Carmen188

Hi Reggie, I too have had a weird obsession with sweets since my surgery, it is totally sabotaging my weight loss, I think before the surgery i would never allow myself to eat many sweets and now I think that since sweets do not cause me any discomfort i want them more. I am going to try to get off the sugar for a while but don't really know if I have the willpower to do it. It's crazy, I am failing miserably at this lap band thing. I got sidetracked i guess i know it was still going to be work but i didn't realize that I was going to have to diet like i did before surgery. a lot of times i think i eat sweets because i know they won't cause me discomfort like protein does. I am trying to get in the habit of chew chew chewing my food more...i have just gotten lazy and out of control...but I will get it back one day and I know this band will help me lose weight..it's just me right now doing and eating how i like...one good thing is there is no way i can eat as much as i used to without getting sick..and i know without the band i would have ballooned up over three hundred pounds by now with the way i am eating ..so i do not regret the surgery ...I wish everyone the best with their bands...it sure wasn't what i expected it to be.

Hello, my name is Carmen, are the meetings still going on at Kaiser south? my email address is jolly.carmen@yahoo.com I am soooo struggling to lose any weight, I am terrible at this lap band thing. I need help

I feel like you crawled inside my head and expressed exactly how I feel about food, no one I know has ever either admitted that they feel this way about food or they really don't feel that way about food. and yes it is a "in the moment thing and its so wonderful and beautful and food tastes so good when you're eating it and then it's forotten, often I feel guilty about eating something when I know i shouldn't and I tell myself that's eat i'm not going to eat anymore tonight or whatever and then i end up eating again just a few hours later it's horrible. If I have ice cream in the house i obsess about it i put so much in my bowl because I don't want my family to see me going back for more because 3 scoops weren't enough. and sometimes it's not just the way food tastes but how it actually feels in my mouth, the texture or the look of it it's like a frickin' love affair, I wonder why no one will admit that this is the way they feel. and if I could just stay the same weight I think i would be ok with myself but I see the scale climbing up every week and my pants getting tighter and tighter every week and it's sooo disheartening and I feel like I have lost at this lap band thing. I thought lap band would make dieting easier but it's seems like it's unleashed something inside me that allows me to eat all the foods i had deprived my self of pre lap band. I know i have to get my head right again i can't seem to remember what i did before when i needed to lose weight for the surgery, my nutrionist says to go back to the post op diet and i try to do that weekly but get tripped up every week...i hope lap band does not turn out to be just another fad diet that didn't work, I still hold on to hope that I wil lget better again, that I will start excersing regularly again like i did pre lap band. I just want to be well and have a healthy relationship with food like some other people do. God help us all! thanks for you story...it helps me to know that there are others out there like me.

Hi Bonnie, congrats! I know exactly how you feel, it was a long hard road getting banded and i kept feeling like any minute someone was gonna tell me NO you can't have your band you haven't lost enough weight. but i finally got it in and they cannot take it away !!! my port site is to the left of my bellybuton but higher up not near my belly button. I also have a tiny incision right below/in between my breasts, dr said thats where the band is, it surprised me that it was so high up hence the stuck feeling in my throat when i eat too much or something doesn't go down right away. I also had the intense shoulder pain for weeks, it was scary, i thought it would never go away but it finally did, i think walking helped the most to get it to go away. anyways good luck to you, i unfortunately have learned to eat around my band and am not making much progress...i'm going backwards..gaining weight...can't believe i let this happen again..well..hopefully i'll get it right one of these days.

I couldn't make it to the meeting in Sacramento today when is the next Sacramento meeting..i really need to get there..hopefully it will help get me going.. I am struggling bigtime with my eating.

do you still meet in Sacramento? If so when is the next meeting?

Yes i experienced that about a week ago, i had been overdoing it with my eating for about a week I don't know what the pain was it was really bad for one day kinda bad on day two and just a distant memory now..I don't know what it was though..i meant to ask my surgeon last week but forgot. I am thinking it had something to do with my port .... maybe ??? don't know but hopefully it doesn't happen again, it was kinda scary...i will ask my surgeon next time I see her though..If I remember LOL.

To fluffy...I take offense to your words.."come on people diet and excersise is the key to successful weight loss" if you had that under control then why did you get banded? since you've got it figured out you should have been able to succeed without the band.

yes i believe you can lose weight by walking. before I got the lap band i lost 100 lbs by watching my diet of course and by walking and walking tapes. leslie sansone is great. good luck!

try some pineaplle juice if you can get it down. I believe after your fill you should go on liquids for a day or two so that your stomach can go back down. I understand it may swell after the fill. do liquids and mushies until you feel better..and I think it's the enzyme in pineapple that helps get the food digested quicker..not sure though.

wow reading all your posts ..so many different reasons..and thoughts. I have always felt depressed even as a youngster. i have very few memories of when i was a child, the vague memories I have are not pleasant ones and i don't really know if they are real or not. I have been thinking that I would like to start seeing a therapist to explore my feelings and try to see if i can get a handle on this food addiction i have. I love food, it makes me feel good, I feel lonely most of the time, not that I don't have happy days for the most part but I have a deep lonliness inside of me that i cannot shake, eating is the only thing that fills me up and eases that lonliness. but then the guilt comes from eating too much, it's hard, eat and feel good....then feel bad about eating the wrong things. I don't want to blame anyone..but men have hurt me in the past, my dad was not a very loving father and drank a lot when I was young. My mother felt like everything my dad put us through only happened to her, like just because we were young that it did not affect us. he would sit in his chair and get drunk and we would all be afraid of him, afraid that he would look our direction and say something to us. I think i will seek out some one to talk to I need to get to the bottom of all of this, i am a Christian and always hoped that I should be able to pray my way through anything, but I was banded and I am still making wrong choices with food and men. thanks for starting this post it is theraputic to put these things down in writing.

