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Well like I mention on my first post. I have fail so many diets, so why not fail this one. I started out at 229. Gotten down to 206. I was very excited and started treating my self to treats. Like my friend julie.ann says we use food as a way to reward us and that is so true. So I just rewarded myself back to 212. Thanks a lot Sarah!! (I talk to myself a lot) :thumbup::thumbup::thumbup: Also I have a problem with being consistant. That's with cleaning, working out, everything in life. Being consistant is boring. But I have to get better with it if I want to suceed. :tongue::eek::Dancing_wub: I started back working out at least three times a week. I walk twice a day at work for 15 minutes. I do my slim n 6 dvd at home. My goal is to work out 5 times a week and to lose at least 1 to 2 lbs a week. Rollercoaster ride is over!!

Hello everyone, So this is my first post here and here is my story… I am 29 years and I will hit the dreaded 30 next month. Not that I think 30 is old, I just can't believe that I am gonna be thirty and after all these years I have not be able to successfully manage my weight. Right now my scale is tipping at about 250. I haven't always been this fat. I would say that back in my high school days I was a little chubby. The last lowest weight I can last remember was 165 lbs in 2001. So I have gained 85 lbs in 8 years…wow. I have been happily married to my high school sweet heart for 6 years now and he is absolutely wonderful to me. He loves me as I am, no matter what. We have a awesome 18 month old son, who is the center of our universe. I was diagnosed with a under active thyroid (hypothyroid) when I was 16 years old. Both my mother and grandmother were also hypothyroid and overweight as well, so my all of issues are definitely built into my genetic make up. But I will admit that I have contributed to my 85lb weight gain by eating improperly and being lazy. We moved away from our family and friends right after we got married, so I have spent the last six years some what isolated from our loved ones. We happily spend every weekend lazy, in love and alone on our sofa. Fortunately my husband has been blessed with a amazing metabolism, and he is the same 160 lbs that he weighed on the day we got married. Now I will admit that I do have a food problem. But I am not a emotional eater. I actually lose my appetite when I am really upset. I am a 'bored' and 'lonely' eater. I snack when my husband isn't around. And I have no shame when it comes to making poor food choices…buffalo chicken, cheese burger, fries, pizza, chinese food…none of them any good. I have tried to lose weight in the past but always became easily discouraged and distracted when I didn't see any immediate results. I have always simply blamed my failed thyroid for holding me back. Although I know that is not 100% true. My life style certainly contributes. I saw a new endocrinologist a few years back and asked him if he had any insight on how I can approach weight loss while living with hypothyroidism. I mean, obviously he has seen plenty of patients with my condition…he must know someone who has had success. I just wanted him to share their secret with me. Should I give weight watchers another try…should I try jenny craig…should I see a nutritionist…can he give me a magic pill?!?!?! And then he gave me the old diet and exercise talk…as if I was stupid and never heard of it before. Ugh, whatever…thanks for nothing! I then decided to start seeing a new endocrinologist just because his office was closer to work and it was convenient. I asked him if he knew what the secret to weight loss was. Now before I tell you what he told me, I want to paint this visual for you. My endo is a 5 ft tall chinese man. He is straight from china and I really have to focus when he talks so I can understand his words clearly through his accent. He speaks very abrubtly and to the point. So when I told him that I don't believe I eat a lot but I just wanted know what he thinks I need to do, he told me…"it doesn't matter what you eat, just eat half! If the only thing you eat all day is a peanut, then only eat HALF a peanut the next day!" What?!?! As if that was even possible. I felt defeated again. But he actually seemed to take more interest in the health of my thyroid. He gave attention to a 2 cm nodule that my last endo identified and did nothing with. My new endo conducted ultra sounds and a biopsy. The biopsy results revealed that my nodule is non-cancerous but it was also not begin. My nodule cells are just irregular. They could remain irregular for the rest of my life or there is also the potential that they can become cancer at some point. Thyroid cancer is very, very slow growing. Regardless of what they are or would be, the option of having surgery to remove that part of my thyroid was completely in my hands. I could chose to monitor to the grow or I could choose to cut it out. So this is the part of my story that brings me here today...the whole idea of any type of surgery scares me. I don't want to be put to sleep and I know it is vain but don't want the scar on my neck. But I know that I want to live the rest of my life free and clear of the potential of cancer. My thyroid is sick to begin with and hasn't been working probably since I was 16 years old. I already take 224 mcg of synthetic thyroid replacement medication. I came to the conclusion that my thyroid is useless and they may as well remove the whole thing. My total thyroidectomy is scheduled for Feb 3rd. So I have been thinking about my endo's "half a peanut" theory and began to seriously consider lap band surgery. My mom has gastric bypass surgery a few years back and it has given her a new life. She has no regrets other than not doing it sooner. I want to live the next 30 years of my life differently from the way that I currently do. I want to run and play with my son. I want to look good standing next to my hubby. This posting is long enough, I am sure I don't need tell you guys everything that I want because I am sure they are same things that you want from life. So spoke to my husband, my mom and friend and I think I feel good about pursuing this. I am going to attend a Introductory Bariatric Meeting on 2/13. I know that this isn't the going to be the final resolution I was searching for. It is not a magic pill. But I believe that it a tool that will put me in the rigth direction. Thanks for your time!

