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Weighed 204 @ 8 Months. I finally look pregnant...like really pregnant. Baby is 4 lbs. 2 More months give or take to go. So total weight gain so far is somewhere between 40 and 44 pounds. Some days are better than others. It is true if you just stick with protein you crave less carbs...add that sugar or bread...man...talk about cravings. The fact that the heartburn is getting serious makes me not want to eat so much at one time. I am exhausted and have cankles at the end of the day. I am actually so excited about losing it. I will take prevacid as soon as I pop her out. I hope the hunger goes away, but if not I just feel like it won't be as strong. My hunger is OUT OF CONTROL. If I don't eat something...I will kill you! LOL. But...I still can't eat a lot at once. I will check in again soon. I am going every two weeks to the doctor now.

Has anyone lost around 130 pounds, had breast lift with augmentation then got pregnant? What did your boobies look like after? did you need to get a new boob job done?did you already have kids prior to your boob job? I have a total of 130 pounds to lose, I have lost 92 so far and I hate my boobs. I have 3 children already and dont plan on having any more for another 5 years. When I get to goal I wanna get breast lift with augmentation but at the same time don't because I know they can sag. I cant help thinking how much can they possibly change though? with all the weight gain I stretched them out allot and 3 pregnancies . I never was able to breast feed so I wont be this time and Now that I have vsg I wont gain that much weight if I do get pregnant 5 years from now! is there anyone out there that has been through this? What do you think? what was your experience? Thanks

I love it! I have only been on it for a little bit. It's one shot every three months. It's quick and I don't have to think about it everyday. I haven't spotted or anything. I've heard a lot of people said they've gained weight on it, but I think you have to give into those cravings they cause you to have (which I haven't had any) any birth control can cause weight gain, because it tricks your body into thinking it pregnant. I use to take seasonique which I loved but the first year bc pills are only 30% effective because of absorption.

Only if you want to experience some weight gain from fluid retention!

I know you were talking to JessicaAnn but any bc with hormones that are not centrally located can cause weight gain...it doesnt for everyone but some It does. Depo is the number one for that but again not everyone experiences that. I was on depo for a year and gained 20lbs.

How do you like the depo? I'm on nuvaring and looking for something more permanent but I'm scared of IUDs. Doesn't depo cause weight gain?

About as fair as JackieO posting outdated statistics as fact.j/s Jean's statement is closer to fair, being statistics show weight gain after band removal. I hope and pray your lifestyle change does stick. I'd like to think that also.

Have you been checked for polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS)? Lack of periods and weight gain are symptoms.

Yeah my doctor even gave me papers explaining how quickly it's in your system. My doctor doesn't like soon mirena or any other IUD on people who haven't had any children yet. As far as weight gain goes I gained tons of weight when I took bc pills. I haven't gained any weight due to mirena yet. I took my bc pill until the day I had surgery. I started my period the day after surgery so 4 days later I got my shot.

Aw Lynda, I'm sorry to hear about your poor hands. RA is a $#@*#. It's ironic that it took weight loss to get a diagnosis. I often wonder how many of my Lupus symptoms might actually just be a result of obesity. But then, how much of my weight gain is due to Lupus...I guess it's a chicken and egg question. Have you ever found certain diets helped with your pain, Lynda? There are lots of people saying that low carb helps, or gluten-free helps, or vegan helps... I once had a remission coincide with a low carb diet, but I don't know if the two were related. And I can't seem to stick to any diet anymore so I have quit trying.

Thank you so much for replying. I'm going to spend my last pre open weekend reminding my family I need there support. I have four adult children that remember me before the weight gain. I'm so looking forward to shopping for my cruise this fall

Wow I was told that it took a month to be in your system..not on depo anymore though...my primary wouldnt even let me consider this surgery on depo since the risk of weight gain. I'm on mirena now

A support group leader (9 years post op from gastric bypass) told me that periods of loss are followed by stalls because it's as if your body has to catch up. She said she was on a one month stall and nearly tore her hair out, but the next month she lost 20 pounds. Accepting the process and knowing it is not a linear journey is important. I like to keep telling myself "it will take as long as it takes." Right now I'm working on acceptance and optimism as opposed to obsessing and reacting negatively to the scale which can lead to loss of motivation and not following my plan...all which could cause stalls or even weight gain! Your mood will effect your weight! I've realized that I need to work on the psychological/emotional aspects of this new lifestyle- it's a HUGE adjustment. That same group leader suggested journaling which I started doing and it does help.

