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Yes she is. And over then last two years she has put on a lot more weight. For the first time since I can remember I am smaller than she is. Well I wonder if it is more of a matter of her not being happy with herself and the weight gain and as she sees you shrink it reminds her of that. That's not to say you Mom doesn't love you or support you. She is having the problem, not you.

I need some instruction. I had my vsg in March, 2009. I have gained some weight and I am worried. I am a stress eater and I have had my mother for the past 2-1/2 years and she was/i on hospice for the past year and a half. No excuse, just find comfort in food. NOW, I want/have to get back in line. Can you give me some advice on how to shrink my pouch back to what it needs to be? Liquid diet for a few days? Thank you so much for any advice you can give me.

I used to exercise a lot, and was very much into running; weight gain slowed me down then eventually stopped me due to pain and discomfort. But for me, it really gave me a lot of confidence and a sense of power and achievement. I would set goals for myself for how much I wanted to lift, how many reps, or the distance I wanted to run (I was never fast though--I'm built for endurance, not speed!). My biggest achievement was a half marathon. Besides being beneficial for my health, that's what it was--a way to strengthen myself inside and out, and to provide myself with a way to achieve if I just try. There aren't too many things in life that can give you that freedom and that kind of guarantee. I dearly hope I can get back to that eventually. It was a good 50 lbs. ago that I had to stop even walking due to pain. I never felt better about myself than when I finished a good run.

Hello all...been a while since I've been on here. My wife had her band put in during April of 2008. My wife has been having some issues with weight gain/pain for the last few months. Today an ECG showed that her Lap-Band® has completely eroded through her stomach. She was told by the GI doctor that she would have to have it taken out, let her stomach heal, and then, if she wants another, put another band in. We called the Dr's office that did the band, told them the results and they scheduled an appointment for next monday. Anybody ever have this happen to them???

I have not seen much posted about non-fat frozen yogurt? Which I must confess, I find somewhat surprising...so it has led me to ask. Is there some inherent evil associated with this diet friendly treat and the Lapband? An inquiring mind wants to know… I am planning on it being part of my post-op repertoire…or so I think? Second, it may just be my imagination, but it seems (no scientific data), that many of the newer banders are struggling with post-op weight gain and slow starts. While a few fortunate souls are making rapid progress, again the individual variable strikes…no two banders are the same. No real point to make…just an observation. Other than that it was a good gym day and we went to the Long Beach Grand Prix and got to meet Danica Patrick. Yes, she is as adorable in person. I am sorry to report, that they had the good corners of the drifting competition reserved for the VIP seats. The events held at Irwindale Speedway are much better, the venue is easier to get to and the layout is more crowd friendly. I everyone had a good weekend.

Mert and Endocollector, Welcome to you both. I drank all the liquids I wanted my first and second week out.My doctor admitted he made a mistake when he put boost and ensure on our list because they are for weight gaining. He also had slim fast but I changed to Atkins Advantage because of less calories and less sugar, still do one every morning. Endocollector why did they not take you off plavix and asprin a little before surgery. I take an asprin a day and they told me to quit one week before surgery.Good luck to you both and it will def. get so much better.

thank you for that post, because after my dr appt on monday, i was very discouraged with my 6lbs weight gain. i happen to know why i gained, because i have developed this crazy sweet tooth, and i know i have to work hard on that. so thanks tod

So this past weekend I ate real healthy and I gained two lbs by tuesday morning. After a bad tuesday i ate bad tuesday night and this morning i woke up to having lost the weight gained and also having lost another two pounds. I dont fet it!

Hey everyone I'm going to Spain for the summer from May until Aug. and I'm worried about not having any fill thus no restrict thus no weight loss and possible weight gain. Does anyone have any suggestion? Should I look for a fill doctor in Spain? I'm super scared of coming back carrying a few extra pounds!!! :smile::confused::biggrin:

It doesn’t take much to lose a cup size, it’s only 1” in measurement per cup size. Your under bust measurement (gotta pull that measure tape tight) is your band size rounded up or down if need be. And measure loose on the fullest part of your bust. Each inch difference between the two is one cup size. As a general guideline since bra styles vary plus other factors. I had some nice Freya deco bras that I loved but with sudden weight gain didn’t fit anymore, they were size 30F UK (30G in U.S.) of course I bargain hunted them when I got them but they were practically brand new when they stopped fitting. So I put them away. I’d bought bigger sizes from Target. But After surgery I just wore sports bras for a while. But then finally my Freya bras fit now! They are a moulded cup so give some shape. I just hope I get some wear out of them awhile. I hate bra shopping since I’m weirdly small in the under bust area and stores don’t sell the band size unless their sizing runs small. I used to find in Nordstrom rack but last few times their inventory was terrible, then Again I only shop the clearance rack.

