. It slowed it way down, I gained more and more weight and became more and more sedentary. It was a downward cycle that lead me to a life of Morbid Obesity.

[jmegirl 2]

I remember reading a month ago about one of us possibly having a leak, like Dr. K had punctured the tubing when trying to do a fill once. Was it Deb (Tally)? Whoever it was, I've been thinking about her and wondering what's been happening with all of that. I don't recall reading about a resolution on here. Someone clue me in!!!

PS - The scale is hardly moving, but I'm really feeling a difference this week ladies. I almost feel...sexy. :laugh: I've got great restriction from this last fill and I'm eating less and feeling satisfied longer, and gosh, I'm just in such a good mood!!! :ohmy: And it's TOM this week, so the fact that I've lost 1/2lb since Sunday is just un-freaking-believable! Where's the dancing-in-my-chair smiley when you need it??? :wink2:

[Tally 0]

I remember reading a month ago about one of us possibly having a leak, like Dr. K had punctured the tubing when trying to do a fill once. Was it Deb (Tally)? Whoever it was, I've been thinking about her and wondering what's been happening with all of that. I don't recall reading about a resolution on here. Someone clue me in!!!

PS - The scale is hardly moving, but I'm really feeling a difference this week ladies. I almost feel...sexy. :laugh: I've got great restriction from this last fill and I'm eating less and feeling satisfied longer, and gosh, I'm just in such a good mood!!! :ohmy: And it's TOM this week, so the fact that I've lost 1/2lb since Sunday is just un-freaking-believable! Where's the dancing-in-my-chair smiley when you need it??? :wink2:

Yup, it was me. I don't think I can possibly have a leak as I am still resticted from that fill in November. Dr. K's says we got very lucky! I cancelled my January fill date and I am probably going to cancel my Feb. date as well. I am losing slowly but that is the way it is supposed to be right? Thanks for thinking of me :thumbup:

[PrtyAntOvrYt 6]

I remember reading a month ago about one of us possibly having a leak, like Dr. K had punctured the tubing when trying to do a fill once. Was it Deb (Tally)? Whoever it was, I've been thinking about her and wondering what's been happening with all of that. I don't recall reading about a resolution on here. Someone clue me in!!!

PS - The scale is hardly moving, but I'm really feeling a difference this week ladies. I almost feel...sexy. :laugh: I've got great restriction from this last fill and I'm eating less and feeling satisfied longer, and gosh, I'm just in such a good mood!!! :ohmy: And it's TOM this week, so the fact that I've lost 1/2lb since Sunday is just un-freaking-believable! Where's the dancing-in-my-chair smiley when you need it??? :wink2:

The feeling sexy part is great! Isn't it?

I find that I feel ultra sexy after I've worked out!

Unfortunately, I'm alone right now, so feeling ultra sexy isn't always that enjoyable! OR is it?

[PrtyAntOvrYt 6]

Yup, it was me. I don't think I can possibly have a leak as I am still resticted from that fill in November. Dr. K's says we got very lucky! I cancelled my January fill date and I am probably going to cancel my Feb. date as well. I am losing slowly but that is the way it is supposed to be right? Thanks for thinking of me :laugh:

That's great Tally!!! You guys did get very lucky AND I am very glad to hear it!

Has anyone heard how Adorkable is doing? She possibly had a leak too.

[Tally 0]

Hi Bella!

I totally agree with Jaime! You have to really get on top of the smaller bites and appropriate band choices of food. Not all foods should be eaten with the band, I believe. If you're getting stuck, you're truly not prepared for another fill. It will just make the stuck episodes worse. Remember it's vomiting that causes the most band problems down the road.

If you have good restriction, you're not supposed to be vomiting and PB'g but rather you're supposed to have good satiety. As difficult as it is, Pea Sized bites is what we are supposed to be eating. Pea Sized bites that we chew and chew and chew are optimum.

I would suggest, really monitoring your bite sizes and chewing habits. Measure, take your tiny bites and then see how long it takes you to get hungry. IF you get stuck or vomit with a meal, that's not a true meal that can honestly be used to see how long you're satiated. Does that make sense? If you eat your 1 to 1 1/2 cup of food and are good for 4 hours, then you don't need a fill. But that's consuming your 1 1/2 cup of food (solid protein), no vomit or PB'g, no drinking for 1 hour and then it's time to see how long you're satiated. Feeling full isn't the purpose of the band. It's not good for your band to feel full, we are supposed to just not feel hungry. If you're feeling full, you're packing your pouch and can have a stretched stomach, which would require a total unfill and rest period. We're supposed to eat until we aren't hungry anymore and satisfied, not full.

