violeteyes37

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I was on another board and ran across the question does lapband work?  This is how I responded to the question...

I have been going thru post all morning reading other peoples experiences with the band and trying to decide if the band works. From everything that I have read I have decided that I cant just expect the band to work, but that I have to make it work. It is not the bands fault if I eat more than I should. It is not the bands fault if I make bad food choices. As has been stated thousands of times before, the band is a tool and the rest is up to you. I was just recently banded and so far have been doing good. I know the day is going to come when I slip and when the scale refuses to move. But I also know that during these times it is going to be up to me to make the right decision to get back on track and to just keep working thru the plateau until my body gives up and decides that shes serious about this this time. So many times before I have given up and made up excuses like maybe Im just meant to be fat. It has been this thought process that has gotten me to the point where I needed to have surgery in the first place. Now that I have had surgery there is noway Im going to fail at this.

Ok time if flying by now. Im almost 2 weeks post op and felling pretty good. I can get up out of bed without much pain but still cant sleep on my stomach yet. Im starting to ease over to my side but it does hurt a little and I feel a fullness in my stomach when I do so. 

I also need to mention that Im starting to get hungry. Im still on full liquids now and about 8oz of a protein drink takes care of it but within a couple of hours I feel hungry again. Im still doing good as far as cheating is concerned. Actually, Im scared of what may happen if I do cheat. I have taken small pinches of meat and chewed on them to get out the flavor but Im scared to swallow it. On June 20 I get to move to pureed foods and cant wait. The good thing is that I have been losing weight. I started this joruney at 254. Lost 11 pounds before surgery and about 9 since. So a total of about 20 pounds so far. Im hoping to get to atleast 220 before I start to plateau but I know that may not happen. My body always lets me lose about 20lbs before it catches onto what Im up to and brings it to a halt. 

Well I have my 2weeks post op appt on Friday. I plan on asking the Dr to go ahead and release me for work. Im starting to get kind of bored just sitting around all day plus on STD I only get 1 week at 100% and than it drops to 66% because of the time frame that I have worked for the company. I cant live on the 100 yet alone the 66 so its time to go back..

Im now 6 days out and feel ok. I did think that I would be doing better by now. In fact, I had planned on going back to work tommorrow, but that is not going to happen. Im so glad that I received a call from the FMLA group at work who informed me that my Dr. had given them a return date of 6/27. I had told them 6/6. I guess I better follow Drs orders(: Actually I dont plan on staying out that long but another week will do me well. When I go to my 2 week apt I will ask him then about going back to work. The bad thing about it is though I can get short term disability they are going to burn my vacation time before that kicks in and at this point I only have 1 week left. I had taken time earlier for appts prior to surgery and also time to be with my daughter as she went thru practice and tryouts to be a high school cheerleader next year when she enters her freshman year. Luckly she did make it, now to figure out how to get to change my off days so that I can go to the games. 

Ok enough rambling. I have been really strong with sticking to my diet. First off I want to lose the weight. Its sad but I know some people who would like to see me fail at this. Im also afraid of the complications that I may cause myself if I do try to eat something that I shouldnt. I havent been keeping my fitday journal as I should have because there was a few days that sitting at the computer just was not an option. Im on full liquids until 6/20 and for the first couple of days didnt even
drink  a couple of oz of water. I know that was not good but the pain medicine made me so sleeply that I couldnt drink because I was always asleep. Im trying to cut down on the meds so that I can stay awake more but thats not working to well either. For instance, yesterday when I woke up I was feeling so good I decided not to take the pain med at all. Bad mistake. By the end of the day I was in pain. So the plan for today is to only take half and see how that works. Also Im going to force the liquids to make sure that Im getting atleast 64 oz with 54grams of protein. Im sure the protein will help with my energy level. By the way I weighed myself. I just couldnt resist it and since the beginning of my preop diet until now I have lost about 17 lbs. I cant believe it..

It is now the day before surgery and Im as cool as a cucumber as the old saying goes. Im not scared, worried, nothing. Im not scheduled until 2 pm so thats going to be a bit ruff sitting around and waiting all day. Plus not being able to have even a cup of coffee when I wake up. My mouth is going to be so dry, but I will deal with it. I just want this to be done so that I can stop wondering how its going to be and know first hand. 

Though I have plenty of time to get things to gather in the morning Im going to do it tonight just to make sure that I dont have to stress about anything. The Dr does require a 1 night stay so I do need to get my robe and personal items together. I cant forget my contact lense case and glasses because soon when I wake up  Im going to need my glasses so that I can see what is going on around me and than put my contacts back in. I wont be seen in my glasses in publc under no circumstances not even after surgery. Thats what I say now, tommorrow will be a different tune. 

