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I had my labband surgery One year ago. I started at 220.. and now I am holding at 185ish. I have dropped from a size 18 to a very loose 14. I realize that my weight loss isn't as good as most posted here. I guess the reason I am blogging today is that I am a little discouraged. I expected greater weight loss. I believe that most of the reason that I am not losing is because I dont' eat eno.ugh and I am not doing the exercize I should be doing. But today I am vowing to have a much better second year. I feel the need to become a success story . I want it , so i have to work for it. i gues enough of my babbling..i will return with an update soon. tata:blink:

Congrats! I go in on the 20th. Good Luck. Hope to follow your progress and celebrate your weight loss victories.

I think that women make up the majority of the MO community, and that women are under more pressure socially and professionally to lose weight. I also think that women are more likely to seek support than men - so even if the number of surgeries were equal, I think you would see more women in the support groups than men anyway. JMHO and guess... Anyone else?

I am 4 days out and so excited to be on the other side... I prayed a lot and told myself that there truly was more to be scared of if I didn't do something to get my weight under control. All has gone so well my first 5 days and other then nasuea (but no vomiting just a feeling) the first 12 hours because I refused the seasick patch thing- due to 5 days of vertigo side effects it gives me, everything has been fine. Sore in the incision sites but nothing you would not expect. Liquids, proteins all going down fine. Excited for you ... such a long process and big decision to finally get to this day.

I know what you mean, I hope goes will for you as well. At least you have a record of your weight, I haven't been to my primary care for quite some time (I forgot to mention that earlier). I hope I get approved for this. I am on pins and needles and the process hasn't yet to start yet. I have to stay positive.

@@sbg224 I am so excited for you! I did it not too long ago. I remember seeing those numbers and being so very thrilled! I am very happy for you. I have had an ACL reconstruction and a partial knee replacement. Both times in rehab the therapist had me on the stationary bike to work on range of motion. Do you do that? I know both times I actually lost weight and I think it was the bike that did it. How is your knee by the way? Seems you are still having some pain. My aunt had one a few months ago and on day four, she answered her door with no crutches. She hadn't been on them except for one or two days, if that. Shocked me? I was on them a while if I remember correctly. Rehab has really advanced. Were you on crutches? Good luck with everything!!!

Saw my Dr. yesterday and got the results from a blood draw last week. My A-1C(blood sugar average for 3 months) was down to 6.9. It had been 7.7 last year, 7.2 early this year, and 7.1, 4 months ago. That doesn't sound remarkable, except all of the 7 numbers was when I was taking 120 units of insulin and 2000 mg. of Metformin a day. The 6.9 has been since I have been taking 10 units or less a day and no Metformin at all....1/12 the dose.:rolleyes: My good cholesterol was up (40) and my bad cholesterol was down (62) and my dosage of the statin drug has dropped to 1/2 the regular dose every other day (so 1/4th of what I was taking). I didn't have any idea what my results would be........but I am sure one happy camper. The VSG did what I wanted it to.:lol: I also had been plateauing between 190-192 and yesterday that was broken as well as I hit 189. Which makes my weight loss at 47 pounds on the sleeve and 98 total. I am re-enthused!!!:P:P:P:P:P:P:P

I have been a very slow loser. I was 256 the day before surgery and it took me 3 months to lose my first 20 post sleeve lbs. Very frustrating! It has taken me some time to mentally embrace my pre op loss and lump it all together as my total weight loss. But now I can say I have lost 64 lbs all together and I have 61 lbs left to go! I have nearly always followed my diet guidelines and started exercising at 1 week out. I did have faith that if I keep meeting my diet and exercise goals eventually I would get there. And now I can see it is happening! My main advice is not to get caught up in the scale and follow your eating plan and set exercise goals and then enjoy the process. We do have a choice. We can fret and worry that others are losing faster and spend the journey feeling like a failure or we can Celebrate the victories along the way. I choose to celebrate! The victories are sweet!

Thanks for the referral Annie. Also, have you heard any feedback about Schumacher over at Kettering Bariatrics. My insurance wouldn't cover Cincy Weight Loss but I had heard pretty good things about Kettering. Since you live there, any info or feedback would be appreciated.

