By Jess

I’m working on aligning my expectations with reality. So far it’s going OK. I’m just trying to stay away from the trap of thinking to myself that if I had had gastric bypass instead of lap-band, I’d have lost more weight by now. Because, although that’s true, it doesn’t change anything. I knew when I made my decision that bypass would be quicker and, in some ways, easier. But I just have to keep reminding myself that slow and steady wins the race. Bypass causes you to lose weight faster, but it doesn’t cause you to lose more weight in the long run. So yes, if I’d had it I’d be thinner by now. But two years from now that won’t be the case anymore. I’m trying not to be impatient.

It’s been two weeks since my first fill, and not much has changed. I knew that it wouldn’t but I was hoping that it would anyway (speaking of unrealistic expectations). To clarify, since there have been questions, the lap-band itself doesn’t really cause restriction in the stomach. Think of it as putting your hair in a ponytail. The band itself is just like putting the elastic around your hair once and not tightening it. It’s there, it vaguely holds your hair off your face for a second, but it doesn’t do much. The first fill is like twisting the hair elastic once, so it’s a bit tighter, but still, if you left it like that your hair would fall right back out of the ponytail again. The next fills are like the next couple of twists–two or three more and the ponytail is exactly as tight as you need it to be. And it depends on each person.

The point of the fills is to cause restriction, create a small pouch that fills with food and sends the signal to your brain that you are full after you have eaten not very much. The first fill has started creating that pouch, but the opening to the rest of the stomach is still wide enough that most food passes right through, so I still feel almost as hungry as I did before.

Almost, but not quite. I have noticed that if I eat too fast, or don’t chew enough, I get a bit of tightness in my chest. This is because there’s a bit of a bottleneck at the band site, as the food backs up before passing through. It only lasts a minute, though, and it’s only happened a couple of times. So I’m thinking that starting with fill number 2, and then definitely with fill number 3, I will really start to feel restriction. I’ll have to be much more careful about how I eat, and what I eat. And I also won’t be able to eat as much. Which is, of course, the entire point of the band.

But. Here I am in the meantime, basically on a diet. Restricting what I eat, trying to make good choices, trying to tell myself I feel full when I don’t, trying not to eat even when I feel hungry. This is what insiders call “bandster hell.” But it’s only a couple more weeks.

So I’m focusing on trying to make good eating choices–which leads me to another thing. It’s hard to make good eating choices when you don’t have good food available in the house. Lunch is especially difficult. For breakfast I’ll have eggs or cottage cheese, and for dinner I’ll have grilled lean meat prepared by my husband. But lunch? I work from home so it’s mostly just scrabbling in the fridge for whatever I can find. And that means I have to have lean protein available for scrabbling. I haven’t always been good about that, but I’m working on getting better. I’m working on constantly stocking lunch meat, and leftover meat, and cans of tuna as a backup. And protein shakes as an extra backup. It’s working OK.

I’m also focusing on exercise, and I’m starting to get to that point where I feel bad and lethargic if I haven’t exercised. That’s the magic point, right? The point where your brain starts to get addicted to those endorphins and your body starts complaining if you don’t work out. I joined a gym. I hike on the weekends. I try to walk for an hour each day. And when I do these things, I can see the effect. And it makes me want to eat better. It’s a good cycle.

But still, I am looking forward to more fills, to the part when I really start feeling the effect of the surgery. I’m not liking the limbo I’m in right now. I want to get to the part where things really start happening.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 1st, 2009 at 11:23 am and is filed under Blogs, Not a Diet. 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.