Jachut

That's exactly what it feels like - for months and months (probably 18) the band completely cut hunger for me, then over the past 18 months, gradually appetite has increased again. Not huge physical hunger, not at all, just an *interest* in food. I'm always ready to eat again, hungry or not. I finish a satisfying meal and think half an hour later I feel like a little x, y or z. It makes perfect sense to me that my body has taken up producing this pesky chemical in normal quantities for me again. I can manage it, but its interesting how resilient our bodies are. I'm pretty sure too that if I just remain as active as I am, weight wont be a real problem for me again.

Mine's left of centre about 2 inches below my ribs. I like it there, its comfortable and as you're NEVER likely to catch me in nana jeans it comes nowhere near the waist of anything I wear. The only reason I'd move it is its somewhat visible. The only place I can think of on my body that it would never be seen is on my bum - that would never get skinny enough, lol, but then again maybe they'd have trouble finding it. But it wouldnt be nice to sit on.

I find that really bizarre - risk death rather than PMT? You do realise that a clot can easily KILL you? If medical advice is to stop her shots, she should follow it! Its given for a reason.

Honestly, i eat like a normal person - well a normal person that eats healthy. Nobody would know I was banded if I didnt tell them. I can pretty much eat anything put in front of me if I have to and can easily buy foods that I can eat when out and about or pack a lunch that is quite normal.

Its like thinking you can do your own acrylic nails at home - and if you've every tried that you'll know what I'm talking about, lol. The risk of missing, of putting a hole in your tubing, who wants the hassle? The thing I think is dangerous about it is that you're talking about obese people here who are desperate to lose weight. We've ALL done completely stupid and ridiculous things in the name of getting skinny. How many people would overfill themselves stay tight, then unfill for a special meal, fill up again etc. That's placing the band at risk. No doctor to evaluate their motivations and behaviours, just ultra tightness when you want it. I dont think that's sensible. I'm a sensible person and I think for me, the temptation now to go super duper tight and live on liquids to lose those last 15lb that I dont even need to lose would be great. I am finding it hard to stop trying to lose! That sort of thing can really mess with your head if you had the freedom to fill and unfill at will.

Stress definitely does it to me. And I find that though I'm not conscious of it, I'm stressed over those big occasion meals where everyone is there. I can barely eat at those. I usually get rather drunk instead, because I tend to try to cover the fact I'm not eating much by taking more sips of my wine. I cannot eat for hours after a hard run. I try to go at about 5pm most days precisely for the fact that it means I eat a VERY small dinner.

I was extremely lucky, my weight loss petered out at about 120% of my excess, I got to a BMI of 22. Being a tall thin build I'm still pretty well covered and I would like to lose more but I'm finding it nearly impossible to budge any more weight. Then again, I refuse to diet. My doc was making happy noises when I got to 75% but offered me no argument when I said no way was I happy there, that I wanted to lose more.

Having a good fill cuts your appetite and makes it easier to make good choices. Not being able to stick to the diet can be a great reason to get a fill. Protein schmotein anyway. A half cup of veges is a very worthwhile thing to ingest. I'd hate to see what you'd look like after a year on a diet of meat only. The thought of eating only protein items is ridiculous, its very unhealthy. Protein first does not mean protein only, she SHOULD be eating salad and veges, not thinking that these are the wrong things to eat. Personally, I eat bread and cereals too. But I know that with good restriction I have less appetite, am more easily satisfied and dont have the desire for sweet foods and extras. I wouldnt hesitate to get a fill in her situation but she does need to commit to sticking to the rules too. You can be super tight and still not follow the rules. Alcohol, chocolate and ice cream will always go down fine so she needs to eat these foods in moderation.

I eat moderate amounts of real sugar - I dont do SF anything really, apart from maybe 2 or 3 diet cokes a year. I hate the taste of artificial sweetener and believe its far worse for you than sugar is. so........ I dont make sugary foods the basis of my diet. They're treats. You're better off training your palate to not need everything sweet than consuming loads of artificial sweetener in everything.

