elcee

My goal was to get down to a reasonable weight. I was hoping for 50kg but would have been happy with 52kg. As it is I seem to have settled at around 51kg. At the time I thought I would give up chocolate, Cookies etc and for a long while I did. The problem came in when I discovered that I could still eat them and not regain. I do have to make sure though that I do only eat them in moderation. The fact I have maintained my loss for approx 2 years with very little effort makes me feel great although i definitely think maintenance is harder than losing. Your band gets looser over time, things that were difficult to eat initially get easier and your motivation is not quite as high as in the beginning. I would love to have a perfect body with a flat stomach but at almost 50 and with 2 Caesareans and a hysterectomy behind me I don't think that is likely to happen!

No negative here. I love my band. I'm at goal and have been for almost 2 years. Feeling good, looking good, no major problems. YAY BAND

It is designed to be in for life. It only gets removed if there is an issue. There are people on this site that have had their bands for more than 5 years.There are other people that have had them for 10 or more years but they are busy living life and they don't visit the support sites as they no longer need them.

You shouldn't be measuring yourself against anyone else. Each person is an individual and so is their weight loss journey.It is not a competition. You don't know how overweight these people were to start with. How disordered their eating was. What their metabolism is like etc. They may have lost a lot so far but then they may plateau later. There are probably other people that would look at your weight loss and think the same as you are thinking, so it is all relative. You were happy until you started comparing yourself to others so stop !

Maybe the OP is menopausal too

It is normal for weight loss to be fast at the beginning of a program and slow down the longer you have been doing it. The more weight you have to lose the easier it comes off. You may also need to relook at your calorie intake because the less you weigh the less you need to eat to maintain your new weight. So if at the beginning you could eat 1500 cal per day and lose you may find that you now need to eat 1200 or 1000 or possibly even less.

Did I say I was talking about you? Or did I make a general comment? I wasn't being judgemental. If you read my post/s I said that cheating that has happened cannot be undone but that going forward it is important to follow your Dr's instructions as they are there for a reason. Time after time on this board people post saying they have cheated and all these people will come on and say it's Ok, fine, don't worry etc. Well it's not. If someone posts saying they have cheated then they should be encouraged to stick with the program, talk to their Dr etc. They should not be given validation that what they did was Ok and that it is fine to carry on. Not sure what name that was, I don't recall calling anybody anything.

Honk you are not being mean spirited. I am getting tired of reading thread after thread where someone has cheated on their postop diet and all these noobs come along and tell the OP it's OK, they did it, no problems etc etc. I get it - people cheat but they shouldn't . The postop diet is there for a reason. The last thing people need is all these unqualified people telling them that it is OK to ignore their Drs instructions and that they will be fine. Who has the medical degree? Who did they pay the money to and trust their lives with? Who should they be getting advice/approval from if they "cannot" stick to their postop diet? So the message here is if you have already cheated you cannot undo that but just because you have done it and think that it's OK does not mean that you should carry on or that you should encourage others to do the same.

Glad that you have realised that too tight is not the way to go. Unfortunately so many people seem to end up being too tight in the mistaken belief that they will lose quicker. Not sure though why you would want a complete unfill.If you do that it can be hard to get to the right level of restriction again. Often just getting a small amount of liquid taken out is enough to sort the problem out. Unless of course the band has slipped and that of course is a totally different situation.

Soft pasta. Something like canneloni or lasagne normally goes down easily. Or some kind of quiche.

I was also thinking possible slip. For things to change so suddenly would normally indicate something has happened. GO to your Dr and get checked out.

I can't think of anything worse than lightly steamed broccolli. It's a good job we all have different tastes. I still eat it but for me it has to be really soft and I don't eat the stalk. It also has to have some kind of sauce of gravy to help cover the taste! Early on it was quite hard to eat but it has become easier.

One of my friends told me yesterday that some people were beginning to worry and talk about me because my legs are so skinny. WHAT THE. I am still a normal BMI, I eat far more than any other banded person I know and I still have a stomach. I think people are just jealous. Jealous that they didn't have the guts to get the surgery and also because so many people are obese there perceptions of normal are totally skewed. If you still have fun with these people then next time they mention your weight tell them to butt out or pick on something about them that you know bugs them. Hopefully they get the hint. If not then maybe you have outgrown these friends and need to move onto new ones that are not going to be so critical.

There is a Geelong group but they haven't met for about 2 years. I get the occasional email. There is a group that meets in Werribee normally on the 1st Sunday of every month. They are a really nice group of people. PM with your email address and I shall pass it onto Ashleigh who runs the group so that she can send you details

Maybe you have some kind of food intolerance? It could be lactose, soy , gluten............ I think you should go to your Dr's and get referred for testing.

