elcee

Maybe I should have a tattoo on my forehead - FFP!

As far as I am aware the band does not affect your ghrelin levels at all.

How old are you? If you are young and still anticipating having children then I would advocate using hormonal birth control as it is pretty effective at sorting out cramps. If you have finished having children then maybe you should think about having a hysterectomy. I had one last year and it is great. No more cramps, no more heavy bleeding that lasted for weeks on end etc.

It also means that the Dr may be quite happy to revise from a laparoscopic procedure to an open procedure if they discover that your liver is in fact too big. You on the other hand may not be so happy when you wake up and discover that you have a much bigger scar than you anticipated and probably a lot more postop pain and a more difficult recovery.

I know how you feel. Most people would probably think that after 3 years that you would have everything down pat and that you wouldn't have to think about it anymore but that is so not true. If anything I think the longer you have had your band the harder it becomes to maintain.The band definitely changes from when you are initially banded and it becomes so much easier to eat things that were previously hard, plus it does not seem to control the hunger as well. That for me is the biggest issue. We all know what we should eat and we can do it when our hunger is controlled but when it isn't then it is impossible to stick to a lifelong diet. You may have to bite the bullet for a while and actually follow a "diet". Just until the weight comes off again. Plan your day and plan for those evening Snacks . Good luck, I am sure you can do it.

Who says you can't have a glass of wine? According to my Dr wine is good for you (in moderation).

If you want to follow a caveman diet then I am sure that it is fine. Some berries, nuts , seeds and the odd bit of woolly mammoth or sabre tooth tiger when you are lucky enough to catch them no problem. But on FB this morning I saw a recipe for a Paleo pumpkin spiced latte. The ingredients included coconut or almond milk, coffee, cocoa, pureed pumpkin.......... These must have been dam lucky cavemen! Theoretically some of them might have had cocoa and coconuts but then it is unlikely they would also have had pumpkins, it would all be dependant on where you lived.But even if they had them would they really have been able to process them to use them this way and if they did then what is the difference between them using and processing a coffee bean or using and processing a stick of sugar cane or a grain of wheat! Are these people that follow it delusional or what?

Icestorm - I'm doing well thanks. Maintenance a bit harder at the moment than it has been but in the big scheme of things all good.

I thought it was more to do with not eating stuff that has been farmed or processed. So no grains, wheat etc because they are farmed and the cavemen would not have had them. Also no sugar because it is processed but then how do you fit a cocoa bean or coffee into the diet - they may not have been farmed but they would take a lot of processing! And you can't have real milk even though it is natural as that would have involved farming but you can have almond milk????

Shemar Moore although Reid and Hotch aren't bad either.

I was also told Optifast but when I phoned and called my Dr's office and asked if I could use Celebrity Slim (it's a lot cheaper) they said it was fine. I think the concern is that not all the so called meal replacement shakes have the correct nutrition in.

Who says menopausal women can't still lust. Heck I do that everytime I watch Criminal Minds.

Has anyone noticed how much the ideal weight recommendations have changed over the years? I am 5' tall or 153cm. In my younger days my ideal weight was always set at around 45 - 48kg. I have countless diet books that show this as being my ideal range and I even have copies of old diet log books from Weighless, WW etc that show that this is where my goal should be. My weight probably naturally fell around 53kg and of course I was never happy, I was always on a diet , trying to achieve a goal that I now realise was probably unrealistically low. I have just been reading up on some of the tables on the net and the info is quite interesting. One site tells me that the Metropolitan life tables were intended to be used with a person in 1" heels - so that means I should have calculated my height as being 1" taller! The range of different ideal weights is staggering to say the least. These were the variations i got Robinson - 49.4kg Miller - 53.4kg Hamwi - 46kg Devine - 46kg BMI - 43.3 - 58.5 kg. I currently weigh approx 53kg so by all tables except the Miller one I am overweight. According to Miller I am slap bang on target and if I use BMI then I am in the middle! What this should mean is that by todays standards I should be happy, but having been brought up with the lower ideal weight recommendations it is hard to get to that point. My mind still tells me that I should be smaller. The thing is that I wonder how much these unrealistic weight tables actually contributed to my weight problem. I spent years trying to achieve what for me is impossible. 53kg appears to be my bodies preferred setpoint and it seems that it is a realistic and healthy weight.It makes me wonder if I would have needed surgery if I hadn't ruined my metabolism by constantly being on a diet! Obviously I will never know. I imagine that there are many of you that also struggled to try to attain an impossibly low weight because of these recommendations.

How about cheesecake?

So what is my excuse then?

You are on solids therefore I can see no problem with eating chicken and rice. It is as you have discovered a learning curve to work out what foods work for you and how to eat them etc. It is important that you can fit your diet requirements in around a normal life. There is nothing wrong with rice in small quantities and the fact that you chose brown rice was pretty healthy.I don't see why there should be an issue

How long have you been banded? What sort of foods are you eating? It could be that you need another fill, it could be that you need to eat different types of foods in order to maximise the effects of the band or it could be that you need to find a different Dr. Yours doesn't sound as though he is being very helpful at the moment.

