grumpynonna

Hi All, it's me, Grumpynonna, again...haven't posted to this thread for about a year, and it still appears to be the one that I need to being sharing on. I am feeling cranky and fat and really don't want my FNP to tell me [again] when I see her week after next that I need to exercise and eat less and that it's really about not eating around the band and following the rules etc etc etc. Harumph. Just because I ate all the leftover cookie-butts [the ones I couldn't possibly put into the Christmas cookie gifts, and they looked so left behind!] and have to have dessert after every meal [hey, I eat my Protein and veggies, how can dessert be a problem, if I have ROOM for it!?!?], I should still be able to lose weight, right? Harumph again. As you can probably tell, I am in Pity Party hell, especially since I was at 200 lbs yesterday, the first time in several years. To summarize what I said when I posted here last year, I was banded in November 2007, lost 100 lbs of the 130 I needed to lose in about 1 1/2 years, and was doing really well, was down to about 173-175. Then in summer of 2010, started having symptoms of being overfilled [pain, lots of regurgitation of meals, couldn't keep Water down,etc], so was mostly unfilled for a couple of months to give everything time to unspasm/calm down/let swelling and inflammation go down. Started being refilled early 2011, and about the time I last posted I was on my way in the struggle to re-lose the 20 lbs I had gained while being at a lower fill. All well and good. Found Happy Spot. Lost about 15 of the 20 lbs, hopeful of maybe losing the rest and continuing with weight loss. Lost Happy Spot. Symptoms started again, couldn't find the Happy Spot, had fills/unfills, yadda yadda. Basically, was pretty much unfilled from just before Thanksgiving [oh, yay!] until last month, had to slow down re-filling because I had the Virus-from-Hell in December, and who knew what my innards really needed? [Anyone who says that throwing up with a lapband when you need to throw up because of stomach flu or whatever is just like throwing up without a lapband....well, not in my experience!]. Then had cataract surgery twice in January [very successful!] so just not focused on what I was eating or not. ANYhow, am now about 1/2 cc short of the Happy Spot of Summer of 2011, but I feel very little restriction. I eat what I want when I want it. [Oh, don't start, yes, I know better.] Dessert makes me happy. If one piece of something is good, then two must be twice as good. Sigh. I do know what the "rules" are, I do know what worked the first time around, but I can't seem to get going again. Anything that occurs to me to try just feels like another diet....and I know in my heart of hearts that diets of any kind don't work for me...been there, done that. It seems that I have lost that "spark" that I had when I first started this whole process, that time of preparation [physical, mental and emotional] pre-op, and that whole first two years of success. I just can't quite find "it"...and I can't bear the idea that my clothes are getting tight again, and I can't bear the thought of buying Big Clothes with X's in the Size again. So thought I'd share/vent with you all, as you are pretty much the only ones who have a clue what this is about. And if anyone knows what might work to get me going again, it will be much appreciated. [Do you have ANY idea what happens to a body over 60 years old when it loses 100 lbs? Sagging? Ha! Never mind double chins [[now just double flaps!]], I seem to have triple knees....do they do knee tucks?] Thanks to all of you for support....hopefully I can at least slow down the process and get through a summer without a repeat!.....Diane

