Amen

I second that!

I hope a lot of future band people read this. You have said it very well. Our tool is there to help us loose the weight but you must help the tool to work. Good job blogging.

I second that as well... now excuse me while I go plug in my lapband so I can lose some more weight! hehehe

Well said! And HUGS!

I like what you have written and for most people you are absolutly right. I can tell you, however that I am a fitness freak. I work out 2 hours a day doing very intense workouts. I eat 1000 cals a day and it is mostly all protein. In a years time I have only lost 40 lbs. I paid for this myself and have many fills and unfills. Ive eaten more calories and less calories. I stay at 1000 because I MIGHT be able to lose half of a pound by the end of the week. This is quite a struggle! I still weigh 192 lbs and Im a size 10 pants. I have 30 more to go. It will take me over a year to do that. People need to understand that unless you are extremely overweight, the pounds wont just melt off because you have a band in your belly. But also know that if you dont have a lot to lose, the process my be VERY slow and the band actually doesnt play too much of a part in that.

I haven't exercised a whit yet though I intend to eventually. However, I track every calorie I eat and I have lost 55 pounds in 10 weeks, without ever being hungry! The LapBand gives me one critical advantage over every other diet I have tried: I get FULL!! Quickly, too. I haven't gone over 800 calories in a day yet. For ideas visit my external blog:

Michaelwasfat.blogspot.com

or email me at :mickp_24@hotmail.com

Michael Pickert MD

Please exercise or your body will be a flab bag.

Great blog. I agree a lot of people think this is a miracle fix. It is not!!!! It's a tool. We still have to do all the work. I had a long road even before the surgery with nutritionalist and insurance programs. I am 2 months post op but 8 months since the start of my journey. I have lost 45 lbs. It's slow but I'm happy with that since for once I am sticking with it.

~Kris

Maybe you can drop the attitude and understand, that even doing things right, this thing can and does fail. When a person has subjected themselfes to a surgicial procedure, and like myself self paid, just to not lose is a HUGE Frickin dissappointment.

Stop judging.

Prior to surgery I ate roughly 1,600-2,200 calories a day. I ran, lifted, yogaed, biked, and just moved myself continuusly and lost every week. I added the band to learn what it's like to be full, I personally saw it as the missing link to finish the process.

Today I am LUCKY if I can get in 800 calories. Yea, I'm never hungry, and that's a good thing, since I also often can't get anything down. The really fun, awesome, great thing is that I fluctuate between wide open and too tight daily. I'm not kidding when I say that I have days when I can't get down a yogurt or cottage cheese, other days you could slide a whole damn elephant down...

Don't assume that others aren't doing what they are supposed to. I've lost crap since I started this thing. I hiked 8 hours on Saturday 9.2 miles round trip with an elevation gain of just under 3,000 feet. I don't just sit on my ass. Sadly I almost didn't finish because I got so light headed from over exercusion, less calories that I wasn't fairing so well.

Mean people. Even the former fatties. SUCK!

fool4dance - I don't mean to go off topic, but I became lactose intolerant after my band. Foods like cottage cheese & yogurt made my day terrible! Just a thought!