♥LovetheNewMe♥

My port is on the right and about 4 inches from the bottom of my rib cage, I am almost at goal also and mine is pretty flush with my tummy and only noticeable by the scar and if you feel around. My surgeon buried mine pretty good.

Waiting Patiently is correct, I am much further along in my journey and need the extra calories because I was burning over 900 calories a day. In the beginning you need to follow the diet set by your physician and nutritionist.

Shelie, Honestly there is not quick fix to this. Have you looked at your intake vs what you burn in calories everyday. In order to lose one pound a week you need to take in 3500 calories less than your body needs, and this still does not guarantee you will lose at that rate. I do understand the frustration, but you are doing well with 80 lbs lost. I do understand this is not what you want to hear but once we lose the initial weight it becomes harder and harder for some of us. if you are not already doing it I suggest you increase your exercise to at least 60 minutes a day. To lose weight you have to do at least 60 minutes of cardio with your heart rate in your target zone for fat burning. You can also add weight training several times a week, working muscles will help you to burn fat and lose inches. Make sure you are getting all your protein in and eating at least 1200 calories aday. If you are eating less than 1200 you can not get your daily nutrients and you also can not get all your protein in. I struggle with the calories thing and have to work hard on getting all my protein in, I started working with a trainer 2 weeks ago and he has helped me tremendously, I actually am eating healthier thanks to him and getting closer to my intake goals. It was an additional expenses but I decided that I waste 75 dollars a week and I was stalled and was struggling to get to my goal. I stalled for better than 7 months last year, never gained but never lost. There are a lot of us on myfitnesspal.com who support each other with exercise and maintaining our food dairies if you want to join my sign on is the same as my name here. Support helps and it also motivates. Good luck to you and I hope you can find your sweet spot to start losing again to reach your goals.

Yes the lump on your tummy is your band, it is your port. It will always be there. I am fortunate, mine lays pretty flat as i have lost weight. The shakes and liquids do get pretty boring no matter how you mix them up, you should advance soon to soft foods and regular, just depends on your MD. Good luck to you.

lol.. One morning a few months ago I woke up to my husband staring at me and poking me in the ribs. I looked and him and said what are you doing, he smiled and said, Man you are really thin.. '-) I can count your ribs. It is cool! Amazing what excites us, most people could not identify. Good luck to you.

In the beginning it is hard to get all liguids in, just make sure you stay well hydrated and always keep something to drink with you. Good luck.

My physician did not make me do the liquids for 10 days I only had to do it for 3 days before surgery. My diet 4 weeks before surgery was low to no carbohydrates and only lean meats and vegetables. I do think the liquid protein helps before surgery to get us used to drinking the protein because in the beginning we rely on it a lot to get all of our protein in. I like the shakes from Bariatriceating.com , they have a lot of great flavors, they are low carb, high protein, low volume and taste good. I love the peanut butter cookie, ice cream sandwich and Carmel latte. I also like Pure Protein Vanilla Cream mixed with liquid egg whites and PB2 Powder. I added 3-6 tbs of liquid egg whites to my protein drinks because it adds 5-10 grams of protein makes the shake thick and creamy and you can not taste it and it keeps me full longer. I also like to add berries and sugar free syrups to my shakes. I still do shakes twice a day because I am working out and need the additional protein to burn fat and develop muscle. Good luck to you, keep reading and blogging we can all learn from each others experiences.

It will come, onederland, I fluctuated back and forth for weeks before I got there and you will get there. You are doing great.

Congratulations on the 10lbs and glad your feeling better. The gas stays for a while but does get better, Gas=X will be come your new best friend and you will need it time and again so buy some and always carry it with you. As far as soda there is mixed reviews, some say yes some say no. I have found that it is just better to give it up, carbonation creates a lot of gas and it makes you burp. Some of the early literature says that it may stretch the stoma and I was just not willing to risk that. I am 17 months post-op and I have had a sip of diet coke and honestly the taste is not the same. i do agree that drinking water all the time is boring and I use alot of the flavored water packets to mix things up and the diet Lipton green tea, makes me feel like I am having a soda. I do drink coffee and sometimes have a skinny latte from star bucks but my doctor told me if I drink coffee that for every cup of coffee I drink I need to drink that much more water, so I cut back on my coffee consumption. As for the family BBQ, next time it comes up you will be able to participate, so you have something to look forward to. I was banded 3 weeks before Thanksgiving and believe me it was a tough fall and winter holiday season but it tested my dedication and I made it and so can you. Good luck!

