Katie L.

You were just like me! But keep reading, there is light at the end of the tunnel!!!! Im sorry to here your frustration. We all have had our ups and downs for sure. I think my situation was pretty similar to yours. It took me forever to finally feel restriction and by the time I did, I had lost all the good habits I had practiced right when I got my surgery. The day of my 7th fill when I finally felt it, it was like a truck hit me! I was like "wait a second i don't like this!" But then I reminded myself that this was what I had prepared for but unfortunately because it took so long I forgot. As far as being too tight. I think you sound ok. If you can get down solid Protein like fish then you should be fine, chicken can be iffy, most of the time if its tender it goes down but sometimes it doesn't. Now as far as your weight loss, I will tell you what worked for me... As far as food goes, you sound like your on par with that. I try to keep mine around 1000 calories a day, and even if your not quite full, stop after 20 or so minutes and let it catch up. So great job with that! But as CRAZY as this sounds, even with a 1000 calories a day, you won't lose weight unless you get in 30 mins of light cardio a day because of that stupid thing we call metabolism. I chewed my doctor out 30 days after I was in green zone bc i hadn't lost a pound. I told him I'm only consuming 1000 calories a day! I should be losing, what is 30 mins on the treadmill really gonna do! Well out of desperation, I finally pulled my old bike out and started doing what he said. EURIKA! It finally all came together! The weight started coming off, and all i did was walk every night for 30 minutes!. I can tell bc the weeks i do it 5 to 6 times, I lose 2 to 5 lbs, but the weeks i get "busy" and only do it 2 or 3 times, i don't lose any . You don't want to really "work out" for hours at the gym though bc you might get burned out and not want to exercise the next day. Keep it light and consistent. The nurse told me that under a "normal diet" 30 mins of walking or whatever might not make that much of a difference because it doesn't burn that much calories but we aren't really doing it to burn more calories ... all the 30 mins of movement is designed to do is to keep your metabolism from going into shock. You need to get your heart rate up for a good 30 mins and it works wonders! To this day, I have never stepped foot in the gym. I get on my bike and turn on food network "haha". Anyways I don't make up reasons for not doing it anymore... my husband and children know that every night at 8:30pm leave me alone for 30 minutes. Moral of the story... 30 mins light cardio, as many nights as you can! If you do it 5 to 6 times a week no more, no less, you will be down 100lbs before you no it! Good luck girl!

My girlfriend got her first fill today. Its been six weeks since her surgery. The first two week after the surgery she dropped but from week 2 to week 6 after the swelling went down and before her first fill she only lost 3 lbs during those 30 days. She was obviously frustrated. I also had the surgery last year. I never had this problem and lost weight steadily from surgery to the first fill then second and so on.... Obviously after about fill 2 or 3 the weight came off faster bc at that point it was tight and i was in the green zone. I lost 15 month one, 10 month two, 20 month three, and 15 from then on for several months. The only conclusion I can make from her experience when comparing it to mine is that though she is eating less, its still not enough yet, so after her second or third fill, when she is in the green zone and can truly feel the restriction, hopefully the weight will start to come off more rapidly. I guess my stomach was just more sensitive so just having the band on was enough to cause me to lose steadily where as hers may be more dependent on those fills? Is this common? Do some ppl not see results until a couple of fills in? Im hoping the answer to this has to do with restriction and this problem will work itself out when she finally feels restricted... Thoughts? Similar experiences?

3 lbs in 30 days isn't a lot whether you are 20 lbs over weight or 200 thats why we were very surprised.

I shouldn't have included myself or any numbers bc its just confusing things... in short I'm asking, is it common to not experience a lot of progress until you get a couple of fills? Once that happens you start to really feel a difference but until then, not alot of progress?

Im starting to get worried. I had my third fill beginning of December. Each time I get a fill, I swallow the barium and check up on the band. Everything looks normal. That being said, again I had my third fill beginning of December. Everything was fine but after Christmas things were not going down well. I started having problems keeping food downs, then starting having a hard time keeping liquids down. Things have slowly gotten worse. I eat and drink hardly anything and even that I usually throw it up right away. I called the doc the Jan 2. She said switch back to only liquids/ soft foods for a few days and see what that does. She said it can take a couple of weeks for the fill to tighten up to its fullest so it may be too tight. However after spending too much time on google I'm starting to worry I have a slip or something. It just seems odd to me that I was fine for 3 weeks then all of a sudden I can't eat or drink anything and keep it down. Im going to call first thing in the morning to schedule a time to come in ASAP to get it looked at. Is there anyone else that has experienced something like this? Im so worried its a slippage and I don't want to deal with that nightmare. Do you think it could just possibly be too tight? If so do you think taking out a little saline will fix the problem? If anyone has any insight or experience to share that would be great!

I had my third fill 3 weeks ago. I thought i was in the green zone. I ate about a cup of food per meal and felt full till the next meal. However this week i have been throwing up a lot of what i eat. But the weird thing is, for the past week I have almost always thrown up when i drink liquids or eat something thats almost a liquid but I don't seem to be throwing up as much with the solid food. If i eat a piece of chicken I'm fine, but if i sip on a glass of juice i run to throw it up. Sometimes the solid food comes up with it from what i have previously eaten but its always the liquid that causes me to throw up. Shouldn't this be opposite? I have never seen this before on here, I've see people who can only take liquids and throw up solids but never the other way around. My first thought was maybe the band is too tight but wouldn't it be the most tight right after the fill not 3 weeks later? It was fine the first week. Then I thought the worst, maybe i have a band slip but i don't really have the symptoms other that the throwing up not to mention the solids are fine, its more the liquids... so basically I've hit a wall and don't know what might be up... Im going to try to go into my surgeon office ASAP but until then any help would be great! Bradley

I have had my first fill and I didn't feel any different. Im not going mad because my doctor said often times it can take up to 4 fills on average before you get to the green zone of eating 1 cup of food and feeling full. This makes me frustrated because i was under the impression that after you get the surgery the fills were more of maintaining. I didn't know you basically start at zero and each fills builds you up to eventually where you need to be. The soonest my doctor will allow me to get fills are 30 days apart… so this means if it takes 4 fills before i get the maximum benefits of this surgery this means i don't get to "experience" the true benefits of getting full on a small amount of food till 4 months after surgery! I got my surgery Sep 9th and I have lost 25lbs since then, but nothing in awhile because I now have a pretty large appetite is this normal? I mean its not quite as large as it was pre surgery but its large enough to hinder my weight loss. I got my first fill Oct 9th and getting my second one Nov 9th. Are we just on our own till we hit the green zone? Is it typical to not lose a ton of weight till you hit that? I just have a hard time believing we are suppose to be on our own all these months before we reach a good fill. Please help me with my problems! Bradley

Right now after one fill i can probably eat around 3 cups of food without feeling stuffed. Is that normal?