Hi again, Does anyone take risperidal or any other pysch meds that might cause weight gain. Ive been doing some reading and the psychotropics may cause weight gain. What is the general consensus on meds and weight gain.

This is very hard for me - I'm coming clean here with my weight gain and actually moving my ticker, my precious ticker!, up to where I am right now. :crying:

Hello Everyone, I am a year out of surgery and I am planning on getting pregnant. I wanted to hear from others as I am scared of the high risk pregnancy and malnutrition. I am also very terrified of the weight gain as I am addicted to the scale now (I literally had to have my husband hide the scale from me). Has anyone had a baby after weight loss? How did you handle putting on weight? How did you not gain a lot of weight? I have a doctors appointment tomorrow and will talk to them about being on a strict diet. Before surgery I was diabetic and I am fearful that will come back with the pregnancy as well. Any advice or if anyone can share their story and please tell me straight forward. I know everyone is different but I just want to hear the good and the bad. HW 303 SW 296 CW 170

Has anyone gained weight post op duodenal switch? I hear it's near impossible and you have to try very hard to gain weight after surgery.

50 pounds in 12 days? Is that a typo? The amount of calories one would have to eat to put on 50 pounds in 12 days is....not even doable, especially when sick, especially with a band. But still. I'm sorry for your complications and weight gain. Yes, I agree. Finding the weight loss rhythm and optimal fill level after having been unfilled has proven challenging, and perhaps ulimately impossible for me. I'm back to traditional good old dieting (willpower + hunger + calorie counting) just to maintain my loss. Very depressing.

hi! I've got fibromyalgia and degenerative disk disease and diabetic for past two years -- the insulin - I 'always' hear about weight gain - can you ask your doctor about pills by mouth instead? are you type II? I currently take Avandia (24-hour) and Prandin before meals-they work great. I was taking Avandia and Amaryl - Amaryl actually worked "too well" - - something to think about along with lap band - they are 'small' and you would be able to take them with the band I would think -- just wanted to share - I know your frustrations - I have lost almost 20 lbs in 3 months with the support of everyone here - even though I am not banded - they are terrific people - best wishes on the band!

Congratulations on your weight loss!! The same determination you had when you had the surgery, can help you get back to your goal weight. I have heard that if you start to gain weight trying the Stage 1 diet (liquid/protein shakes)for a week can help to get you back on course. I applaud you taking control of your weight gain now, because if you are like me 20 will become 40 if you don't do something about it. Keep us posted on your progress :-)

Hi -- just wanted to say I had the same symptoms (vomiting at night without realizing it), but it wasn't like vomit, it was food that hadn't cleared the band. I had a barium swallow and Dr. Bagnato removed everything from the band (2 ccs), and said I had to come back for a egd (where they put the camera down your throat), and he said that if what he suspected was the problem (slippage), he would remove the band at the same time. I am so freaked out at the thought of losing my band. I had lost 40 pounds (20 prior, so 60 total), but since the band was unfilled, I have been eating stuff that I have missed -- salads, fruit, bread, and fibrous meats like chicken breast and steak... oh steak! I've gained back almost 20 pounds in 6 weeks!!! I'm afraid if I get the band taken out, I'm going to be back to where I was (282) shortly. I am already suffering from the weight gain (joints killing me, clothes getting tight). I know I have to get my mind back around this, and get focused on not eating things I shouldn't be eating, but I've always been an emotional eater, and between the open band and working 80 hours a week, I'm stuffing it down, and of course, it is almost all junk (whatever I can eat and work at the same time). Please keep me in your prayers!

Hi folks, Emotional eating is sabotaging my efforts to work with my band. It's got so bad that I made an urgent call to my Dr to get an unfil because I've inflamed the restricted part of my stomach. And in the two weeks of unfil I've put on 14lbs!! Whilst the weight gain is getting me down, I'm more worried about the emotional eating. If I can't get a grip, the operation will have been for nothing - and I could do some serious damage to my body. I've been keeping a journal and I'd say that 95% of my eating is driven by non-hunger. Seriously, it's that bad. books on the subject suggest developing self-nuturing strategies to fill the void instead of using food. Thing is, I can't think of any that are appropriate or offer immediate relief. It's a little difficult to take a relaxing bath when you are at work, or mediate when family are demanding things. Any ideas or strategies I could use to control or lessen my emotional eating drives?

