BillOh

Happy birthday to me! My 64th and one year until retirement! The email from this forum reminded me I haven't been here in awhile. I was 275 when I had my lap band back in May of 2009. I got down to my goal weight of 195 by the end of that year. A few times I've slipped back and went close to 240. The band, which I guess they don't do anymore, has been a great tool, but diet and exercise sure played a big part. In 2011 I ran my first of 7 marathons, had to give that up after back surgery in 2014 and I've taken to cycling, which almost killed me in 2020. (But hey the lady that hit me ended up buying me a new camper to use in retirement :) ) I definitely learned I was a stress eater and just knowing that helped. In 2020 because of covid my work moved to home, and I've been in my basement most of the last 3 years. Not going out to lunch everyday helped and adding 1-2 hours back to my day I was able to get out more. Today on my 64th, 14 years after the surgery I'm still at my goal weight of 195, but over the winters I've snuck up to 205-210 a couple of times, but hoping in retirement (huge stress relief) I can get outside and do things to keep me away from food and snack more often. Just came back from a busy one week vacation where I lost 5 pounds because we were out doing things!

Part of this message is me rejoining this community, part of it is seeing what's in my profile signature., I used to have a weigh loss results bar in there. I had my surgery in 2009, almost a year after my wife did. Having a built in support partner helps. I went from around 270 to 195 in well less than a year. A large part of it was this surgery and the nutritional information. Another part of of it was re-discovering my love of running. I still had running a marathon on my bucket list when I had the surgery and I ran it in 2011 in just over 4 hours. I ended up doing six more. Life was good, my wife and I were even used in commercials as sucess stories by the Bariatric Department of The Ohio State University I will mention my wife though I looked too thin at 195, so I did go to 210 during my marathons. But after 2013 my back began to fail and I had spinal fusion surgery. That slowed me down for a year or or more, but my weight crept up about 10 pounds a year until last May 7th, I got back from a 7 day Caribbean cruise. While I only gained 1 pound on that cruise it was a new post surgery high of 244. I imediately scheduled an appointment with my clinic/hospital. Backn in 2009 I had 3ccs put into a 10cc band and never had it changed. On my visit back I had .25cc added and have lost 13 pounds in about 2 weeks. Here we go again.

Never heard that before. Stopped working as in no restriction, or inability to change the restriction?

My doctor's office did tell me they do less bands than before. My sister had her band removed. I know she had hers pretty tight and didn't really try to watch her eating as I do. She had a lot of reflux and scarring around the band so hers was removed. She remains obese, which is unfortunate as after knee replacements, a 100 pound loss would make her life much better. I made a friend from Australia in 2013 when I was doing pretty well and he was 500 pounds at the time. He had the sleeve done. He went in as an aware adult, but had leakage about 30 days after and a serious infection, he was in an induced coma for about 10 days. I'm now down about 12 pounds since my cruise return May 7th.

I had my band in 2009, did great for a number of years, starting round 2 this May, I just came back to the forum and posted a similar message. Still familiarizing myself with this version of the forum Good luck.

I am not sure if my profile is still active, I'll have to go back and check. I used to belong to lapbandtalk.com which I beleive ws rolled into here. My surgery was 2008 and it was hugely successful. I went from 270 down to my goal weight of 195 in a year. My wife with the full bypass went from 300 to 160 where she has been for about 8 years. We were featured as successful examples in a commercial for our local hospital. I was feeling so good I rekindled my love of running and finally finished the lifetime goal of a marathon in 2011. Shortly after that my back began to fail and my weight went up a little, but still way below that former high. I eventually needed spinal fusion surgery and I couldn't do much physically for a long time and my weight ended up as high as 240 again. I still have the band and it is set to a pretty good place, I have to be careful what I eat, but I did manage to gain weight again. Part of it was depression not being as physically capable. I don't think I waited long enough. 16 months after surgery I am finally feeling like I can do physical things again and have finally motivated myself to try again. Here we go round 2, this time I only need to lose 25-35 pounds.

I posted this in the post-op forum, and then thought it belonged here. Yes, its a slow day at work. Its a slow day here, am I was sitting here thinking. I was 225 when I got married 28 years ago. I use to travel a lot and when I got down to 195, I'm thinking this was 1985 or so, I was in Missouri and I noticed my wedding ring was missing and I suspected it came off while I slept. (Ladies, this is the truth) I was lucky and did go back to the hotel room and was able to find it in the bed. I'm getting close to getting back to that weight and I see my ring is very loose. I'll have to look into one of those ring guards. Just thought I would mention it in case it saves someone from losing a more expensive piece of jewelry.

Dr Mikami did my surgery in late 2008. Currently training for my 2nd marathon! Good luck, I'm sure it will go well.

Hi all, I haven't been around much. My surgery was late 2008, I hit my goal weight in the summer of 2009, and have stayed within 15 pounds of it since. Sure would like to get back to that weight again. Anyway, I thought I'd check in for a while. I've done 7 half marathons and I'm 3 weeks away from completing my first full at the Columbus Marathon. I'll let you know how it goes.

It was mainly exhaustion, not much pain. Thanks.

The good thing was it was more exhaustion than pain. In the last 5 miles, I passed several younger people, I had trained with during the year. They started out faster, but didn't make it. The old, slow and steady philosophy.