thank you for the explanation I now finally understand what pb'ing is . i've not yet had that happen, i've had a little slime'ing but nothing significant, the worst thing that happened was i had been over eating and i got this horrible pain around my port site, it lasted for two days and finally felt better, it was a wake up call for me, i cannot overdo it because i can damage my insides and I must remember that. but apparently i didn't learn that much because i over ate this weekend, I hope it doesn't take some serious medical emergency to make me wake up and get my act together and follow the rules of lap band! anyways you asked when I was banded, I was banded on Sept 13, 2010 on day of surgery i was 277 got down to 253 in two months and I am now up to 264, I am so dissapointed in myself i've lost my motivation but hope to get it back soon. I go next week for 2nd visit with surgeion post op...I think it's time for a fill hopefully that will kick start my weight loss again. .. thanks again for taking the time to answer my question, how are you feeling? are you able to drink ? I would like to have someone to talk to about this stuff, it helps to read these posts. If you would like to be my email buddy my email is good2bjolly@gmail.com

I thank you all for your advice and encouraging words..i didn't start this thread but I feel the same as the person who did, i feel like i am failing myself. I thought that the band would make it easier for me to control my eating but it hasn't. I make worse choices with food since I have been banded then I did pre-band, I thought the band would help me to live like a thinner person..but maybe I don't really know how thinner people live..maybe they watch their eating habits. I go to see my surgeon next week and I will take all of your advice and have her check my band and tell her that I am not doing so well with my choices and I think I will seek therapy for my food addiction..I never thought of myself as a food addict before but I must be because I think about food all the time, I love food it makes me feel good emotionally, if I feel like I have to diet i get depressed and sad and feel like there is not much to live for...I also used to excercise a lot more before I was banded, i have totally lost my motivation. I hope to regain it soon i can't go on like this much longer. I will also ask for a fill next week. thank you so much to the person who prayed for us all...what a blessing that was. thanks!

I thank you all for your advice and encouraging words..i didn't start this thread but I feel the same as the person who did, i feel like i am failing myself. I thought that the band would make it easier for me to control my eating but it hasn't. I make worse choices with food since I have been banded then I did pre-band, I thought the band would help me to live like a thinner person..but maybe I don't really know how thinner people live..maybe they watch their eating habits. I go to see my surgeon next week and I will take all of your advice and have her check my band and tell her that I am not doing so well with my choices and I think I will seek therapy for my food addiction..I never thought of myself as a food addict before but I must be because I think about food all the time, I love food it makes me feel good emotionally, if I feel like I have to diet i get depressed and sad and feel like there is not much to live for...I also used to excercise a lot more before I was banded, i have totally lost my motivation. I hope to regain it soon i can't go on like this much longer. I will also ask for a fill next week. thank you so much to the person who prayed for us all...what a blessing that was. thanks!

whaare pb's? i see this all the time and i assume it means productive burping?? is that what it means? what is it ? what does it do? sorry i am new I haven't had too much restriction since I got surgery done..i am now flailing around gaining weight not knowing how to change my evil ways. just curios..thanks sorry i know it's not what you asked. i have no idea about if you are too tight or not, i would say if you can eat you're not too tight but can't drink ? that is weird?

yes I have regrets..when I decided to get the band I thought that it would stop me from eating too much because I believed that I simply would not be able to do it...however lately I have found out that I can eat a lot! before I didn't eat things like chocolate, ice cream Cookies..but after the surgery i started eating them and I don't even know why..i just was so tired of being on a diet all the time and i thought that the band would allow me to eat those things again within limitations...but I let myself get out of hand and I failed myself and the band..but I hope to get my act together and make the band work for me, i go for my first fill next week and hopefully i will have a new start. by the way i've only lost about 20 lbs since Sept 13, 2010. see what I mean.

You won't be able to do curves until you are healed, which I believe is at least 2 months..you can probably do walking and some other aerobic excercises..but curves has a lot of weight lifting which is out until your body is healed.

I am sorry I may not be much help to you but I wanted to comment, I am beginning to think the band doesn't work that well, I know everyone's going to say it's a tool and I agree it's a tool but I thought things would be different, I thought that it would stop me from eating too much but I like you can eat almost as much as I did pre-band, i am really disapointed in myself.. if I had the willpower to do it on my own I wouldn't have gotten the band, my tools not working.

I am with you! pre lap band i was always obsessing about what I should or should not eat..although i'm not doing great with losing at least i am not gaining!! whoo hoo hopefully i won't jinx myself now. Hang in there everyone..it's a journey..the band is in nothing you can do now but keep on keeping on LOL corny I know! (i guess you could also have the band removed...)

thank you. I am only 4 months banded and feel like a failure. i am eating Cookies candy,ice cream etc etc daily. what you said kind of brought me back to my senses.

awesome..congrats

Maybe have a popcicle in between meals...i know it's not going to fill you up but it helped me

I used to puree chicken noodle soup, it was delicious..

Hi there indio girl,thank you for telling it like it is. I am struggling right now to use my tool the way it is intended to be used, I eat a lot at night and I was watching the show heavy today and got really depressed, I want to lose weight, i've only lost 20 lbs since my surgery on sept 13, 2010 i am bit discouraged, i went to see the surgeon this month and she said i didn't need a fill yet but i am wondering if maybe i did. well i am writing you to ask you what did you do to get on track or were you on track right after surgery? ....anyways thanks for any help you can give.