Hi all. Im just stopping in. thanks for the thoughts and well wishes. It has not been a good trip. One hour my mom askes me to help her die. the next she is talking about what she wants for dinner next week. we are trying to keep her home but it is taking a toll on my dad who has his own health problems. none of us kids live anywhere near them. I have not been paying to much attention to what Im eating. Unfortunatly it is my families eating habits that have alot to do with my weight gain. food is love. I did get to a gym today. I got a day pass. did cardio, took a class and swam laps. I really needed to work my body and detach my mind. it was good. maybe i will sleep tonight. Again thanks for asking about me. christine I am so sorry you are again having that stomach pain. I hope the tests friday give you some answers. fenton a little bright spot, I gave my dad your book to read a while ago. he made a point of telling me to "tell your friend that was one good book" So there you go.

Bella, What you have gone through is horrible. I hope you start feeling better soon. Once you get back to your old self I hope that you will start to look at the band as a good thing. I'm sure the weight gain is all the fluids. This will pass and things will start to fall into place and off the scale. I think most of us feel like this was our last option. If I had one more diet in me I would have dieted. This was the lifestyle change that many of us need. I hope that everything becomes text book for you after this. Remember all you have gone through to get the band. It isn't the band that created the problems...it was the surgeon and as much as we want to believe that our doctor is perfect we know that isn't possible. I will keep you in my thoughts. Please keep us posted.

Congrats! Don't be scared. PLENTY of women don't wait the required 12-18 months. If you have had good progress with weight loss, life adjustment, psychological needs, etc that come with life with a band, then you can relax. I think the complaint I hear most from newly pregnant bandsters is they didn't lose enough weight beforehand, or they are scared of the weight gain that they worked so hard to lose. I got pregnant 8 months out after losing about 50 lbs. Depending on your restriction, your band doc can't "require" an unfill. This is your body and your baby and your choice of weight management. I had decent restriction but not overly tight prior to pregnancy and I haven't had tons of issues with the band so far, so I'm comfortable leaving the fill in as long as possible, hopefully the whole time. Some of us have VERY tight fills, and I think you may run into some issues if thats you. Other women found their band incredibly tight in the first few weeks and had to get unfilled simply to be able to eat at all. My advice would be to watch your band, if it gets too tight for too long, then unfill. I have days where mine is tight, others it's fine. I've never gone more than 1 or 2 days at a time with it being super tight, or I would unfill. Also, if you get major morning sickness, UNFILL! You don't wanna have to have band revision surgery due to a slippage.

Have you considered pregnancy? Food cravings and weight gain? You're probably not but just something to think about.