"Emotional Eating" is one of the most common topics addressed with regards to weight loss surgery. Every weight loss surgery book, blog and website is full of articles explaining the causes of emotional eating and tips on how to defeat this dangerous villian that threatens to derail your success from surgery! Hold onto your seat because I'm going to try and convince you that "Emotional Eating" is an overused and incomplete expression to describe the very problem the problem it is supposed to address. I'm also going to provide you with a new way of thinking about your eating behavior and a methodology to change it so that you can have more success from weight loss surgery. "Emotional Eating" is generally thought of as eating that occurs in response to a particular emotional state. The basic premise is that a particular emotional state somehow triggers undesired eating. Some people eat when they're depressed, some when they're nervous and others when they're angry. Of course, others eat when they're happy or in the mood to Celebrate. In fact, virtually everyone on the planet does the latter. If humans didn't eat in response to positive emotions half of the restaurants around the world would close within the next few weeks. Thanksgiving would be cancelled and Christmas dinner would be no different than Tuesday's leftovers. What about eating in response to negative emotions...is that fairly universal as well? I can confidently tell you that in working with thousands of patients over the past 20 years, many of whom were NOT surgical weight loss patients, that almost everyone has used food on occasion to provide temporary relief from emotional distress. In fact, many researchers believe that our brains are actually pre-wired to use food in this manner. Such researchers will tell you that drugs such as heroin, cocaine and others are actually "hijacking" the receptors and neural pathways that were designed for food! So there you have my first problem with the expression "Emotional Eating"....JUST ABOUT EVERYONE IS AN EMOTIONAL EATER TO SOME DEGREE, so labeling yourself an "Emotional Eater" is to state the obvious. However, it is interesting that there is considerable variability in the behavior of those who describe themselves as emotional eaters. As I mentioned, some people eat in response to one emotion while others eat in response to others. Some people eat in response to mild disappointment while others eat only when they feel really distressed. Why is this so? The reason for this and for a wide variety of eating behaviors is that most eating behavior is "learned." I will spare you an Introduction to Psychology class and try to minimize the psychobabble, but consider that when it comes to human behavior, we do what we do either because of our genetic endowment or what we've learned. Nature (genetic) or nurture (learning). Much of this learning isn't voluntary. In other words, most of your eating behaviors were not learned the way you would learn to play the piano. Much of what we've learned we picked up by watching others or by being instructed by others or through trial and error and the positive or negative consequences that followed. Learning as it relates to food and eating begins on day one. Consider that at birth the behavior of a newborn is 100% genetic and 0% learning. Nothing has happened to the newborn child yet so they haven't learned a thing. Nurture has yet to exert an influence...it's all nature. Whatever a newborn does is pre-wired. But that changes almost immediately. Here comes the first bottle...yum! Sweet sugary milk. Lesson one: Milk tastes good and feels good going down. Later that day the baby cries...mommy rushes in with a bottle. Lesson number two has just occurred: I cry loud enough and mommy feeds me. I feel better and I stop screaming. Food is a reward and soothes my distress...and I am now in complete control of mommy!! "Learning Eating" quickly proceeds in leaps and bounds in childhood. There's a very good chance (for example) that you "learned" to clean your plate because your mother told you that you had to and that you wouldn't be allowed to have dessert if you didn't. Or perhaps you received Cookies as a reward for good report cards or for cleaning your room. Now as an adult, long after mom stopped giving cookies for good report cards, you continued the habit of rewarding yourself for your daily successes. I can think back to all of the times that I was offered chicken Soup by my grandmother when I was disappointed for some reason or another as a kid. There is still no scientific evidence that chicken soup is effective in treating disappointment or depression, but the soothing taste of the soup sure does make you feel a little better. Even better, eating chicken soup today at age 41 provides me with warm memories of my grandmother. Starting to get the picture? From a young age, we quickly "learn" to like certain foods for certain reasons and develop eating habits and preferences almost completely without effort and often without any awareness. By using the term "Learned Eating" you are more elegantly and accurately describing what is really going on here. The concept of "learning" better answers the questions of "Why do I eat this way?" and "How did