Sometimes it amazes me the hoops that insurance companies make us go through to get approved for a surgery that will save them money in the long run because with lower BMI we will have less health problems and cost them less money. It really drives me crazy. Before I decided on the band I did Jenny Craig, some insurance companies will pay for weight loss programs but mine would not. At that time I had not hit the point where I was ready to commit to surgery. I wanted to try on my own one more time, when I spoke with my insurance company, she said, "Honey your BMI is high enough you should just go ahead and have the surgery." Sadly we live in a society where what is best medically for the patient is dictated by the rules of the government and insurance boards which usually are business people not medical people. So gain the few pounds so you can get your surgery, just look at it as a way to get what you know you need to be successful. If you have been exercising cut back until after your surgery, if you do not burn more than your body takes in than you should not lose anymore before surgery and may gain a few pounds. I do not know what your BMI is or how much your body burns daily but i know with out any exercise at all my body requires around 1600-1700 calories a day just to maintain my weight and anything I eat less than that will result in weight loss. Remember you have to eat 3500 calories less per week to loss one pound of fat. Good luck to you and I wish you happiness and success in your journey.

Cathy, I have been banded since October 2010 and I have had this happen once and yes it is very painful. I was eating at a restaurant with my husband and was starving that evening. I had not eaten much that day, he ordered chicken fajita and me being adventurous decided to order bean dip. I ate some of the chicken with the peppers and onions no flour tortilla but my down fall was the fried corn chips and bean dip. I felt OK during the meal and did not think I had over eaten but before we left the restaurant I was in severe pain, my chest was killing me, my abdomen was distended. I was so scared I had damaged my band, I figured what happened was I over ate and the corn chips when eaten became swollen in the band. I was pretty uncomfortable most of the evening but recovered. I have not eaten a corn chip since that night and probably never will again. So the pain you felt was normal. Everyone is different on what foods we tolerate and what foods we do not tolerate. You may not be able to eat the Italian Sausage again for a while but may be able to at a later date. Don't be afraid to try things, but just know that sometimes your band may reject them. I have had hot dogs once and it did not go well, I am able to eat Chicken Sausages grilled but usually only about 2ozs at a sitting. I think they are difficult to chew and get small enough and sometimes sit in my stomach a little longer. Good luck to you and great success on you weight loss to date. You are doing awesome. :-)

Good luck to you as you start your journey, hope all is well.

My plateau lasted 6 months, I did the same as you added more activity, logged everything I ate. I did not cheat, eat junk food, etc but I was stuck. I had an adjustment the end of January and have dropped 23 lbs. I recently added working out with a trainer and he has me doing weight training 3 days week and 45 minutes of cardio where I get my heart rate into my target zone. I don't know where you are in your WL journey but I am near my goal and it seems that I am having to work really hard to get these last pounds off. My body seems to need an adjustment time everytime I drop a significant amount of weight, and usually when I am not losing pounds i seem to be losing inches. Please don't become discouraged, as long as you are eating correctly and exercising the weight will eventually come off.Good luck.

My only advice, is make sure this is what you really want. Yes it is scary and I am sure your surgery course will go good but the realty of this process is, it really has to be a life style change. You have to change your relationship with food. Food can no longer be a go to for dealing with problems and a coping mechanism. I know we all go through the psych consult preop but how many of us are really totally honest in that consult. There are ways to know what they want you to say and let's face it we all really wanted the surgery because we have all tried everything else and have always failed. I have been very lucky with my band and have lost weight steadily with minimal stalls. But in saying that it has not come with it's frustrations and emotional rollercoaster. I am still learning to live with my band 15 months out and I still live with the fear that I will back slide or fail. Please just remember once the surgery is over than the reallity sets in and so does the journey, I just want you to be fully prepared for the emotional feelings that come along with this surgery. This is my opionion but I grieved the loss of food and for the things I could no longer eat. I have finally excepted that there are some things I will never be able to eat like other people, like a sandwich or slice of pizza but I have accepted that this is the price I must pay to no longer be morbidly obese. Good luck with your surgery and your weight loss and remember this is a Life Style Change and only you can make a chose what you put in your body.

Make Gas-x your new best friend, I really liked and still do like the Gas-x strips that mekt under in your mouth. They come in peppermint and Cinnamon. Good luck it does get better.

Agree with Igotheband, do not eat grilled cheese frankly you should not be eating anything solid. In the beginning they want you to eat slider food. Protein shakes, with at least 15 gms of protein and they should be low in sugars. Greek yogurt is good source of protein, mashed potatos, cream soups. You can buy unflavored protein and add it to almost anything. If you are hungry than take some liguids or something every couple of hours. It takes several days, sometimes up to a week for the swelling to go down after the band is placed. You will not fill any restriction in the beginning and you may not start really losing any weight until after your first fill. Some fill restriction from the beginning. If you go to main Lapband web site there is a diet to follow and you need to stick to it as closely as you can, but really your physicians office should have provided you with all of that. Good luck to you and do a little internet searching on what to eat in the early days. This all takes time and yes in the beginning you may be hungry, I am sorry but the band can not change all of that as quickly as we would like sometimes. Banded since OCTOBER 2010 and down 94 lbs.

