So, for those of you who know me, you will know my age – 42 – and you will also know that I grew up rurally. If you are my age you know that when we grew up you simply plugged in the TV and it got some stations.  Yesterday, I bought a new flat TV which is about the size of my iMac and much lighter!  I got this for my bedroom.  I know, what you are thinking.  There is no sex in a bedroom when it has a TV, but really I just wanted it for those days when you are sick, or just pooped, or if it is a very cold winter night and you want to tuck in early.  Honestly!

The thing about this TV is that it is one of those new ones which is not really a square but quite a long rectangle.  The interesting thing is that the square picture is stretched to fit in it, so everyone on TV looks quite pleasingly plump.  I have decided that I am not going to fix it.  I am just going to let all those TV people look like regular sized people on the street.  Yes, in fact, I think I might just buy a few more of these TV’s so that everything I watch is skewed by width.

For the third time in the last week I forgot to eat and at about 2:00 my body starts to let me know I am hungry.

This statement: “I forgot to eat” is one that I never, never understood before.  Until I had this surgery, it just never happened to me.   Anyone who suffers as I do with eating issues will know just what I am talking about.  I would hear people say this before and think, “ya right, freak! You are starving yourself!”  I just did not understand what it was like to not think about food ALL THE TIME.

So, this surgery, I believe, gave me the gift of a “normal” attitude toward food.  Believe me if I ate when I was hungry, I would have given a run to the record breakers of heaviest weights!  Instead my whole life was about starving.  

Too I am much less of a sceptic towards people who have “normal” attitudes towards food.  It is such a nice feeling to have a body now which does not tell me I am hungry 24/7!  When I read that this happens from the surgery, I thought, it can’t be!  I did not believe it!  For me, it is true, I am not hungry all the time, I am not food obsessed and I feel totally satisfied when I eat a half cup to a cup of food!  

Plus, I don’t need to be committing one of the seven deadly sins anymore!  Bonus!  Redemption!

Yes, I belong to TOPS still!  I figure that for $3.00/week it is a good way to keep track of my weight and also to share my experience with other people who have weight issues.  I changed groups recently and really like my new group.  I feel like I fit in well and when I disclosed that I had WLS they were interested and accepting of me.  I shared this with them because my WL will be a constant over the next months and I do not wish to make the other persons in the group feel badly.

I share this “diet club” information with you because I don’t think that I have let you know what sort of diets that I have already tried and lost weight with, only to later put it back on.

When I was young I did the model diet, over and over again (about 2/3 of each year for 10 years).  This is essentially a diet where you eat 0 calories (lemon and salad) with two small servings of protein (chicken breast, boiled egg or tuna) every week day then go off it on the weekends and eat whatever you wish to. On this diet – I lost weight over an over again!  I toyed with anorexia and binged crazy when the willpower to eat 0 calories was drained from me.

I used the cabbage diet – which is a nearly 0 cal soup diet, for a couple of years and does it make you fart! During this time I became a vegetarian.  Excepting milk and milk products I took no animal byproducts at all, and the interesting side effect was that I began to be able to smell both grass and cow in all the dairy.  Pretty weird eh?

I tried Atkins but I have not ever been a big meat eater so this was only once for about a half a year.  I had to force myself to face meals during this diet, that I did with my mom who loved to eat meat.

I did Dean Ornish for a year, this was not bad for me – but a lot of prep is needed, similar to vegetarianism.  The nice thing about using the Dean Ornish diet is that your house stays so much cleaner, because you do not use any oils to cook with.

I also stayed on Herbal Magic for one year – cost me thousands of dollars and I lost about 20 pounds which I immediately piled right back on the moment – the VERY moment – that I gave it up!  This was the least successful and most expensive diet program that I ever used.

Then I tried Weight Watchers a few times for about three years in total.  This is a diet that works, the problem is who wants to be on a diet for the rest of their life? I always felt very deprived on this diet.  They day you can eat anything but hell… my problem is that I never feel full and this just is not comfortable.

I also did a year long specialty program at the Queen’s University Nutrition and Exercise Pilot Program which was the best program by far, but again deprivation!

TOPS which I do now and have done for about a year is a good program, if you land a good group.  They basically want you to eat fewer calories and move your booty – but this said it is a diet, so for me this is equal to being deprived.  But I like the people, the weekly meeting/routine and it is not expensive at all so I will stay there until I feel ready to leave.

So with TOPS the total number of years is the above equals about 16 but does not include the two years in there where I fanatically exercised, took benny’s and over the counter WL pills (do I really want to tell you that???) and just did not eat – so all together this is 18 years of dieting all together.  I started my first diet at 16 years of age almost exactly on my birthday.  