The Beginning of One Bandster’s Journey By Ivy Adamson’s Granddaughter The alarm sounded at 5:30 on the morning of January 13th, 2009. My husband leaned over to silence the buzzer, and then he turned and kissed my cheek. “Wake up, Honey. Today’s your big day.” No need to wake me up. I’d been lying wide awake since 4:00, and had only slept fitfully throughout the night in anticipation of this day. Sleep? Who can sleep on the night before surgery? And this wasn’t just any surgery. This was Lap Band surgery! This day, I would “cross over to the other side”—a term I had learned from lurking on weight loss forums. Sleep was the very last thing on my mind! Instead, a variety of surgery scenarios floated through my head: how much would it hurt? How long would the pain last? Would it be successful? These and other questions helped cause my lack of sleep, but dispersed in between the thoughts of how my surgery would play out were floods of memories. My mind forced me to relive snippets of the last fifteen years. Memories bounded back to me in random snapshots, with no respect for chronological sequence—just bits and pieces of events in my life that I could identify as times when I experienced the significant weight gains and losses that put me in a position today where I was facing bariatric surgery. I was married in the summer of 1993, and worked fulltime as a middle school English and reading teacher. I routinely beat myself up about being about 30 pounds overweight, but I was no where morbidly obese. By April of 1994, I was pregnant with our first child. This is when the first big weight piled on. I was sick with bad headaches every day of my pregnancy and developed pre-eclampsia. I gained 100 pounds by the time my son was born, and had a horrific birth, which resulted in an emergency cesarean to save both of our lives. Juggling the responsibilities of a fulltime work, and handling a tough pregnancy, and now a sickly child, who never slept through the night until way past his fourth birthday took its toll on me. However, with lots of determination and hard work, I took off 118 pounds within about 2 years. Our son was always ill, hardly ate, and was not meeting his developmental milestones. He was clingy and lived with permanent dark circles around his gaunt, sunken eyes. At 18 months, he had surgery to repair bilateral hernias. While in surgery, the anesthesiologist noticed that our son had a suspicious heart murmur. Subsequent visits to a pediatric cardiologist confirmed that he had a heart defect that would need to be repaired if he could ever gain enough weight to endure heart surgery. When he turned three and still could not speak intelligibly, we had him assessed by the school district and a pediatric neurologist. The word, “autism” was thrown around by the professionals, but we did not get a definitive diagnosis until he was at least five years old. The strain of caring for our child wore me down. I was permanently sleep-deprived, and constantly worried about his health. Additionally, I had decided to go back to school to work on a master’s degree, plus I continued to work fulltime. The weight began to creep back on. Looking back, I realize now that I was probably clinically depressed. No one ever suggested that I seek therapy, and I was too overwhelmed at the time to realize that I could probably use it. I was putting the needs of my child and my job first, leaving no time or energy to take care of me; hence, I continued to gain weight. I completed all of my course work for my master’s degree in the spring of 1999. I discovered I was pregnant with our second child in October of the same year; on December 15th, I turned in my thesis, thus completing all of my requirements to receive my diploma. And that same night, my husband, son, and I boarded a plane for two gloriously, tranquil weeks with my family in Barbados. I spent my time relaxing on the beach every day, and reading all four of Maya Angelou’s autobiographies. Each book was better than the last. Angelou impressed me with her indomitable strength and spirit to overcome all kinds of adversity. I thought I would like to have her strength; she was an example to me of the kind of woman I would want to be. Before long, I learned that I would have to summon some of Angelou’s strength to get me through the next challenge.

The Beginning of One Bandster’s Journey By Ivy Adamson’s Granddaughter The alarm sounded at 5:30 on the morning of January 13th, 2009. My husband leaned over to silence the buzzer, and then he turned and kissed my cheek. “Wake up, Honey. Today’s your big day.” No need to wake me up. I’d been lying wide awake since 4:00, and had only slept fitfully throughout the night in anticipation of this day. Sleep? Who can sleep on the night before surgery? And this wasn’t just any surgery. This was Lap Band surgery! This day, I would “cross over to the other side”—a term I had learned from lurking on weight loss forums. Sleep was the very last thing on my mind! Instead, a variety of surgery scenarios floated through my head: how much would it hurt? How long would the pain last? Would it be successful? These and other questions helped cause my lack of sleep, but dispersed in between the thoughts of how my surgery would play out were floods of memories. My mind forced me to relive snippets of the last fifteen years. Memories bounded back to me in random snapshots, with no respect for chronological sequence—just bits and pieces of events in my life that I could identify as times when I experienced the significant weight gains and losses that put me in a position today where I was facing bariatric surgery. I was married in the summer of 1993, and worked fulltime as a middle school English and reading teacher. I routinely beat myself up about being about 30 pounds overweight, but I was no where morbidly obese. By April of 1994, I was pregnant with our first child. This is when the first big weight piled on. I was sick with bad headaches every day of my pregnancy and developed pre-eclampsia. I gained 100 pounds by the time my son was born, and had a horrific birth, which resulted in an emergency cesarean to save both of our lives. Juggling the responsibilities of a fulltime work, and handling a tough pregnancy, and now a sickly child, who never slept through the night until way past his fourth birthday took its toll on me. However, with lots of determination and hard work, I took off 118 pounds within about 2 years. Our son was always ill, hardly ate, and was not meeting his developmental milestones. He was clingy and lived with permanent dark circles around his gaunt, sunken eyes. At 18 months, he had surgery to repair bilateral hernias. While in surgery, the anesthesiologist noticed that our son had a suspicious heart murmur. Subsequent visits to a pediatric cardiologist confirmed that he had a heart defect that would need to be repaired if he could ever gain enough weight to endure heart surgery. When he turned three and still could not speak intelligibly, we had him assessed by the school district and a pediatric neurologist. The word, “autism” was thrown around by the professionals, but we did not get a definitive diagnosis until he was at least five years old. The strain of caring for our child wore me down. I was permanently sleep-deprived, and constantly worried about his health. Additionally, I had decided to go back to school to work on a master’s degree, plus I continued to work fulltime. The weight began to creep back on. Looking back, I realize now that I was probably clinically depressed. No one ever suggested that I seek therapy, and I was too overwhelmed at the time to realize that I could probably use it. I was putting the needs of my child and my job first, leaving no time or energy to take care of me; hence, I continued to gain weight. I completed all of my course work for my master’s degree in the spring of 1999. I discovered I was pregnant with our second child in October of the same year; on December 15th, I turned in my thesis, thus completing all of my requirements to receive my diploma. And that same night, my husband, son, and I boarded a plane for two gloriously, tranquil weeks with my family in Barbados. I spent my time relaxing on the beach every day, and reading all four of Maya Angelou’s autobiographies. Each book was better than the last. Angelou impressed me with her indomitable strength and spirit to overcome all kinds of adversity. I thought I would like to have her strength; she was an example to me of the kind of woman I would want to be. Before long, I learned that I would have to summon some of Angelou’s strength to get me through the next challenge.

