Update

It's been about a week since my last adjustment, and I am happy to report that it's going really well. The ticker at the top of this page shows a weight loss of 39 pounds. I am going to go ahead and call it for 40. The band is really working for me this week. I do get full after about 1/2 cup of food. It's changed the way I eat - obviously much slower and protein first. On Saturday, Beth Ann and I went to lunch at Chipotle. We split a burrito, and I got full after just a few bites. Here is proof:
For dinner tonight, we went to Mom's and she made avocados stuffed with roasted chicken. It was fantastic, and again I was stuffed after eating the chicken and a few bites of avocado. Beth Ann got to finish it for me. :) I am not able to see a difference yet in how I look, though Beth Ann and my mom have both made comments, though they have to say nice things. I have been continuing with my protein drinks and have started exercising at the gym.

I also put the scales away. I was becoming a little OCD about weighing myself dozens of times a day. I am going to weigh myself just once a week now. Everything is going really well and I hope it continues to go this way.

2nd Fill

Ok, it's been about a month since my last update. The first fill did not really have too much of an effect on me, other than to let me know that bread and strawberries are not really my friends anymore. I went in today to get my 2nd fill and I am happy to say that I have finally lost some more weight. I have now lost a total of 34 pounds since the fall. But I am even happier that my clothing sizes are shrinking also. At my heaviest (in law school), I wore a size 56 pant. Now I am wearing 42/44. So I am thrilled about that. Last weekend Beth Ann and I went to Ross (Dress for Less) and I bought some jeans that I could wear proudly, and they are not Arizona brand.

Anyway, last time they put 4cc into my band (it holds 10cc). Today they put in 1.5cc, for a total of 5.5cc. The doctor told me that once you have 5cc in the band, the restriction really kicks in and weight loss starts getting faster. Of course my exercising over the past month has helped and I am going to kick it into gear this month.

The most depressing thing about my visits to the doctor is waiting around with the other patients, and listening to their stories of how they are cheating the band. And how it's been 2 years since their surgery and they have either not lost weight, or have gained weight. I just don't understand why you would put yourself through all of this just to "cheat." Obviously they are not getting away with anything. I was the only male patient, and also the only white patient. It was a very special experience.

I am on liquids again today, then pureed food tomorrow (baby food), then soft foods Friday and regular food on Saturday. For breakfast this morning, I had my usual shake (3/4 to 1 cup of fat free skim milk, 1 (25g) scoop of "dutch chocolate" protein powder, 1 banana, 1 packet of splenda and 4 ice cubes). If I am really flying high I add a teaspoon of peanut butter, but that's only for special occaisions. The whole thing gives me about 32 grams of protein (out of the 60+ needed for the day) and only about 200 calories. For lunch I will usually have leftovers from dinner, or a hard-boiled egg, or cottage cheese. I try to get between 60-70 grams of protein in a day, but it will become harder to do once I can really only eat 1/4 cup at a time. We'll see what happens.

First Fill

So I wrote a humongous post about my experience getting my first adjustment and it disappeared somehow. So a few days later I am trying it again.

On Saturday, Beth Ann and I went downtown for my 9:15 appointment to get my lap band adjusted. The adjustment is actually saline injections into the band to make it more/less restrictive. When I walked into the lobby, it was packed. Beth Ann and I took the only two seats together and waited my turn. We waited and waited and waited. It turns out my doctor's office has a very lenient appointment policy. You can never arrive late for an appointment, but you can be as early as you want. So it was basically first come, first served. I was the only one who arrived on time, so of course I went last. After being called into a small exam room to have my weight and blood pressure taken, we went to a second waiting room, where everyone had reassembled for round 2. On a side now, I have gained 13 pounds back which is not unexpected or surprising. I lost most of the 30 pounds from being on my pre-op and post-op liquid diet. Eating with no restriction since then made me gain some back. But it's okay.

After waiting in the 2nd room, we were called in one by one into the xray room to have our fills done. I lied on a table, and the doctor used an xray machine to find out exactly where my port is to make sure it doesn't get damaged. Then I had to drink some barium so they could make sure it was going through okay. My band holds 10cc of saline; you get 4cc on the first fill. The doctor told me I probably would not feel any different until I had about 5-6cc in, and that that was okay.

I go back on February 25 for my next fill. The doctor also gave me the all clear for exercise, so I am getting started on that too. After a fill they put you on a 3 day progressive diet (liquids, purees, soft). So tomorrow I will be able to eat normally. Today I did feel the restriction a little bit eating chili and chicken salad (not together), and I am excited to really get the weight loss started.

January 21, 2009

"He couldn't have called the feeling pity; not loss either, and not nostalgia; it was sorrow, really, a sorrow of familiarity."