I think that one is an adult at 18 years of age and I am now 42 so this means that I have had 24 years as an adult and I spent 18 years of those on a diet!  What a waste of my life!  Particularly sad is that the 8 years that I was not on a diet I was still obsessing about food… but binge eating instead of dieting.  In those 8 years I gained the 100 pounds over and over again.  Now I wish my husband was home because he could make me a little math symbol so you could see what that looks like.  Since I don’t do math I will just say it was not an easy on easy off situation for me!  That is 3/4 of my adult life on a diet and 1/4 on a binge.  

 

When I started thinking about this a while ago after hearing about WLS – I knew I had to have the surgery done!

I am so happy that I don’t have to live with the eating madness anymore!  So far I have had 2 months of freedom from food. You know, I am not on a diet, I am not binge eating, I am simply letting the band do its job; it is working because at TOPS tonight I found that I had lost one more pound!  

The super fascinating and unexpected outcome is that the weight is not really so much of an issue for me anymore!  It worries me very little because I have found that the freedom from food has released me from obsessing about what I weigh.

I love Thai food!  After becoming a bandster however I discovered that for the most part I can still eat this food.  Our favorite restaurant in Hamilton is a little place called BT which is on Cannon Street.  The cool thing now is that when I order food I can bring some home with me and eat it later.  On Thursday before my husband left for Munich we went out to BT for dinner and I ordered Chicken Pad Thai.  I had this for lunch with him, then I brought my left over portion home.  Since my last fill, I can only eat about a half cup of food, so this portion made four more meals for me.  I just finished my last yummy portion! This means that an eight dollar meal lasts me for about two days and a half at about $1.60/portion.  Of course eating in a restaurant is more expensive than eating at home where I typically eat a banana or a tofu dessert for breakfast and also have something like fruit once a day.  What I am trying to say is that I think it costs me about $3.00 for food per day or $100/month after having my surgery.  This does not include however my daily expresso and water consumption which has not changed and would be about $50/month.  I also have to take vitamins every day now too so this has another cost of about 20-30/month. My husband and I also go out for dessert about weekly and now we share a piece of cheesecake, so overall it costs me $200 per month to keep me sustained.

I was budgeting $600/ month for groceries for myself before my lap band surgery so this means that I save around $400/month on food! This also means, that in 40 months, the operation will have paid for itself since I paid $16K for my lap band.  What I am saying is that the cost of the lap-banding operation seems initially high but still there is a lot of long term payoffs which I got that I had not anticipated!  Pretty cool eh?

It was not because I always wanted to be a drummer!  When asked why I chose to have a lap band as opposed to going the other routes, I felt that I owed you the answer.  There were many reasons why I felt that the band offered a better choice for me.  I will outline them point by point as opposed to using my normal paragraph structure because I think that this will be easier to read.  First, however, it is important to understand that these are MY personal reasons, and my conclusions from my research on the topic.  These conclusions were what I used for making the band my choice and not to sway other people, but since I am being asked I will share.  

Weight-loss surgery is a HUGE decision and each surgery offers its own personal set of benefits and draw backs.  These are what I perceived as the benefits to the Lap-band over all other WL surgery:

1. Total reversibility – so if a magic pill comes along in 10 years through research then great!  I can still use it and my body has not lost little pieces of itself.

2. Lowest death rate

3. Lowest complication rate

4. Lap-bands are tools which teach you to eat (this was the most important to me)

5. Weight-loss is slower, healthier and this gives your skin the opportunity to came back with your body, maintain your health and adapt slowly to your new body and lifestyle (also a drawback)

6. No dumping syndrome (common with all other WL surgery)

7. Body still absorbs all the food nutrients

8. Lap-bands control the amount of food you can eat, so when you eat in public, it is appropriate portions and you feel satisfied!  

9. You do not waste food by over eating so your grocery bills are significantly less (about 1/3 in my case)

10.  The lap band is totally adjustable, so even if you do not lose the weight in the expected amount of time, the band DOES NOT stretch.  This means that it keeps working for the life of the client, so you continue to progressively lose weight for as long as you need to.

11. Recovery time is significantly less

 

All this said and still I do recognize some drawbacks too, these are:

1.  Slow weight loss – which means you have to be very patient which is not easy for anyone who wants to finally be thin (also a benefit)

2. Food can stick so you have to eat very slow and in very small portions

3. When food sticks it is not comfortable to regurgitate or to have esophagus contractions

4. The idea (and it worked for me) that you can STOP OBSESSING about food 24/7!

5. Fills can be quite uncomfortable (read painful) some doctors use local anesthetic, which I would ask about if you can use the stuff!

