WHAT BANDITS EAT IN A DAY

Thanks for the fullness feedback, its very helpful. I definitely don't get that so maybe i do need more fill? Who knows. Am going to stick with what i've got for a while and use willpower aswell :)

Here's my food for the day...

breakfast: coffee

Lunch: bite of sausage roll and a cupcake (was my brothers birthday :)

Dinner: Chicken breast with tomato's and a bit of cheese.

Drinks: glass of juice, some diet coke and water...

Sharon, i love those kfc burgers with pineapple! If i try eating one now i get a bad blockage and have to spew. Noice! LOL If i have anything like that, as a treat or something, i ditch the bun and just eat the filling.

ok todays food

yogurt smoothie

1 tiny nibble xmas cake never to be done again

1 bite scnitzel

dinner will be sake and going to try tortelini

I started off well like I do every day.

A wholemal muffin with an egg.

A few pieces of licorice.
Tub of low fat yoghurt.

Then downhill from there.

A can of coke (my demon drink)
Tomorrow I promise no coke

Small quiche
Wholemeal muffin with cheese and gherkin.

Then bad bad bad. A KFC burger with bacon and cheese and pineapple and 3 ginernut biscuits.

Sharon

aww thank you westy that was lovely .

you will do very well believe me .

I think the hardest part is retraining the brain , now I just say no and stick to it .

but i must say i do have treats and dont beat myself up about it when i do .I think if you start to put restrictions on yourself thats when you start to feel deprived.

be nice to yourself

To Noahdabear

You have given me some inspiration about the Lap Band, I've been very skeptical, had some problems since being banded, port taken out due to infection - At present no restriction due to no port - trying very hard to keep to a diet.

Congradulation on your weight loss - Hope I can acheive something similar - my Journey starts 10th January 2011.

Westy

i cant do bread at all

i have 5.5 mls in a 10 ml band

i cant eat anything fried or crappy , body just cant handle it anymore

I have 5.7ml in my band.

I'm still able to eat a variety of food including bread and red meat. I eat more than a cup ful and probably push myself more than I should.

The feeling I get when I've had enough is exactly that, I could not put another mouthful in as long as its solid food and not crap, I can eat & eat that stuff :-(

I'm tossing up whether to go back and get a small fill but I like the fact I can eat anything and not struggle with certain foods.

I will see how I go in the New Year.

ok the feeling is of being full like before and if i have one more bite its the feeling of pain .

when i eat meat it is about the size of a matchbox , cant do even that much of beef.

i eat about 1/2 cup of food as a meal

i do have first bite syndrome and cant eat till arvo i was having really bad heartburn until they found i had torn my diaphragm right across , once that was fixed no more heartburn.

i love my band but do miss going out for a huge 5 star meal

I totally agree. I am greatful for my band as it is helping me loose weight but it would have been good to hear about the possibility of not feeling restriction, heartburn and the other things losingit mentioned.
Even now if i to say to my surgeon or dietician that i'm not feeling the 'restriction' that they told me i'd feel, they pretty much say its because of something i must be doing wrong or i'm just not listening to my 'signals'. I would say i'm listening to my signals very well (and ignoring them, and that's why i'm losing weight! LOL)

I'm glad i have my band, and wouldn't change it but i do agree that there should be more talk about the pitfalls of the band, aswell as the positive side of it.

And yep, sometimes a whinge is just good for the soul. lol

I think it's a shame that no-one bothers to mention prior to being banded all the things that might happen. I guess that would just turn people off, and the money-making venture might end right there. I do think that at least some of the pitfalls should be mentioned. Research as much as you want, but it's only when you have the thing that you will obviously know how it affects you. However, I do think it would be useful for people to know that not everyone reaches restriction, you may need to use solid willpower to lose weight, you may experience severe heartburn, and it is possible to put on weight with the band.

Of course all that would slow up the money trail into the surgeon's account.

Please note that I did not mention cravings anywhere there.. I still crave crapolla... and I still want to finish that bowl because it tastes good... hence why it sits in my gut for hours and I am christmas dinner over full.

