JustWatchMe

James, I am a bander but your story helped me a lot. There is much to learn there. Congratulations on your amazing success!

I didn't take before pictures but I kind of wish I had. I just post here. I also keep a little electronic note of dates and weight. Also dates and fills and fill level. I use MyFitnessPal and FitBit but I don't blog there. Good luck !

Congratulations! Be gentle and patient with yourself. Speedy healing wishes.

Breakfast one ounce havarti cheese lunch one small container hummus and about a dozen or so raw baby carrots and 1/4 cup of trail mix dinner out 6 oz steak and 4 oz lobster and a glass of wine. Got full and brought home the Pasta side dish and broccoli without eating any.

This will all be a distant memory soon. Good luck tomorrow and let us know how it goes !

Hi Den, High Protein shakes will hold you longer than Soup or other liquids. Good luck. I was on liquids for six weeks. It wasn't easy but it's so worth it.

Cute picture Lisa!

I'm planning on dressing up but still deciding on a costume. I just went to a costume store after my LapBand appointment. Nothing to choose from that I liked. I was so optimistic because I'm more than 90 pounds less than I was the last time I wore a costume. I'm still in the plus size category and I'm so sick of robes.

Full disclosure. I weighed today. I wanted to see if that weekend gain dropped a bit before heading into the doctor's office this afternoon. Also, my doctor's scale and mine are always half a pound apart and I wanted to know what today looked like before I went in. So I lost three of the four I gained over the happy weekend. I'll take it. Hopefully by the end of this week the rest will be gone as well as some progress. I really want to see Onederland ! One of my daughters told me she's not coming home for fall break after all. That bummed me out yesterday. But my older daughter is coming home and we will have a little time together between her other commitments over those four days. That's a week and a half away. I wanted to be at my mini goal by then. That's it for now. Have a great day, everyone!

CG said, "each day that passes is one we do not get back." Yes.

Congratulations on your weight loss. You were banded the same week that I was. I love Thai food, but I don't lose when I eat it. I don't think we are supposed to be able to eat 4 cups of food, however. Why don't you talk to your team and find out what they think? You say you're still losing, which is good.my problem my whole life has been volume. Part of what I strive for with the proper fill level is satiety on less volume. I also aim for more protein and less carbs. That's part of the reason I can't handle the Thai food, and tend to stay away from the rice. Just my experience. Good luck to you and continued success.

Started at 302. Scared to make a permanent change to my stomach because of the uncertainty of the future,and whether I would have stomach issues in my older years. If that sounds weird, what I mean is that my mom, who has arthritis just like I do, ended up with a stomach bleed due to arthritis medications. I always worry about the decades that I was on NSAIDs and what damage might've been done to my stomach already. Anyway, the band was reversible if needed. Not that I intend to take it out, but if I ever had to, I could.

Today wasn't as difficult for me as I expected. I had no head hunger at all and just mild normal hunger late this evening. Having my lunch on fasting days at 1pm helps. Tomorrow is a band check with my surgeon's office. This will be the first time I'm not getting a fill since my fills began. I believe I'm in the green zone. With the 5:2 program I notice more pronounced restriction after fasting days. I'm interpreting that as a good fill level. This Monday and Thursday "reset" is working for me. I feel good the following morning and not ravenous as I would have expected. I'll see what my NP has to say tomorrow. And hopefully a pound or two of my weekend gain will have come off by then as well.

Way to go!

OK today I must read my own words and not freak out. Four pound gain. All understandable. My weekend included much wine, (crazy) women and song. Too much high sodium food and too much food, period. I drank wine during every meal and between meals. Much chocolate was to be had. OK! In the immortal words of Cher in Moonstruck, <SLAP!> "Snap out of it!" I had a glorious weekend that fed my soul. I would do it again in a heartbeat (but not every week). TODAY, I fast. Tomorrow I visit my surgeon for a check up and no fill. I'll weigh there too and it should be better. I am back on the straight and narrow. I feel great. I made it through the emotional rollercoaster of the anniversary weekend with my identity intact and got my mojo back. My clothes are FALLING OFF of me. I bought three new shirts this weekend from the thrift store that fit, and one to wish upon. I'm baaaack, people! That four pound gain is a blip on the radar. But talk about a reality check!