Yes, but it is not neccesarily a physical weight gain, I know some Dr's will cancel if the liver is to big because it obstructs their view and cause complications. I know alot of people prior to surgery take like a Meal Replacement to help with liver shrinkage. Have you seen the Bariatric Advantage Meal Replacements they are actually scientificaly proven to shrink liver. Here is the link, Bariatric Advantage - High-Protein Meal Replacement

Hi Renewed: Hope this helps. I found it quite interesting (especially #2--I had the same mindset). 9 Cold, Hard Weight Loss Truths: What the Diet Industry Won't Tell You By Brie Cadman of DivineCaroline.com Even if you’re not trying to lose weight, chances are you’ve seen some ideas on how to do so: “Eat what you want and lose weight!” “Lose 30 pounds in 30 days!” “Finally, a diet that really works!” “Lose one jean size every 7 days!” “Top 3 fat burners revealed” “10 minutes to a tighter tummy!” But these claims are readily rebuked by anyone who’s tried to lose five, 10, or 100 pounds. Losing weight ain’t that easy. It’s not in a pill, it doesn’t (usually) happen in 30 days, and judging from the myriad plans out there, there is no one diet that works for everyone. Looking past the outrageous claims, there are a few hard truths the diet industry isn’t going to tell you, but that just might help you take a more realistic approach to sustained weight loss. 1. You have to exercise more than you think. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends getting at least 30 minutes of moderate exercise most days of the week; this includes things like shoveling snow and gardening. And while this is great for improving heart health and staying active, research indicates that those looking to lose weight or maintain weight loss have to do more—about twice as much. For instance, members of the National Weight Control Registry (NWCR)—a group of over 5,000 individuals who have lost an average of 66 pounds and kept it off for five and a half years—exercise for about an hour, every day. A study published in the July 28, 2008 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine supports this observational finding. The researchers enrolled 200 overweight and obese women on a diet and exercise regimen and followed them for two years. Compared with those that gained some of their weight back, the women who were able to sustain a weight loss of 10 percent of their initial weight for two years exercised consistently and regularly—about 275 minutes a week, or 55 minutes of exercise at least five days a week. In other words, things like taking the stairs, walking to the store, and gardening are great ways to boost activity level, but losing serious weight means exercising regularly for an hour or so. However, this doesn’t mean you have to start running or kickboxing—the most frequently reported form of activity in the NWCR group is walking. 2. A half-hour walk doesn’t equal a brownie. I remember going out to eat with some friends after a bike ride. Someone commented on how we deserved dessert because we had just spent the day exercising; in fact, we had taken a leisurely 20-minute ride through the park. This probably burned the calories in a slice of our French bread, but definitely not those in the caramel fudge brownie dessert. Bummer. And while it’s easy to underestimate how many calories some foods contain, it’s also easy to overestimate how many calories we burn while exercising. Double bummer. Even if you exercise a fair amount, it’s not carte blanche to eat whatever you want. (Unless you exercise a ton, have the metabolism of a 16-year-old boy, and really can eat whatever you want). A report investigating the commonly-held beliefs about exercising, published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, concludes that although exercise does burn calories during and after exercise, for overweight persons, “excessive caloric expenditure has limited implications for substantially reducing body weight independent of nutritional modifications.” In other words, to lose weight, you have to cut calories and increase exercise. 