Watch Me Shrink

I have had so much going on in this first year with my band, mostly regular life. We moved to the coast, have a new puppy, got a new job, starting a new business on the side and with four kids in the house (9-18) even daily life has it’s challenges.

In the past my health and diet were always on the back burner to everything else going on in life. Plus, I used food as a reward (ice cream at the end of a hard day), an escape (dinner out at a nice restaurant with hubby– pasta, steak, yum!) and to just cope with feelings (busy my fingers and mouth eating chips while watching a good show). All very bad habits and coping mechanisms. With my band, even on busy and stressful days I HAD to stop and think what I was eating, how I was eating it and was limited in how much I could eat.

I had a couple of set backs. In my eagerness to lose weight fast, like many of my fellow August 07 bandsters, I rushed my fills and had to get unfills twice. The problem is that it can be hard to tell when I’m in the office if the fill is too much, especially with being so new to the band. The first one wasn’t too big of a deal. The tightness feeling that I sometimes have after a fill didn’t go away and I was only able to eat liquid and mush. The band was too tight and I just needed a small unfill.

The second one was much more serious. I thought the fill went well and was on liquids for two days, mush for a few after that and went to chewing chicken a veg really well. About a week or so after the fill I ate chicken, maybe didn’t chew well enough, and had a major PB. After the PB the symptoms didn’t go away and I wasn’t able to swallow my own saliva! So, the next morning we rushed to my Dr (2.5 hours away) for an unfill. In a case like that they would normally completely unfill but I begged that they only take half and they did, thank God!

After the swelling went down I started to FEEL my stomach again. I was H-U-N-G-R-Y! I hadn’t felt that feeling in a while. How annoying. Needless to say I gained a bit of my weight back before getting in for the refill.

I went in for another refill yesterday and finally have my restriction back. I actually relish the soft foods, tiny amounts and tight feeling. It was so hard after surgery but now I feel comfortable with it.

I was feeling disappointed that I gained some of my weight back after the unfill and haven’t lost nearly as much as many of my fellow bandsters. Then I realized having my band is for life. This is only my first year and I’m still learning. I didn’t gain all this weight in one year and it’s not good for it to all come off in one year. So, this is me: Bandster for life and learning!

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This entry was posted on Saturday, July 19th, 2008 at 9:50 am and is filed under Banster Lifestyle, Fills. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.