junetigress84

My History: Weight loss has been a struggle for most of my life. I was active in tennis as a teen but when I was put on birth control at the age of 14, for medical reasons, my weight began to skyrocket. I became the classic yoyo dieter. I'd lose 20-30 pounds but within months it was all back. I developed hypothyroidism and my metabolism is almost non-existent. My OB-GYN thought that the lapband would be a good tool for me to loose weight and hopefully reduce my thyroid meds. Starting weight before liquid diet was in the 220's. Surgery day my weight was 201. My banding date was December 7, 2009. Overall I had no complications. I was eating around 800-1200 calories a day and working out...but the weight wasnt coming off. The only times I had signification weight loss was when I caught a stomach bug and then a bacterial infection after starting a new job at a health clinic. But I kept pushing through and was able to get to my lowest weight of 160. My restriction is as tight as I can get it without having swallowing problems. My mother, who is also obese, had the surgery and I told her I would do the liquid diet with her. This was the beginning of my down fall. After 5 days on the liquid diet i was fatigued and dizzy all the time so I had to go back to my normal diet. I gained what I had lost back and then some... and some more and more. At a weight of 165 I met my now husband and the weight began to pile back on, especially after we got engaged and the wedding chaos began. I made the effort to work out to maintain my toneness and weight but failed when I injured my shoulder. That sent me into a depression because I knew my body wouldnt respond to just the diet change - so I gave up. Focused more on the wedding planning than what I put in my mouth and the weight packed on. September 3 we got married. I now weight 200 pounds. I have setup an appointment to see my doctor that I have not seen in well over a year. I plan to start over. Empty my port, do the liquid diet to shrink down my (probably expanded) stomach and begin the filling process again. My greatest fear was gaining back all I had lost. And it's pretty much happened. My hopes in writing this is to see if others have gone down the same or similar road and what helped you to get back on the right track again? How do you start over...

I'm starting over today even though I don't see my doctor again for another week. I prepared for the new beginning this weekend by preplanning my meals for the week. Chicken salad and apples. I also am looking into doing the 5 day pouch test to get my stomach to shrink again. Since my band is as tight as it can be I'm almost positive my doctor will pull it out and make me start over. A lot of the problem I was having was difficulty eat the things that were good for me...so when i found something I could eat- good or bad for me- i ate it so I wouldnt be hungry. I'm almost never able to eat breakfast that I cook for myself and my husband on the weekends. That upsets him that I did all the cooking and then cant eat it. Or that I have to have hot coffee or a carbonated drink to be able to get it down. Before my last fill I never drank while eating...so hopefully i can start over and find a good spot where I can eat the good foods and plan ahead to not eat more than 1 cup of food.

It is just a tool and I got too wrapped up in the events around me.... wedding planning :-) But now that everything is over I see how badly i let myself down and I'm trying to pull myself back together and refocus on myself and my health. God willing I can do better than I did the first time.

Thanks jrae! My band is as tight as I can have it. It's caused a lot of issues. Almost problems eating at every meal. Everything good for me was hard to eat so I started resorting to whatever would go down easy. It's not covered by insurance and to get a fill or unfill is $145 a pop at my docs office. So I plan to unfill and start over. I'm also looking forward to purchasing a treadmill within the month!