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2242098489669.2114453.1164290938&type=1&l=d2aac93e16

Hi folks, thanks for asking! It went well, really well, i am so glad i did it. I've ordered pictures from the event, and I'll post a couple when I have them. I mentioned my goal was to run the marathon in 4:30. The race provided experienced pacers and one of them was designated to run the race at that exact pace. I found this guy and my plan was to stay with him for 20 miles and see how i felt for the last 6. I did that, cruising with this group of about 10 people for about 16 miles and having a good time. His philosophy was to walk for about 30 seconds at every water stop to allow the group to catch up and re-group, but at mile 16 I was afraid I would start to stiffen up by walking so at that point I went ahead of the group and in 3 miles put 3 minutes between me and them. 18 miles was the longest I had run. I breezed past 20 and all they way to 23 miles. Miles 24 and 25 were the longest miles of my life, but I pushed through it. Thoughts of the Battan Death March were going through my heads. (Apologies to any veterans who may be reading this) I saw friends at mile 26 who motivated me to the finish where I met my wife, who is also a weight loss surgery success story, she had competed the half marathon I did come in at 4:26 4 minutes ahead of my goal. Pictures to follow.

Joining a local running group really helped, I actually look forward to the weekend runs with the group. Its a big group and almost anyone can find someone that runs their speed.

Good, having a light week in preparation. I have lowered my expectations somewhat. When I signed up I hoped to run this in 4 hours. Having done a 1:48 1/2 marathon, it seemed possible, but the heat and back issues slowed me up a bit. I'm just going to try and cruise in at around 4 hours and 30 minutes. I'm taking Monday off to recover next week, so I'll probably post something here.

Sunday OCt 16th at 7:30am. Columbus, Ohio.

I will, after checking the full off my bucket list, I'll probably stick wiht the 1/2. I love the half and there are many close to me.

I ran 20 this weekend, looking forward to the actual marathon.

Do we have any people here that have taken cruises since their surgery? It use to be that it was a struggle to not gain weight on a cruise, or to fight to get it off after the cruise. I've taken 5 cruises so far, 2 of them after my lapband, and I have the next cruise coming up in May. My wife had the bypass and this will also be her 3rd cruise since surgery. We both reached our goal weights before cruising and are near those goal weights now. If you have cruised, you are aware of things like the Noro-virus and other illnesses. They give the cruise lines fits and lot of bad press. So there are steps the cruise lines take to fight these type of illnesses. One of those is you sign a form when you board that says you aren't sick and haven't been sick in 24 hours. The one on Royal Caribbean specifically asks if you have vomited in the last 24 hours. On our last cruise, my wife ate something the morning of the cruise that gave her the dumping syndrome. She fought it for about 20 minutes, finally evacuated it and felt normal 5 minutes late. I knew what had happened to her and understood why. However, 2 hours later when we boarded the ship, I filled out the form, and lied. I knew she wasn't sick, so i didn't feel bad about lying. Had I honestly answered yes, one of a couple of things might have happened, which is why I am posting this to see if anyone else has been through this. Anyway, the best thing that would have happened if I was honest if they would have denied us boarding until they had a doctor come out and speak to us, hopefully they would understand we would have boarded normally. But I could easily see that delaying our boarding by as much as an hour or two. The next possibility is we would have waited then put in quarantine in our cabin for some length of time. The worst case if they would have just denied us boarding Knowing she was perfectly healthy I wasn't prepared to accept any of these possablities. So I lied. On my first cruise after my band and being close to my goal weight I boarded the ship normally and honesty and was at lunch in the buffet. I swallowed a piece of chicken that was too big and got stuck. I knew it had to come out, if you know what I mean. I was deathly afraid of being sick and quarantined. Our rooms were not yet available so I had to use a public rest room and I actually waited in it for 10 minutes for it to be empty. Any one else had any issues with cruising? We soon leave for our our 30th anniversary and 7 days in the carribean. I'm looking forward to a week of great fun,eating and hopefully gaining no more than a pound or two.

Hi everyone, I've been away from the forum awhile, but the battle continues. I had my surgery in Dec of 08. By October of 09 I hit my ideal weight. I did that with the surgery and running. In 2009 and 2010 I ran 5 half marathons. In the early part of 2010 I hurt my back and couldn't run for 5 months. That caused me to put on 15 pounds. This year, I resolve to get that back off and to do that, I am committing myself to running my first full marathon in October in Columbus, Ohio. I may be here this fall asking for suport in that 2nd half of the race! I hope to be running 30 miles a week mos of the summer and 40-50 miles in late summer to fall. I'm sure that will help get that last 15 pounds off again.

Don;t be discouraged by that! Mark a course by your house and try to make it a mile. If you don't totally make it, wait two days and try it again, just make sure you go farther each time before walking. You will get there. That first 5K is great.

My surgery was 2008, 2009 saw me hit my ideal weight and 2010 saw me injur my back and gain a few pounds to lose over again in 2011. Other than my sciatic having this surgery has been a major force in improving my health. I've had one cold in the 24 months. So how do I start 2011? With my first attack of the flu. The wierd part is I wouldn't have known it wasn't the flu if my wife hadn't the same symptoms a week ago. Initially I thought I had torn a stomach muscle as the pain on my stomach was pretty intense. A heating pad was the only thing that helped. It got so bad I was starting to have ideas that ny port had torn loose or was infected. I'm not a hypocondriac normally, but this pain was intense. Finally when I vomited I decided it was just the flu. But in 51 years I've never had a flu with such pain. I just thought I'd relate it.

Any lapbanders care to join me for the Erie Runner's club 10k Turkey Trot on the penninsula Thanksgiving morning? Say hello if you do, I'll probably be wearing something to indicate I'm from Columbus.