You are doing great. It sounds very much like my recovery 10 months and 7 lbs from my goal weight. Keep it up! It works if you work it!

In fitness and working out diet approaches, stalled are handled by shocking the body by a change. Either food or workout related or both. The body begins to get accustomed to the same thing and it starts to accumulate and work to conserve your weight because we are evolved to prevent weight loss. You can try dropping your carbs down. I'm not sure how many you eat but you could do a few days of very low carbs (below 30 grams ) and then a week or so of 50 grams. At the same time increase your Protein by ten grams a day. Add in weight training. Lifting weights works by increasing your metabolism all day long, biting calories while you do it, and adding muscle which means your body has to now permanently burn more calories to keep your weight the same. So your metabolism is faster and hotter. The perfect way to lose weight. Add in cardio but if your already doing it, either do it for longer or go harder at it. Also use intervals. Interval training in cardio, for instance walking two minutes, jogging one minute, running 30 seconds, repeat, is a huge boost for your metabolism. It's the best form of cardio you can do and also the easiest and fastest way to get it done. All of these things will shock your body and break your stall. And if you hit another, change again and your body will again break the stall.

I had my surgery 11/18/14. My starting weight when I started my liquid diet was 299. For over a week I have been between 247-248 (fluctuating all week). I think it's because I'm not getting all my Water in, so I've been making sure I DO get it in. Also my Vitamins. Nothing changes. I've been trying to get all my vitamins and protein/carbs in (animal Protein is not easy to digest). I get about 600-700 calories a day. What am I doing wrong??

Hi Everyone,just had to post to say i had my first nsv (none scale victory.) On Tuesday we are flying off on our jollies to Spain, and hubby took me shoping for some clothes that actualy fit, well i would not try on a dress last week a size 20 thought i would be pushing my luck and after thinking about it regreted it all week, well today we were in Ann Harvey's in Exeter and they had the same dress only in a size18 and he persuaded me to try it on and omg it fit's, i think i have tried it on about 10 times so far still can't belive it,what a great note to go away on,Will be away for two weeks and will miss all you guy's, will look out for a internet cafe!!hehehe, well a girl on the way down need's her mates!!! Tina DR Frering Lyon Midband starting bmi 45.5 bmi now 39.5 136kgs starting weight 15/07/04 119kgs

The good news is there is no contract, where you have to sign on a dotted line! It can be amorphous and is easily refined! It's truly an evolution and extension of reality as you live that portion (or live the "new"). As a MO person most of my life, I had absolutely very little concept about how it felt to be "normal" or even skinny. I just knew this would be the "easiest" it would ever get to either approach that goal or capture the flag. I honestly still don't! I'm reasonably sure I will make 1st Goal. And anything beyond that, is up for negotiation, but NOT open to rationalization. I'm in "take no prisoners" goal mode. I set my first goal 150 based on my RD and doc. Their goals for me were 156 (60% of EBW if I remember correctly), or my doc was 160lbs cuz she said, it felt like a good weight for me. I on the other hand wanted to be my high school weight where I was the closest to being "normal" that I ever was in life. The 2nd goal for me is to be in "normal weight category" which is anything under 145lbs. I "think" I can reach it with continued focus and discipline. Beyond that, I enter into @Matt Z "almost absurd" mode (135lbs). Then finally "Barbie Dream Girl" mode (125lbs). LOL. Extremely unlikely. Through it all, beyond weight, I want to be fully healthy! I would like to be off all, or almost all my meds. I want to be able to exercise at will and be active and never have to worry about if I'm "too fat for xyz."

I agree 100%. Another thing that will be nice is not having the doctor blame every ailment on my weight.

Here is my 2 cents worth: I work out 6 days a week, 3 days 1 hr. cardio (HIIT and Medium mixed), and 3 days weights with 30 min moderate cardio. I eat about 1900 cals a day and it breaks out to about 30% carbs, 50% carbs and 20% fats. I found that this is a 40% deficit in cals, based on my activity levels, and have been at same scale weight for 30+ days. I have seen lower fat levels and slow muscle growth, so I am not too concerned. I have 15 lbs. of fat left to lose, and plan on cycling my calories/carbs soon and I feel my scale stall is partially associated to some metabolism slowing. (Been in big calorie deficit for 9 months now) My revision seems to be much looser and allows me to eat much more than many with RNY do, so getting this much food in is only a little challenging with 5 meals a day. I mostly focus on getting in proper protein, and making carbs fibrous, except right after training, so I am not too concerned with the totals values. My fats come from clean sources only, mostly coconut, flax and olive oils, and lean meats, and I feel high fat levels of the right fats is OK, if we can handle it. It has taken me a while to get to this point and a lot of trial and error to get the right fit, and I am sure you will need to do the same. I suggest tracking your diet and any changes and measure the affect every week or so and adjust again as needed. No trainer know you like you. Best on your journey. . .

