B2010

I went alone to Mexico and trust me you don't feel alone and the hotels are safe. I never felt uncomfortable or in danger at all the whole time I was there. I even went to the gym in the middle of the night and walked for a little while the day after surgery. I was a little nervous as well but 9 chances out of 10 there will be other patients with you at the same hotel and taking the same shuttle to and from the hotel and the OCC. I'd go alone again if I had to. There really isn't anything to worry about. All these crazy stories people hear about bad things happening in TJ seem to be the people out looking for trouble. I don't think that those going to the OCC are out trying to go clubbing - they are there for surgery -

I can tell ya - that the time period after your swelling goes down and your first fill is definitely the hardest time thus far for me. After my first fill, I only had a few days of restriction but my doctor is cool and I went back about 2 weeks later for a second fill. I don't know what the rules are as far as waiting between fills, but he was pretty much - like lets get you to the sweet spot asap so you can start using this thing the way it was meant. So I went in and got a 2nd fill last week and definitely feel restriction now! It's soooooo crazy! I guess I still thought somehow I would be able to force food down, but nope! You just can't and really you just don't want to. I'm making WAY better food choices because I know there is only a limited amount of food I can eat before I'm full. I also agree with the water comment. I've never been much of a water drinker - but you really have to make yourself. I have a huge bottle of water that I tell myself that I have to get thru my first bottle by 2pm and my second bottle by bed time. It sucks - but I know it's doing my body right.

I think the rule of thumb is when you are on liquid phase you don't have to worry too much about calorie count. Well I say - within reason I couldn't give up my coffee during the liquid phase so I would have creamer in my coffee. I don't think it made much difference but make sure to always drink water. The water thing is something I'm still trying to get used to. When I can drink, when I can't - how much -etc...etc... I drank regular cranberry juice a lot during this post-op phase and didn't go with the light version at all. I also chewed gum and not sure what the issue with that would be. I've read some people say not to - but I have and still do. I would drink a lot of those special k protein waters in lemonade (pink) and I know they helped me survive that first couple of weeks. I definitely needed the extra protein. If you are feeling tired, or worn out though I can't express enough to you how much drinking water will change that. I didn't do the metamucil because honestly since I was on the liquid phase my body is MORE than regular Best of luck and hang in there. It's a difficult time, but you will definitely learn a lot about yourself, your will power. I went through a lot of emotions during this time and it was as much a mental challenge as a physical one. I learned a lot about how I had been using food as an emotional crutch. The band has helped me deal with a lot of issues that I used to push down with food - and now because of the band - I can't do that anymore.

awesome! congratulations that you are living in the moment and celebrating your victories along the way

Things will start moving again after your fill. I just had my 2nd fill and had original surgery on 3/15/10 in TJ. I had my fills done locally in Alaska but the doctor was all for me getting to my sweet spot asap - so after I had my first fill I waited for 2 weeks and didn't feel much restriction. As a matter of fact I was almost able to eat the way I was before surgery and it hadn't been like that as I have had some restriction following surgery. So now after having had my 2nd fill and approx 7cc in my 11cc band, I'm feeling restriction. I don't think it's too much at this point - but I dropped 3 lbs this week and it was the first loss I've had for a while. You may just need more restriction because if you had restriction you wouldn't be able to eat as much and you would be able to drop some weight. I'm finally down to eating around 1/2 a cup of food and being satisfied. Now I'm more aware than ever what I'm putting in my body during meal time because I want to make sure I'm still getting the nutrients I need. Also - make sure you are getting enough water. I don't like water myself but I have been working towards drinking much more than I have in the past.

Hi Everyone, haven't been here in a long time. Took on some more clients and got a job working outside of the home so needless to say I've been busy busy. I wanted to say that I have found that even without a fill I do have restriction. Not sure how much but I've been learning what I can and can't eat. I finally had my first pb experience. ugggghhh it was awful (well probably not as bad as it could have been) I ate about one tablespoon of rice and my whole system just stopped. I felt it inch down my throat and took about twenty minutes to actually feel better again. So lesson learned - won't eat rice again. I've also noticed that there is NO way even if I wanted to eat what my mind wants to - that I could possibly do it. Whenever I think I'm going to sit down and finish even a chicken breast I can only finish about half. I can tell the difference in restriction when eating protein vs. eating processed foods. I have way more restriction in eating just protein first. So for those that don't feel they have any restriction with or without a fill - make sure you're eating your protein first thing. I'm a little nervous about getting a fill because of the fact that I already feel some restriction but will go to my first appointment in about a week and see how things go. I've lost about 18 lbs so far 10 pre-surgery and 8 over the course of the last month. It's slow but steady so I'm happy with it.

It would definitely be motivation to me. I'm like you - at one point of my life I've been anorexic and obsessed with working out. Things would always start out healthy and then I'd go nuts - I have 3 more days before I can start working out and I'm looking forward to starting slowly and just staying steady. Seeing what you're doing would help to see something visual for working out.