3. You do have time to exercise. If you have time to check email, watch a sitcom or two, surf the Internet, have drinks, coffee and dinner with friends, go clothes shopping, and on and on, then you have time to exercise. Yes, sometimes you have to sacrifice social, TV, or leisure time to fit it in. Yes, sometimes you have to prioritize your exercise time over other things. But your health and the feeling you get after working out is well worth it. 4. Eating more of something won’t help you lose weight. The food industry is keen to latch onto weight loss research and spin it for their sales purposes. A prime example is the widespread claim that eating more dairy products will help you lose weight. However, a recent review of 49 clinical trials from 1966 to 2007 showed that “neither dairy nor Calcium supplements helped people lose weight.” This idea—that eating more of a certain type of product will help you lose weight—is constantly regurgitated on supermarket shelves (think low-fat cake, low-carb crackers, whole grain Cookies, and fat-free chips), but is in direct opposition to the basic idea behind weight loss—that we have to eat less, not more. 5. Calories in = calories out? There is a fair amount of controversy over the basic question of how people gain weight. Is it simply a matter of energy intake being greater than energy expenditure? Or is there more too it; do the type of calories we eat matter and can avoiding certain types help to lose or prevent weight? The various low-fat, low-carb, and glycemic index advocates can’t seem to agree on which it is. However, most can agree, and logical sense would tell us, that drinking 500 calories of soda is not equal to eating 500 calories of fruits and vegetables. One is simply “empty” calories—those that provide no real nutritional benefit and don’t do much to combat hunger. Whether you ascribe to the simple idea of trying to burn more calories than you take in or focus on avoiding certain types of calories, you want to minimize intake of empty calories, and maximize nutrient-dense calories. 6. Your body is working against you. Most people have noticed that it’s hard to lose weight, but easy to gain it. This is a relic of harder times, when food was not as abundant as it is today. Our genetic taste buds made energy-dense food desirable because it was necessary to pack away calories so we could make it through the thin times. We feasted when we could, in preparation for the famine. But now that we live in a time of abundance, that system predisposes many of us for weight gain and retention. And for obese dieters, this system is even harder to overcome; after weight loss, they become better at storing fat, making it harder to keep weight off. However, this isn’t to say that many haven’t lost weight and kept it off successfully. It just means you have to be diligent. 7. Our cultural environment is also working against you. Let’s face it, modern society does not make it easy on those trying to eat healthfully and exercise. According to Linda Bacon, associate professor of nutrition at University of California at Davis, “We get a tremendous amount of pressure to eat for reasons other than nurturing ourselves, and over time, people lose sensitivity to hunger/fullness/appetite signals meant to keep them healthy and well nourished. It’s hard for people to come to a healthy sense of themselves given the cultural climate, and nutritious and pleasurable options for healthy food are not as easily accessible as less nutritious (ones).” That doesn’t mean this can’t be overcome, but it does require maybe putting other parts of your life on a “diet.” TV would be the biggest culprit, since many food advertisements, especially for children’s junk food, come during this time. Other areas to put on a “diet” are chain and fast food restaurants (where portion sizes are distorted), a bad-influence friend, or driving, which may help increase walking and biking. 8. Maybe you don’t need to lose weight. Some feel that the medical problems associated with excess weight are exaggerated. Gina Kolata, a New York Times science writer questions the notion that thin is a realistic or necessary objective for most. In her book, Rethinking Thin, she asserts that weight loss is an unachievable goal for many, and that losing weight isn’t so much about health as it is about money, trends, and impossible ideals. Recent research also challenges the idea that being overweight is bad. A study in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that being 25 pounds overweight did not increase the risk of heart disease and cancer, and may even help stave off infections. It’s true that people can be fit and healthy and not necessarily be thin, just as it’s true that thin people may not necessarily be healthy. Good health, rather than weight, should be our focus; too often, it’s not. Striving for an unhealthy level of thinness may be detrimental to our health, but understanding the health repercussions of obesity is also critical. 9. This is not a diet; this is your life. The diet industry would have us all think that we can lose weight fast, and that’s that. But most people who maintain their weight understand that eating and exercising are not temporary conditions, to be dumped once a pair of jeans fit. Instead, they are lifestyle choices, and ones to be made for the long haul.