I develop these problematic eating patterns?" Also, "Learned Eating" accounts for more of your eating behavior than just what is triggered by emotions. All of the behaviors that we commonly call "habits" are more accurately called "learned behaviors." So "Emotional Eating" is just one of the many types of eating behaviors that you've picked up (learned) throughout your life. The real #1 reason that I'm trying to get your vote for "Learned Eating" is that this expression makes you empowered and able to change. Everyone is familiar with the concept of learning because we are all students in our own way. You don't need to be a psychologist to understand "learning." "Learned Eating" is a simple concept: If you have "learned" maladaptive or destructive eating behaviors that have contributed to weight gain, you can also "unlearn" these behaviors and "learn" or "relearn" new ones that help you keep the weight off after surgery. Emotions are a whole other murky, mysterious matter. Many people feel confused by the concept of "Emotional Eating." It doesn't empower you. It doesn't tell you how to change. So many people ask me, "I can't just stop feeling depressed, anxious or even happy. So how can I stop eating in response to these emotions?" The answer is that you need to understand how your emotions have become triggers associated with eating. Only then can you change your behavior. That is the stuff of "learning." Here's an exercise to put the concept of "Learned Eating" to work in helping you to identify and correct some of your unwanted eating behaviors and to learn some new healthier ones. In fact, this exercise is one of the very exercises that I do with "emotional eaters" who come to me for assistance if they're struggling to make changes in their eating behavior either before or after weight loss surgery: Take out a few pieces of paper and make six columns going from the top to the bottom of each page. Write the following headers on top of each column from left to right: Food eaten, Time of day, Location, Reason, Thoughts, Feelings. Over the next two weeks (14 days) write down what you ate, when you ate it, where you ate it, why you ate it and what you were thinking and feeling when you ate it. I know, you hate writing things down. Want to learn? You've got to do your homework. The purpose of this exercise is to learn as many of the associations between your eating and its causes as possible. In case you're wondering, you can think of the feelings column as the "emotional eating" column. Now there are certainly more than 6 causes for your eating behavior, but this will give you tons of useful clues as to the cues that trigger your eating. By filling out these forms you will start to see what is pushing your eating buttons. Sometimes it will be genuine hunger. When this is the case, be sure to write "hungry" in the "why I ate it" column. Sometimes you're going to eat potato chips because you were bored. Write "bored" in the "why I ate it" column. Sometimes it will be an emotion like loneliness that triggers your urge to eat. Write "lonely" in the feelings column. Always fill out every column because you are going to find some surprising associations by completing these logs. You're going to find that where you are and the time of day are often the key triggers and not just that you were bored or lonely. You will find that feeling depressed isn't always the trigger for eating but feeling depressed when you're alone on a Friday night seems to push the potato chip eating button. Very important and useful information. Learning to identify all of the cues, triggers and associations between your internal world (thoughts and feelings) and external world (people, places, times of day, etc) allows you to see what pushes your brain's eating buttons. Having this information allows you to comprehensively assess your eating behavior and to identify where and how to make changes. For example: should you clearly see from your logs that being alone at home at night is almost 100% associated with eating ice cream, you now know that you must address what's going on at home under these circumstances. Perhaps you need to change what you're doing at home at night or consider finding ways of getting out of the house some evenings altogether! Here's another example that you probably already know: The very sight of certain foods is a big trigger for eating. This one is easy to fix and many of you already know this....stop bringing the foods you find irresistible into your home! Either unlearn the habit of bringing cake into your house or relearn by bringing in healthier foods to eat. Hopefully, I've convinced you that emotions are really just one of many triggers for eating and that "Emotional Eating" is no longer the best or most comprehensive concept to use if you want to make significant changes in your eating behavior. The concept of "Learned Eating" better explains how to understand, think about, and change your behavior. Take the time to learn as many of the cues, triggers and associations that relate to your eating behavior so that you can begin making changes in your eating and become more successful in keeping the weight off beginning right now. Do your homework...it's due tomorrow!! :wink2:

