Let the show begin!

What an exciting day.. took today off work as I had a trip to the clinic to see the dietician then get my first fill!

The dietician was really great today - after the first session about mushies, I was a bit non-plussed but now we're kicking into 'real food', I actually learned a lot today about how to eat with the band and how I can make the band work for me. We went through things like how to approach the band (healthy eating vs diet) and how to put a meal together although it's so funny now to see how much my idea of portion size has changed. The dietician started laying out life-size images of plates with a cup of food on them and I was looking at them thinking, I can't eat that much! All of a sudden, a cup of food seems huge to me! It's not of course, but my brain has somehow made half a cup size the 'standard' size some time over the last two weeks and now, a cup of food seems massive. I'm going to enjoy this 'mis-perception' while it lasts!

We also spoke about the transition diet as we embark on eating real food now and she gave us some great info that classifies foods according to how people experience the food at maximum fill. The classifications are 'Easiest', Easy, Challenging and Difficult' (from memory) so starting tomorrow, I begin in the left hand column (Easiest) and progress across to the Difficult. After each fill, we're to do 12 hours liquids, 12 hours mushies and then transition through the food chart again as what we can / can't tolerate is likely to change as more fill goes in.

So with the dietician out of the way, it was in to see the delightful Dr T for a check-up on how things are going and for my first fill. This guy is fabulous! He's totally engaging and keen to learn about you (or rather 'me') and as a patient, it's great as to date, I've found the process to be quite formulaic and impersonal for the most part. I'm looking forward to working with him to get my level of fill right.

The most fascinating thing I learned today was that during surgery, they actually put fill in my band! Apparently there's 5mL in there already and what they do during surgery is to put the band on and then inflate it so it nicely touches all parts of the stomach without being restrictive. Given I'm still losing at a good rate (my BMI is down to 34 - yay!), Dr T popped another 0.5mL in. Very strange feeling getting the fill done - it's quick but the local anaesthetic didn't quite grab when it went in and when the fill needle came, it was rather painful! All good though as he pulled it out, massaged around the local a bit more and then second time was fine. We also had a chat about how I'm going to WW alongside the band (firstly, because I need a 'cover' and secondly, so I'm tracking calories) and to my surprise, he was really supportive about it! Wee talked through how the points system worked and how many points I was on at the moment and he's all for me continuing the way I've been going given the results on the scales has been so good.

Finally, I just have one unanswered question today - why does my card have a green sticker on it when most people have red? I would never had thought about it until the dietician started talking about it and indicated that it referred to the size of the band (she showed us a bunch of files where people had red stickers on them) and then when I went in to see Dr T, I noticed my file had the green sticker, not red so I'm not sure. Any ideas? LBG? Conspiracy theories welcome!

Well, if you've made it this far through this post, I take my hat off to you. It's kind of like regurgitating what I learned in order to make it stick. Speaking of regurgitation (charming!), I've got my zip lock bags in place for any unfortunate incidents in coming weeks as the great food experimentation starts!!

Hope you're all going well and I want to wish Sal all the best - she was supposed to get banded just before Easter but it's been rescheduled to this Thursday. Good luck Sal and look forward to seeing you on Planet Band very soon!!