In advance I will ask your forgiveness as i rant about my life! I haven't blogged in a while but I have been busy and still consistent to my goal. I started working with a trainer 2 weeks ago to learn to properly exercise and EAT. Eat you say, I thought that was why you had lapband surgery so you wouldn't eat. Well the answer to that question is both a yes and a no. I had lapband surgery because I had always failed at every weight loss program for 20 years plus. I like many would always lose weight but could never make it for the long haul not did I ever really change my relationship with food and what I put into my body. I have always been in for the instant gratification, quick fix and results category. I think I have tried almost every fad diet on the market and have always made them work for me only to gain back what I lost plus MORE! Does this sound familiar to any of you, I am sure it does and I am sure that many of you have been as frustrated as I have been. So why is this Lapband Journey going to be any different? What will I do different and how will I transition this into a life style change and will I be successful? A Journey:The act of traveling from one place to another; a trip. A distance to be traveled or the time required for a trip: a 2,000-mile journey to the Pacific; the three-day journey home. A process or course likened to traveling; a passage: the journey of Life! Hmmmmm, after reading the above statement I think I need to rethink what I call this Lapband process. A journey may be OK to get from Fat to Thin but then what? I am thinking that, the closer you get to goal the more you need to have made some major changes a long this journey. So now I am refocusing my thoughts and think I will call this Lapband a "Life Style Change". If I really want to commit to this weight loss I have to change my way of thinking, my band has been my safety net under this high wire act, that I have been using to prevent my self from falling off. It has worked, I have been successful but I am getting close to my goal, a number I set that I wanted to achieve and would consider my success. Wow this is really scary, can I do this? Can I really be successful? Can I really maintain this new me and how do I do it? So, to remain focused I really have to get my mind heading down the right path, I need reprogramming. I need to really understand my body and how food is used as fuel. Some days it all seems so over whelming and you almost feel OCD. You critique every morsel you allow to go between your lips, you constantly tell yourself, no don't eat that, no you can't have that. Now how many calories are in that and how much protein have I eaten and oh my god have I eaten to many carbs or what the hell do I do if I really am hungry. Sound familiar. My brain is constantly in high gear, constantly planning, evaluating and second guessing if I am really eating the right things or if I am just going through the motions. Honestly I do not want to feel deprived for the rest of my life. Some day I want to be able to eat some type of dessert and not feel like I have failed or let my self down. Someday I want to have a healthy relationship with food not a fear that if I eat something it will tip me one way or the other. There has got to be a balance between healthy and happy. I have went through some months lately as I sat stalled at the same weight day after day and wondered, why? I have obsessed over my food dairy, I have obsessed over my carbs, my fats. I have tried to only eat 3 meals a day and never snack between meals. I have honestly tried to follow every rule that my doctor and the Lapband web site has suggested. But honestly, it's hard, it's not natural, it sometimes sets you up for failure. It makes you resent food, it makes you resent other people who are losing faster than you and it makes you feel like a failure. Honestly following the Lapband rules, is not really eating a well balanced diet.(I will add in my opinion) I have struggled since I had this procedure to incorporate fruits and vegetables in my diet. I rarely eat fiber and my focus has always been protein, protein and more protein. I know, I know, your all saying but you have lost weight, yes but have I always been satisfied with my diet and what I was eating the answer was NO, or hell NO! So world since this can no longer be just about the journey and more about living a healthy life. I am not committed to making a life style change. How scary is that, and how in the world do I do it. Big question with no simple answers. So I will enlighten you to my plan. As I stated in my first sentence, I started working out with a trainer two weeks ago. I was very upfront with him, "Justin". I told him about my WLS and how I was suppose to eat with lapband and what I could and could not eat. The first session we had he told me, "You are not eating healthy and you are not eating enough" Well that was a first for me, I have always been told I eat to much. He also told me I was not burning fat, I was burning muscle, due to my poor nutritional habits. Oh great! Now what, I have spent the past 15 months trying to eat healthy only to go to far in the other directions. Geezzz!! I am starving my body of necessary nutrients. Am I ever going to get the hang of this. So here we go again, planning meals, making sure I am taking time to get in my planned healthy snacks, increasing my protein, adding some carbohydrates, more veggies and let's don't forget the fruits. That day last week when I walked out of the gym, I thought to myself, how the hell am I going to do this. I can't eat rice, I can't eat sweet potato's and oatmeal with egg whites, protein drinks and on and on.... Well it is one week later and I am finding if you put your mind to it you can do just about anything. I have stuck to his plan, I have increased my calories back to 1200 plus, I have managed to get from 90-120 gms of protein in every day. I have managed to learn to like Oatmeal with egg whites, I have learned to eat rice again (only a quarter of a cup but it is rice. I have learned to like sweet potato's without butter and brown sugar and managing to get at least one serving of fruit in and some vegetables. Now granted some days I feel like all I get done is prep my meals and I feel like I am always eating but honestly I feel better, have more energy and actually have the strength to exercise and do the weight training he wants to do. I have been able to increase my cardio workouts to 30 minutes daily with a goal of 45. So bottom line, I am trying to change my lifestyle, I am learning to plan my meals better and make exercise a routine in my life not just something I do to reach a goal. Honestly for me the only difference in LapBand from the old diet is I am forcing myself to live healthy. The band is not causing me to live healthy because honestly the band will allow you to eat all the unhealthy food you want, it is you and only you that can control what and when you put food in your mouth, The band can restrict you, can make you throw up can lead you to an unhealthy life style if you allow it to. You still have to get control over your life, get rid of bad habits and develop new habits. You have to remember that it truly is and will always be only a tool, it will never control or help you decide what you should eat only you can make those decisions and only you will know what you put in your body. This is much more than a journey, it is my war on food and health, it is me becoming a "New Person". So if I become obsessive about what I eat and how much I exercise so be it because I am in this for the long haul and I will not fail and I will reach goal, maybe not today or tomorrow but it will happen if I continue to change my behaviors. So fellow bandster, don't give up, take each new challenge as it comes and most and foremost believe in yourself and believe that with hard work, focus, support and love you can make this......... Lifestyle Change: modifying or eliminating long-held habits of eating or physical activity and maintaining the new habits over months and years!! We can all do this, because I believe.........................................