Did anyone gain a few pounds initially right after surgery? When I went in the hospital on Monday I was 256 and today I weigh 261.

I think it always valid to visit our eating/exercise profiles to make sure we are not "going down that road" At 7 months(where you are) and at 2 1/2 years I have followed my Docs and Nuts eating plan. I still am, with a drop in calories two days a week(Protein, Water, exerciser)... I ate 500 cals a day every day under my Doc and Nuts supervision 7 days a week for part of this journey already. When weight gain has become so easy, and weight loss has stopped completely before reaching goal while following plan, I think modest cuts and expanded exercise (especially weight lifting and weight bearing) exercise is a valid option. I have asked myself a few times if my behavior has become obsessive.... why yes, it looks like it... weighing every day, logging my food and wearing a fitbit could be signs of this. HOWEVER... Not doing these things lead to weight gain and unconsciousness about the factors that contribute to it. I simply can not eat by impulse and maintain. I have worked hard on dumping the attachment of self worth to the numbers on the scale, have relegated it to a tool status. I say my current and past weight in public... this I used to have so much shame about... now its just a marker of body weight to be taken in the context of health statistics. I am 60 years old(in a few days) I am 188.5 pounds (not underweight by any means)I am after 2 1/2 years 19 pounds from the top of the 'normal' weight range for my hight. I think it is important for YOU to keep track of where you are in your own life and if you would like to, support others in their journeys to better health, mental and physical, but I think your fears are unfounded here. These women have been on this road quite a long time, and what you are seeing is them not giving up on the Quest to better health all round. That is my opinion. Also, FYI to my "Wanna join me" friends, my scale went from 190.9 yesterday to 188.5 today. My scale most often shows the same number for weeks on end...to the 10th of a pound. So this drop, even water, is out of the ordinary. and this is a number I have not seen since last year. We will see how it goes....

I'm going to have a revision soon and was wondering if with the sleeve do you get that food caught in the back of your throat feeling like with the band? I can eat and be fine and then never fails with my band after a few bites sometimes I feel like food is caught at the back of my mouth. Different feeling from a productive burp. Yes I get that too with this thingy in my stomach. The band was great my first 3 years andI lost 95lbs. Then about year 4 it all changed and constant band issues with weight gain of about 45lbs and tons of throwing up. I'M TIRED OF THIS LAP BAND GAME!!