Thank you! I honestly wasn't fishing just wanting to show that I'm not a waif. And now today I am bout 13lbs heavier than that pic (which was actually taken 1.5 weeks post plastics so there is a bit of Water retention in them still).I know you weren't fishing ???? But i like to recognize hard work... Its interesting how different everyone can look.... being the same weight... I think you look very healthy and toned, and don't worry about the little weight gain... you have room for movement ????

You Choose: How Easy Do You Want Losing Weight to Be? Weight loss surgery is a substantial step in the battle to control your weight. It is proof of your long-term commitment to eating better and becoming healthier. Research clearly shows that weight loss surgery can be far more effective for significant long-term weight loss than diet and exercise, so why don’t all weight loss surgery patients achieve their goal weights after weight loss surgery? Why do some people find the journey easier than others, even though both sets of individuals are motivated to follow the weight loss surgery diet? The big losers do not necessarily have more willpower or desire. The important difference between the big losers and the re-gainers may be how easy they find the journey to be. Surprisingly, you can control a large part of how easy or hard it is to lose weight. The weight loss journey is not just about changing your digestive system through surgery. It is also about changing your entire lifestyle to facilitate weight loss. Weight Loss Surgery is a Weight Loss Tool, Not a Cure Weight loss surgery is a tool. It can make you less hungry by reducing the size of your stomach by inserting a band around your stomach (Lap-band), removing the majority of your stomach pouch (vertical sleeve gastrectomy) or folding or stapling away the majority of your stomach pouch (gastric bypass, duodenal switch, and sleeve plication). The vertical sleeve gastrectomy reduces hunger by reducing the amount of ghrelin, a hunger hormone, that your stomach produces. The gastric bypass and duodenal switch reduce nutrient absorption. All of these surgeries can help you eat less and lose weight, but none of these surgeries are fail-proof. You can “cheat” by eating high-calorie foods, drinking high-calorie beverages, drinking beverages while you eat solid foods, and eating without measuring your portions. Successful weight loss requires good choices on your part, and making good choices is easier if you focus on your entire lifestyle, not just the part of your digestive system that was changed with surgery. The Influence of Your Surroundings on Your Weight Think about this scenario. You leave home without breakfast and order a muffin and ice coffee at the drive-through on your way to work. You grab a doughnut at your morning meeting, and go out for lunch with your friends. You order the lunch special with a salad, breadstick, fettuccine alfredo and cheesecake. You nibble on some chocolates from your secretary’s desk as you make your way to the vending machine for a soda in the afternoon. You pick up a pizza on your way home because you know that there is nothing else for dinner. Now compare it to this second scenario. You wake up early to meet your friend for a walk before you get home for a breakfast of scrambled egg whites and spinach. You drive to work and have yogurt and some fruit at your morning meeting. Lunch with your coworkers consists of a green salad with canned tuna, and you have a hard-boiled egg for your afternoon snack. You are able to get dinner on the table quickly when you get home because you only need to defrost the meals that you prepared earlier in the week. Which scenario do you think you can help you lose weight? The second one, of course. So why not make it a reality? Do Your Surroundings Encourage Weight Loss or Weight Gain? You have battled your weight for years, if not for your entire life before weight loss surgery. In all likelihood, your environment was set up for you to eat. Take a good, hard look at your environment. Is it more like the first scenario or the second one described above? You have the ability to make it more like the second one. Notice the following items from the two scenarios. Exercise was automatic in the second one because you planned to meet a friend – so you couldn’t back out. Preparing your dinners ahead of time meant that you could eat quickly without going to a fast food restaurant. Packing your own snacks meant that you did not have to eat a doughnut in your morning meeting or chocolates in the afternoon. Make the “Right” Choice Automatic The fewer tough choices you have, the less likely you are to make poor decisions. Set up your environment so that the healthier actions are easier. To make healthy eating easier: Prepare plenty of meals ahead of time so that you always have a ready-to-eat, healthy option to prevent you from opting for take-out. Throw away the take-out menus that you used to store in the kitchen. The extra time it takes you to look up the phone numbers and menus online may be enough to let you come to your sense and realize that you don’t want fast food. Keep your kitchen stocked with all kinds of healthy foods, so that no matter your craving, you have a healthy answer. Do not keep unhealthy foods at home. If they are not there, you cannot eat them. Make sure that the healthy option is the default option. For example, measure your cheese and cut and wash fruits and vegetables ahead of time so that it is easier to snack on them than on cookies. Also consider these ideas: Meet your friends for walks or shopping trips instead of for meals at restaurants. Park your car a few blocks away from work so that you have no choice but to walk those few blocks again at the end of the day as you leave work. Do not drive past drive-thrus if they are too tempting. Also, do not keep money in the car, and consider removing your car’s cup holders so that eating in the car is no longer an option. All weight loss surgery patients have their own struggles. Far from being wimpy, removing these obstacles rather than fighting them is the best way to overcome them. The weight loss journey path will always have speed bumps and potholes, but it will be a lot smoother if you set up your lifestyle to promote better choices all day.