I agree with all statements above. i was banded Nov 2010. I have had several stalls and my last longest stall was from Sept 2011 until Jan 2012. i sat at the same weight give or take 1-2 lbs for months. If you are in your green zone, eating the right amount of calories and protein, exercising 30-45 minutes a day with some form of cardo than it will come. I spend hours logging my foods thinking it was too much carbs, too much fat not enough protein. It is frustrating but when you think about it for every lb we lose you have to eat 3500 calories less per week. It really is not as easy to drop the weight as we get closer to goal. You have done an amazing job to date and weight will come off just don't get frustrated and fall back into bad habits, that is so easy for any of us to do. Slider foods always go down easier than protein. Keep up the good work and it will all be worth it. Good Luck to you. (P.S) Take your measurements, some times we are dropping inches as our bodies adjust to change in weight and redistributing the fat while developing muscles. Also if you do 30-45 minutes of cardio when you wake up in the morning you will burn fat stores from the night before. Just be careful and make sure you get protein on board immediately after exercising.

Congratulations on 2 years out. You look amazing. Good luck with your continued success.

Glad you noticed your success, the band causes us to lose differently than before and inches do seem to happen even when our scales do not budge. Congratulations to you!

Congratulations on your continued success. It truley is about learning to live with the band and finding out what works best for each of us. I am 15 months from surgery and 23 pounds from my last goal. I also am not as active as I used to be on the web site but I still visit several times and week and update my blog monthly most of the time. Good luck to you and thanks for sharing your success.

Congratulations! Great Job!

I can totally identify with what your saying. I have several friends who have been what I thought were good friends for a long time 10 years plus. Not once has either of them said, you really look good since you have lost weight. They just look right past it and never even mention it. One I work with now and see everyday and the other I worked with several years ago but we have stayed in very close contact. We are still FB friends and she sees the pictures I post and there is no way you can not see how different I look. So, your right it is not my fault I took my life in a positive direction, it is their fault they have chosen to stay obese. There are a lot of idiots in the world and unfortunately we seem to have been friends or aquintance with several of them. Keep doing what your doing.

What ever works for you, learning to eat slow is soooo hard. I still have days when i eat to fast and I pay dearly, up it comes or I am stuck for a period of time. I like your idea it is creative.

My only advice is do this for you and only you but make sure what ever you do you are ready emotionally for all that will follow. Weight loss surgery is not the easy way out. It truly forces you to look at food a different way, food can no longer be your turn to in time of crisis because usually when you are upset after being banded your band can tighten up during times of stress or when you are sick. The band is very fickle, it has a mind of its own and sometimes even when you do everything right you may still struggle with weight loss. I like you had been on many diet yoyo's through out my life and just wanted a safety net. I could always lose weight but could never maintain anything long term. Since being banded, I find myself eating much healthier and for the first time really realizing how much better I fell but what I put into my body. I am 90lbs down and 26 lbs from my goal weight. I started with a BMI of 46-47 and now have a BMI of 29. I have went from a size 24 to a size 10. The surgery does work but you have to really work it and I have had support from my husband, friends and family throughout my entire journey and know I would not have made it without them. Good luck in what ever journey you take but most of all remember do this for you because you are worth it, believe in yourself.