I dragged the hubs along with me to the Bariatric Weight Loss Surgery Seminar on Wednesday evening.  I had no idea what we were in for.  I figured it would be 45-60 minutes and cover just some of the basics.  It was over 2 hours!  I personally thoroughly enjoyed it.  I did go in with an open mind, knowing that the Lap Band was what I wanted but if one of the doctors said something simply magical about another procedure, I would contemplate it.  Poor husband probably didn’t except quite so much information, but he did sit through it patiently and asked questions when he had one.

I really liked the doctor who led the seminar.  He was honest and upfront about complications, about what types of individuals that certain procedures are good for or bad for.  He was upfront about complications, side effects, and long term success rates.  I have set up my one on one consultation with him which will be on May 26th.

After the doctors were done speaking, the nutritionist got up and went over various things with us.  What to expect both pre and post op for all of the various surgery types.  Some of the things that stuck out:

• The doctor will give me a weight loss goal during the 3 month medically supervised diet.  If I am able to reach that goal, I will most likely not have to go on the OptiFast for the two weeks leading up to the surgery.

• If I do not reach the goal weight, there will be a 2 week liquid diet pre-op and then a 10 day liquid diet post-op.  I will have the 10 days post op regardless.

• She went over the foods that tend to be tolerated well, and those that tend to not be tolerated well.

• She let us know the diet progression for each of the main bariatric surgeries that they do.

• When you move to mushies, they don’t want you to have only baby food consistency, since that slides down the pouch too quickly and because you have to focus on chewing, so that once you are ready to move on to solids, you will know what youre doing.

• Once I start mushies, I will continue to drink 2 protein shakes a day to keep my protein levels up.

• Through out the first year, I will start out drinking a lot of protein shakes, but as time goes on, the protein will come more and more from actual food sources.

• The Lap Band is the quickiest surgery to heal from initially, but also has more people who fail in the long run due to various different reasons, mainly pertaining to neglecting aftercare (fills & follow ups.)

A lot of the information was information I was able to find online, but it was really nice to have the actual doctor and nutritionist explain things to us.  We were also able to see what an actual Lap Band looks like, and to feel it.  I was very encouraged by how soft and flexible it was.

I left the seminar feeling even stronger about my decision to go with the Lap Band!

Some funny things from the seminar:

• The lady who asked no less than a dozen times throughout the 2 hours how she was going to eat ice cream.  I $hit you not.  She kept saying “now back to the ice cream thing.”  The hubs and I refereed to her as Breyers (a brand of ice cream.)

• The guy behind us who apparently things that body parts are Legos and you can remove random pieces whenever you want.  “Why can you just cut out that part of the brain?”  “Why can’t you just make the stomach go straight to the colon?”   This guy also asked if you “Can put a steak in the blender until its baby food consistency?”

• The lady who walked out when she found out she’d no longer be allowed to have diet soda, even though “IT’S ZERO CALORIES!”

Back to the lady with the ice cream…   “Why does she need to watch how much sugar I consume?”  I’m pretty sure the doctor wanted to tell her right then and there that the band was a bad idea for her.  She   did follow that question up immediately with “Well fruit has sugar in it; I guess I’ll never have fruit again.”

I think that the majority of people in the seminar were really ready for weight loss surgery.  There were a lot of fantastic questions asked.  There were also a couple of idiots.