Today also marks three weeks since my surgery. Putting things in perspective (not a strength of mine), losing 13.5 pounds in three weeks is nothing to sneeze at. Look, I just ended a sentence with a preposition. Let's pretend that didn't happen.
Anyway, I will continue to plug away until my first fill on Feb. 10th and hope that the scale continues to move. My husband says when you've lost a lot of weight in a short period of time, your metabolism slows dramatically and then finds a new balance so you can continue to lose. Also, my period is due in the next week or so, and I've read that women often lose less in the two weeks before their period. Something to do with hormones controlling the force with which food is pushed through the digestive system.
And now, BOOK REVIEW TIME!
I've read four books on weight-loss surgery and banding. They range from really excellent to abysmal.
1. Fighting Weight: How I Achieved Healthy Weight Loss With "Banding" by Khaliah Ali
This is far and away the best book on lap-band I've read. Khaliah Ali is a daughter of the fighting great Muhammad Ali, and she struggled mightily with her weight until she was banded a few years ago. The book combines Ali's memoir of her experiences as an obese single mother and her decision to have surgery with great information from her doctors. The surgeons, George Fielding and Christine Ren of NYU, are the rock stars of banding and WLS in general (and also the doctors of several here in our blogging community). Interspersed throughout the book are sections written by the doctors, covering everything from finding the right doctor and getting insurance coverage to handling social situations and eating in restaurants post-band. Their information is fantastic, and I've found myself going back to this book many many times in the last few months to re-read sections. I highly recommend this one.
2. Weight Loss Surgery for Dummies by Marina Kurian et al.
This book, like most in the Dummies series, is a great resource for those who don't know much about the subject. It covers most of the available procedures, including banding, bypass and duodenal switch (but not the gastric sleeve, as the book was published in 2005). For people trying to decide which surgery will work for them, this explains the procedures and gives a list of pros and cons to each. Marina Kurian is another rock-star surgeon in the weight-loss world - she operated on Al Roker and Star Jones (both bypass patients). At the time the book was published, Kurian was still at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. She has since left to join NYU and now practices with Drs. Fielding and Ren. The book offers some recipes for post-surgery cooking, which are somewhat helpful but are not specific to band patients. Bypass and band post-op diets are not identical, so this can be a bit confusing. The book is also a little out of date and could use a revision and updating, but it generally gives a good overall picture of the options available and explanations of each.
3. Before and After, Revised Edition: Living and Eating Well After Weight-Loss Surgery by Susan Maria Leach
Susan Maria Leach had gastric bypass surgery, and this book combines a memoir with 135 recipes for weight-loss patients. Before and After was recommended to me by someone in my support group, but I have to say I didn't find it very satisfying. Leach mentions banding once or twice, but the book is completely geared toward bypass patients. While band patients have some similar experiences starting out and at goal weight with bypass patients, the process is pretty different. I haven't tried the recipes, but they do look delicious. Leach's book is great for someone getting a bypass but definitely not a must-read for band patients.
4. Outpatient Weight-Loss Surgery by Kent Sasse
If you know anything at all about weight loss surgery and banding - if you've been to an info session or read a few blogs - this book is useless. The last 80 pages are appendices with charts and graphs, and notes citing other sources. The first 220 pages have the widest margins I have ever seen in a published book. And the whole thing is double-spaced. It reminded me of nothing so much as one of my college term papers, desperately trying to stretch three pages of material to 10 pages. The content is basic in the extreme. I don't recommend this one at all, I found it to be a waste of time and money.
That's it for now. If you've read a book you liked or didn't, please post in the comments. I'd love to hear what everyone thinks. Stay well!