Hmmm, I dont know. I have 3 ml in a 4ml band. Technically, I am "at goal" however, i am still about 10lb heavier than I would like to be purely because a size 10 is slightly too large and an 8 is slightly too small. I just want to get into the 8 with no muffin top! I am WIDE open at the moment. What happened was that I had a bit of hormonal disturbance and got very tight, so I had a bit of fill removed, from 3 down to 2.8ml. That resolved and then suddenly I was wide open. I regained about 4lb and my body has settled, I feel like I'm eating HEAPS (which, really I am) but I've kept up my running and now 72kg is my new normal, I'm not gaining at all and not losing. So you can maintain without being tight, you can maintain eating quite a lot. I would be happy with this, I dont really care about the number on the scale if not for the fact that I'm annoyingly between sizes. So you will probably be fine to maintain as long as you exercise. What I have found though is that the further into this I go, 3 years down the track, the band seems to have less and less effect on my actual appetite. It still restricts amount, but my appetite has definitely increased over what it was when I was losing and I find myself having to be constantly vigiliant and work quite hard not to eat between meals and not to eat crap food. In other words, I have to live on what I consider a diet. I've done a lot of thinking about this and I've decided that that's just the way it is. Others who dont have this cursed appetite are lucky but I do and I have to manage it. The band helps, but its still down to me. Maintenance is for a lot longer than losing and it takes a lot more self honesty and realism. But its much easier to do with the respect you gain for your new body. But like your doc says, you're going to have to just weigh it up when you get there, at each point in time.

That's the most common way its done in Australia but our medical system is different. I paid a once off fee of $3,000 to my surgeon and that means that my aftercare is bulk billed forever - meaning the doctor charges only the scheduled fee for the service direct to Medicare and I need never dip into my pocket ever again for fills, revision surgery or doctors visits. But your system is different I guess - but the good thing about it is that it encourages diligence with aftercare, there's an awful lot of people who never go back to get filled, or who desperately need fills and/or unfills and cant afford them etc. The lapband ONLY works with proper aftercare. Not sure with how your medical system works whether it would be good for you personally or not, you'd know what you feel on that like you say - but one reason the doctor MAY do it is that it ensures people actually follow up on their surgery and get their band working properly. Or he might just be after the money, lol.

The exact same thing happened to me, I'd been home from hospital literally 2 days and the kids started chucking. I went straight to the doctor, told him I was newly banded and was really worried about throwing up, because of course, by the time you realise your kids have gastro, they've been all over you and touched everythign in the house and its way too late to start being careful. The doc gave me a script for an anti emetic, which would stop nause and vomiting. A couple of days later, i felt myself coming down with it so I started taking the pills six hourly. I had a temperature and aches and pains and got diarrhoea but no stomach symptoms. The medication also gave me horrible side effects such as drowsiness, but I never came even close to vomiting.

The them or you point is interesting and I think there's a bit of truth to it. Whenever you feel defensive, you feel that others are directing a certain behaviour towards you when in fact they may not be. However, it is my *perception* that I have been treated differently since losing weight. And not in a good way. At a BMI of 36 I was the same as most people around me. Fat enough to be not a threat to anyone else - not gross, but not attractive, not eye candy for anyone's husbands, not better or worse dressed than anyone else, I fit right into the crowd. Now, I'm no supermodel or beauty queen, but the kind of shape people are in these days, to be normal weight and fit, makes you stand out in a crowd. I feel jealousy, suspician and heaps of those "oh, but YOU dont need to worry about that" kind of comments. I feel I cant join conversations about clothes, weight etc without feeling like the thin girl trying to fish for complements. I get *looked* at nastily for want of a better word, you know when someone eyes you up and down as you walk past? Women do that to me all the time. I dont notice it at uni, I'm there with so many young gorgeous things, but amongst my own age group, its a bit disconcerting. I never ever felt ANY discrimination when I was overweight, probably because I was just overweight enough to be like everyone else, without being unusually fat.

everyone here insists that eating carbs makes you crave more carbs. I actually think NOT eating carbs makes you crave them, and I cant go totally without sweet things or I will have a days long binge where all I eat is Cookies and cake. Never affects my weight, I cant eat that much these days but very unhealthy. I find I need a cookie or two at around 4 pm. My faves are Anrotts shortbread creams - 70 calories each. I have them. As long as I do that, I feel strong enough to resist all the other times during the day when I think "hmmm, I feel like a ......" whatever happens to be around. That's the way I handle it. All things in moderation kind of thing. Same as I like my glass of wine at night. That's my daily treats - a cookie or two and a glass of wine. That keeps me on the straight and narrow quite easily with everything else. And sheesh, I run an hour a day, I figure I can afford it. Works for me.

I tend to feel immediately a bit tighter, enough to lose a pound or so over the following three or four days. Then it disappears and kicks in again at about 10 days. Same pattern after every fill.

I could almost eat that. Not quite perhaps. As to whether its too much - are you eating till you're FULL? Try to stop at satisifed. Are you eating slowly so that you can recognise satisfied creeping up on you? And most importantly are you losing weight. If your'e losing weight and not stretching out your stomach (by eating till you feel stuffed) then there's no problem with the amount you're eating. If you're not losing weight well and its taking that much to satisfy you then its time to think about another fill.