Frustrated by a weight loss plateau? You need a combination of patience and a plan to push through it. It happens to everyone sooner or later. Your bandwagon stalls. You’ve been going great guns, fired up with enthusiasm, working that tool, doing all the right things, and losing weight. Then one day the weight loss stops. One day, two days, twenty days go by…you’re still stuck, and you’re wondering what happened. And because you’ve spent so many years failing at dieting, and being told that obesity is always the fault of the patient, you start to wonder what you are doing wrong. You even think, “Is my band broken?” Chances are, you’re not doing anything wrong, and neither is your band. What’s happening is that your body is adjusting itself to the many changes that have happened during your weight loss. The human body doesn’t know what you’re going to do next, be it climb a mountain or relax on the couch, so it has to continually adjust and readjust your metabolism to make the best use of the calories you take in. It looks at the history of what you’ve been eating and how much you’ve been burning off through physical activity and comes up with a forecast of what you’ll need to stay alive for the next week or so. THIS MONTH’S WEIGHT LOSS FORECAST IS… At work I’ve had to prepare sales forecasts for various jobs through the years. How many widgets will we sell in the month of April? How many defective widgets will be returned by unhappy customers who want a refund? Will all this income and outgo generate enough cash (in our case, energy) to cover the payroll and the equipment maintenance and the CEO’s country club membership? I once had a boss who joked that we might as well toss a deck of cards down a flight of stairs to come up with a prediction of which new product (represented, say, by the joker card) was going to be the best-seller. That suggestion didn’t go over big with the finance guys. Like us, they were trying to follow the rules, keep everything identified, counted and categorized. And like the bean-counters, we count our calories, carbs, fats, proteins, liquids, solids, income, outgo, with faith that this accounting system will help us win the weight game. Meanwhile, our bodies have a different agenda: survival. When we decrease our food intake and increase our physical activity, the body watches to see what will happen next. As our purposeful “starvation” continues, the body struggles to accommodate the changes we’re making. It makes some withdrawals of funds from our fat cells and fiddles with our metabolism to prevent an energy (calorie) shortage. Gradually it becomes acclimated to the new routine so that it’s making the best possible use of the few calories we’re consuming. It’s keeping us alive, but it’s also putting the brakes on weight loss. Eventually we find ourselves stalled on what seems like an endless weight loss plateau. And unless we change our routine and keep our bodies working hard to burn up the excess fat, we’re going to grow to hate the scenery on that plateau. AND ON THE FLIP SIDE I’ve suffered through countless weight loss plateaus but by varying my exercise, my total caloric intake, my liquid intake, my sleep, and so on, did manage to finally arrive at my goal weight. For the past few years, I’ve felt mighty smug that I finally got promoted to the Senior VP of Weight Management here at Chez Jean. Maintaining my goal weight +/- 5 pounds seemed effortless. But it didn’t last. Turns out it was time for me to learn another lesson about my body’s fuel economy. When I had all the fill removed from my band to deal with some bad reflux, my eating didn’t go berserk. I didn’t pig out at Burger King, didn’t drown my sorrows in a nightly gallon of ice cream. I was definitely eating more because I was so much hungrier than before – perhaps 500 extra calories a day, which would amount to a weight gain of one pound a week. Imagine my dismay when I gained seven pounds in 2 weeks – the equivalent of an extra 1750 calories a day! There was a time when I could have overeaten that much without any effort at all, but as a WLS post-op, I’d have to work hard at eating that much extra food. I was flabbergasted. And frightened. Obesity was a mountain on my horizon again – far in the distance across my weight maintenance plateau - when I thought I’d left it far behind. So at the end of a visit with my gastro-enterologist during that scary time, I asked him if my sudden and substantial weight gain was the equivalent of my body shouting, “Yahoo! We’re not starving anymore! Let’s get ready for the next starvation period by hanging on to every single calorie she takes in! Let’s store those calories in those fat cells that have been hanging around here with nothing to do! C’mon, troops, get to work!” I’m pretty sure that’s not the way Dr. Nuako would have explained it, but he smiled, nodded, and said, “Oh, yes.” I felt like I was facing the flip side of a weight loss plateau: I might be in a weight gain plateau. All I could do is keep on keeping on with exercise and healthy eating, enjoying some of the foods, like raw fruits and veggies, that had been harder for me to eat with a well-adjusted band. PUZZLING OUT THE WEIGHT LOSS PLATEAU So the good news was that my wonky metabolism following that complete unfill wasn’t my fault, but the bad news was that my metabolism wasn’t in a cooperative mood. I was going to have to start playing much closer attention to the details of weight loss and maintenance again. What a pain! But hey! I’d already had a lot of practice at that. I had the tools – a little rusty maybe, but still in usable condition. I ended up regaining 30 pounds between that unfill and my revision to VSG, but I have a suspicion that without those weight tools, it could have been 60 pounds. And that’s one of the reasons that even today, bandless for 14 months now, I don’t regret my band surgery. The band helped me lose 90 pounds and learn a host of useful (if uncomfortable) things about myself, my behavior, my body, my lifestyle. What about you? How can you get your weight loss going again and avoid regain? So many factors can affect your weight that sorting out the reason(s) for your weight loss plateau can make you dizzy even if you’re not a natural blonde like me. To help you assess what’s going on and what might need to be changed, I created a Weight Loss Plateau Checklist. To access the checklist in Google Docs, click here: https://docs.google....emtSYjJLRnVGTFE The checklist includes a long list of questions about you and your behavior, with answers and suggestions for each question. I can’t claim that it will give you the key to escaping that plateau, but it should give you some food for thought and perhaps some ideas to try. Use that to come up with a plan to deal with the plateau, and work that plan for at least a month to give your body a chance to get with the new program.

