Hi! How much work on a daily basis?

[ahoyhere 0]

Hey, y'all. You don't know me, but I kinda feel like I know you, since I've been reading a whooooole bunch of the posts on the forum before I piped up :rolleyes2:

What I'd really like to know from you all is:

After the first few intense months, how much daily work is it for you to live happily with your band? How much time do you have to spend obsessing about, avoiding, or tallying up food? Is it on your mind all the time, a whole new hobby, or can you live like a "normal person" who just eats only small amounts of lean Protein and veggies?

(Not including exercise.)

Do you find that, if you slack off, your band gives you a nice slap upside the head?

Do you get physical feedback if you eat the wrong things or do something unhealthy?

Is it less mental work than doing a strict diet?

Does it feel more like normal (but adjusted) life?

I ask because, the main problem I have with losing weight is my attention span, and the fact that the bad side effects from bad choices seem so far away that they don't "steer" me. I want to be thin, sure, but this is really about my health, and try as I might, I can't seem to bring myself to fear it sufficiently.

I believe that if I had a tool -- like you guys say -- that helped me feel full easier, and caused me to feel sick if I did the wrong things, that would help a lot. As a feedback mechanism. Kind of like how I kill houseplants but wouldn't forget to feed & Water an animal that made noise :thumbdown:

But, if I had to exert all my mental energy every day on managing it, I don't think the band would work for me -- because I won't be able to keep that up. Weird as it may sound, I'm just not emotionally involved in my weight... and to keep on a strict diet to lose 130lbs, like I need to, you really have to be emotionally involved.

I'm hoping the band will help. What do you think?

[Noturningback15 45]

Hey, y'all. You don't know me, but I kinda feel like I know you, since I've been reading a whooooole bunch of the posts on the forum before I piped up :smile2:

What I'd really like to know from you all is:

After the first few intense months, how much daily work is it for you to live happily with your band? How much time do you have to spend obsessing about, avoiding, or tallying up food? Is it on your mind all the time, a whole new hobby, or can you live like a "normal person" who just eats only small amounts of lean Protein and veggies?

(Not including exercise.)

Do you find that, if you slack off, your band gives you a nice slap upside the head?

Do you get physical feedback if you eat the wrong things or do something unhealthy?

Is it less mental work than doing a strict diet?

Does it feel more like normal (but adjusted) life?

I ask because, the main problem I have with losing weight is my attention span, and the fact that the bad side effects from bad choices seem so far away that they don't "steer" me. I want to be thin, sure, but this is really about my health, and try as I might, I can't seem to bring myself to fear it sufficiently.

I believe that if I had a tool -- like you guys say -- that helped me feel full easier, and caused me to feel sick if I did the wrong things, that would help a lot. As a feedback mechanism. Kind of like how I kill houseplants but wouldn't forget to feed & Water an animal that made noise

But, if I had to exert all my mental energy every day on managing it, I don't think the band would work for me -- because I won't be able to keep that up. Weird as it may sound, I'm just not emotionally involved in my weight... and to keep on a strict diet to lose 130lbs, like I need to, you really have to be emotionally involved.

I'm hoping the band will help. What do you think?

If I understand you correctly you sound like you may want to have the Gastric Bypass. It is a lot of work involved with the lapband and It has never made me sick. I can pretty much eat what I want too unlike most GB patients. I was even stalled for a couple of months because I learned to eat around my band and was drinking too many calories. But, I got my act together because I didn't spend all this money and have surgery to gain a single pound! I have been working out now on a regular basis now too. Without the workouts I would probably still lose weight but it would be like one pound a week if I stay below the recommended calories. Losing weight is something I have done before in the past but keeping it off was something different. I got this band to assist me in losing weight and more importantly as a way to keep it off for good this time. For me it's more mental work than just a strict diet because I have to actually make a wise choice about what food do I want to use my 4oz on. Do I want 4oz of carbs or 2oz of protein and 1oz carb and 1oz of veggies. If I slack off I don't get a slap on the head from the band but the scale gets stuck on the same numbers for weeks or months and that's discouraging. I don't see it as a strict diet though because I still eat most of the foods that I enjoy just in smaller portions.

Edited September 23, 2010 by SF2009

[Manda87 3]

After the first few intense months, how much daily work is it for you to live happily with your band? How much time do you have to spend obsessing about, avoiding, or tallying up food?

I don't really obsess. I usually try to make a plan as to what I'm going to eat. It's really easy to stick to that plan when I'm working. It gets harder on days off. I live with my parents and they don't choose a healthy lifestyle so I am surrounded by fats, carbs, twinkies, etc. In that aspect, it is very hard to avoid those things.

Is it on your mind all the time, a whole new hobby, or can you live like a "normal person" who just eats only small amounts of lean Protein and veggies?

I do think losing weight is on my mind all the time. I weigh in every week with my personal trainer so I have to show him and myself that I'm actually putting the work in. Also, don't forget your fruits!

(Not including exercise.)

Exercise is insanely important!

Do you find that, if you slack off, your band gives you a nice slap upside the head?

If I eat too much, I get uncomfortable and I stay that way for hours.

Do you get physical feedback if you eat the wrong things or do something unhealthy?

It depends. You can eat a twinkie, and the band won't reject it. It doesn't know the difference between a cookie and an apple. I get a bad mental feeling when I eat something bad (I also got that feeling before being banded). Some things I do get stuck on, which are apples (ha!), peaches (haha!), some bread, and sometimes eggs as a few examples.