So I'm just 2 weeks post op. I have a 13 year old son, he knows that I had surgery, but I was very general and did not tell him that it was WLS. I told him I had abdominal surgery. Well yesterday we were talking and he told me wow mom your really looking skinnier. I've lost 20 pounds and am excited. I feel like a 13 year old boy has even noticed my weight loss. That was the thing that has real. Loving my life...

Wow!!! Perfect response!!! AMEN!!!! And I will add, that I would never feel like I wasn't doing myself good by going outside and enjoying a good walk. Walking will lose weight, but WLS ensures that the weight will stay off.

Yes, I had my lapband surgery on 8/27/07. Lost 51 lbs. in 5 weeks. Then I had my first gallbladder attack and my lap surgeon had to remove my gallbladder on 10/1/07. Two major surgeries in 5 weeks. I am almost healed and ready to roll and not even two weeks out from the gallbladder surgery. Definitely Sucks! But now things are looking better! Rapid Weight Loss was the cause but doc said I would have lost it 6 months down the road anyway.

I am 2 days post op and doing much better than I thought I would. I feared cancellation up to the minute they rolled me into the surgical room, and now it is over and cannot believe I actually did it! Would love to meet others in about the same situation. I am on an insulin pump and it is also doing much better than I thought. Hope to make some great new friends here too! Where can I find the weight tickers?

Hi Carmen, I hope that I can provide some inspiration. I am 13 months post op - my new life (RNY) began on June 25, 2013. When I began my journey in January, 2013, I weight 331 pounds - I am only 5'2". I am 49 years old and was not able to work out. I had high blood pressure and used a C-Pap for sleep apnea. I was moving toward diabetes, but was not there yet. My joints, however, were horrible. I could not walk for more than a few minutes at a time due to knee pain. I saw a chiropractor weekly to manage my knee and back pain. Today I am at my goal weight - 127 pounds - that's 205 pounds lost!. I have a NORMAL BMI. I have never in my life woke up in the morning without the thought of how am I going to lose weight today. It is so very strange to be on maintenance! My RNY has been a nothing short of a miracle. I have tons of energy. I belong to the YMCA where I do Zumba, TurboKick, and BodyPump classes. I use the treadmill and elliptical trainer. I have absolutely no joint pain at all. My family traveled to the Black Hills of South Dakota over the Independence Day Holiday and we climbed to the top of Harney's Peak - the highest elevation East of the Rocky Mountains. I AM LIVING MY LIFE!! I am no longer watching from the sidelines as my family has fun - I am right there with them. It has taken hard work, dedication, and determination. I won't say that it was easy - and I still struggle with my relationship with food. But living life in this body is SO much better that I am determined to NEVER go back to the prison my obese body was before. If I can do this, anybody can!! Reach out for support here. There are terrific people here that helped me when I needed it. We are here for you!! Carol