Today is clear liquids only and I have been doing really well. I havent cheated not once on my preop so I think that I may have siked my body into doing what its suppose to do. Everytime I start feeling hungre I just drink more water. I will have some broth later but as of right now it hasnt been an issue.  

Well my next post will be as a bandster.

Im officially past one week into the postop diet and have been doing great. I want to say that I dont know where the will power is coming from to stay on this but I do. I have been doing a lot of praying and I believe that my prayers are being answered. I havent even had the desire to cheat on my diet. I have been making sure that I have on hand the things that are allowed and have been eating or  drinkings those things before the hunger has a chance to set in which has helped alot. Plus like I have stated before I took a serious look at what I am about to do and just told myself that if I really wanted this than I would atleast stick to this diet. If I cant make myself do this for 2 weeks how would I make this change for life. And if I couldnt do it than maybe I should seriously reconsider having the surgery. So here I am 6 days away from my new life.

Ok so today begins my 5th day of the preop diet and so far things are going well. I havent cheated not once and really have no desire to do so.
I just got started with logging my food into fitday. I should have started before now because it was kind of hard to go back and try to log food for a couple of days from now on I have to do this on a daily bases so that I can make sure tha it is accurate. So far it looks good thought if I havent forgotten anything which im sure I have. What I plan to do is write it on paper as I go because most of the day im at work and than add it later when I get home just to double check and have a better layout. I havent started any type of work out yet, not sure if im going to do this before or after surgery i know i should start now but im kind of thinking what is the use when i know that once i have surgery im not going to beable to do it for a few days. Thats the thinking that got me this way in the first place.

Im so proud of myself so far, I decided to give the preop diet a test run so I started yesterday which was a day earlier than what I had to do, and I made it the whole day without any cheating. At work my supervisor brought in a meat cheese and cracker tray and than cookies were being passed around and I was able to reject both even though I really didnt have to yesterday. Since today is my actually day to start I feel Im going to do well since I didnt cheat yesterday when I could have done so. Atleast this is the attitude that Im going to try  to keep. My supervisor is so funny. All 110lbs of her is concerned for me only being able to have liquids for the next 5 weeks of my life. 

I had an account at fitday.com years ago when I use to low carb. Im going back there to log my info for this journey. Yesterday I drank and ate everything I could that was part of my liquids to make sure that I didnt get hungry. Who would have thought that no sugar added pudding was considered a full liquid. But my concern here is that in trying to keep full so that I dont break completely I may still be over doing it. But is this even a concern before being banded. I know I wont beable to overeat once banded but should I start to watch it before hand. I need to do a little research on this.

Ok so I went for my preop testing today and all went well. I was expecting for them to come back and tell me that I couldnt have the surgery done because my old ticker was bad or something. Im so use to things not going my way. The testing was nothing like I thought it was going to be. I thought they would hook me to the ekg for atleast and hour to see what happens. Than I would get nervous which would send my blood pressure up and so on and so forth until I had to go thru more test before having the surgery. The only thing they found was that my iron is a little low and that Im starting to go thru "The Change". I dont know how they found all of that out. I thought I was there for my weight. 

I also found out that I would be staying in the hospital over night. I was expecting to be back at home within a few hours. Truthfully Im glad to be staying. Just to make sure that everything is ok. It was also suggested that I dont drive for 2 weeks. I was planning on going back to work after a week. I'll just have to see how things go. If I take off more than 1 week Im going to have to cancel some other vacation time that I have planned around the holidays and Im not wanting to do that. This is the first year I have the day after Thanksgiving off so that I can go out and be crazy like millions of other people. 

I have to start the liquid diet on 5/16. I know this is going to be hard but I plan on giving it all I got. If I fall off the wagon Im going to get right back on the next minute. Im use to when I mess up my diet saying oh I'll start over in the morning. This is not going to be a option. In the morning turns into the next morning and than I might as well start over on Monday and it just keeps going. Im not going to do this to myself this time. I AM NOT GOING TO FAIL AT THIS!!!

Ok so this is my first post. My surgery is scheduled for 5/30/07. I go for my PAT on 5/8/07. Im really looking forward to starting my post op diet because as you all no, I have been eating everything that I can think of. I deceided about a week ago that I would go ahead and cut out my beer. No need to wait until the last minute. The first weekend of not drinking was hard because we were having a family barbecue and for me mentally beer and barbecue go hand and hand. So Im staring to work on the mental things about my life that I have to change.