The last couple of weeks I have not been paying much attention to what I've been eating nor have I been very good at working out. Prior to my surgery this would have been cause for a great deal of stress and very definitely a weight gain of at least 5 lbs or more. But I just realized that instead of majorly overeating and gaining lots of weight and having lots of guilt, etc., I have been fluctuating up and down the same 2-3 lbs, have not felt like I've eaten everything in the house but the kitchen sink and don't have the same level of stress, anxiety, and guilt about it as I used to! I'm just having an "off" couple of weeks and I'm still able to maintain my weight! What a great feeling!

The capacity of the stomach will increase a little after the first year, but not by much unless you are constantly intentionally overstuffing it. Someone above said they increased to about 1.5 cups. Many people who regained were convinced their stomach had stretched out, but those who had it checked were still as restricted as expected. Most people who I've seen report that they regained and are seeking support to get back on track say that over time they fell into bad habits and started grazing/emotional eating/eating poor/junk/slider foods. At 6 weeks post op I reckon I could easily consume 3000 calories or more a day if I was eating poor quality/slider foods frequently and drinking alcohol and other liquid calories. People who start drinking with their meals will find they can eat a lot more (even though it may cause some indigestion or toileting issues). Get advice and support from a nutritionist. Develop good eating habits in your post sleeve honeymoon period and work to build a strong metabolism with a workable long term diet that will remain suitable and sustainable and keep you maintaining your weight loss beyond 2 years post sleeve. Creekimp63 has posted in a couple of recent replies that her support team recommend increasing to a maintainable 1200 calories (incorporating healthy carbohydrates while still meeting protein targets) as soon as possible post sleeve, to avoid damaging your metabolism (when it wakes up post honeymoon period) with very low calorie diet and triggering diet fatigue and the metabolic/hormonal push to regain weight that so many of us already suffered after years of failed dieting and regain. And get help now for any psychological issues that were contributing to your previous weight gain and any bad eating habits, as you need to deal with stress and mental issues without resorting to food, or progressing to other damaging behaviors like alcohol and drug abuse (some people with unresolved issues move on to other dangerous addictions once surgery prevents using food to manage/avoid stressors) We are all here to support each other, and we all want everyone to succeed! Too many of us have suffered too many years from obesity.

I'm a Sheila too! I come from a family that has weight issues and my weight struggles actually started in Kindergarten and only progressed from there. In grade 5, I was on the Slim Fast diet for a while (I looked back and think of why my mother thought that would be OK, but she was desperate to help me and also struggles with weight). And I just kept on gaining and gaining all through middle school. Then in grade 10 I decided to do something about it, started exercising everyday and watching what I ate. I started at I think around 225lbs or 230lbs, it took over 2 years and I got down to just above 150lbs. I felt great! But it didn't last long. In the fall of 1997 I had a serious accident which left me unable to exercise. Also moving away from home made a difference, having no money and buying the cheapest foods possible (think Mac&Cheese and instant noodles). I gained back some weight and was back up to around 170lbs, then lost down to around 160lbs. Then, I met my husband at age 20, and that is when it got really bad! He was thin and could eat whatever he wanted. My weight just ballooned until I was my heaviest on my wedding day at 265lbs. Shortly after my wedding, I really started working at it again. I wanted to have children and knew that being so heavy was not healthy. For over 2 years I worked my butt off, losing just over 70 lbs and getting down to around 190lbs. Then I got pregnant and ended up 30 lbs heavier. And that is where I sat, at around 225lbs. Even after having another baby, my weight just stayed there and I gave up. I was exhausted from always having to work so hard for every pound lost and resided in the fact that I would be fat forever. I had looked into the band, but was a little unsure. I had thought about RNY, but it made me nervous, plus I was not big enough for it to be covered. Plus, I live in Canada, and the wait list to get it done even if I qualified was 10 years. Then, by chance, I was searching around on the internet and found a local company that was facilitating sleeve surgeries in Mexico. I talked to my husband about it, did some research, and knew it was what I wanted. We had to use our line of credit, but I got my surgery done on November 29th, 2010 and have never once regretted it. It took me 18 months, but I got to my goal and even dropped a few pounds below, and I maintained it easily for almost a year. Then a few months ago, I switched medications (I struggle with depression and was trying a different med). In 3 weeks I gained over 7lbs. I stopped taking the medication because the weight gain was worse for my mental health then not being on any medication at all. The weight gain stopped immediately, but it never came back off. Then I started reading all the posts on the Gonna Get to Goal thread and when Georgia started posting about 5:2, I knew it was something that I thought I might be able to do! And here I am! Another long post, but I find it therapeutic to lay it all out sometimes!!