♥LovetheNewMe♥

Agree with both posts your surgeon is your best bet for which will work for you. There is also a third option you did not mention, Gastric Sleeve. I strongly suggest you attend a WL Seminar in your area so you can make an informed decision. Meeting and talking to experts can help you make the right decision for your personal weight loss journey. This is a life changing decision and you need to make it with your doctor. Good luck to you.

Large amounts of sugar free substitutes can give some people diarrhea. Everyone's GI tract reacts differently to sugar free.

Giving up Coke was difficult for me but I did it and have not had one since July 2010. I tried it flat, yuck, I tried to drink one, too much gas. I drink a lot of flavored waters, plain water and ice tea with splenda. Small price to pay I guess for the band. I know a lot of people who do still drink soda but for me it was just to uncomfortable.

Hello all, My name is Diane and I had lapband surgery October 2010. I have lost 102.5 lbs to date and am 17.5 lbs from my ideal body weight. I love my lapband and have no regrets. I had been mordidly obese for a number of years, I had tried every fad diet that came a long and would lose weight but wold always gain it back plus an additonal 10, 20 or 30 lbs. I was at my heaviest in 2008-2009 hitting an all time high of 252 lbs. I had bad knees, sleep apnea, hypertension and borderline diabetes. Lap band has been my path to developing a healthy life style. My journey has not been with out its ups and downs but I am determined that this will be a way of life not another fad diet. I have a different outlook on life now, I feel healthy and I want to live healthy. My goals now are to continue my journey, loss my final pounds and help others be successful. Myfitnesspal.com user name is the same as Lapband talk, LovetheNewMe, add me if you want to join us on our journey.

My soft stop is a feeling of fullness in the back of my thoart, if I ignore the next bite will be coming right back up. This has taken me months to learn, I used to spend a lot of time, PB'ing in the early days. I used to think I ate to fast but truly I was just trying to eat like the old me.

Amen! On your comment,"WLS is the easy way out." I think this is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. I also lost the majority of my weight without hitting my sweet spot. But I am there now and it is totally different than the first half of this journey. I now have learned what soft stops are and how to recognize them. When I feel the first twinge of fullness in the back of my throat, that is my clue to back away from the plate. I still measure and weigh portions but depending on the day is whether I can eat those portions. I think if I had been in my sweet spot all the time it would have been more difficult, this delay has giving me time to adjust to my new life and healthy eating. Thanks for the articles, I love reading and learning from your experience and incite.

Agree, usually gas and it just has to pass. I think this probably the worst part of the postop portion of the surgery. You can try Gas-x, I lived on this for the first month. Everything gave me gas.

@ Cindy's Mom, sometimes a fill is not the answer to losing, sometimes you have to burn more than your body needs. The closer we get to goal the harder it is to lose and another fill is not the answer. I am 17 lbs from ideal body weight and I am working my butt off by doing some basic old fashion exercise. I sometimes wish I had started exercise sooner but bad knees prevented this early in this process. As far as the slider discussion, I rarely eat sliders, I know my triggers, and chips and salsa is one of them, and I try to stay as far from them as I can. I switched to popcorn for a while but realized I was just substituting popcorn for chips. I do not believe in depriving myself of anything if I truly want it but the longer I am banded the less I want it. I have come to far to sabotage myself with sliders because I know me, once I head down that road it will be hard for me to get back on track.

You do look different and you are losing but I do agree with Rob_SoCal's comments. I have lost 103 lbs and it was not until the last few weeks that I was actually able to see what others were seeing. I know I was heavy, 5' 1' at 252 but I don't think I saw myself as fat as I really was. When I hit 178 last summer I still felt fat and when I would look in the mirror or see pictures of myself I still saw the same person I was at 252lbs, As an example, we have elevators at work and they are mirrored on the outside, I used to stand in from of them and think, man you are still fat. Last week I was standing in front of those same elevators and I looked at my reflection and thought to myself, Who is that? I also finally noticed this week that my knees were no longer as big as they were 2 months ago. I guess my mind finally allowed me to see myself for the first time as a thinner me, I still don't see myself as thin, not sure I ever will but I definitely do not look like I did in 2008. It takes time to feel comfortable in our new bodies, most of us have been heavy a good part of our lives and the words thin were never in our vocabulary. Your looking great and I do suggest you take measurements, because there have been plenty of months I have stayed the same weight but dropped a size due to exercise. Good luck to you.