The band as they say is only a tool...pity they didnt bash that into my scone 2 1/2 years ago before they took my money.

That being said..... I am still glad I got the band ... I lost the weight and without it I never would have... however Nothing gets in the way of me having a good whinge does it.

I have never felt fullness nor restriction but have felt when eating something too fast or not chewed enough pain in the chest or shoulder....

Now here is the weird part... I have had all but 1ml out due to heart burn... and buggar me if I dont get full now on small amounts... I can still get down large portions trust me.. I have no problems there but it is that Im gonna burst feeling for hours so I avoid it.

I finally have that sated feeling but I have to say it only came about after having the fill out and doing shakes for a week to get myself back on track. Since doing the atkins shakes for that week I get very full very quickly on very small amounts.

Prior to this ...narda nothing zip... all my weight loss was due to shear pig headedness and the desire not to fail

It sux but loosinit will tell you I have often wondered why the hell I got the band because all the sprooking and selling of the band they gave me prior to insertion was all horse hockey!

Well I can tell you straight up that I have virtually always eaten more than what most bandits do. In the early stages, I stuck to very small portions, but these days I choose to eat more, partly to satisfy hunger, but probably more so because I know my body needs more than a couple of teaspoons of food. Now, laugh at that if you will, but on the old forum, people would say they had a couple teaspoons of some vegetables and a small amount of protein. Or at breakfast, half a slice of toast. Yeah, well ....... forget it, I'm not going to even attempt to fuel my body on mouse-size portions. I know by now that my body needs fuel to function, and while it obviously doesn't need the amounts I was eating pre-band, it certainly needs more than a few teaspoons of food.

Thank you Losingit and Debs. You have put into words what I haven't been able to understand. I thought I was too tight because I struggle with pain after the first few mouthfuls. I never know if this meal will be okay or am I going to be in strive. Once I get over the first few mouthfullst I could eat a resonable size meal. I am trying to learn that I just need to stop after a small amount and in about 30 minutes the satified feeling kicks in - but boy that 30 minutes seems soooo far away when I am enjoying what I am eating and my head tells me that I really do need a bit more.
I am trying to just put a small amount on my plate but then I feel deprived and think but what if I am hungry after? I am sure I must have been starved in a previous life as I seem to be worried about having enough to eat.

Man that sounds like me....if i'm struggling to get something down because of tightness or first bite syndrome, after i rest and try again i can eat fine...and not feel full. I reckon if i allowed myself i could eat what i ate pre-band, portion size wise. I dont of course but i reckon i could.

That's why i'm so interested in what true restriction feels like for those that have it. Can anyone explain to me what it feels like? Is it like, pre-band, when you ate a meal, you felt full up? Or is it a different feeling?

Cheers.
debs

No answers I'm afraid. Have had tests to see whether all is ok, and yes, it appears so. I know when I was so tight that I could barely swallow saliva, that once I eventually did manage to get something down, it was just the usual scenario: free for all. The initial struggle with getting something down, in my case, does certainly not equate to volume restriction.

These days I have less fill than I did a while ago. I just got sick of struggling with food, but more importantly, the ridiculous amount of gurgling that used to go on. I thought I was the only person who could hear it, but others often commented, and it was quite uncomfortable. I have no desire to make my life any more difficult than it already is, so opted to have some fill out. I can tell you, it was instant relief and the gurgling stopped immediately.

'I've never felt pain from eating too much, just too quickly. I do try to limit the amount that I eat, but that it not always easy. The only thing I ever wanted from banding (ie. volume restriction), is about the only thing I have never had.'