Think of this - 0 is starving 10 is so full you want to throw up (Thanksgiving full feeling) 5 is not hungry, not full feeling. You should be at a 5 or maybe 6. Seriously being full is not good for your band.

I have to say I have only felt full once since being banded. It was about a week after banding when I drank an entire Low Carb Slim fast drink. IT felt horrible. It doesn't feel the same as it did preband.

What does everyone else think?

I was happy to read this response. Feeling full is most definitely not the same (for me) as pre-banded life. I always wonder if I should be feeling "full" but I'm not. The small bites are still a problem for me but I know when I take the small bites and chew like I should, I eat less and get "full" quicker.

Deb

[Tally 0]

That's great Tally!!! You guys did get very lucky AND I am very glad to hear it!

Has anyone heard how Adorkable is doing? She possibly had a leak too.

Thanks Dee. It is nice to have the band working and feeling restriction. I was wondering how Adorkable was doing as well. The last thing I remembered was that she did find out she had a leak.

[Lap_dancer 8]

Yeah, I think my chronic dieting has really messed with my metabolism. I worry about the same thing with maintenance. I'm hoping this WOE I'm doing will help rev up my metabolism a bit. I think on the "carb up" days you end up with more calories, so maybe that will help.

Congratulations to us all for having a stellar first week.

Mini this is me. I'm quite certain my metabolism is skewed.

Something I want to share because I just came from the doctor I am seeing for the pain.

The pain meds I began on 12/31 caused horrid Constipation. Today, the doctor I saw was quite familiar with gastric patients. ( We are becoming more and more the norm than a rarity ). She explained that with the restriction, she used the word 'restructuring' of our digestive system, everything we intake digests differently. She referred to the meds I was on. I may take one medication that is LA..long acting but it may take longer to enter my system because it takes longer to digest. Same thing with food. She said specific foods may digest differently for some than it does for others. Some may get 'dumping' until their body acclamates but each person is different, each person's body takes a different amount of time to adjust, accept, react..whatever.

The same with losing weight.

She emphasised the need to eat. I am horrid to skip meals. She said it was not at all good for my body as a whole to skip meals. Paramount was Protein. If you can't eat that much make sure you do eat Protein. She recommended yogurt for Breakfast with steel ground oats sprinkled on top. It's quick, it's got protein, Fiber and dairy.

The bad news I got was that my entire spine is diseased. There are three points where it is especially damaged. So core building is my number one focus on exercise. The doctor recommended Tai Chi. She said it is good at core buidling, non strenuous on the joins and good for the mental health side. She said movement of any kind, walk ten minutes but do something atleast twice a week if you are a a non exercising person, and increase easily, five minutes more, ten minutes more until you are working out five days a week 30 minutes to one hour.

I'm full of information and feeling very good today. I did get to fix the problem I was having and feeling better now.

I am awful to self diagnose. I promised her I would CALL THE DOCTOR should anything go amiss.

That's my gift to you all today. If you do not feel well, feel that something is wrong, call the doctor.

Again, congratulations to everyone for a great arm in arm commitment to our Valentine's Day Challenge:thumbup::laugh:

[PrtyAntOvrYt 6]

Congratulations to us all for having a stellar first week.

Mini this is me. I'm quite certain my metabolism is skewed.

Something I want to share because I just came from the doctor I am seeing for the pain.

The pain meds I began on 12/31 caused horrid Constipation. Today, the doctor I saw was quite familiar with gastric patients. ( We are becoming more and more the norm than a rarity ). She explained that with the restriction, she used the word 'restructuring' of our digestive system, everything we intake digests differently. She referred to the meds I was on. I may take one medication that is LA..long acting but it may take longer to enter my system because it takes longer to digest. Same thing with food. She said specific foods may digest differently for some than it does for others. Some may get 'dumping' until their body acclamates but each person is different, each person's body takes a different amount of time to adjust, accept, react..whatever.

The same with losing weight.

She emphasised the need to eat. I am horrid to skip meals. She said it was not at all good for my body as a whole to skip meals. Paramount was Protein. If you can't eat that much make sure you do eat Protein. She recommended yogurt for Breakfast with steel ground oats sprinkled on top. It's quick, it's got protein, Fiber and dairy.

The bad news I got was that my entire spine is diseased. There are three points where it is especially damaged. So core building is my number one focus on exercise. The doctor recommended Tai Chi. She said it is good at core buidling, non strenuous on the joins and good for the mental health side. She said movement of any kind, walk ten minutes but do something atleast twice a week if you are a a non exercising person, and increase easily, five minutes more, ten minutes more until you are working out five days a week 30 minutes to one hour.