So, there you have my reasons.  Many people in Canada and the US are having other methods of WL surgery since the lap-band is just a tool for WL and therefore the insurance will not cover it’s installation and it being maintained.  I was a self pay client, so basically, I could do whatever I wanted to do.  So far I do not regret getting the band.  The difficult things for me have been:

1. The pre-surgery diet

2. The period while my stomach was healing and I could not get filled (waiting is always very tough for me)

3. Fills hurt and my doctor does not use anesthetic and even if he did I am allergic

Fills hurt!  They lied to me and I think that they continue to lie to others about this.  ”Just a simple little needle filled with saline” they said.  Totally not true!  As a matter of fact, to clarify, it is not a simple little needle, rather it is a big needle – of around the same size that is used to inject things into an intravenous. This is jammed into your stomach through skin and muscles and into your port (read” pinch your flesh between a sharp instrument and a static surface).  I am telling you, it is nearly as painful as listening to country music!  

So, by now you know that I have had my second fill done for my lap band.  Thank goodness it is over!  They put only .5 in because they think I am already close to being in the right place.  

I saw Dr. Couburn today because when I started crying after jab number two had to be removed, the nurse brought him in to see me.  He rushed in and did the third painful (but at least all the way in) effective jab.  He said that I am not the first person to have had a problem with the fills being painful (read: no kidding?).  Remember back to last fill?  It is a different story than the books and the nurse told!  Also, I heard through the grape vine from another person who had this done that getting fills “hurt like hell”.  So, I told Doctor Coburn that I hope I am one of those people who only needs to have two fills and that that will do me for the REST of my life.  He sort of chuckled – but me, I was not kidding!  The thought of going for another one is just about enough to send me over the edge.  I would rather put my finger in a vise-grip!  Honest!

There is good news though.  The last time I had a fill I could not really eat – it was back to liquid for the following two days, but today I already ate some crackers and these seemed to go down OK.  So I guess I can go for a friday night Pad Thai at my favorite eatery tonight!

Other good news is that I lost another pound since I was there two weeks ago and this is the time when weight normally still goes up!  Yeah me!

I know it has been a while since I have written anything and I am starting to see that at least a few people are unhappy about this, so I think that it is time for me to check in and let you know what is going on with me and my lap band over the last few days.  

I have not written because I hate to get on here and whine – face it – no one wants to listen to negativity – it is just so draining to be around!  The problem is that I am still not really at the place where I need to be, regarding my adjustments so it is very difficult to say a lot about my band right now since it is not really all the way there.  I am not sure that my readers want to hear all the negative stuff?  Do you?

It is hard for me to write, because I am trying not to dwell on food or my lap band, but rather to get on with living my life.  I have been busy since I write, spend time with family, friends, dogs, swim, bike (motor) and so forth – I am letting go of my obsession with food, in what I think is a healthy, positive way so this is all good.

But in truth there are still issues.  I had my first adjustment/fill and this did help; I am still losing a little bit of weight but only 1/4 pound in the last 2 weeks which is basically nothing.  Though it is better than gaining!  Remember, I am not on a diet, I am just letting the band do it’s job – so there is progress since normally if I am not dieting I am gaining.  Simple as that!

The hitch to the whole process of lap-banding is that the fill can be a long drawn out process!  It is done every 2 weeks until it is right and can take 0-10 times which means that it can be five or six months until you are in a state of satiety.  I am not there yet and feel that I still may need a few adjustments.  This is because I can still eat too much food which means that the hole between my pouch and my stomach is too large; I also feel hungry too frequently so I know that I am not in the right place yet.  This said, I swallowed a whole cranberry  as a test the other day and it caused the spasms that all bandsters dread – about 45 minutes of it until I could get it up!  Nasty!  I was mad as hell at myself because it hurt and was not a bit fun – it is sick that I had to know.  This said, it might not be too many adjustments for me, because a cranberry is not that large.  The truth is, I am thinking about it a lot, and since I don’t know what the ideal is, it is difficult to assume any conclusions.

There have been some milestones, for example, I took my jeans in yesterday just so that they would stay up on my waist.  I was feeling a bit classless since I had to be yanking them up all the time in order to keep them on.  But I could not fully take them in all the way, because they would look quite strange if I did adjusted them a lot.  I found that four inches kept them up without making them look all puckered and weird.  It is of course an optimistic thing to do; taking in pants instead of buying new!  Because it means that I fully expect to have the optimum result of weight loss and don’t wish to buy new until I am down closer to my ideal weight.  So  in the next weeks and months, if you see me walking down the street with puckers in my pants, baggy shirts and too long everything, know that I am not yet there and still working on my own idea of perfection.  Remember, it may seem like a long wait to you, but for me, who has put her money and trust in the lap-band it can not be soon enough!   I am trying not to dwell on it, or lose my patience, but it is hard right now since we all know that waiting is no fun at all!

The good news though, is that I go for my second fill tomorrow!!!!