tilly

Hello, Im a newby here and wanted to say hello to everyone. I had the band fitted in Belgium a year ago today and have had no complications whatsoever with it, apart from a couple of fills that didnt work, and have lost 112lb so far, I started at 408lbs. I lost lots on the Atkins diet, swore Id never gain it back and voila- 2 years later I was almost back where I started. the band was a last ditch attempt to lose this weight Ive carried around most of my 54 years. So far so good. many thrills and spills along the way but I recon Ive got the hang of it now.

a pb is NOT pleasant, it hurts--but it doesnt hurt as much as a tight pair of shoes, or a bad period pain, or a blister on your bum. !! its over and done with as soon as the offending bite of food comes back, its not like vomiting, its a burp and whooops it comes. Ive had quite a few of them 2 in particular were lulus and one lasted 3 hours cos a bit of prune skin, but if you asked me if I would have one of those DAILY and not every three months on average or go back to being over 400lb bring on the pbs NONE of the experiences ive had with my band of 15 months comes even close to the pain and suffering of morbid obesity the pbs the acid reflux occasionally, the wanting a steak and cant having one all minor minor nano details to the results I have now and the way my life has changed to the way I was existing.

after being banded 15 months ive hit two plateus, both of these have moved once Ive thought "darn it Im going to eat rubbish who cares, its not coming off anyway" upped the cals considerably for ONE day and voila things started moving again. go figure but maybe when the cals are low the body hangs on to its fat for famine reasons, it cant hang on forever but its annoying when it is, especially when you know your not eating enough to even maintain. (not to get mixed up with living on bars of chocolate and wondering why your not losing as my friend has done ha ha (

donna b ----I think its soo easy with the band, after 15 months ive lost over 150lbs and feel fantastic. I count cals and most days cant eat enough to get up to my 1200-1500 a day, i have exellent restriction NOW though it has been hit and miss. so in my case and a lot of people I know, the band definately works if you use it right. good luck your doing great so far its certainly working for you !!!!

yep, I was also told fluids for two weeks then mushies for another two and even then it was painful at times. I wouldnt imagine eating solid food after a week was good for you, after all your tum is swollen and stitched and needs a rest.

that was my problem with food I never ever felt full, unless you call stuffed to bursting full, then half an hour later I was looking for more food Its just taken me over an hour to eat a yoghurt 4pm my Breakfast, It was a struggle because I am so full after a few mouthfulls -- a whole new way of life isnt it

for the first week of banding including the hospital stay and not eating for 2 days I had about 800 cals in 6 days I got on the scales expecting a 300lbs weight loss lol and had only lost 5lbs cant tell you how disapointed I was then by the end of week 2 id lost 20lbs so be patient I had a huge loss because I was huge to start, but it will come off when your body recovers from the shock of the anasthetic ect just a note, I had an emergency op, christmas day, I ate NOTHING only sips of Water for 5 days and when I got weighed id not lost an ounce in fact Id gained 3lbs !!!! thought it might come off later on but it didnt. go figure

. just a thought but I was feeling the same way and blamed the weight, turned out I had sleep apnea and once I got the cpap machine the exhaustion and lethargy left me, just a suggestion, but it doesnt half help and make a difference.

cousins, once removed

congratulations thats wonderful whooo hoooo

I have to count the calories, if I dont I stop losing and when I do and keep a food diary (in a dictafone i carry round with me) I lose fine 147lbs 13 months fills count, sucessful ones anyway, and if I drink with meals I get hungry fast so eat more than normal.