Three things. My surgeon offered me sleeve, but fully supported my choice for LapBand. My reasons were many, and he enthusiastically continues to band many patients every year. In my opinion you should choose a surgeon and surgery that both of you are excited about. If my surgeon was lukewarm about my chances, I would have run out the door. Instead I know he's there for not just me, but for many future banded patients as well. Second, I hate these personal comments about celebrities. I am sure some celebrities are on this site under anonymous names just like I am. They are here for the same reasons I am. I don't mind when someone disagrees with a celebrity's public WORDS, but for Pete's sake, stop the name calling. Third, I enjoy healthy contrast-and-compare dialog about the different surgeries. I learn here daily, and I never know if my life will include changes down the road. But your surgery is no better or worse than mine. My surgeon and I are thrilled with my outcome so far. And don't kid yourself folks. It is "so far" for all of us, no matter what road we chose. When we are at the end of our lives and face THOSE new medical uncertainties, we can then decide if we chose the right WLS all these years earlier. But I respect your choice today, and if you don't respect mine, please just shut up about it. I'm here for support and learning. I can learn from your trials and successes and feel free to learn from mine. Keep this a welcoming place for all.

Go, go, go! Woo hoo! No regrets here. You're gonna love your new life!

I was eating too fast and not chewing enough. I discovered this trick by accident. I took a phone call at work during my lunch and it was a revelation : Interrupt your meal. Three or four bites of Protein first, then STOP for five minutes. Get up. Go to the bathroom. Walk around the office. Make a phone call. Just interrupt the eating for five minutes and then resume slowly. The extra time starts that clock in your brain that signals satiety. Listen hard for those body cues. The sigh, the hiccup, the burp. Stop eating as soon as you think you are no longer HUNGRY no matter how delicious it is. Promise yourself if you want the rest of it at your next meal you'll have it. Slowing down is the hardest thing for many of us. Definitely for me. Also with my band in the green, if I don't slow those first bites a LOT and chew to mush, I now get stuck. I don't know how many times I need to learn this lesson. Good luck!

I have been following the 5:2 intermittent fast for about a month and it helps my restriction. Google it for some info. Basically to give you a simple summary, I eat regular healthy food aiming for 1200 calories five days a week. Two days a week on Mondays and Thursdays I do a modified fast. That means for me, nothing at all but water or coffee up to 1pm. At 1pm a lunch of 500 calories, heavy on solid protein. Then nothing but water or coffee until my normal breakfast the next day. That's it. Two days of 500 calorie days. No snacking. It snapped me out of a rut I was in and my weight loss started up again. I also feel much better restriction with doing this. Good luck.

I have a small hiatal hernia that the doc planned to fix if needed. He decided it wasn't needed once he was in there.

I think your experience may be why my surgeon had me on such a strict post op protocol. I was banded in March 2014. My regimen was six weeks of full liquids post op then a fill. At that fill I was told to eat 800 calories a day. It was not easy and most days I was around 1000. It took some discipline to stay compliant but I was lucky and I felt my band working pretty early on. Now at 6-1/2 months out and four fills I'm pretty sure I'm in the green. Most days it's easy to eat well. However if I choose the wrong foods or don't start a meal with solid protein I can overdo it.

My FitBit One clips to my bra.

I've been practicing keeping my food clean over the last few weeks. I define clean as minimal to no fried choices, no snacking between meals, and starting with Protein first at every meal. I'm really finding that my restriction is more predictable and noticeable when I do this consistently. I was wondering last month if the fill I got was actually putting me in the green zone. I didn't think so because I could still overdo it on fried food or junk like popcorn. But a month of eating cleanly has shown me that the restriction is definitely there, and my band is indeed telling me when to stop. Such a learning process. It's easy to see now how I could mess this up. It's also easy to see that if I just follow a few simple rules most of the time, my band can really work and make satiety easy for me. The sloppier I eat, the harder it gets. The cleaner I eat, the easier it gets. I love my band!

Thanks!

I'm so much happier since I started weighing weekly instead of daily. It was affecting my mood every morning.