Let me tell you - now being on the other side of being banded and opting initially to only tell one soul (my boyfriend) which he supported my decision from the get go. After being banded I came back and told 3 more people - my two nieces and my mom. I'm not very good at keeping secrets from my family and I had felt bad about lying and saying I went to San Diego for some "conference" so I came clean to them. Surprisingly - no negative reaction from anyone and no negative comments since. My biggest concern was telling my mother and because she's been against everything from my tattoos, my breast augmentation and now figured she'd be against my lapband. I told her thought - bottom line - I don't want to struggle with my weight for the rest of my life. And her response - I don't blame you - as she has struggled with her weight and I think that if her heart was in better condition she would opt for the same surgery. She's now excited for me seeing me lose weight and I'm glad I told her. On the other hand. outside of my family I probably woudn't tell anyone else cause really - it's none of their business. So you get lapband. If you feel safe, if you feel like it's the tool you need to lose weight then who's opinion really matters? I've been "skinny" before but I've also been fat so I'd never discourage someone that is trying to better their health and their life. I told my mom it was either this lapband or I was going to have some more major plastic surgery done which would have been more major then the lap band procedure.

awesome! so glad you got thru it and now you're on your way to a better life. This time has also given me a lot of time to reflect and focus on other things in my life. I never realized how much food consumed my every waking moment until I couldn't just eat whatever - whenever. It's a major reality check. I've found I've gotten a lot more done in the time between getting banded and now. Things that I would just let go because all I wanted to do was sit down and eat. I can't say that the 21 days went fast....because it hasn't and I still have 6 days to go. What I can say is that it's surprisingly doable. And this coming from the person that couldn't stay on the pre-op diet until it was the absolute last minute. I have no will power when it comes to food but having the band, knowing we went through this to help ourselves - certainly helps the process. I'm finding week 3 to be a little more difficult for me, may be that I quit drinking as much water as I was the first two weeks. But I do feel hungrier now and I really have to buckle down. Keep us posted on your progress!

yay! so excited for you. I'm glad that they allowed you to get your fill a week early and that even with the hunger you still managed to lose weight. Good for you! Keep us posted on your restriction feelings. I'll be interested to see how it goes.

Awesome! congratulations to you

So here I am 8 days left until I can finally eat. I can still honestly say I've felt good, not terribly hungry. When I am hungry it's still at the dreaded 2-5pm time frame of the day. So I've just been eating my biggest "meal" if you can call it that - during that time of the day. I was able to move on to creamy soups which is like fricking heaven after all this time of drinking clear liquids. I found that the drinkable yogurt was just too thick for me. I would drink it and it just felt like it sat in my stomach - so I would only drink about 4oz of that a day. Now that I'm on to creamy soups i've just kind of given up the yogurt. My port is still a little tender. When I sneeze or roll onto it it's still a little tender. I think it will take me longer than I thought to get used to having this inside of me. I'm still losing so far - not as much as I was those weeks of clear liquids, but if it's coming off i'm happy. My mom and nieces even noticed that my face didn't look as 'swollen" as it had - so I was happy to hear that. I feel a difference in my weight - so that keeps me motivated to stay on track and not go crazy. Even on this section of the liquid phase I find myself reasoning why I can have something that's super high in calories. But so far I've resisted and stuck to "the basics" as Dr. Ortiz had said. If you're losing weight on a certain diet then I'm going to stick to it because obviously my body is reacting to that. I can say my mental hunger is poking it's head up a little more frequently in these last few days. I've always craved sweets and that was my weakness but now I want meat!! uuuggghhh my first meal is going to be chicken for sure. Which craving chicken isn't a bad thing. I'm actually surprised I'm not craving anything sweet. Looking back so far on this journey I can still say that day 1-4 were the absolute hardest for me and the rest of the time has been a mental challenge but not so much a physical one. I still can't believe I've gotten this far - but it's truly given me a lot of courage to be strong in some of the areas of my life that I have given up on.

Awesome!!!!!

You're going to do great. Luckily the clinic will give you some "chill pills" before surgery so that your anxiety doesn't get away from you. Sometimes you just have to push through the worry and tell yourself that this decision is one that you made to better your life. surgery will come and go so fast you won't even realize what's happened. The doctor's at OCC I do sincerely believe have a passion for what they do and how they help people and they are blessed doing the work that they do. Why else would all of the patients that they have had - have such high regard for them? I am a worry wart myself as I experienced a great tragedy early on in my life. So I've lived with this constant fear of death/dying my whole life which has really stopped me from living life. Being a single mom too made me all that more worried that if I went through with this surgery that I would leave my son behind. I always told myself if at any point I didn't feel comfortable at the clinic I would not go through with it. But everything from the driver, the hotel, the facility and the staff made me feel like I was in expert care. and I came out of surgery feeling better than any other surgical procedure experience I have ever had. I don't regret it one bit. My thoughts and prayers are with you tomorrow and I'm so excited for you that you will be on this journey in your life.

I'm right there with you. although I wasn't working out before surgery I was just gorging myself with food. So I set my surgery date at 200 lbs, I put 205 on the paperwork "just in case". Well that "just in case" 5 lbs turned out to be 213 (probably more but I quit weighing myself). I really had to kick in gear my preop diet about 10 days before my surgery and I was able to get down to 204.5 the day of surgery. Dr. Miranda kind of asked me what the deal was and I was just honest with her and told her that I kind of went crazy after setting my surgery date but then lost 9.5 lbs in the 2 weeks prior to surgery. She was ok with that even though I didn't lose the 5% I was required to do. I would say start taking measurements to show you're working out or stop the weight training and go on at least a 10 day 3-protein shakes a day routine up until your surgery date.

OMG! that's totally cool. thank you so much