Hey bander friends, Has anyone had problems with excessive water weight gain. I mean the kind that has the lower legs so swollen your fingers can press deep dents into them. I usually take a water pill for my blood pressure but have been almost out and waiting for the mailed in prescription refill to arrive so I can take them only every other day to make them last. My body has obviously become very dependent on them because I am at my sweet spot and have gained 4 lbs over the weekend with less than 1000 cal in per day. I try to keep hydrated and get my 8 cups of fluid a day if not more but still am very bloated. My eyes are even swollen in the morning. Anyone have any quick home made remedies? Hopefully will get my prescriptions in the mail soon. I am so depressed that I am finally at my sweet spot and the weight goes up not down. There is no justice in this world sometimes. Ruthi

Jane 50 pounds still gone is a great start, and since you are now getting filled again, hopefully with a decent Dr. again, then it is just that....a new start! You can do it---and you WILL do it! You have had soooo much stress in your life lately--imagine where you would be without ever having the band--you would still have those 50 pounds, and would have possibly gained even another 50 with the health issues, and your cousins court battle.......life has been very chaotic for you, and living alone, and being FREE to eat anything, or bring anything in the house without anyone knowing but you....and you DON'T go overboard! That alone is impressive as hell to me! Rick never says anything about the things I buy or eat, but in years past if he had not been around I would have eaten myself to a much higher weight, I was embarrassed at the amounts I ate in front of him. Living alone, nothing would have stopped me! I totally respect how well you have done through it all. To have lived through the health issues you have already and to face serious health problems again, and not fall apart? I remain impressed. I know when I had the last scare, I was a basket case! You can do it Jane, you have nothing to be ashamed of or depressed about over, in regards to your weight gain. We are all here, and are going to watch your weight go doooowwwwwnnnnn again! Jenn--I honestly think some serious time to reflect on YOU and time to totally 100% completely avoid any form of communication from Kev. Personally I think you need to treat him as though he is a drug and you are an addict. If he calls do not answer, even if it means screening every call into the house. If he comes over, have your Mom answer the door that you are not there. If he shows up at a bar you are in, leave. Just as you have to go cold turkey with other addictions, go it with him....and someday maybe you can be around him without wanting it to be different. It would allow you both to eventually move on into other relationships without taking it with you. I mean you will always have the baggage from the things that happen in the relationship, but right now you are still carrying the bag around with you. When you have the bag safely stowed in the back of your lifes closet....then you can move on and appreciate another person for who THEY are, not who he WAS. Take time for you. Finish your house, and be able to sit around and relish in what you have done. Work on losing the rest of your weight at working out--get the color you want, and learn to like you again inside and out. You cannot expect anyone to treat you any better than you are willing to treat yourself. So take time to treat yourself HOW you want to be treated. Do not allow anyone to treat you in a manner you would not want your DD treated. If Wayne is meant to be the One....then he will be there and have had a chance to get rid of his own anger....but for now...don't worry about him, don't worry about Kev....worry about Jenn, and your kids. OK--------will councel everyone else in a future issue of edicts by Kat!!! LOL Sorry you are hurting TracyK---I would come wait on you if I could!!! Kat

i think water can be a cause of weight gain, inthe hosptial I of course had nothing for 2 days, I got out and gained 3 pounds, three days later it looked like I actually lost the 3 and then 2 more.

Givemeglory I am in the same boat. Stuck with most foods, can eat easier and too much at night, and stuck at a plateau the past few months. I started a thread called hungary and eating at night in the Janusry 08 section. I go up or down 1-2 lbs since the beginning of November. I'm so frustrated. Last time I went to the doctor 12/9 I had a .25 unfill. I can't say it helped much but I've been working on my chewing and eating slow so more food is getting down with no weight gain thank god. Girls - Hi everyone - Update Tonight was my first slimming. I thought I ate and chewed okay and then soon after I got this wet mouth feeling, chills, nausea an had to throw up like immediately. Slime and the rest of my food came up (sorry so graphic). I'm trying to pinpoint why that happened after almost a year of being banded. Anyone got any ideas?

Has anyone had their surgery pushed back because of weight gain?