Is it less mental work than doing a strict diet?

It's more mental work. You have to be 100% committed to this. This is IT. You've tried so many diets before that have failed, so you cannot let yourself fail again! WLS is serious. You have to be on your game. You have to eat right and you have to exercise.

Does it feel more like normal (but adjusted) life?

My "normal" (or past life) included not exercising, eating McDonald's, and just not caring. My life has done a 180. I eat better than most people I know. I exercise more than most people I know. So, this doesn't feel normal for me. It will one day.

Did I help or you scare you? lol :smile2:

[Manda87 3]

If I understand you correctly you sound like you may want to have the Gastric Bypass. It is a lot of work involved with the LAP-BAND® and It has never made me sick. I can pretty much eat what I want too unlike most GB patients. I was even stalled for a couple of months because I learned to eat around my band and was drinking too many calories. But, I got my act together because I didn't spend all this money and have surgery to gain a single pound! I have been working out now on a regular basis now too. Without the workouts I would probably still lose weight but it would be like one pound a week if I stay below the recommended calories. Losing weight is something I have done before in the past but keeping it off was something different. I got this band to assist me in losing weight and more importantly as a way to keep it off for good this time. For me it's more mental work than just a strict diet because I have to actually make a wise choice about what food do I want to use my 4oz on. Do I want 4oz of carbs or 2oz of Protein and 1oz carb and 1oz of veggies. If I slack off I don't get a slap on the head from the band but the scale gets stuck on the same numbers for weeks or months and that's discouraging. I don't see it as a strict diet though because I still eat most of the foods that I enjoy just in smaller portions.

I agree with you! For about a month, I went into denial. lol I ate around my band and ate the wrong foods. I blamed everything else, but myself. I only lost 4 pounds in a month, and my doctor was not happy. He lectured me, and now I'm back on the wagon most of the time. lol :smile2:

[Noturningback15 45]

Manda87, I lost 2 pounds at my August weigh in and 1 pound on September 7th. Since the 7th I have lost 8 pounds!! Talking about a slap in the face. I have been in the gym for one hour a day on M-F.

[Manda87 3]

Manda87, I lost 2 pounds at my August weigh in and 1 pound on September 7th. Since the 7th I have lost 8 pounds!! Talking about a slap in the face. I have been in the gym for one hour a day on M-F.

I'm not sure if I understand you, but are you saying that losing 8 pounds in 2 weeks is bad?

[Noturningback15 45]

I'm not sure if I understand you, but are you saying that losing 8 pounds in 2 weeks is bad?

No, I am excited!!! LOL! Sorry if I wrote it wrong. I have lost more weight in two weeks than I did in over two months. :smile2:

[BetsyB 9]

After the first few intense months, how much daily work is it for you to live happily with your band? How much time do you have to spend obsessing about, avoiding, or tallying up food? I do much, much less work than I did preoperatively. I do journal my food; it takes less than 3 minutes a day (truly). I use fitday.com, and it's just a handful of clicks. I wear a BodyBugg, and spend a couple of minutes a day inputting my fitday totals and downloading my calorie burn so I can compare what I took in with what I burned. Seriously, I spend no more than 5-7 minutes a day on these things.

I don't obsess about food at all any more. Not even a little. I plan meals, the same as I always did---my family and I do have to eat, after all! But the "feed me" monster is gone. Just gone.

Is it on your mind all the time, a whole new hobby, or can you live like a "normal person" who just eats only small amounts of lean Protein and veggies? I guess at first, it felt like a new hobby. But now that it's become a way of life, I really do live a "normal" life. I have a much more "normal" relationship with food, I think, than I ever did. And yes, I really do eat just small amounts of lean protein and veggies. But I prepare them in ways that are delicious. My stomach capacity is smaller now--so it's important to me to make sure that the foods I eat give my body what it needs. But it's also still important to me---well, even more important than it was before--that what little I do eat is really good. Satisfying. Delicious. I can't mindlessly shovel large quantities of poor-quality food into my body--but I can choose really good foods that I love :smile2:

(Not including exercise.) Gotta include the exercise--it's the most important piece of the puzzle, IMO! Every.single.day--every day.

Do you find that, if you slack off, your band gives you a nice slap upside the head? I haven't slacked off--but my band does, in fact, let me know what it will and will not tolerate. I haven't pushed the limits, but even within the context of my food plan, there are things that don't work very well. I listen--and really, I don't miss anything I no longer choose to eat. (If I really missed something, I would have it.)

Do you get physical feedback if you eat the wrong things or do something unhealthy? I do get physical feedback when something doesn't work well with the band.

Is it less mental work than doing a strict diet? There's a learning curve; at first, it takes some work. But you achieve a level of mastery pretty quickly, after which, IMO, there is MUCH less mental involvement than with a strict diet. With a diet, you have the hunger factor, which feeds the feed-me demon. And the feed-me demon just saps so much mental energy.

Remove the hunger, and the obsession recedes. You can focus on choosing the foods that work well with your band and give your body what it needs--and let go of much of the rest.

Does it feel more like normal (but adjusted) life? It is far more "normal" than it ever was before. The relationship with food changes--but it doesn't stop being pleasurable. I am still able to eat in a restaurant with no problem (even though my doctor's recommended plan is about as stringent as they come, I have yet to encounter a restaurant menu I can't conquer without driving the server insane), I am able to attend parties, only the handful of people I have chosen to tell even know I'm banded.

It was the best thing I have ever done for myself.