I'm full of information and feeling very good today. I did get to fix the problem I was having and feeling better now.

I am awful to self diagnose. I promised her I would CALL THE DOCTOR should anything go amiss.

That's my gift to you all today. If you do not feel well, feel that something is wrong, call the doctor.

Again, congratulations to everyone for a great arm in arm commitment to our Valentine's Day Challenge:thumbup::laugh:

Great Advice Patty!

I totally agree with not skipping meals. It seems now that I have the band, I do not skip meals unless I'm at work and we are in an urgent situation. Even if I can't eat a meal, I'll have a piece of string cheese or a tbsp of Peanut Butter.

I love my steel cut oats. I bought some dried fruit (cranberries, blueberries, cherries and apricots) yesterday to put in the crock pot at night with my oats. I love 'em. I then put walnuts and pecans over the top with a little soy milk. Yum!

Right now, I'm doing the Carb Cycling because I need to get my mind back on track. When I do get off track, the low carbs get me strict and doing what I need to do. It destroys my cravings and then I'm able to re-introduce whole grains and fruits and veggies back into my diet.

I love that the band is always ready and willing to help me!

I hope the Tai Chi helps your core strength so that you can get through these tough times! Any word on getting your pannus removed? I know after work each day, I hurt so much because of my huge pannus!

[KayleighsMommy 16]

So do any of the rest of you keep track of your calories? I stay between 800 and 1000 pretty consistently. But I was just reading some website that said for women to lose weight they should eat 8 times their body weight, which would be about 1400 calories for me. I am pretty darned certain that I would gain weight on 1400 calories a day.

Do I just have the world's slowest metabolism? Or is everybody eating fewer than 1000 calories a day?

Wow!!!! That would have me eating almost 2300 calories a day!! I sure wouldn't lose anything if I ate 8 times my body weight in cals

[minidriver 0]

Hmmm, so maybe people who are only 20 or 30 lbs overweight and haven't been chronic dieters are able to lose weight eating like that. I mean, my basal metabolism rate is supposedly 1600 calories a day or something. I would totally gain weight if I ate that much. There's no way my body burns 1600 calories on it's own.

I just get tired of people saying that weight loss is simple . . . eat fewer calories than you expend. Well, for those of us who apparently expend VERY LITTLE to survive, that's easier said than done.

[PrtyAntOvrYt 6]

Hmmm, so maybe people who are only 20 or 30 lbs overweight and haven't been chronic dieters are able to lose weight eating like that. I mean, my basal metabolism rate is supposedly 1600 calories a day or something. I would totally gain weight if I ate that much. There's no way my body burns 1600 calories on it's own.

I just get tired of people saying that weight loss is simple . . . eat fewer calories than you expend. Well, for those of us who apparently expend VERY LITTLE to survive, that's easier said than done.

I get very tired of it too Mini!

The other day I was looking at before and after pics from another site. I came across an absolutely amazing one. The woman had lost over 200lbs. She went from looking very old and very bad to looking like Miss Fitness America! Someone I was with said, "why would anyone do that to themselves?" I'm not sure why that comment bothered me so much, but it did. Why? Sure this woman wanted to look old and haggered. She wanted to ache from every joint with every movement. She wanted to be laughed at and spit on! NOT! We all make decisions in our lives that we regret. Overeating is just one of those decisions that I made! Sometimes, I hate myself for being obese. I look at my body with all of the excess skin and wonder how uglier I'll be after I reach goal. And seriously no plastic surgery is ever going to make me look like I could have IF I had never gained this much weight. Did I do it on purpose? NO! Does a smoker think each and everytime they smoke what they are doing to their body? Does someone who engages in unprotected random sex partners think of their risks each and every time? Do we think about our risky behaviors? I didn't. I lived my life. I stuffed my emotions and I ate. I can't ever remember eating an entire pint of ice cream or a whole loaf of bread or a pound of bacon. I didn't eat like that. I would fast days on end - then I'd eat a larger sized meal because my body was starving. I'd work three nights in a row and not eat for 20 hours or more and then eat at 2am hoping it would help me stay awake. Bad decisions made over and over again ruined my metabolism. As the scale went up, my activity decreased and my self esteem bottomed out. Even at a decent weight, I watched my marriage hit the rocks and thought, "how ugly am I?" Then I'd do some bizzarre - "drink your meals for a week diet" -- lose some weight only to gain what I lost and more! The self loathing increased and I felt uglier and more like a failure!

