A new and interesting and a little frightening band place

So for the past week or so, I’ve been having myself a little eating frenzy.  I’m in this new band place.  It might even be the perfect band place – but it has really… hmmm, I don’t know exactly what… made me curious maybe?  Made me test it out?  I’m not sure, but I think I’ve eaten more chocolate in the last week or so than in all of 2010.

I read on someone’s blog (maybe Jen’s) about how their NP told them it’s not a good idea to take it all out then put it all back in (dirty hehehe) because the liquid will settle differently – well I’m up a net .5 cc – but that was after 1.5cc went in and then .5cc came out 15 min later and another .5cc came out a week later.  So now my restriction is totally and completely different.  Not tighter necessarily – but definitely different.  And it’s different in a wonderful and scary way. Before the whole fill-unfill-unfill thing at certain times of the month I was super tight and during those times or first thing in the morning or if I totally forgot and ate too fast – I could get into a situation where I’d throw up – and sometimes it would be kind of bad.  But for the most part things were fine and I wasn’t having many issues at all.  I was however still able to eat a lot of food at one time and I was getting hungry quicker than I thought I should, which led me to believe a tiny fill might be in order, but wasn’t necessary. 

When I was in my intermediate fill place which was .5 cc more than I ended up with, I really couldn’t eat any solid food.  I almost couldn’t drink water before noonish.  Anytime I did eat it would lead to some up close and personal time with the porcelain god.  It took a LONG time to consume anything at all.  The interesting part was my hunger.  It wasn’t that it was less.  It was non existent.  I lost all interest in food.  Poof.  It was just gone.  I’m not sure whether how hard it was to eat played a role in that or if it was just that special little nerve being gently massaged or both – but when I did eat or drink it was completely because I know it's important to consume a certain amount of liquid and calories and vitamins in a period of time – it was never, not once, because my body told me to eat or drink.  That part was downright odd.

But now – after the second little unfill – I’m not hungry all that much, but food is definitely on my mind.  I’m definitely interested in food again – wanting to taste things, wanting to chew things.  AND I don’t feel as physically tight as I did before the whole thing started.  I don’t think I could eat a lot in the morning, but I can definitely eat more now than before.  Before, drinking a chai latte in the morning was absolutely possible, but I could feel every bit of it going down and I had to be somewhat careful about it.  Now, I’m sure I couldn’t gulp it down, but I can’t feel it going down the way I could before.

I was thinking for a while there that maybe my doctor, who I don’t trust, took out more than he said, but here’s the difference – I can not consume much food.  At.  All.  The more solid it is, the smaller my portion has to be.  The sensation is completely different now though.  My body is giving me cues like my shoulder will hurt, or I’ll just feel a little pressure or something.  But this new place in no way keeps me from eating – the pressure or the pain will grow, but I can still eat it.  It’s so damn odd.  Before if I went too far, I would just not be able to bring that fork to my mouth one more time because I knew if I did I’d be running to the bathroom, but now, I’m not throwing up, I just get pain or pressure. 

The signs are all there.  My band and my body are working in beautiful harmony at the moment.  This is probably exactly where I want to be (band wise) – now I just have to learn to listen.  Learn to pay attention and learn to act on the cues.  "Hey look Read, you're done eating."  Which in the past week or so – basically since that last unfill – I’ve been failing at miserably.  I think I’ve finally gotten a handle on it.  I think it took me this long (well I’ve been fine for a couple of days now) to really figure out what the hell was going on with my body.  A lot of the time it feels like there is no restriction at all, of course I know that if I were to say take a bite of a big chicken sandwich, it would never go down – but, it’s just totally different than at any other time in the past 7 months.  It’s sort of like all the “walls” around what I could and couldn’t do are gone – only they’re not at all – they’re higher and stronger in fact.  I’m just left a little bit more in charge.  I know I’m not doing a good job of explaining this, but it’s totally interesting.

Of course – I just ate a banana.  A small banana.  And a) at about the ½ way point I could really feel it going down but I chalked that up to taking too big a bite, so I slowed down, but another bite in – OMG.  I’m was in serious pain and needed to take a trip to the bathroom.  So… maybe I take it all back – LOL.