Good point Lauri - eating slowly is key to recognising fullness. Stop periodically during your meal, let it settle, see how you feel and whether to go on.

I tend to eat good cereals for Breakfast - oatmeal, Allbran, muesli. Or gourmet type yogurts - thick greek yogurt with fruit, or I make a smoothie with vanilla Optifast as a base and Peanut Butter and banana or fresh berries etc. lunch I struggle with, but more often than not its things like cheese and crackers with an apple, a small salad with tuna, thick Soup. dinner I eat what the family eats - meat and 3 veg, barbecues, Pasta, casseroles, curries, whatever I've made and exactly what we've always eaten.

Nothing was ever mentioned to me but when I had my wisdom teeth out at age 23 (nearly 20 years ago) I was told to stop birth control then, due to increased risk of blood clots. its quite valid advice, but it seems its not given by every surgeon. I have my tubes tied anyway, so it wasnt an issue for me, but I know a young, fit healthy woman who had a stroke due to being on the pill, so if it were me, I think I'd stop my birth control. You can always use a barrier method and get back on it after surgery.

the same way you knew to stop eating before - you feel full. It just happens sooner. If you allow yourself to feel REALLY full, like stuffed, it will probably proceed to pain and vomiting fairly soon. Most people will reply to that "oh, but if I knew when to stop eating I wouldnt have needed a lap band". But think about it, you didnt eat all day every day, did you? You did sometimes get full and stop? Perhaps I'm assuming, I realised after banding I did eat normally. Its just that full for me came after way too many calories for my energy needs had been ingested. It might not have been too much for someone else. But basically I ate when I was hungry and I stopped when I was full. Since banding, I've done the same, but I have learned to stop a little before completely full. I dont know really how else to explain it. If you're starting to feel a bit stretched and not hungry anymore stop eating. As to actual portion size, personally I think aiming for an "amount" is pretty silly. Its dysfunctional - you need to listen to your body. If your body is telling you to eat a cup and you're losing weight then there's no problem, eat a cup! If your body is telling you to eat a cup and you're not losing weight, then get a fill so your body will tell you to eat a bit less. Its that simple. Portion sizes are unique to everyone, its entirely dependent on your level of restriction, energy needs and how your loss is going.

It probably wont interfere with your weight loss but all that artificial sweetener! Yuck. I would cut down, that would worry me to be ingesting all that. And many people believe that artificial sweeteners induce the same insulin reaction in your body that real sugar does, in which case you'd be predisposing your body to retaining fat, and increasing your cravings. You'd be better of steaming an enormous bowl of veges - like broccoli, carrots, Beans etc and eating those. You'll need the fibre on that diet anyway.

Dont know, I doubt it. I still feel fat or big most of the time. I'm having a particularly fat day today, lol. Its weird how if you suddenly see your reflection without expecting it to for a split second you see the thin you. But when you look, you see fat. I've been "thin" for about 18 months now. And I still think about losing more weight every single day.

Not to say that I was perfect and didnt eat bad foods (hey, i was fat afterall, lol) but I knew I would feel simply awful about myself if I had a months long binge prior to surgery. Once I made the booking for my surgery, I made a deal with myself that my new life had started. So i ate well and exercised from that point on.

Hmmmm, not sure. My guess would be do you think its possible you may have detached your port - not necessarly completely but maybe popped a few stitches? I'd say you should probably check in with your doc.

Great post. It makes total sense to me that the ridiculous standard of beauty for both males and females in the media affects men just as it affects women. By and large people do tend to date others of similar attractiveness. Some people defy that generalisation, but overall it is true. And I think this body dysmorphia after successful weight loss is incredibly true. I suffer it more now than I ever did fat. I get annoyed at people being incredulous that I would want to lose a bit more weight, I think I'm still fat, truly I do. But one part of me knows for sure I am not seeing what I really look like - both the good and bad points. But I will NOT go down that plastic surgery path in pursuit of perfection. The rational me knows it doesnt exist. I will NOT put myself through an ever widening search for perfection. I think my chance for that was 20 years ago and I'm trying very hard to settle into my 40's and be a great looking 40 something year old rather than trying to be the 24 I never was. I definitely think the media has less and less impact on you as you age. Its so ridiculous at 41 to be thinking I could achieve that bikini model figure or that gorgeous skin that I dont respond to it like I once did. It really IS fantasy to me now. Afterall, look at Pamela Anderson now, hideous, utterly hideous. I'd rather look my age than look like that.