Glad your doing well. You are correct on everyone is different. Some people lose immediately and some do not start losing until after a fill and some struggle with losing all together. You are also correct in trying to stay positive, if you follow the rules your chances of being successful with lap band are increased. Unlike gastric bypass we do not have dumping and we truly are what we eat. You have to learn early what a slider is, ice cream, milk shakes, chips, junk food. Unfortunately, these foods will seem to always go down when we struggle with healthy foods. But if you think about it, when you chew chips and pretzels they pretty much dissolve in your mouth and do not need the stomach to break it down, protein is another story, you chew and chew and chew to make sure it can pass through the band. Take what you can from everyones posts, we all get frustrated from time to time and this is our one sounding board that someone can identify with our frustrations. Good luck to you and remember to take pictures of your self now, and also measurements. These will save as reminders of where you started and how far you have come. Good luck to you.

Congratulations and yes a lot of people do not understand this is now a way of life for us. It is not longer about the next fad diet it is about living and eating healthy and it is a commitment and there are plenty of sabotaging people and obstacles that others will throw our way. My favorite is, oh I forgot your dieting you can't eat that, and I have to say no, I can eat that but I prefer not to. It really drives people crazy when you no longer want to take part in there office parties, grazing all day long or eating endless empty calories. I made a choice, a life altering choice, I was tired of being fat and tired of diets. I love my band, I am off that crazy rollacoaster of diet hell. Is this journey always easy NO, but who ever said life was easy and you did not have to work hard for what you wanted. Stick to your convictions and beliefs and you will be successful.

Hair loss happens, call it an unfortunate side effect. It will grow back. Hair is protein, when you are losing large amounts of weight in the beginning or your protein intake is not up to what it should be something will suffer and unfortunately it is your hair. You do not always see this as much with lapband as you do the other WLS procedures but it does happen. I took this for about a year after surgery and started taking at about 6 months and it made a big difference that even my hair dresser noticed. I liked the chewable biotin from GNC. Zinc is another mineral that can help. My best advice is talk to your doctor and ask him for some assistance, on things to try, I strongly believe in keeping in touch with my WLS surgeon he has been a great resource for me and has helped me stay focused.

Here are some basic guidelines from the lapband.com web site. This site is full of valuable information for new bandsters. In the early months of my journey I lived on this web site and have read pretty much all the articles. I wanted to be as informed as I could be so I could be successful in my journey and work through the frustrations. So far this has worked well for me, I am 19 months post surgery and 103 lbs lost with 17 to go to goal. Good luck to you and I hope this helps. http://www.lapbandta...l-instrucitons/

http://www.lapbandforlife.com/postsurgerydiet.htm

http://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/features/exercise-and-weight-loss-five-truths

Good luck to you, I am glad you didn't give up. Weight loss is hard, I put it right up there with other addictive problems like alcohol and drugs. Unless you have lived it no one can identify with what we feel and all the trials and tribulations we go through on our journey to try and be healthy. I wish you success and keep us updated on your success. Do not get discourage, seeking help is half the battle and we want to succeed.

Yes, I did and still do when I want it to be thick and extra cold, you can also add peanut butter, berries and sugar free syrups to change up the flavors. I use peanut butter powder which is lower in fat and calories than regular peanut butter. I love vanilla protein powder, peanut butter and sugar free salted carmel syrup. Tastes like a milkshake to me that is good for me.

No you are not over sensitive, I told my husband one night that if he was going to continue to gorge himself he would have to eat some where else. He laughed but I was dead serious,

Congratulations on your date, this is an exciting time and an opportunity to prepare your self for a wonderful journey.

