B-52

That's fantastic.....I'm in the same boat as you.... a little over 2 years ago I was out of breath carrying groceries into the house... The lap Band is GREAT!!!!! And IT WORKS! (it's 5 am and I'm off to the gym to do my daily running)

Same here....I never gave it a thought what I ate BEFORE a fill...other than I always made sure I did eat good because I know it will be limited AFTER I get a fill.....

What do you consider Sothern Jersey....

I have never felt full withthe band....I'm simply not hungry and have no desire to continue..... For me, hiccups ar the warning sign I am about to get stuck if I take one more swallow, because I was eating unproperly....

I keep going back and forth buying a juicer.....the health benefits are overwhelming...many of my friends do (non banded) I always purchase one when I'm at a place where they have a menu for them..... But I am more concerned about getting as much Protein as I need daily, and as of yet I am not sure I can accomplish that with a juicer....

The whole reason I was banded was because I would do better.....why else wold I want to go through this surgery if I could do OK without surgery? Prior to the band I could not do anything for any period of time in terms of eating correctly, dieting, loosing weight....everything I started I did good at first, then failed miserably and even gained more that I started out with....I'm now in my 60's, and prior to WLS I was victum to every diet, scheme, gimmick out there to loose weight, and NOTHING worked...... That is why I needed to have surgery.....I needed this as a last resort....I needed corrective surgery to do what I was unable to do on my own.... Call it a crutch...call it the easy way out...SO WHAT! I do not care! I'm now skinny, and the weight is NEVER coming back as long as the band is there...... So, your question is.....since you cannot diet and loose weight before the band, will you be able to after the band??? I HOPE SO.....why else are you going through this???? Surgery!!!!

You're the one who should be yelling at your Doctor! You went through all this and for what? Why isn't the band doing anything? I remember being mad and confronting my Dr...sort of, but it was 2-3 months after surgery and I was frustrated because I actually gained weight and was still out of control type hungry, as if the band was not even there... He laughed at me! Sat me down, showed me the Yellow-Green-Red chart, explained each area, explained the process of fills, and told me what his / our goal is...the get to to the Green.... Which we finally did...since then weight loss has been easy and effortless..... I hit my goal about 20 months ago..but since this is a lifestyle not a gimmick diet, (which I would eventually fail at if it were such) my body continued to loose...and now my Dr. informs me I am finished loosing, there is nothing left to loose without sacrificing Muscle...and we don't want to do that....maintain protein at all costs... With a new lifestyle the body will gradually and eventually level out to where it wants to be....where it is supposed to be....

Others may disagree, but the 5 day pouch test is not intended to loose weight...it is intended as "Pouch Maintenence" Read this website: http://5daypouchtest.com/ It is something I do about once per month, but 5 days is more than I need...usually after 2 days I get my restriction back to normal....

True...many people call it vomiting because I guess it's easy to do... My biggest fear is vomiting...I have not been to sick to the point where I would since having this surgery. I feel that would do my band harm, the physics alone conjure images of the thing going "POP" The band was designed for things to pass down..SLOWLY..not up from the bottom FORCEFULLY.... I travel a lot...I have had salmonella posioning once...in a 3rd world country.... For that reason, AND I DO NOT ENDORSE THIS...I carry a syringe with a large bore needle to do an emergency unfill should I get sick.... I am in Healthcare, I'm trained and know what I'm doing, my Surgeon is fully aware, plus my port is right there under a thin layer of skin....

This is what I have always done...works like a charm... I know many people who swear by Papaya Enzymes....they don't leave home without them...I never tried so I can't say....

The Gym opens at 5 am....there is quite a crowd there...mostly professionals, Dr,'s , Lawyers, School Teachers, people who commute to the city.... A five mile run takes me a little less than 45 minutes, not counting stretches and a warm up..... I use their sauna, whirl pool, then shower, shave, put on good clothes , get a recovery shake from their "juice Bar", .then off to work....I'm out of there by 8....then off to work where I'm on my feet all day in clinic seeing patients....... I'm 61 years old, kids have already finished college....it's just my wife and I....no big dinners because I don't really eat a meal..... Working out boosts your energy, self esteem and confidence...afeelining of invincibility almost...bring it on! When I don't work out, I miss it....I can feel th difference.... If I miss more than one consecutive day I feel like s*** all day!!! Moody, no energy, no umph!