Whoa. That is a lot of bad luck for 1 person. I hope that is the end of it. Welcome and all the best on your lapband journey

The band is designed to work best with solid food. Things such as meat, chicken , fish, vegetables etc. These do not break down too easily and pass through the band slower therefore increasing the amount of time until you get hungry again. If you have too much Fluid in your band it becomes very difficult and uncomfortable to eat foods such as these so generally a person will start eating foods that go down easier.Foods that are liquid, smooth, dissolve in the mouth etc. These are termed sliders as they go down easily.Think chocolate, biscuits(cookies), crackers, nuts, custard, icecream, mushy foods etc. As well as going down easily they are generally high calorie and they do not satisfy you for very long. What happens is a vicious circle. The person thinks they are not tight enough so they go for fill after fill after fill. They are able to eat less solid foods and they eat more sliders. The person still feels hungry between meals and they are gaining or not losing weight so they think they need another fill and so the problem gets worse. Too tight leads to weight gain, reflux, slips, erosions and all sorts of problems. A lot of the reason that people get too tight is because they are chasing a mythical "sweet spot" or "restriction" . They have read about it many times and think that just 1 more fill will put them in that magical place where they can eat next to nothing and never be hungry and never want chocolate. That place doesn't exist. Each fill makes a difference. Some great, some slight. It is important to recognise and work with each one. HTH and that I haven't confused you too much

WHAT IS DONE IS DONE BUT THE SOONER YOU START FOLLOWING YOUR DR'S INSTRUCTIONS THE BETTER. You may not think you have done any damage but you may have done something now that could contribute to a slip in the future. The postop diet is there to make sure that the stitches holding the band in place are able to heal. When you chew solid food your stomach churns to digest it, this does not happen with liquids. This period may be hard but it is sooner over. We know what it is like because we have all been through it. Stope acting like a defeatist and show THAT YOU ARE STRONG. If you put your mind to it YOU CAN DO IT.

That is pretty amazing. Either she is a WLS surgery saint or she has a short memory or she was trying to make you feel at ease. I didn't suffer hair loss, or have shoulder pain or gas pains etc but I went through a period of belching a lot more than previously. However in the big scheme of things that is so minor I don't count it as a negative.I also eat just about everything, drink wine, don't diet, haven't cut out carbs etc. I am guilty of not exercising but we won't talk about that as losing without exercising is the exception not the norm and I would hate to make everyone else think that they shouldn't exercise. I also get stuck sometimes but to me it's no big deal. I think what i am trying to say is that I also have no complaints but don't be surprised if your journey is not quite as rosy as the picture that your friend paints. If it is great, but if it isn't don't be disappointed as some of the things are just minor inconveniences.

OR look at your bank account and realise that it has not decreased due to a large surgery bill

Most of the issues you are having with the band you would probably have had with the sleeve as well. Try going onto the sleeve board and reading some of the threads there - life isn't always greener on the other side. Would you have felt ashamed if you had needed a kidney transplant because your kidneys weren't working properly? No, then don't feel ashamed that you neede WLS because your hunger control mechanism wasn't working properly. You might feel that you could have lost 60lb without the band but I bet that you couldn't have lost that and kept it off. If you could have done then you would have done. Stop being so down on yourself. Instead of looking at the glass as being half empty see that it is half full. And most importantly make sure that YOU ARE WORKING THE BAND and not expecting it to do all the work. You should not have a band that is so tight that it restricts your diet. Ideally a well adjusted band should mean that you are able to eat most foods but less of them and not get hungry soon afterwards. Being too tight leads to weight gain, slips and other issues.

Sorry that you are so sensitive. Having a band is a big change and a big learning curve. Learning to eat correctly post band so that it is not a problem can cause problems. It seems that for you it has been harder than for most. I would actually be wondering if your band was placed correctly. If you are following the rules of small bites, chewing well, eating between bites etc then it should not hurt when eating although it does feel different to preband. If the band has been placed too high or something like that then potentially it could be the cause of your problems. Have you ever thought of going to a second Dr and having xrays to check that the placement is correct?

I am sure that it is possible but it is also fairly unlikely. If I was you I would focus on eating correctly and not on the fear of getting stuck. Different foods cause stuck episodes for different people.Most Dr's give you a list of foods that may cause problems but you should not eliminate them.That would be like never eating certain foods because they might make you choke or never eating something because you might develop an allergy to it.To do that is to over react and can cause your diet to be very restricted which is not the aim. Just because a food is fine one day does not mean it will be the next and vice versa. So pay attention to how you eat and relax. And if you do get stuck then yes it will hurt (for a while) but you will get over it. In fact in time the memory will probably fade and you may repeat the experience. In that way it's probably a bit like giving birth - after the first time most people swear it will never happen again but there are not too many that stick to that.

You may have a slip or a hernia. If part of your stomach is migrating into your chest that would make it difficult to breath.

That is horrible. I wonder what started the infection - it can't have just been spontaneous. Maybe the port got infected at the time of surgery but it was a slow infection. Or the other possibility is that it was infected during a fill. To have gone through 2 surgeries already only to have to have another one to have it removed would be awful. Sending lots of hugs your way.