♥LovetheNewMe♥

Glad your test came out ok. I like you was not a true friend of exercise but i did bite the bullet and started exercising and it has made all the difference in my weight loss and has given me more than I thought possible. I have learned to embrace the exercise and it is part of my life now. Give it a try, start just something simple like walking. Good luck.

Jackie, I was banded 19 months ago and down 107 lbs. I will send you a friend request. Also there is a group of us on here that also do myfitnesspal.com and help encourage each other and provide some accountablity. My user name is the same as it is on this website. LovetheNewMe.

Good luck Jan, Today is the beginning of the the new healthy you.

Kim, Congratulations on your success. It is so encouraging to read the forums and see long term success with lapband. You must be so happy with your success. I agree with you totally and am constantly reminding people I work with who want to have this procedure. It takes dedication and major life style changes and if you are not willing to put forth the effort than you will be frustrated. I love my band and know it was the right choice for me. Again Congratulations on your milestone.

A sip of liquids should not hurt your test, but you need to consider why you were ordered the barium swallow. Are the checking the patency of your band? Do the suspect a slippage or erosion? A few hours of discomfort may be worth not having to do the test over, swish your mouth with some cool water and spit it out. Better to be safe than sorry later.

Kim, my plateau lasted for 7 months. Last summer I weighed 175 lbs and the scales did not move until Jan 30th of this year after a fill. Since that fill I have dropped from 175 to 145. I am very OCD and I was following the plan, I looked at everything I was doing, I lowered my carbs, upped my protein, cut back my calories, increased my exercise but I still hovered back and forth between 172-175. My only explanation to this is my body was adjusting to my losses. Have you checked your measurements? I have noticed when my scales fail to move sometimes that I am losing inches, which means you are reshaping your body and developing muscle and burning fat. Do not get caught up in the myth that muscle weighs more than fat because a pound is a pound whether it is fat or muscle. But think of it this way, a bowl of jello weighing 1 lb is a lot more volume than a chicken breast weighing 1 lb. When you think of fat and muscle in this visual manner it really makes you think. Stay positive and celebrate your successes to date, do not get discouraged. The scale will move again and you will get to where you want to be, I am learning that patience and persistence pays off. Good Luck to you.

Congratulations! I remember this feeling all to well. It feels like such an accomplishment, a day to celebrate! Treat yourself to something new. I started early on in this journey rewarding my self with charms to a bracelet along my journey so i could remember each mile stone I hit. I wanted a constant reminder of my accomplishments. Also take pictures of yourself each time you hit a goal, it makes you feel good later to go back and look how far you have come, especially during those times when we are plateaued. Again, great job and you should feel so accomplished today, enjoy the moment and celebrate!

Glad to see you are still so close to ur goal weight. Encouraging, you will get back there soon. Good luck.

Great Job and good luck to you.

Your doing great. I will share with you that in the beginning you will have to experiment with different foods. It may take you a while to figure out what goes down the easiest until you get used to learning to feel for soft stops. It took me months to eat eggs. For me a lot of food tasted different to me and my tastes seemed to change. My MD told me he had no idea why I felt these things but he had other patients tell him the same thngs. I ate a lot of greek yogurt and grits in the beginning with protein powder added to everything. Honestly I worried in the beginning if I would ever be able to actually sit down and eat a normal meal and also wondered how in the heck I would ever get down the protein and veggies I was suppose to. All of this comes with time and practice. It really is like learning to eat all over again. Good luck and keep up the good work.

Great and inspirational, thanks for sharing.

Me too, some days it seems worse than others.

Well Diane is having her own personal pity party. Go figure. I got my feelings hurt yesterday probably not the first time nor will it be the last but this time I am really having trouble shaking it. So who was the wonderful person who decided to be so honest with me my "loving husband", I type that with much sarcasm and anger at this moment. As all of you on this site know I have lost a lot of weight over the past 19 months, 103 lbs to be exact. I am very proud of the fact that I have been able to be successful with lapband and it has not been without ups and downs and struggles along the way. So what did the "jerk" say that hurt so much. Well here it goes, we were working outside trying to get the pool open and I had to get in the pool to srub the sides and bottom so I went to put on a swim suit. OMG, as I am sure all of you are aware of is that when you lose a lot of weight your skin does not always snap right back into place. Go figure, right! Well Mr. Brilliant says to me, "Honey, you know you are damn sexy looking except for one thing." WHAT? He repeats himself, now knowing he has crossed the path of no return. EXCEPT for WHAT??? Well I am not sure you know it or not but your THIGHS really look just AWFUL. Oh yeah, he did say it. I think I turned into let me see a TIGER, no may be a RATTLESNAKE, or may be it was SCORPION. So WTF?? Does he not think I look in the mirror everyday and see what I look like without my cloths on? Why does he think I am literal working my ASS off at a gym 3 times a week and doing cardio 6-7 days a week. So have you figured out I am just a little touchy about how I look? I have been struggling for months with my body image, I still saw the fat me for months when I looked into the mirror it was not until just the past month that I was starting to accept the new me. Starting to notice that working out was paying off, I even felt my thighs were looking better, not perfect. But for real, I used to weigh 252 lbs on 5'1' frame what do you expect. I am just hurt, pissed, mad and just can't believe he said it. So what did I do last night, I binged. I reverted back to an old behavior. Well of course binging these days is much different than before, but still I hate the fact that I allowed what someone said to cause me to go back to an old coping behavior. So today I feel hurt, guilty and just totally like a failure. I have tried all day to make this into a positive but I am struggling, I am trying to be a big girl and realize that everyone has an opinion but I guess my feeling is that because he said it, it is how he really feels. So to him, I look awful. I looked awful fat and I look awful thin, so what now. Well I guess I could continue to feel sorry for myself and give into bad past behaviors or I can just put this into prospective. I know I have lose skin, that is a given. I know I have worked to do to try and tighten up, that is also a given and why I hired a personal trainer and am working my butt off. I spent my afternoon reading the forums for other posts that could help me and this is one I read that really hoped me put into prospective what I feel: "Don't listen to the inner dialogs that continues to put you down despite your success. Because it won't suddenly start happening once you get plastic surgery. Choose to celebrate your achievements now." To take the above statement a little further I will not allow others to sabotage what I have worked so hard to achieve. I could chose to have plastic surgery to rid my self of the lose skin I have but I have chosen to try and tighten up with exercise, it takes longer may not be perfect but I do not want the scars that come with plastic surgery. I will not go back to being that person, the person who used cheeseburgers, chips and Fry's to comfort her. I don't want to be that person, I will not be that person and further more I am not that person anymore. So there hubby take that, maybe you have your own issues you need to work out to deal with the fact that "YOUR" wife looks "HOT" OK maybe that's a little much but you get the point. So first I am forgiving myself for failing myself and not using what I have learned for the past year and a half and than I am going to forgive the "jerk" I am married to for hurting my feelings. I may not tell him for a few days because I think he needs to realize just what a "HUGH" mistake he made. Because you see I have another character flaw, I may forgive but I never forget...........................