the band -as everyone says, is a tool to help you eat less. it wont stop you eating the wrong stuff but even then, if your fill is right, you cant eat the amounts of the wrong stuff that you eat now. I was never ever full, or satisfied, and that list above was my whole days eating, at one time it would have been an in-between meals snack !! you can still eat chocolate with the band, and sweets, and bickys, and ice cream and milkshakes, but you stay away from them, and its easier to do that with the band, simply because for example, you will have your breakfast of say, a bowl of "oat so simple" or ordinary porridge and it will be a 1/4 of the size of bowl you would normally have, then you simply dont want anything else to eat till lunch time when you have say a tin of soup and maybe a yoghurt, then you will forget about eating until dinner time, when you have your small dinner then you could have rice pudding for sweet. maybe by 9pm you might feel like eaing something, you wont be hungry though -just feel like eating, and you could have a couple of ryvitas with cheese on or some jam then that will be you, not able to eat another thing. Even if someone put a huge cream cake in front of you you couldnt eat it, you will feel physically sick at the thought of it. HONESTLY. I felt the same as you, I couldnt imagine I would ever feel like that, as I was always ready to eat more, nomatter what Id just had to eat. ONCE your filled correctly, which takes some time but you might be lucky as friends of mine have and get it right first time. yesterday I just decided Iwas going to have some bickys and some sweets,it was my decision, I chose to do it, It wasnt uncontrolable, I didnt hate myself for eating the rubbish, I didnt feel guilty as I would have done normally, notice I had 4 chocky digestives and not the packet?? that was all I could manage. and ive lost over 140lbs in a year, if I could diet I would never have gotten to over 400lbs, and if I found it easy to do I wouldnt have ever gotten big in the first place. the band makes you eat less of everything, but if you chose to drink lots of booze and eat lots of chocolate, then you will gain,not lose, weight. If you follow the rules of the band, which you will get when you have the op. then you wont go wrong. Just because the band is there it doesnt mean it neutralises calories and you can eat whatever you like and wont gain weight, it helps you curb your eating in a big way, Ive had to try hard somedays, (never as hard as I did pre band though) and some days its been a struggle to eat anything. but my son, who has also been banded has never had to try, he naturally just eats less than he did before. no nutrition or worrying about vitamins for him, oh no, he just eats what doesnt hurt, refuses to eat veggies only sweet corn !! and has lost 80lbs since last July. he used to get a whopper meal and then another one plus a milkshake on his way home from work before he had his dinner !! now he has a pork chop, some mashed spuds and sweetcorn for his dinner and thats him, done for the night till the next lunch time. And beleive me, he was an eater of the first order. I envy him his ability to eat a pork chop though all be it it takes him over an hour. lol follow the rules, it will work, but expect it to do all the work for you and you not have to worry about how you eat or what you eat or the amount you eat, then it wont work its like buying an electric drill and taking it back to the shop cos you got up the next morning and the drill was still sitting in its box and those shelves still werent put up.! putting up shelves is a lot easier with a drill than without one, and losing weight with the band is a hec of a lot easier than without it. £4000 ? youll save that in food in a year trust me I know. lol

well, if you eat 2000 cals pre band, and it was enough to put weight on you, then if you eat the same after the band it will still do the damage it did before. You have to diet when you have the band, and eat less. Ive found I can eat the things I like within reason because NOW I dont eat as much of them, say, one chocolate buiscut instead of half a packet. half a bag of chips instead of 4 packets !!! you naturally eat less with the band if your fill is right but you can put those calories away without even noticing for instance, yesterday, I ate a tin of chicken soup then a bag of toffee popcorn, 4 chocolate buiscuts (100 cals each) a pint of milk a packet of mints and when I added it all up it came to about 2000 calories yet the only thing half ways decent there was the tin of chicken soup!! I knew what I was doing though as Im a year banded and know what I can and cant get away with, so today Im having home made soup and nothing else to make up for my deliberate mistake. now and again I think "sodddit im going to indulge" and it does no harm providing I can sort myself out next day" diet is a horrible word to us, but honestly, its a lot lot lot lot easier with the band, and its the last one youll ever have to go on

good grief !! you have both lost a whole person, wonderful stuff this

well, there is only one way to lose weight, thats eat less, move more. the band has helped me do that. without it I just couldnt do it for long and then piled back the weight. IVe just come back from an all inclusive holiday in spain, all the food you could eat and all the booze, soft drinks and wine you could drink, and I lost 7lbs !!!!! I ate my fill, and I drank Water and a couple of diet cokes and a sneaky baileys on the last night, and still lost weight. I ate a sweet after each evening meal, but the difference was that I only had a tiny helping and a scoop of ice cream, I didnt wear a path out to the sweet bar, because that was enough for me, last all inclusive holdiay I went on I came back 18lbs heavier than when I left. apart from accidents with the band like slippage ect, if you use it right and dont eat till your sick or pb-ing just eat till your full (a new experience for me let me tell you) you will be fine. Its the "getting your head round it all" bit thats confusing peeps I think when is it right, when do I need a fill, when do I need an unfill, this knowledge comes with a bit of time and experience. for me the rules are eat slowly, take a couple of mouthfulls and wait, if it doesnt hurt after a few minutes carry on eating slowly and chew well,. if I have done all that and it hurts , stop, I'm eating something that doesnt suit MY band, ie; I can eat eggs my friend cant, she can eat rice, I cant, --I can eat grapes (peeled) she cant --yet she can eat an orange !!!! arrrrrrrrgh! but were both losing weight fine, and we know through experience its cos were eating far far less than we ate before the band. so it seems were all different, and its a case of finding out what we can and cant manage. But I would say that If you can eat a subway or a mcdonalds --you need a fill Lol