I've done pretty good on my unofficial pre-op diet, and now official pre-op diet. Actually I did better on the unofficial. Regardless, on both of those I have not had a single regular coke!! I cut out Mt. Dew cold turkey. I have gotten sick a couple times from it, so I've become more of a coffee drinker.. and I don't like coffee, so normally I get a shot to get the headaches away and sip on it (no sugar in it!). Last weekend I had half a cup of OJ and a banana, and was throwing up all morning. I also had headaches, so I it's either caffein withdrawal or some reason they didn't sit well with me. Either way, now I can't eat either.. bah hum bug. I'm on a soup/sandwhich/salad diet. It seems vague to me, Subway can put anything on a bun and call it a sandwhich.. so I've tried to just think healthy. I did have some chinese yesterday (rice & chicken), and then fiance had a pizza for dinner and I took the very smallest slice on it and ate it. I don't even like pizza, but I was starving and nothing in the house looked filling without going overboard (Applesauce, string cheese, soups). Had my pre-op tests yesterday. Up at 4am, 3 hour drive down there to be there at 9am. Had to pay my $15,000 up front (woosh....... :phanvan ) the tests went fine.. bloodwork, EKG, chest x-ray, medical history. Nothing notable until I got to my doctor. I have a high white blood cell count, and they said it means I was just sick, I'm sick, or I'm getting sick. I haven't been sick, I'm not sick, and I don't feel like I'm getting sick..they said if I get sick before Monday the anesthesia won't do the surgery. Eeeek. I can't take meds right now either, so no Zicam or anything I better not get sick!! Doctor was awesome as always, they gave me a breathing lung strengthener. The nurse told me how to do it, then I did it and I did perfect, so that's good.. she told me to keep doing it until the surgery, and as soon as I'm awake they'll have me doing it every hour to keep me from getting pnemonia. I'm feeling pretty good about my decision for lap-band. Then they told me I'll have a catheter! Now I panic a little. I don't want a catheter That's one of those things up in my list of 'things I don't want in my entire life', up there with skydiving and enimas. I'm trying to come to grips with it, I will be asleep when they put it in, so it won't hurt, but it will be humiliating and now I feel like I need to 'dress it up' down there. My mom just had a hysterectomy and said the catheter was not an eventful part of anything and stop worrying. Today I've had coffee, water, and I'm eating my lunch of ham&cheese sandwhich. Saturday I start clear liquid pre-op diet. Not looking forward to that.. I still haven't started any good exercising, I don't know if I can till I lose some weight. I have such bad back and joint pains. I have 'The Bean' and do crunches and stretches and things like that on it. The nurse gave me medicine for 'hunger headaches', that is suppose to keep me from feeling sick from not eating. She said it's also good for caffein headaches, so I'm waiting for that Rx to be filled (today hopefully) and then I can stop drinking this coffee. Coffee makes my breath so disgusting afterward.. ick. My coworkers are anxious with me (maybe because they're going to have to cover me while I'm gone haha) and one of them is a friend of mine and she's very supportive about it. She's a tiny size 0 or 1, and very fashionable so I look at what she wears a lot and go "I can't wait to buy clothes like that". The doctor called this morning and said they want to put me on an antibiotic because of my white blood cells as a precaution, they don't want infection in my body when I go in there. I have to clean with anti-bacterial soap for my 'last shower' before surgery. I have hibiclens anyway I use sometimes, so got that covered. On my drive home, southern Alabama was having tornados.. which is where I was, but I don't know the area, so I didn't know what cities/counties I was going through.. I kept listening to the radio saying 'Tornado warning in blah blah and blah blah, crossing I-65' and I was on I-65, so I figured if I saw cars pulling off, I would too :guess Then, out of nowhere, rain was SO bad all 3 lanes came to a stop, everyone put on their emergency lights and you couldn't see the road. I was panicking, so I rolled down my window (in this flooding rain-got soaking wet) to put my head out to try to see the road.. didn't want to go off a bridge or hit someone. That was scary, luckily everyone did finally come to a complete stop to 'wait it out' I guess, so I got to stop and just wait. It did not last long at all, but that was the scariest 3 minutes I've had in a long time. My hands were shaking.. I probably won't post again until after the surgery. I'm not good with journals really.. I always like them in theory, but I don't like to sit and write about myself.. for myself.