Post Preview Absolutely: don't despair or give up! This has been an amazing and very interesting journey....I may have 15-20 lbs to "re-lose" [and still 25 or so more to get to goal] but I still consider my weight loss a huge success overall. For me, the first year was the quickest and most weight loss, then more gradual after that. Before the surgery, I read and researched a LOT, and so I felt pretty prepared. One of the "downers" [at least I thought so at the time, but it so was not a downer, in the long run] of what I read was that one book talked about "success" with a lap band being a loss of 50% of the excess weight. Well, phooey, I thought, when I figured that out, being then at 280 lbs with a goal of 150, or a hopeful loss of 130 lbs. [which seemed insurmountable at the time....I was convinced that I would be the one person in the world for whom this surgery wouldn't work]. So, 50% of 130 would be a loss of 65 lbs, and this particular bariatric center writing the book would think I was a success, and anything else would be gravy [always with the food images, of course.] Big Whoop. But when I actually HAD lost that 65 lbs I was amazed that it was such a huge difference, physically, mentally, in all ways. While I certainly wanted to lose more, some part of me also knew that yes, this WAS a success, and that if for some reason that was it for the weight loss, I could live with it, and feel good about it. [And then I gradually just kept losing weight, which was of course very satisfying, regardless of what I just said!] Sometimes, especially in that first year, I felt as though learning to live with my LapBand was like learning to live with an infant, who quickly became a cranky toddler, who could be sweet as could be at times and an unpredictable demon at other times. I had to learn to figure out the subtle signals [to avoid the temper tantrums], couldn't imagine how this could POSSIBLY make me throw up, when yesterday I ate that just fine, and so on. And just like with a child, might love him/her dearly, but some days leaving that wee beastie on someone else's doorstep seemed like a good idea. :wub: Portions: ha! It took forever to figure out, and BELIEVE, that that itty bitty thing on my plate would be ENOUGH, certainly I needed to fix TWO hamburgers, plus fries, that's what my mind told me, even if yesterday I could only eat less than a half of one, and had felt full and satisfied. Talk about a learning curve: sometimes it was a steep one, and sometimes it was flat, and sometimes I didn't seem to be learning a darned thing. :mad3: It took a while to realize that this wasn't going to be a finite project, with surgery done, lose weight, then forget about it and on with life. It continues to be a day to day process, just like living with a child. A pain at times, but so worth it in the long run. [And it is soooooo nice to be able to buy clothes without any X's in the size!].......Diane

Oh, phew! I thought I was the only one. I was banded November 2007, lost about 100 lbs in about a year and a half, and then sort of leveled off, about 30 lbs above goal. I wasn't gaining OR losing for a long time. Then I thought my port had flipped, but when a flouro was done, turned out the band was katty-wampus, and tilted at a weird angle. The surgeon thought there might be some slippage, so he completely unfilled me for a couple of weeks. Then we started re-filling but even though I was less filled than before, it kept being too tight, so we'd take a little out again. Long story short, I had to make two unscheduled trips up and over the mountains last year to get UNfilled when even drinking Water was painful. After the first time this happened in August, started re-filling again a few weeks later, only to have the same thing happen again. So beginning of November, we decided to just let the band be unfilled for a month or two so everything could settle down. It wasn't until the end of January [because of snow/ice on the roads] that I finally was able to get back to start re-filling again, the first time again with fluoro to make sure all was ok, which it was. Band looks good, and have had two fills now, back for another next week. But having no restriction for over two months, while a relief in some ways after the misery of being too tight, also meant a BIG reminder that while the band may be an excellent tool for losing weight, it does NOTHING to cure the obesity, or the compulsive eating, or whatever you want to call what got me to 280 lbs in the first place. Oooooof. At first when I was unfilled, I still ate small amounts, maybe from habit, but very slowly that Always Hungry part of me started to come awake, and I slowly started eating a little more. I've gained about 20 lbs, and have noticed those "I'll never get enough food!" feelings creeping back a bit. I do feel as though I need to start over in some ways, at least as far as my mind-set is concerned. I have been able to eat pretty much anything I want, except in smaller amounts, before all this happened. But eating unrestricted seems to have triggered all the old thinking. Sigh. At nearly 65, it's really annoying to have to "reboot" the whole process. But I am hopeful. Wish us all luck! We did it before, we can do it again.......Diane

You might try True Whey by Source Naturals...I found it at the natural food store here locally. It is sweetened with stevia, pretty low sodium, AND it is the best tasting one I ever found. But eventually, I stopped using protein drinks...they were handy in the first few months after surgery, and then I would have some in my desk at work for mid afternoon hungries.....but once I was eating all foods without problem, protein drinks weren't necessary any more.