My belief is I work out to "Burn Fat"...which is stored energy I have put away for that time of famine.... So I do not believe in eating before working out otherwise I would burn what I ate, not what I have stored away... But, you can't work out without energy and a little metabolism boost.... I run 5 miles 5 times a day, before 6am....plus weights 2-3 days. Also, I have to avoid eating after I workout no matter how my body is screaming for it.....I always have a "Revovery" shake afterward....

Don't fret about a cruise. We cruise all the time and the one lesson I learned is the band is the same whether you are home, at work, or 1000 miles away! I LOST weight on my last cruise!

No one here can or should try to answer that....but only share their experiences. So here's mine.... My first fill was 4 weeks after sugery, 4cc's....after that I GAINED weight! 2nd fill was 4 weeks after the first, after that things leveled out, and I began to loose again, but very slowly...but there was a difference. 3rd, and final fill, was 4 weeks after the 2nd....that one was the charm! I could have almost said I was too tight but instead my Dr. encouraged me to adhere to the rules, change my old habits...which I did, and it put me comfortably in the Green! Loosing weight was very easy and effortless since then....as a matter of fact I stopped loosing about 16 months ago. Dr. assured me there is simply nothing left to loose! It is now a new lifestyle, with no more obsessing about my weight and diets, calories, etc. Life AFTER lap Band! So wether or not you need a fil is up to you and your comfort Zone, satisfaction and happiness.... There are some people who have never had a fill....they're loosing weight, they're happy and pleased...so what else matters?? Only that the individual is happy.

I was not as scared as I was nervous....almost as nervous as my surgery day...THIS IS IT! and I did not know what to expect....

"Right now, I want to succeed, but the fear is that the greater the success the more terrible will be the tragedy of my eventual failure. Yes, I know this is not a productive thought process, but as we all know the band only works on your stomach, not your head." Every diet I have ever been on, I was extremely successful, some of them for 6 months or more!!! Only to fail, have everything revert back to as it was before....if not worse. not to mention what it did for my self esteem and self confidence. Now, with the band, as good as my progress was, I was scared as all heck tha eventually the bubble was going to burst, as before so many times, and I would be as depressed as can be...surgery being my last resort. But slowly and surley my confidence rose, realizing that this is different. That this is real! I put it to the test...we were on a cruise, 9 nights, surrounded by all the food and drink one can ever want any time of day....I decided to let it hang out there and see what the band would do...not even think about it, just be as natural as can be.... I did exercise every morning, had a case of water deliverd to our stateroom, and brought protein shots with me to have one per day first thing in the morning...other than that I was just a guy on vacation out to enjoy himself.....and get his moneys worth. Bottom line...I did not gain a single pound....my little experiment showed the band is the same no matter where I am or what may be put before me.... I now now know this is for real! This is different indeed......I told my Dr. this once and he said "You Had Surgery..what did you expect?" (DUH) Asisde from some medical issue that may arise, (which aslo scares me and I analyze every post) this is not going to change.....(knock on wood)

I rememebr taliking to my Surgeon in the recovery room while I was sipping ice water with a straw....I think he may have brought it to me....

Took me 4 months ln the "White Knuckle" Club before the band began to do it's "Magic" After that, with a little more of the learning curve to go, loosing weight got very easy... But prior to that? Hold on...it's all determination and hard work.....and even then I managed to gain weight....

Weight loss is always about Calories Consumed versus calories Burned....no matter what method you use to accomplish that...any one of the 1000's of diets out there, hypnotism, miracle drugs, and on and on and on...Blah blah blah......I tried and failed at them all...so my last resort was corrective surgery..extreme measures in many peoples opinion, but the goal was to accomplish the same thing....LESS CALORIES CONSUMED...... Sometimes it comes down to the very basics...as one of my Dr.'s told me years ago and probably the best, simplest advise I ever received? "You want to loose weight? STOP EATING SO MUCH!" It's amazing how many excuses people can come with when they are overweight and unable to loose.....but the majority out there knows exactly why we are fat! It's like the little boy with chocolate all over his face saying he did not eat any of the cake you had in th house.....the evidence is there right out in the open.for all to see......... I could not stop eating on my own, I needed WLS to do what I could not do.....if I didn't need WLS I would not have done it...it is not a fashion idea.... Sometimes I wonder why other people have had WLS , judging by their attitudes towards it....but i digress....

