I love my lap band! I love the freedom from food that I am experiencing but honestly I was really well prepared for the oddities that come up. If you are thinking about getting one, read on! To prepare myself, I read quite a lot before I had this life changing operation, of course not everyone is a reader, but I will suggest that if you are considering this surgery that you read something on the subject. The book that I think prepared me the best was by Robert W. Sewell, M.D., F.A.C.S., and Linda Rohrbough. It has the rather long but encompassing title Weight Loss Surgery with the Adjustable Gastric Band: Everything You Need to Know Before and After Surgery to Lose Weight Successfully. The book gives a very good account of what to expect, how to prepare and why you are being asked to do what you have to do. Another thing that I would suggest is to see what is going to happen to you, but NOT if you can’t watch surgery TV!

The thing is, Lap banding is a tool and not a diet. It creates some differences in you. You have some visible scars on your tummy. You cannot eat the same as other people. You may not be able to eat a lot of foods, particularly bread, stringy meats and vegetables. You will, (are you ready for this?) regurgitate if you eat the wrong things, too quickly, or too much. This is not quite like vomiting since it does not contain stomach acid, but it can be quite uncomfortable, not just physically because of the cramping esophagus but also it is socially uncomfortable, particularly if you are eating in public! I was ready… I don’t mind 5 little scars – I think, hey this is certainly much less visible than the 80 or so pounds that I want to loose. I also don’t mind not being able to have some foods. Regurgitation, this takes some getting used to… but I am even slightly amused by this!

I think that if you are thinking about doing it, you need to be aware that this is not gong to fix you if you are emotionally broken. It really is only a tool for losing weight!

It is ten days post-op and I am still not hungry! Though I have been able to eat mush for a few days now!

For breakfast I had 125 ml tub of almond tofu yogurt @80 cal. I also have had a 100 cal chocolate bar. I have been up since 5:30 and it is 2:00 now. That is 8.5 hours so I guess that I should eat something!

I just read an article by Allison Van Dusen at Yahoo Finance. She writes that “[w]hile many victims of the bias have suspected their appearance has been hurting their careers, two new studies analyzing decades’ worth of research show just how pervasive the problem is. She explains that “[w]eight-based discrimination consistently affects every aspect of employment, from hiring to firing, promotions, pay allocation, career counselling and discipline.”
Further, she writes that “[t[he bulk of research has also shown that the bias tends to be felt most by overweight white women, who are battling both the glass ceiling and the stigma of being heavy. A 2004 study by Cornell University Associate Professor John Cawley found that when the average white woman puts on an additional 64 pounds, her wages drop 9%. (Some studies have shown that overweight white women are evaluated more harshly than overweight African American women and that African Americans tend to be more accepting of large body types, according to Roehling.)”

I hope I am NOT guilty of any copyright infringement here, and have credited Van Dusen below with a link to her full article in my attempt to fully credit her work. I had to include these quotes and to comment, simply to acknowledge that her article is exactly in keeping with my own perceived experience, particularly at times when I have been at my most overweight.

I am thankful that I am in the position to be able to correct my own body so that I will no longer experience such things! What about the millions whose bodies have manipulated them into being over weight. I do not understand how having the disease of obesity can equate with incompetence in anyone’s mind? Do they also think that people with diabetes, heart disease, or any other disease in which their body fights against them, can make them somehow stupid, incompetent or perhaps lazy or less willing to work than others? Why is obesity so funny or disgusting to the people who have and who continue to judge us?

Personally, I find nothing funny about this disease at all, and I hope that my lap band continues to protect me against it, just as insulin helps the diabetic and a pacemaker helps person’s with irregular heart beat. Hopefully the tool will soon begin to be recognized as the medically necessary tool that it is!

Do you think obesity is funny?

Have you every been felt the sting of workplace alienation?

http://ca.pfinance.yahoo.com/ca_finance_general/705/is-your-weight-affecting-your-career/