I'm not making excuses, but losing weight is not that easy. It's the toughest thing I've ever done AND believe me, I have done some tough things in my life. Living in a bad marriage for 22 years wasn't easy. Just getting up and getting dressed and going to work at over 450lbs wasn't easy! BUT struggling with trying to figure out the key to lose this weight has really been difficult. Keeping my calories, my carbs, my Proteins, my fats, my working out - in line so that the scale moves has been a task that has kept me obsessed for almost a year!

edit: Sorry, it's just been one of those weeks! Hormones have gotten the best of me!!!

Edited January 14, 2009 by PrtyAntOvrYt

[minidriver 0]

edit: Sorry, it's just been one of those weeks! Hormones have gotten the best of me!!!

Don't apologize. This is a tough tough thing. Our weight impacts every single aspect of our lives, including our work, our relationships, our health (of course), our self-esteem, our interaction with the physical world, and our interactions with every single person we meet. AND we are judged at every turn, discriminated against, and have traditionally been left behind when it comes to medical research. It's only been recently that science has moved past the "just eat less" mentality to focus on the unique characteristics of obese individuals.

As for all your bad choices . . . the thing you need to remember is that plenty of other people could have made those same choices and NOT ended up obese. Plenty of skinny folks make ABYSMAL food/eating choices. YOUR body and genes and brain are different though, so your choices lead to much different outcomes than someone else. So, yes, our choices played a role. But our physiology played (in my opinion) a much bigger role.

Okay, on a different note. When you posted about steel-cut oats yesterday, it made me really miss them. Last time I tried to eat them it just really raised my blood sugar. I'm on a "carb up" day today so I decided to try again. I've read about adding Protein Powder to your oatmeal but I didn't have any, so I cooked it with my Slimfast vanilla Protein Shake. It's really really good! Kinda' sweet, but not overly. I think this is gonna be a mainstay of my carb up days. I'll check my blood sugar later and make sure it's okay, of course.

[jmegirl 2]

Today is my 10wk bandiversary. As of today, I've lost about 16lbs. (15.6 - ok we're just gonna round up, hehe). That's an average of 1.6lbs per week, which is spot-on with what they said I should lose....1-2lbs per week.

YAY! I've never been SO happy to be AVERAGE in my life!

I think today was a good wake-up call for me. I went to see a doctor about this pesky cold. Yes ladies, the cold that I've had off and on since the week after surgery. While writing out my script, he asked how much I'd lost. I told him 16lbs and he asked how long since surgery, so I counted back...10wks today. That's when it hit me, like a sudden bulb over my head - I'm actually losing at the average speed you're supposed to lose. I've been feeling like a failure these last few weeks but now that I think about it, I'm doing pretty good!!! The doctor said so himself. 16lbs in just over 2mos is a really good pace. Much better pace than the fast drop that the Bypass patients have. Much healthier, he says.

Gosh, today is a good day!!!

[minidriver 0]

Today is my 10wk bandiversary. As of today, I've lost about 16lbs. (15.6 - ok we're just gonna round up, hehe). That's an average of 1.6lbs per week, which is spot-on with what they said I should lose....1-2lbs per week.

YAY! I've never been SO happy to be AVERAGE in my life!

I think today was a good wake-up call for me. I went to see a doctor about this pesky cold. Yes ladies, the cold that I've had off and on since the week after surgery. While writing out my script, he asked how much I'd lost. I told him 16lbs and he asked how long since surgery, so I counted back...10wks today. That's when it hit me, like a sudden bulb over my head - I'm actually losing at the average speed you're supposed to lose. I've been feeling like a failure these last few weeks but now that I think about it, I'm doing pretty good!!! The doctor said so himself. 16lbs in just over 2mos is a really good pace. Much better pace than the fast drop that the Bypass patients have. Much healthier, he says.

Gosh, today is a good day!!!

Jaime, that's awesome. Good for you and happy bandiversary. I agree about the slower weight loss being healthier. Yeah, I complain about not losing faster and I REALLY have been annoyed by the fact that NOBODY NOTICES that I'm losing weight. On the other hand, my skin isn't sagging too bad, and I haven't lost too much hair, etc.

Well, actually somebody did notice! Yesterday I ran into a student that I haven't seen for 2 years. She almost didn't recognize me. She just kept saying "OMG! How much weight have you lost?" That made me feel good.

I guess the change is just so gradual that the people who see you every day just can't see it. Including ourselves.