I drink as much coffee now as I ever have, band or no band....my Dr.knows this...does not say a word other than discussions on what coffees we like and dislike....and how we brew them.

Thee is no way anyone can tell...especially on the internet... I can eat a whole banana if I wanted to (I don't want to) However, I can also take one bite....too big, too fast etc etc get STUCK big time.....have the same complaints you do....does not mean I am too tight...means I have not learned the new way of eating with the band and being in the Green Zone.... I can have the same complaints if I chug bottled Water when I am extremely thirsty...it will come right back up, with pain from possibly stretching my pouch....does not mean I'm too tight, means I'm not following the rules and not taking it slow like I was taught....have to give time for water to pass through the funnel.... There is a gray area between being at optimal band adjustment (Green Zone), too tight, and not changing the way we eat (following the rules) and no one on the Internet can, and should pretend to be a clinician and attempt to Dx then prescribe a remedy.....that is between you and your Dr..... I thought I new the rules...but once I started to approach that Green Zone I realized what the rules really meant....it is that area of perfect "balance" between band adjustment and proper eating techniques....unfortunately many people will never get there because they refuse to change their old habits and want to hang onto the things that made them fat in the first place...

Since being banded and as I moved towards the green zone, my taste and interests in certain foods has, (still is) changed...there are some foods I used to love but now have absolutely no taste, therefore no interest in anymore.... Chips happen to be one of those foods. If I see them, I 'll grab a few, pop one in my mouth then realize I really don't want it.... Ironically I now eat different types of crackers, all the time......and crackers are just about the only thing in the breads I will eat anymore.

You won't make him mad.....it is a normal day to day practice for one office to request records of a patient....happens everyday........you should not have to do the asking....just sign off and the office can contact the other office and request your records.....to speed things up you may have to be the courier and dothe running around..... Next time you see him he may inquire what you 're up to......the best to do,is be perfectly honest and frank......that is how it is preferred...... way you can deal with it and move on to the next topic.....VERY black and white...the less grey the better.... I've been in clinic all day and believe me you just want to keep things moving like a machine.

Never stopped me...as a matter of fact I'm sure to get something good to eat before because I know I will not be eating after the fill.....but then I have not had a fill in 2 years now so maybe my Dr. has started to give different instructions.....

For me...to know if my pouch has stretched only comes after being in a consistent pattern with the band.....it's like driving your car the same way everyday, long trips on the interstate...then one day you feel a jerk and you know something is "Abnormal" with your car. So you slow down and pay closer attention. I have been so consistent with my band...I know EXACTLY the quantity (portion size) the band will normally let me eat...I can predict the time, while eating, the band will tell me I'm finished..I do not, and should not have the need to eat anymore...(some call it a full feeling, I do not and have never felt full) Knowing your band, as being a day to day part of you...you can then tell when something is "Abnormal", inconsistent....I n my case it is when I realize I am eating more than I normally could, and would, an the band is allowing me...not giving me that "stop" signal I expect every-time.... It is because my pouch has become dilated - enlarged from over use..which, like the normal stomach, is perfectly normal...providing ot has not dilated too large... When tis happens, I go all liquids (5 day pouch test) for at least 2 days...I can tell when my pouch has returned to normal size when it starts speaking to me just by drinking a Protein smoothie. When people do not do this "maintenance", as I call it, from time to time, and continue to overeat just because the band lets them...then the pouch can become severely dilated, not just a little stretched....then they usually have to do a total un fill..... I've seen x-rays different patients with severely dilated pouches and it is not very pretty, as a matter fact it is very scary and I can see why a total un fill is needed. I need to say, everything I just said has very little to do for those just starting out, or are no where near their end to weight loss.....any many people here will have no clue or perception what I'm talking about.... this is true for me, having stopped loosing weight 1 1/2 years ago, and just carrying on from day to day in the "Green Zone" as though the band is not even there....like driving that car down the interstate day after day, you don't even think about it all that much until you feel that bump, that little bit of inconsistency..........then it's time for some maintenance..... But I do realize the majority of people on this forum are no where near that stage yet.....and some may never....