For Becky

I am watching Beth Ann try on maternity clothes. We joke that she is getting bigger and I am getting smaller. So far things have not changed much for me. I am still eating unrestricted (no fluid in the band to make me eat less), but I am still not eating as much as I did before. I have a new routine down now. For breakfast I have a chocolate (protein) milkshake. Around 10 or so I have a mid morning snack of cottage cheese with slivered almonds. Then around noon I have a hard-boiled egg and for an afternoon snack I have strawberry-kiwi protein drink mixed with pink lemonade Crystal Lite. It gets me through the day and then for dinner I eat whatever Beth Ann made for dinner. Tonight Beth Ann made beef and cheese enchiladas, with homemade salsa and fresh guacamole (my contribution).

I spent my day off cleaning the bathroom, top to bottom, and watching the movie "Atonement." I have about 30 minutes left and I don't really get it. I was originally wanting to try to have an appointment today to get my first "fill", since it's now been 4 weeks since my surgery. The soonest appointment I could have was 1/31. So the next 2 weeks I will be getting hungrier and hungrier. Then as soon as I get restriction on my band, it will all change and be like it was the first few days after surgery. It's when the weight will really start to come off. I'll try and keep you updated, but fair warning: there may not be another post until then... :)

Updates

Well it sure is hard to sit down and write when I'm not home all day recovering. I am healing quite well and am still adjusting to life with a lap band. The swelling has gone down considerably around my stomach so now there is barely any restriction. The band itself has not been inflated at all - I go in on 1/31 to get it adjusted, so my hunger/fullness changes throughout the day.

In the morning, because I have been laying down all night, I have to drink warm liquids to start the day, just to loosen things up. It gets a little better at lunch - I can usually eat with no problems. By dinner I can eat my whole serving (though it is still a much smaller serving than normal). I think by the time I am due for my adjustment at the end of the month it will be as if no band is there at all. It's kind of a process--to get to the perfect point of how filled the band is.

On Sunday morning I made some hashbrowns for breakfast, along with eggs. I still forget sometimes that I can't eat like I used to, so I could only have a few bites of each. But my last bite of hashbrowns was a doozy. I forgot to chew enough (15 times each bite) and all of the sudden I felt like I needed to burp, but couldn't. I knew what this was- I had heard about it. When you don't chew enough or when the food can't get through the band, it comes back up. It's not really throwing up - there was no heaving or wretching involved. I just sort of coughed it back up. Lesson learned.

I am going to try to go to the support group meeting tomorrow night. It's at 6:00pm downtown so getting there might be an issue, but I want to try. I would be interested to know how others are doing.

On the food front things are getting better. I can now have chicken and fish that's not from a can. So tonight we made a chicken and vegetable casserole. Yesterday I had avocado soup with crab and the day before I had baked fish with vegetables. So I am glad to finally be off of mushy foods. I am still struggling to get all of my protein in each day, although today I discovered that a hardboiled egg has 17 grams of protein. I need to get 60 in a day, so I am going to have Beth Ann make some for me. I don't know why but I can't ever make hardboiled eggs.

One week post op

I have now been banded for one week. I went in for my post-op appointment today. It was a group session with everyone who had been banded last Monday. There were 6 patients, plus some spouses and the nurse. We talked about entering the next phase of eating, which I will describe, plus what is to come.

The good news is that my pain is all gone, just some discomfort due to the healing process. But the best news is that I can now eat soft/mushy foods. I am done with liquids only. I did start the day with a 50g protein shake for breakfast, knowing that I might not get a whole lot of protein the rest of the day because for lunch I had...

Christmas leftovers! Becky's dressing, mashed potatoes, spinach and broccoli casserole were perfect for lunch. They were all very moist after being microwaved and I was able to smash them just a bit, and enjoy them. I even had some apple pie. Well, at least the apples from the apple pie. Total I ate about 1/2 cup of food, but it was the best leftovers meal I've ever had. Thanks Becky! :)

I also stopped by the grocery store on the way home to get some food for the week. For this week I can have canned chicken/tuna, canned or overcooked (?) vegetables, canned fruit or overripe bananas, overcooked pasta and Cheerios! I guess the overcooking is to make sure the food is mushy enough. So for dinner tonight I am going to make roasted squash, zucchini and carrots, that after cooking long enough will be mashy. I am also going to make Chinese Chicken Salad. I also bought some potatoes to make more mashed potatoes later on this week and of course I have canned tuna.

The appointment itself was very uneventful. I scheduled my first adjustment, if you will, for 1/31/09. This is where I will start to get liquid injected into my band to begin restricting food. Right now the only restriction is due to swelling since they sort of sew part of the stomach around the band to keep it in place. The goal is to get just enough injections of saline into the band to get to the "Green Zone" which is where you are not hungry, you get to eat just the right amount of food, and are losing weight.

My bandages are now all off and I am going to work tomorrow. I am now going to wait until an hour has passed since lunch to take a sip of water. You can't drink 30 minutes before or 1 hour after eating so that the food sits in the little "pouch" and slowly funnels into the stomach - hence the feeling I have now that I just ate the biggest Christmas dinner ever!