Losingit, that is exactly what i feel! I've never had pain from eating too much, only if i eat too quickly or too big a mouthful. And even if i'm being very careful i will sometimes get pain, but definitely not 'fullness'. I was talking to my dietician and she said i should be eating a piece of chicken about the size of a matchbox and i should start to feel full. I told her i don't, i can eat a whole chicken breast, with rice (if chewed really well) without that fullness feeling kicking in. She said i musn't be tight enough, but when i think of getting more fill i think i will start to struggle with swallowing. That 'fullness' was the one thing i was most looking forward to with the lapband, and like you, it'll probably be the one thing i wont have :(
Has your surgeon or dietician had any adivce to give you about what could be going on?

debs

OMG - there is someone else like me! Hooray - I'm not a freak. I have NEVER had volume restriction. I have had times where it is extremely difficult to eat (more so a feeling in the throat), and I have had times where I can't swallow my own saliva. I have had to chew chew chew to get things to go down, and take it very very slowly, but I have never once had volume restriction. My difficulty has been getting food down in the first place (and I might add it never comes back, well only on the very rare occasions when I have put in extreme effort to get a stuck item returned, but basically once it's gone down the hole, it ain't comin' back for no-one!).

I have fiddled around with fills, up and down, small amounts, blah blah blah. But it seems I will never have volume restriction. I've never felt pain from eating too much, just too quickly. I do try to limit the amount that I eat, but that it not always easy. The only thing I ever wanted from banding (ie. volume restriction), is about the only thing I have never had.

Oh well, beggars can't be choosers.

Don't worry Sharon, we all have days like those! I've got 6ml in my band and i can still eat more than i'm supposed to be able to.
How much fill do you have and are you going to get some more? DOn't worry, tomorrow is a new day!


Noah, is the small piece of chicken you're having satisfying you? What does your restriction feel like? I'm only asking because even though i've got 6ml in a 7ml band i don't feel volume restriction. I don't get that 'ive had enough, i feel satisfied' feeling, i get that 'god it bloody hurts!' feeling. LOL And that comes on way before any feeling of satiety. I'm being careful not to eat too fast and to eat tiny bites. Sometimes i think i have too much fill (pain) other times i feel i don't have enough (no feeling of fullness or satiety.) Any ideas?
Maybe i should post this in the advice thread aswell....
Thanks!
debs

nope never beat ya up

anewsharon... no one is going to beat you up and if they do ignore their ignorance. needing a fill is a wasteland of hunger and misery and we all know how hard it is.

We get the band cos we cant do it on our own so it stands to reason that if the band isnt working to a level that we need then things get naaaaaaaaaasty.

I am battling on with only 1mil in my band and I can tell you some days are ugly

Being banded 11th January, but already got band in with no fill. Trying so hard not to pig out, hungry late afternoon - has anybody tried Protein shakes to take the afternoon munchies away.

Breakfast: 1 weebix skin milk or 1 muffin or Banana Shake
Mid Morning: Cup of Coffee
Lunch: Small Yoghurt or LeRice with extra custard
Afternoon Tea: Coffee with Cruskit
Dinner: Rissoles & veges or whatever I cook for hubby

Finding it really difficult. Banded 27th October - Port infection 10days later, port taken out.
Lost 10 Kgs since Optifast. Want to eat real food!!!!!

Westy

Ok here goes the day of someone who desparately needs a fill.

Breakfast I boiled egg with 1 and a half pieces of toast.

Lunch 6 inch subway sub with turkey and salad. 1 600 ml bottle of coke (I know very very bad)

Snacks (and there are lots of them) 3 biscuits, small bag of chips, drumstick icecream. Probably more snacks that I have conveniently forgot.

Dinner is going to be Lasagne but prob not much as I generally dont eat alot at night time.

Please dont beat up on me. I know its bad. Just soooo desparately need that fill.

Sharon

ok

I dont eat till at least 12.30pm

so
breakfast

decaf coffee (cant have caffeine heart condition)

lunch

a small yogurt or a wonton soup

dinner

piece of chicken about the size of half my palm and a little salad about a small handfull

We can post what we eat in a day here to share with others.
Breakfast
Egg on 12 grain toast with small slice sausage
Lunch
Lettuce leaf with salad turkey slices mayo with a sprinkle of nuts and seeds. All rolled the lettuce leaf.
So crunchy to eat. I love crunch and the nuts and seed do the trick as well.
Dinner
Have not thought of it yet but very hot and muggy here this evening it maybe a mango smoothie for me.