I have a hard time with eggs and any type of bread product. The things I miss the most are sandwiches and pizza. I mourn for them, but I am certainly happier with weight loss and if I have to continue to mourn the loss I will. At my last fill which is always done under fluoro, my PA said my pouch had enlarged a little. Of course I freaked, and she said it was nothing to worry about and on a scale of 1-10 with 10 the largest, it was a 2. I told her I had been PBing still trying to find some protein I could eat besides fish. She said to go on liquids for 2 days and eat really small meals after that ( 1 cup at the most) and she would check it again at the end of the month. Has anyone experienced this yet? What did you do and did it work? Wendy said if it didn't revert she could do a complete unfill for a month or more. This idea scares me to death as I picture uncontrollable eating and weight gain. Help!

Hiya! I have UHC as well. My plan required I be employed with my company at least 2yrs the other requirements were pretty much the same. However, I only had 1 comorbidity-mild obstructive sleep apnea. I didn't have the 5year history-only the last 2 years. I had to write a letter (made it personal not technical) and got approved within a couple of weeks. From what I understand the insurance company wants to make sure that this isn't a sudden weight gain over the last few months and you are doing this to lose it quickly. I believe they just want to make sure it is necessary. I had my surgery NYEve and it was inpatient. I didn't have a problem getting that authorized either as they submitted everything at once. Good Luck on your journey..keep us posted! Cheryl :scared2:

I have a hard time with eggs and any type of bread product. The things I miss the most are sandwiches and pizza. I mourn for them, but I am certainly happier with weight loss and if I have to continue to mourn the loss I will. At my last fill which is always done under fluoro, my PA said my pouch had enlarged a little. Of course I freaked, and she said it was nothing to worry about and on a scale of 1-10 with 10 the largest, it was a 2. I told her I had been PBing still trying to find some Protein I could eat besides fish. She said to go on liquids for 2 days and eat really small meals after that ( 1 cup at the most) and she would check it again at the end of the month. Has anyone experienced this yet? What did you do and did it work? Wendy said if it didn't revert she could do a complete unfill for a month or more. This idea scares me to death as I picture uncontrollable eating and weight gain. Help!

I think you are so right on this. I gained 5 lbs this last week and I had to look at why I gained that much. Part of it I knew was due to going off a heavy diaretic medication that I had been on but I also know a good part of it was the food choices I had made last week. For me this was the first weight gain I have had since I started my pre-op diet back in October and through my surgery etc etc. So it hit me hard like it does us all. But I know I made bad choices and rather then jumping to a liquid diet or doing twice the amount of exercise then what I normaly would do I simply looked at my actions and choices that I had made and decided that I couldn't continue down that path and identified what I need to do differently to get back on track and keep up the good work I have already done. Don't get discouraged. Know that you have the power within yourself to change what it was that you had been doing!

Be sure you are sipping, not gulping. And try to exhale before you swallow to reduce the amount of air you swallow. I also found that sitting up REAL straight seemed to help as well. You still have swelling (our stomachs don't like to be poked and pulled), but it will get better. Don't worry about weight gain/loss right now. Your only concern for the next 6-8 weeks is HEALING! I cannot stress this enough. You will have the band for the rest of your life. Be patient. The first couple of months can be difficult until you get enough fills to get restriction. Between now and then, be patient. Follow your doctor's orders. Make an eating plan to get you through the rough days, and you will do fine.

This is normal. I had my surgery 3 weeks ago on Dec 29th. I know that it feels like it will never go away, but it eventually will. Gas X does help a little. What I found that helped me was, when I would burp, I would bend over. For me this just helped expel more gas so there wouldn't be so much sitting on my stomach. Also, don't worry about the weight gain. I have been playing with 5 lbs since surgery. Just make healthy food choices and don't eat when you are not hungry. The mental hunger is the hardest thing to overcome. Good luck.