It happens to everyone sooner or later. Your bandwagon stalls. You’ve been going great guns, fired up with enthusiasm, working that tool, doing all the right things, and losing weight. Then one day the weight loss stops. One day, two days, twenty days go by…you’re still stuck, and you’re wondering what happened. And because you’ve spent so many years failing at dieting, and being told that obesity is always the fault of the patient, you start to wonder what you are doing wrong. You even think, “Is my band broken?” Chances are, you’re not doing anything wrong, and neither is your band. What’s happening is that your body is adjusting itself to the many changes that have happened during your weight loss. The human body doesn’t know what you’re going to do next, be it climb a mountain or relax on the couch, so it has to continually adjust and readjust your metabolism to make the best use of the calories you take in. It looks at the history of what you’ve been eating and how much you’ve been burning off through physical activity and comes up with a forecast of what you’ll need to stay alive for the next week or so. THIS MONTH’S WEIGHT LOSS FORECAST IS… At work I’ve had to prepare sales forecasts for various jobs through the years. How many widgets will we sell in the month of April? How many defective widgets will be returned by unhappy customers who want a refund? Will all this income and outgo generate enough cash (in our case, energy) to cover the payroll and the equipment maintenance and the CEO’s country club membership? I once had a boss who joked that we might as well toss a deck of cards down a flight of stairs to come up with a prediction of which new product (represented, say, by the joker card) was going to be the best-seller. That suggestion didn’t go over big with the finance guys. Like us, they were trying to follow the rules, keep everything identified, counted and categorized. And like the bean-counters, we count our calories, carbs, fats, proteins, liquids, solids, income, outgo, with faith that this accounting system will help us win the weight game. Meanwhile, our bodies have a different agenda: survival. When we decrease our food intake and increase our physical activity, the body watches to see what will happen next. As our purposeful “starvation” continues, the body struggles to accommodate the changes we’re making. It makes some withdrawals of funds from our fat cells and fiddles with our metabolism to prevent an energy (calorie) shortage. Gradually it becomes acclimated to the new routine so that it’s making the best possible use of the few calories we’re consuming. It’s keeping us alive, but it’s also putting the brakes on weight loss. Eventually we find ourselves stalled on what seems like an endless weight loss plateau. And unless we change our routine and keep our bodies working hard to burn up the excess fat, we’re going to grow to hate the scenery on that plateau. AND ON THE FLIP SIDE I’ve suffered through countless weight loss plateaus but by varying my exercise, my total caloric intake, my liquid intake, my sleep, and so on, did manage to finally arrive at my goal weight. For the past few years, I’ve felt mighty smug that I finally got promoted to the Senior VP of Weight Management here at Chez Jean. Maintaining my goal weight +/- 5 pounds seemed effortless. But it didn’t last. Turns out it was time for me to learn another lesson about my body’s fuel economy. When I had all the fill removed from my band to deal with some bad reflux, my eating didn’t go berserk. I didn’t pig out at Burger King, didn’t drown my sorrows in a nightly gallon of ice cream. I was definitely eating more because I was so much hungrier than before – perhaps 500 extra calories a day, which would amount to a weight gain of one pound a week. Imagine my dismay when I gained seven pounds in 2 weeks – the equivalent of an extra 1750 calories a day! There was a time when I could have overeaten that much without any effort at all, but as a WLS post-op, I’d have to work hard at eating that much extra food. I was flabbergasted. And frightened. Obesity was a mountain on my horizon again – far in the distance across my weight maintenance plateau - when I thought I’d left it far behind. So at the end of a visit with my gastro-enterologist during that scary time, I asked him if my sudden and substantial weight gain was the equivalent of my body shouting, “Yahoo! We’re not starving anymore! Let’s get ready for the next starvation period by hanging on to every single calorie she takes in! Let’s store those calories in those fat cells that have been hanging around here with nothing to do! C’mon, troops, get to work!” I’m pretty sure that’s not the way Dr. Nuako would have explained it, but he smiled, nodded, and said, “Oh, yes.” I felt like I was facing the flip side of a weight loss plateau: I might be in a weight gain plateau. All I could do is keep on keeping on with exercise and healthy eating, enjoying some of the foods, like raw fruits and veggies, that had been harder for me to eat with a well-adjusted band. PUZZLING OUT THE WEIGHT LOSS PLATEAU So the good news was that my wonky metabolism following that complete unfill wasn’t my fault, but the bad news was that my metabolism wasn’t in a cooperative mood. I was going to have to start playing much closer attention to the details of weight loss and maintenance again. What a pain! But hey! I’d already had a lot of practice at that. I had the tools – a little rusty maybe, but still in usable condition. I ended up regaining 30 pounds between that unfill and my revision to VSG, but I have a suspicion that without those weight tools, it could have been 60 pounds. And that’s one of the reasons that even today, bandless for 14 months now, I don’t regret my band surgery. The band helped me lose 90 pounds and learn a host of useful (if uncomfortable) things about myself, my behavior, my body, my lifestyle. What about you? How can you get your weight loss going again and avoid regain? So many factors can affect your weight that sorting out the reason(s) for your weight loss plateau can make you dizzy even if you’re not a natural blonde like me. To help you assess what’s going on and what might need to be changed, I created a Weight Loss Plateau Checklist. To access the checklist in Google Docs, click here: https://docs.google....emtSYjJLRnVGTFE The checklist includes a long list of questions about you and your behavior, with answers and suggestions for each question. I can’t claim that it will give you the key to escaping that plateau, but it should give you some food for thought and perhaps some ideas to try. Use that to come up with a plan to deal with the plateau, and work that plan for at least a month to give your body a chance to get with the new program.