This could be part of the problem. Remember the band does not work for us it works with us. What are the problems that you are having and why do you think that switching may be more successful? This may not be the case for you but I think there are a lot of people who think that the grass may be greener on the other side which of course is something we all know is generally not true. Switching because of complications is 1 thing but switching because we think that another type of surgery may be easier is generally not a good idea.

The less you allow yourself a food the more you are likely to want it. So if you ban the frozen yogurt then you will crave that more. If you allow yourself treats then they do not have such a huge appeal. For me the band was supposed to help me eat like a thin person. As far as I am aware thin people do not have banned foods they eat what they want when they want within moderation. What they do seem to do as well though is not force themselves to eat something they don't want just so they can eat something they do. E.G As a FFP (former fat person) if I wanted dessert or cake I would only eat it after I had eaten the rest of my meal as that is the rule isn't it? Heaven only knows who made these rules up in the first place. As a trying to be thin person if I want cake or something for lunch then I have it - not after eating some kind of savoury food first but instead of that food. Probably the best way to handle this is to allow yourself so many calories per day for a treat. 100 calories or whatever. Then you can eat a treat without feeling guilty knowing that you are still sticking to your plan.

Yes that is something I have never understood. If your band is causing reflux how does converting to a sleeve help if reflux with a sleeve is so common?

Thanks Jean. It is refreshing to hear an honest opinion of life with a sleeve. All we usually get is the sparkly,shiny, perfect picture. The only reason I know that it isn't quite so rosy is because I keep going onto the VSG board and reading their complications forum. Any time I think maybe life would be easier on the other side that straightens me out!

I was hungry too. I am sure that had I tried I could have eaten anything I wanted to. However I didn't. Why not ? Well I wasn't stupid enough to go through all that prep, go under anaesthetic, have surgery just to mess it up because i was incapable of following a diet for a couple of weeks. Was it hard? Hell yes but the alternative which is risking stuffing up your surgery, contributing to a future slip and other problems were just not worth it. If you are hungry eat/drink more of the items that you are supposed to be eating. If you really "can't" stick to that then call your Dr and discuss it with him and see if he has any ideas for you.

Maybe you should see a gynaecologist, bloating can be a sign of ovarian cancer so you should get that ruled out.

I am tired of being hungry. 3 years and a couple of months out and I feel like I have no band. It's like being back in the bad old dieting days. It is 9.30 am , I got up at 7.30 am and had a cup of tea and 2 ginger nuts( cookies), bad I know but lately I have been starving when I wake up. I then had Breakfast at about 8am - homemade muesli with some greek yogurt,cinnamon and stevia. The muesli is full of oats and seeds and should be satisfying.I am now having another cup of tea and trying to fight the urge to eat. If this is head hunger then my head must be starving. A bit of a back story for those who don't know it. Earlier this year I got stuck on a piece of steak, after a night not being able to swallow my own spit and the worst acid reflux imaginable I went to emergency. I was given a partial unfill and then my Dr started the process of slowly filling me again. I last saw my Dr in June when he filled me to just under the level I was at when I got stuck. He thought that I should be fine and that I wouldn't need to see him again for at least 6 months. I swear that I currently feel as though I have no band. I am always hungry and have fallen back into bad habits. I have gained about 3kg 6.6lb since the beginning of the year and I'm terrified that I am going to gain more. 2 weeks ago I had a consultation with a highly respected nutritionist that specialises in bands. I did this as I thought that maybe I was the problem not the band and I wanted to make sure that I was doing everything that I should be and eating the right type of foods.She confirmed that I need a fill. Apparently with a band one should not be hungry until mid morning whereas I wake up hungry and can eat anything in the morning - not even a hint of tightness or difficulty. So I phoned to make an appointment to see my Dr but as luck would have it he is on holiday and I can only get into see him at the end of Oct. Yes I could swap Dr's but I really don't want to do that. In the meantime I just need to white knuckle it and try not to gain.I did try going back to Protein shakes for a couple of days but if anything they just made me hungrier - I have no idea how I ever survived the preop diet. What this confirms for me is that I could not maintain without my band or some other kind of surgical assistance. I often read stories on here from people that are having their bands removed who believe that they will not have a problem maintaining their weight as they have now learned how to eat properly. Well knowing what to eat isn't the issue, I have always eaten relatively healthy food. The issue is the hunger which without help comes back with a vengeance.

It's not easy. Losing weight AND KEEPING IT OFF is hard with or without a band. Like the rest of you I had lost weight countless times before, WW, Hypnosis, pills, injections,gym, weighless plus countless more. The problem is the weight always came back. As I got older it became even harder to lose the weight. Never mind menopause I think once you hit 40 it becomes a lot harder. So this person has lost weight all by herself - bully for her. Wonder what she will post as her status when she regains it all. The bit about the tummy tuck makes me laugh too. It seems that it is OK to have surgery for vanity e.g boob job, tummy tuck etc but having surgery for your health e.g WLS is somehow a sign of weakness. That really makes a lot of sense doesn't it?!!!!