It is best to follow the advice of your WLS, I take the forum for what it can give me which is support. For medical advice and true guidance about my band, what to eat and so on. I always go back to my MD. All docs give different advice based on their outcomes with there patients. The only consisitant thing I notice is chew your food and those that seem to follow the rules what ever those rules are seem to be the most successful.

Yes, can you drink water and other liquids easily? After my first fill, I felt fullness in the back of my thoart. It does feel different after a fill, like starting out all over again everytime I get one.

I do weights 3 times a week and cardio 5-6 times a week. When I first started the weight training I had to adjust my diet. My trainer told me I was not eating enough protein and I was losing muscle mass and I needed more lean protein to build muscle. So I used to eat between 60-70 gms of protein a day and now I eat between 90-120 gms perday but same calorie count. I try to stay between 1000-1200 calories but sometimes I don't hit that I am ususally under in calories. I eat 3 meals a day and have two protein shakes aday. I do the shakes between breakfast and lunch and another between lunch and dinner. Basically I eat a weight training diet, oatmeal with egg whites for breakfast, lean meat and veggies for lunch and dinner and two protein shakes a day. Boring but it has been working for me. I did gain two pounds when I first started working out but I think that was my body adjusting to the new diet but lost it and 3 more the first month. I dropped 3% body fat the first month. Excited to get measured this week because I know I have lost more inches. Just excited to see what my % body fat is now. I can see a difference in my arms and abdomen mainly, the thighs are coming but they are slower. Good luck and have fun and enjoy. Just remember to give your body time to rest between workouts, i alterante days and muscle groups. 30 minutes is a good work out. Enjoy and have fun!

I do both cardio and weight training. I started the weight training 2 months .I lost 9 inches the first month and am due to be measured this week. I lost 5 lbs first month and as of today I have lost another 4.6 lbs on my scales. I work out under the supervion of a trainer, he alternates between my arms and lower body and I do abs (crunches every time I go) To date I have lost about 103 lbs. I am 19 months post op.

lol, you just reminded me of something funny that happened to my friend at work. She had gastric bypass a month after me and has also lost over 100 lbs. Last winter she was walking up the hill to the hosptial from the parking lot with her husband and by the time she reached the front door her thigh high stockings had rolled downed to her ankles, She looked at her husband and said now what. I guess I will have to pin them to my underware. Her husband smiled, chuckled and said, Honey please don;t do that because than your underware will be around your ankles. I still laugh evertime I think of this. I love buying underware these days!

Congratulations on 1 year and cheers to your continued success!

Glad your doing well, just a word of caution for going back to work. Remember to take your food and remember you will get tired becasue your not eating that many calories yet. I went back day 5 after surgery, and I felt fine but tired quickly. I took a business trip on day 7 and did ok, I carried my protein powder and snacks with me. Good luck you have a good attitude and this is very important and following the rules is also important. I wish you great success.

Great, glad your doing so well. Wishing you much continued success!

@ Darci, thought about that girl...........................believe me!

Wishing you success!

Quote: You are your own worst critic. Don't listen to the inner dialogue that continues to put you down despite your success. Because it won't suddenly start happening once you get plastic surgery. Choose to celebrate your achievements now. Well said!

No offense taken. My choice to have the lap band was because I did not want to alter my internal organs, meaning I did not want the gastric bypass because I did not want to by pass my stomach and I did not want the sleeve because I did not want to loss 2/3 of my stomach. That being said, my MD wanted me to have the sleeve because I had bad knees due to joint issues with my weight and he was afraid I would not be able to exercise. I wanted the band and there was no talking me out of it, I told my MD, you give me the tool and I will be successful. I was not able to exercise during my first 60lb loss and I have injured myself at about the one year mark and had to have knee surgery. I do not regret my choice it has been the right choice for me. I have lost 103 lbs and have only 17 left to loss. My results are not typical and the web sites will tell you that surgeons consider you successful if you loss 60% of the weight. That number was not good enough for me, I want to lose 90% or more of my weight. As you see I am very determined and have remained focused during this past 19 months. It is a personal choice and you and only you can make the decision. Look at all the pros and cons of all the surgery's and know with lap band you are going to lose the weight slower than with gastric bypass. I am 19 months post op and not at goal yet and I did sit at 175 lbs from July last summer until I had a fill this Jan 2012 and started losing again. Good luck in which ever choice you make.