I worried my fiance' would not be supportive with my choice, so I went to consult and liked what I heard and set up surgery date for a month later, he had no idea, I am self pay. When I got home he probed so much where had I been. I told him I AM getting surgery for my weight loss on June 19. This let him know clearly that my body in not a democracy. I am confident that I know what is best for me. I explained I am in pain with my "older age hormonal change weight gain." He had met many of my relatives and the women especially have gotten hit hard with later stage weight gain. I told him I will fight to change my fate. He accepted it and has become supportive. I think if you take control others will follow. If you leave it open for conversation you will get just that. Your own self endorsement is really what you must look for. Take charge and don't need permission if your waiting for it.

This really gripes my band lol. You did not gain weight over night and you will not lose it overnight with the band. If you wanted fast weight loss then you should have chosen the by pass. The band was not intended for people to drop 50lbs in a month. 1 to 2 pounds a week is normal if you lose more then that is great. You can not expect to get the results that others get. Everyone is different, we all have different metabolisms. However now comes the be mean mommy part..... If you are only giving part of your self to the band you can not expect 100% results. If you are not following the diet plan your doctor has given to you, you can not expect results. If you eat more then you should you will not lose weight. If you are starving call your doctor and ask for suggestions. No one ever said this was gonna be easy except for the people who know nothing about the band and say we are taking the easy way out. If you are eating cookies 2 weeks post op or pizza or fried chicken you might as well forget about doing anything. You have to want this and not following your doctors instructions is like going to court and being accused of murder and telling the judge well yeah I did stab him 30 times but can you just give me probation because I knew it was wrong but I did it anyway. The decisions you make in eating will tell on you. What ever you do in the dark always comes out to the light. Its like getting caught with your hand in the cookie jar while having your mouth full and as you spit out the cookies while you are saying I didnt do it, then you have made yoursel a total liar. Stop cheating yourself if you are newly banded. Our eating habits is what got us to weight loss surgery and weightloss surgery is only as successful as the person makes it. The only guarantee you have is that you will lose the weight if you follow directions. Weight loss does stop at times. Those are the times you have to be strong. If you have only lost 10 pounds in 8 months then its not the bands fault. At some point you did not follow instructions. I went on an ice cream spree which lead to weight gain. I knew it and I accepted it but soon realized I was not helping myself. You have to be willing to give 100% if you want 100% results.