I am going to Oregon in the summer and my friend there tells me you have ALL NIGHT BINGO OMG that sounds better than sex allnight sex all night bingo NO CONTEST

definately not re-education I know, sure as eggs is eggs that if my band was taken out tomorrow next year Id be as fat as ever, its something to do with finding the "sweet spot" Im sure of it food is no longer important to me, Ive asked thin people if this is normal and they all say it is, my husband is slim and couldnt care less about food, just eats to survive and wants it over with as fast as poss no cosy meals for him, hates eating out, just likes good plain food and not a lot of it Im going the same way and its GRRRRRRREAT

why do we all feel like this??/ If we had pneumonia, would we hate ourselves?? if we had parkinsons disease would we hate ourselves?? NO obesity is a disease and we cant help it, simple as that, I doubt if there are many people who wake up one morning and say "oh this being slim is rubbish, so I think I will eat myself into a size 5x and enjoy my life" so the thing is to look for a "cure" as with any other disease and if you cant find a cure then get all the help you can -- in my case it was the band, and its working for me. I used to hate myself, now I realise that I was wrong to beat myself up over it and feel self disgust when I looked at myself, were listening to the media and others and it just makes our disease harder to tackle love your self, if you dont love yourself and dont feel your worth anything then you wont feel your worth the effort of finding that "cure"

I went through a phase of feeling sick as soon as Id put food in my mouth not like a PB just the feeling of "ewwww" as soon as I would taste whatever it was. Imagine if you ate a fried cockroach !! how you would feel before youd even swallowed it?? well it felt like that but it wore off about 8 weeks later thank heavens I think it was a reaction to a lot of PBs and my brain had turned against food lol ok now though though Im always thinking the food tastes "funny"

LEEERVE bingo so I know how you feel, I was operated on on the tues and was at bingo by the following Monday lol was a bit shaky and wobbly but wild horses wouldnt have kept me away AND I won £250 about $500 at the time lol

If you suffer from the seat belt in the car sliding up round your neck !! simply get a garden tie or a food bag tie and tie the bit that goes across your body to the bit that goes across your lap and voila no more riding up round your neck

after an eight week plateu after christmas day emergency surgery I finally moved this week, I tried everything and nothing worked, dont know what happened any differently to this week than any other week, but ive now lost 8lbs since last sunday!!! oh if only that was every week *sigh lol so I think you just have to count your calories and keep on keeping on, if you eat less cals than you burn off your treacherous body (mine sits up late at night and plots against me Im sure of it) will have to let go of the fat in the end.

CONGRATULATIONS its amazing how fast the year goes isnt it, It was mine on the 8th March and all day I kept thinking of "this time last year" I was grateful to go into hospital for the rest as I was so exhausted having to travel to belgium from Scotland and walk to the plane, climb the stairs etc lol of course you shouldnt beat yourself up after losing FIFTY POUNDS !!!!! fantastic, and incase you dont realise, go and load a suitcase up with 50lbs worth of books and try carrying it upstairs and round the house then you will realise your massive acheivement

when you think our tootsies are relatively tiny parts of us that take all the weight of the rest of us, I used to get aching feet and burning inside them its gone now thank heavens

Its really refreshing to hear people being honest about the reasons they are fat. I seem to meet a lot of people who have many many excuses for it, everything apart from eating too much. I think science needs to look at this "enough button" syndrome. The emotional eating thing has been done to death and latched onto by many people who just like myself eat too much because they dont know when to stop due to the IM FULL reflex being non existent. Im not saying that there arnt emotional eating problems, far from it, but it isnt the reason for everyone. I remember a female doctor asking me If I had had counselling for my sexual abuse issues !! I looked at her blank and asked "what sexual abuse issues???????" she said "oh, its been PROVED that all fat people were sexually abused" she then asked me if Id ever been married "Twice"I replied "OHHH" she said knowingly then she asked if I had any friends ???? "3 best ones and lots of others" I replied "OHHH thats unusual for someone whos fat" she said needless to say I put her straight and in fact wiped the floor with the silly woman. but it makes you wonder how many other doctors think like that