I've done pretty good on my unofficial pre-op diet, and now official pre-op diet. Actually I did better on the unofficial. Regardless, on both of those I have not had a single regular coke!! I cut out Mt. Dew cold turkey. I have gotten sick a couple times from it, so I've become more of a coffee drinker.. and I don't like coffee, so normally I get a shot to get the headaches away and sip on it (no sugar in it!). Last weekend I had half a cup of OJ and a banana, and was throwing up all morning. I also had headaches, so I it's either caffein withdrawal or some reason they didn't sit well with me. Either way, now I can't eat either.. bah hum bug. I'm on a soup/sandwhich/salad diet. It seems vague to me, Subway can put anything on a bun and call it a sandwhich.. so I've tried to just think healthy. I did have some chinese yesterday (rice & chicken), and then fiance had a pizza for dinner and I took the very smallest slice on it and ate it. I don't even like pizza, but I was starving and nothing in the house looked filling without going overboard (Applesauce, string cheese, soups). Had my pre-op tests yesterday. Up at 4am, 3 hour drive down there to be there at 9am. Had to pay my $15,000 up front (woosh....... :phanvan ) the tests went fine.. bloodwork, EKG, chest x-ray, medical history. Nothing notable until I got to my doctor. I have a high white blood cell count, and they said it means I was just sick, I'm sick, or I'm getting sick. I haven't been sick, I'm not sick, and I don't feel like I'm getting sick..they said if I get sick before Monday the anesthesia won't do the surgery. Eeeek. I can't take meds right now either, so no Zicam or anything I better not get sick!! Doctor was awesome as always, they gave me a breathing lung strengthener. The nurse told me how to do it, then I did it and I did perfect, so that's good.. she told me to keep doing it until the surgery, and as soon as I'm awake they'll have me doing it every hour to keep me from getting pnemonia. I'm feeling pretty good about my decision for lap-band. Then they told me I'll have a catheter! Now I panic a little. I don't want a catheter That's one of those things up in my list of 'things I don't want in my entire life', up there with skydiving and enimas. I'm trying to come to grips with it, I will be asleep when they put it in, so it won't hurt, but it will be humiliating and now I feel like I need to 'dress it up' down there. My mom just had a hysterectomy and said the catheter was not an eventful part of anything and stop worrying. Today I've had coffee, water, and I'm eating my lunch of ham&cheese sandwhich. Saturday I start clear liquid pre-op diet. Not looking forward to that.. I still haven't started any good exercising, I don't know if I can till I lose some weight. I have such bad back and joint pains. I have 'The Bean' and do crunches and stretches and things like that on it. The nurse gave me medicine for 'hunger headaches', that is suppose to keep me from feeling sick from not eating. She said it's also good for caffein headaches, so I'm waiting for that Rx to be filled (today hopefully) and then I can stop drinking this coffee. Coffee makes my breath so disgusting afterward.. ick. My coworkers are anxious with me (maybe because they're going to have to cover me while I'm gone haha) and one of them is a friend of mine and she's very supportive about it. She's a tiny size 0 or 1, and very fashionable so I look at what she wears a lot and go "I can't wait to buy clothes like that". The doctor called this morning and said they want to put me on an antibiotic because of my white blood cells as a precaution, they don't want infection in my body when I go in there. I have to clean with anti-bacterial soap for my 'last shower' before surgery. I have hibiclens anyway I use sometimes, so got that covered. On my drive home, southern Alabama was having tornados.. which is where I was, but I don't know the area, so I didn't know what cities/counties I was going through.. I kept listening to the radio saying 'Tornado warning in blah blah and blah blah, crossing I-65' and I was on I-65, so I figured if I saw cars pulling off, I would too :guess Then, out of nowhere, rain was SO bad all 3 lanes came to a stop, everyone put on their emergency lights and you couldn't see the road. I was panicking, so I rolled down my window (in this flooding rain-got soaking wet) to put my head out to try to see the road.. didn't want to go off a bridge or hit someone. That was scary, luckily everyone did finally come to a complete stop to 'wait it out' I guess, so I got to stop and just wait. It did not last long at all, but that was the scariest 3 minutes I've had in a long time. My hands were shaking.. I probably won't post again until after the surgery. I'm not good with journals really.. I always like them in theory, but I don't like to sit and write about myself.. for myself.

I know a number of people that have had sleeves after they had bands. Whilst most of them say having a sleeve is easier they don't seem to have lost much weight.

One thing with weight loss, your calorie deficit of yesterday does not always equate a loss today. My weight went down in fits and starts. The body seems to want to hold on as much as possible, then will let it go all at once. I'd stay the same for 3 or 4 weeks then drop 4 pounds. I'd go up 1 then down 2, stay the same for 2 weeks then drop 1. It was not steady at all. But over the course of time, the trend was DOWN. That's all that mattered in the long run. Try to only get on the scale once a week. This is really about long-term life style habits. Get used to eating proper portions, the weight loss and better health will come.