I am trying to work my way through a slight unfill and then a 10 lb. weight gain. So, it's nice to know that someone else started gaining afte a slight unfill as well. I am going back to the doctor on the 26th to have Fluid put back in my band, and I am hoping that this will get me back on track as well. I too was too thin and that was shy I decided to have the slight unfill. Now all of pants are a little bit more snug than usual and I feel so defeated. All I can do is try not to gain anymore until I can get back to the doctor. I hope that everything is back in line for you and that you're back to exercising and being comfortable once again. Have you lost the 12 lbs. that you gained?

Thanks. I've already started going back to the lower carb way of eating. For the most part I do eat low carb, but I started adding things back into my diet (good carbs) back in January. So, I started eliminating stuff again this morning thinking that the extra carbs may be what's doing it. I just can't get past that feeling of being hungry. I'm not used to it at all!! So, I'm focusing on Protein, veggies and good fats. Thats the diet I've followed since I had my surgery. I have PCOS so my body doesn't respond well when counting calories. Low carb is the way to go for me. I just wanted to know if anyone else had experienced a significant weight gain after an unfill? It's only really showing up around my waist. I mean, I have skin from my weight loss, but I suddenly have a muffin top & it's making my clothing SO uncomfortable. Anyone else out there have this happen?

At least maybe the weight loss will help with depression stemming from self image? I'm looking forward to relief from that... I'm also bipolar. I know some meds CAUSE weight gain, others are weight neutral. I just saw my psych a week ago and surgery is Wednesday. He said some adjustments may be necessary. I think it wld be due to side effects increasing bc of weight loss.

So, I had my surgery back in 2008 and have lost 170 lbs. I've lost consistently throughout my journey and then once I got to a weight where I was comfortable, I've stayed there. I go up and down a few pounds, but as long as I stay within what I call my "safe range" then I'm good to go. Here's why I'm writing. Back on April 30th I went to see my surgeon. I had decided that I was going to ask to have a tad bit of Fluid removed, just to be a little more comfortable. I don't think I was too tight, but I figured I'd see what happened. My doctor took a little bit of fluid out and he did tell me that I might feel like he had taken out too much. I wasn't worried though. Boy was I wrong. Since I saw him, a little over a month ago, I've gained 10 lbs. I'm not eating any differently, but I am constantly hungry. I go back to my doctor on the 25th and am definitely asking to have that little bit of fluid put back in, but I never imagined that a small unfill would contributo to a 10 lb. weight gain. So, I was curious if anyone else has gone through this?? I'm very concerned because I've NEVER gained. I want to get as much of that weight gone before I go back to my doctor on the 25th. My clothes all fit, but I suddenly have a muffin top above my loose skin. Plus, I feel bloated and miserable all the time now. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I can do to get this weight back off?? Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!!! Thanks so much :0) Liveforit

Hello everyone thx for commenting! I will try the shakes. I have done some research on weight gain shakes. so far I have tried whey protien powder, with oatmeal, banana, peanut butter, and whole milk. it was pretty tasty so I will contiune those in between meals and see how that works. @SqueakyWheel&Ethyl thanks for the kind words, my family and friends all say i look great and dont look sickly skinny as I think I do.. you have a hand full of folks that think i lost too much weight but I am sure they have said it to others and not me. I am actually a little smaller than I was in high school and I have always been very curvy (thick or thin) but now I am starting to see the curvy vanish and that's bothering me more than anything. I guess this is why they say it's important to attend support groups and ect after but I have failed to do so. I have also not been taking my vit. like I should and I also stopped drinking the protien shakes. maybe that all played a part in me loosing too much. I have also checked on my BMI and I currently at a normal and healthy weight just struggling to see that in the mirror!