Muscle doesn't burn fat... That's a bunch of hoooey... Fat is nothing more than a calorie bank - it's stored calories. To burn that, you have to create a calorie deficit - so that your making a withdrawal from the bank. Lean muscle tissue is highly metabolically active - fat is not. So it takes a lot more calories a day to sustain that muscle tissue than it does fat. (Say for the sake of example... 50 cals a day for a pound of muscle and 4 cals a day for a pound of fat) So the more lean muscle tissue your body carries, the higher your daily basal metabolic rate. And the more active you are, the more calories that lean muscle tissue will burn throughout the day. Where I think a lot of bandsters go astray is they cinch their bands down to the point that they can barely eat. And many make this even worse by only eating a few meals a day. By doing this they create TOO LARGE of a calorie deficit, which triggers the starvation response. The human body has evolved over thousands of years and still remembers the days of famine. So it has adapted to learning how to survive these periods. By invoking the starvation response, your body begins to slow your metabolism. And since your creating such a large calorie deficit, it has to get it's energy to survive from somewhere. Is it going to burn just fat which only costs 4 calories a day per pound? Or muscle which is costing it 50 calories a day per pound? No doubt is going to burn some of both, but it's going to burn a higher ratio of lean muscle tissue because it's too costly to keep. So bandsters see a huge weight loss initially (remember, muscle weighs more than fat), but once the body catches on, it slows your metabolism and continues to do so until it's adjusted to what your intaking. The result? A much lower basal metabolic rate and no calorie deficit - which equals no weight loss. Things won't get moving again until you eat more to get the metabolism burning hotter. That's why there are so many people who can't figure out why they're only eating 700 or 800 calories but aren't losing any weight. And what about the weight they did lose. How much of it was lean muscle tissue (which we all know weighs more than fat) and how much was actual fat? No way to know for sure, but the ratio definitely swings toward lean muscle tissue during a starvation response. Why on earth would we want to lose muscle tissue? It's totally counterproductive. Who wants to lose most of their fat to see bones and flabby skin? Hell, I want to see muscle! And women worried about being too muscular - DON'T... Except for a few genetic anomolies, you couldn't get huge disproportionate muscles even if you wanted to because you don't have the chemical makeup - especially hormones - to produce them. My approach? I use the band to keep me from bingeing and overeating, but I keep a constant flow of nutritious food throughout the day. (A secretary at work just can't figure it out... she keeps saying, "how on earth do you lose weight? All you do is EAT!" She probably thinks I'm on drugs...lol) I do intense cardio sessions, 45-60 minutes each, 5-7 days a week. I also aim for 2-3 weight training sessions a week, although cardio is my main focus. And I mix it up week to week so my body doesn't permanantly adjust. I'm burning 4000-6000 calories in the gym a week (as tracked on a heart rate monitor). Remember, it takes a calorie deficit to lose fat... IMO, it's better to create a calorie deficit by intense exercise/eating more than starving/slouching. Same thing for calories. I zig zag my calorie intake. I may have a 1500 -2000 calorie deficit on a day of hard training, but a 500 calorie surplus on another day. By doing this I'm creating the needed deficit to lose weight, but my body doesn't think I trying to starve it, and my metabolism isn't just hot - it's on fire. How on fire? I have some 3000+ calorie intake days - and I continue to lose weight. And since I have the band I physically can't binge or insanely overeat and sabotage my progress. Balanced nutrition and copious amounts of Water are important parts of the equation too. Now I would NEVER suggest that this is what everyone should be doing. We're all different and have to find success by trial and error. This is just another option. If someone were to try this with a skewed component (especially the exercise component) the result could be a disastrous weight gain. Bandsters shouldn't be afraid to try different approaches though. If you've had low calorie diets in the past that failed, what makes you think eating low calorie with a band is going to get a different result? Isn't that the definition of insane? You know, doing the same thing but expecting a different result? Food for thought... Brad

Hi Lizalee thank you SOOOO much for posting this. You have eloquently verbalized what I've been thinnkng for some time. Weight loss has been nil for some time. Weight gain....I don't want to go there. I found out that the food I shouldn't eat goes down well and the food I'm supposed to eat sometimes comes back. Talk about negative feedback. I also seem to get a delay in my full sensation. I agree that journaling is a good way to keep track of eating, I don't like to, but maybe that's because I have to own up to what I put in my mouth. I also agree that carbs are poison, so how do you get off them? My willpower and desire seem to be gone. So, having found a kindred spirit, we can do this. I liked feeling slimmer, less aches and pains, clothes fit better, more energy, the numbness in my hands when I'm typing isn't there, I fit in an airplane seat better and don't crowd anyone (I want to fly to my girlfriends house and visit, been puttng off because of the flight issues), and so one. So, 1 hour at a time? We can do it! Sue

Welcome to LapBandTalk! Did you know that if you don't get enough sleep, your ghrelin levels rise? This could explain how the sleep apnea caused weight gain -- since it cuts into your sleep time and you aren't as rested.