Chris, I am more than willing to share any part of my journey that will be helpful to any person seeking to be successful with lapband, But first I want to say, there comes a time when you sit in the shadows and watch from the sidelines and there is a time when you dress and get in the game. I am not sure why you are waiting, financial or medical but you can't experience what you don't live. First and foremost I want to say that I do not regret any part of my surgery except I wish I had done it sooner. In my opinion any obese patient can identify with the emotional side of eating, to put it bluntly, "we" use food to comfort us and to cope, we eat when were sad, we eat when were happy, we eat when were mad or upset. So pretty much we eat all the time. So in answer to your question, it you truly use the lapband as the tool it was intended than you are going to have to unlearn all your eating behaviors. Think about it, if you new how to eat you would not need lap band. To be success you have to plan your meals and follow the rules. And when I say follow the rules I mean follow the rules, not some of the time but 100% of the time. This is not easy by no means. I actually grieved the loss of food, I went through a period of time when I didn't care if I ate or not. I missed, pizza, bread, sandwiches. Food is very social, everyone wants to feed you. So to make a long story short, you need to understand why you eat what you eat and you have to have goals and you have to be committed enough to stay focused to work these goals. The surgery alone will not get you to where you want to be, it will help you lose a few pounds but if you do not follow the rules and use the band as a tool it was designed you will continue on the same rollecoaster that you have been on for years. I did not have surgery so I could fail, I had surgery to succeed. So, i think maybe you have sat on the bench long enough, it is time to get up and dressed and get in the game. Life is way to short to have to continue to sit our the game. But do remember, you have to want this, I mean really want it with everything you have because if you don't want it and own it, it is near impossible to be success. Good luck to you!

Deb, Thank you for your kind words, I was so glad to see you post again, I often wonder what happened to a lot of our old group becuase they have fallen off or are just not active on the site. I guess I am one of those computer nerds who likes to blog and this site has helped me to stay focused and all though I have not met anyone in person I consider I have a met a lot of people I consider friends and who have been tremendiously encouraging and have helped me reamin dedicated and focuse on my goals. I am so happy you had your knee surgery and are on the mend, I can tell you from my experience the exercise and begin active is really key to long term success. Good luck to you, I hope you are successful as you begin to move forward again. Cyber Hugs Diane

You still look amazing, I think gaining back is what we all fear. I am 19 months post op and have lost 103 lbs with 17 to go and what you are going through is what I fear most as get closer and closer to goal. I am sometimes obsessed with exercise even though I don't eat much junk. I do log my food everyday on MFP and have for a while, I was stuck and needed to figure out why. I say the write ups on the pouch test but just could not bring my self to go back to liquids so I just kept adjusting my food, had my band filled and exercised my butt off. Finally the inches started to drop again and the scales slowly. I hope this works for you, we were successful before and I am sure you will be successful again. Good Luck

Maria, some peoples gas lasts longer than others, that was probably my worst problem, I had more gas and nausea than a lot of my friends. My doctor gave me Xoforan that would dissolve under my tonge for the nausea and I lived on gasx, I am honestly surprised I did not OD on gas x. You are pretty far post op to still be having gas pains?? Have you been back for a post op visit and discussed these issues with your surgeon? What foods are you eating? If you are truly in a lot of pain I strongly recommend you call you MD.

My goal is more about the protein intake than the calories, I try to take in 120 plus grms of protein a day, I try to keep my carbohydrate choices down to less than 100 a day. Early in this process I took in between 60-80 gms of protein a day and never worried about my carbs. My only reason now for monitoring is that I am lifting weights and trying to tone and to build muscle to burn fat i need more protein than I was normally taking in. For me so far this is working and I am 17 lbs from my ideal body weight and have lost 103 lbs to date. I do not rely on my band to restrict me, because restriction is not the real use of the band. Suggestions for reading, the WLS Magazine on this site has some really good artilces on how to develop a healthy life style, and discusses how the band truly functions. Restriction: The Holy Grail. Opinion only but the more we know about how this band works and the sooner we develop healthy habits this will lead to not only weight loss but long term success. We all need to remember, this is not a diet but a plan to develop healthy eating habits.