As I think about my banding experience it reminds me of a football season. You have training camp where you get your head right, study the play book and get your body ready for the season. Obviously, I correlate this to the pre-op phase of the LapBand. We all find teams (Doctors), get focused (shrinks, blood work etc.) and get our bodies ready (per-op diet) for the season opener. During this time we go through a roller coaster of thoughts, experiments, doubts and moments of conviction…but we persevere. Then, the big day arrives and we kick-off weight loss season…so nice that this works with the WLS acronym we use :w00t:.

We are then off to the play the first game in the season of weight loss. Like football, I feel the first half of your weight loss target like the regular season. You have to win these games to qualify for the playoffs, but they are a means to an end. We live through those tender days of the post-op, the really tough days of bandster hell and then we find some level of restriction. During these days you are playing games with pounds…some days you win and some you lose, but you keep grinding it out and before you know it you are half way there. These battles are not always very glorious, or fun, but they are required to get to second half of the goal. I call this the play offs. This is where the band should really earn its money. I have lost the first half of the weight at least 4 times in the past 20 years. It is the second half that is where I have failed, or to use this blogs vernacular…I get knocked out in the first round of the play-offs.

I crossed the line into the play-offs a few weeks back at 88lbs down. I have dropped another 13 in the past few weeks and sit at 101 lost, 75 to go. This to me is the play-offs. This is where we separate the winners from the losers...or should I say the big losers from the “band approved” losers. I don’t know about you, but I refuse to accept the fact the band will only help me lose 50-60% of my excess weight. Hell, if that was the case I could declare victory at this point. However, that is not why I did this. At 5’8” and 272 pounds I still have a BMI of 30 and would still almost qualify for surgery. Needless to say, that is not what I signed up for. I have cross one of the major miles stones of 100Lbs lost (per and post-op), but I still have 75 more to go to hit my goal. What is next?

Now is the time to step up the game, make the workouts more intense and more varied to keep the weight loss engine going. Craft a more targeted diet with lower fats, better carbs and higher protein…I am now running about 160G/day…got to love MuslceMilk CytoSport 45g/bottle for 300 calories. So I am stepping up the game in play-offs. I don’t want to lose in the first round anymore. I want to loss enough to be fit, normal, proportional or whatever you call it. But 272, is not that, so I have told my LapBand the season is not over and we still have at least 75 lbs of work to do.

Like your analogy. Great Job, and enthusiasm. Thanks for sharing. Very True. Good Luck.

Great analogy! I'm early in the season, but so far the team is very promising. :w00t:

Keep up the great work!!