starting over with lapband

[CS2388 7]

I think I have found my home on this thread. My name is Laura' date=' and I was banded October 7, 2009. When I went to the first seminar I weighed 309 and was on diabetes medications. I did great the first year. I had gotten down to 240, I even weighed 237 for about a minute. I was working out, having Protein shakes for Breakfast, a yogurt snack, clear broth for lunch, and a sensible dinner. I was also going to Curves 3 times a week. Then, I don't know what happened, we went to Disneyworld, I got vertigo, started drinking soda, and bam, I have been as high as 252. For the last 2 years I have fluctuated between 245-252. When I do liquids I lose, when I eat, I don't.

My fill process has been very slow. They have never put in more than .5cc at a time. I have gone months without fills because they said I didn't need to come in. I have watched my aunt, who had surgery a year after me, drop from 240 to 160. It has been very depressing, but I will not give in.

I have watched New Toy for KT on Youtube. She is very inspirational, as is this thread. The main thing that I have learned is that the band is a tool that we have to use.

I know that I have not been using my tool. I too, have leared to eat around the band some. Ice cream goes straight through. I do have restriction with over cooked meat and some bread products. I'd like to get to the point where I cannot even put a piece of bread or baked good in my mouth.

I learned at my aunt's fill appointment with her in Oklahoma City that I shouldn't worry how much is in my band. I should listen to my body. I do envy the follow up care she has received, it even includes quarterly nutritionalist meetings. Sadly, my follow up care hasn't been as thorough.

I do have the tool. I am off of diabetes meds (for which I am eternally thankful). Now it's up to me go get my head on straight and do this thing. I have another fill tomorrow. Maybe we can find that sweet spot or green zone or whatever it is I need to work this tool.[/quote']

You can do this!! Boy, if I could take my own advice! I love my Coca-Cola. I don't do drugs but I'd say its my crack. I haven't drank any for 17 days...... It's been good though. I feel the same way about my follow-up care. In the five years I've had the band I've only had up to 2ccs. I could eat a whole platter of Alfredo. I have been self restricting for those 17 days and have lost 12 lbs. I can't wait to find my green zone. Good luck with your journey.

God Bless

Cortney

[BUNNY7 3]

You can do this!! Boy, if I could take my own advice! I love my Coca-Cola. I don't do drugs but I'd say its my crack. I haven't drank any for 17 days...... It's been good though. I feel the same way about my follow-up care. In the five years I've had the band I've only had up to 2ccs. I could eat a whole platter of Alfredo. I have been self restricting for those 17 days and have lost 12 lbs. I can't wait to find my green zone. Good luck with your journey.

God Bless

Cortney

Thanks for your encouragement... my great temptation is chocolate and boy does it go down easily!!! Do you know that both coca-cola and chocolate contain caffeine and with chocolate you get a serotonin release? No wonder they're addictive!!! Well done for losing all that weight!! Wow - I;d be totally delighted. Is there any reason why you haven;t had any more fills? I CANNOT eat more than a cup of solid food - I'm just tooooo full and want to be sick. It has made the way I view a plate of food totally different. I get the Alfredo meal - Pasta is a 'slider food' for me so I can eat way more than usual if I have it. I just try not to go there! Never heard of a 'green zone' before - what is it? Sounds like a run through the park at goal weight God bless and let's try to avoid the sliders this week.

[CS2388 7]

Thanks for your encouragement... my great temptation is chocolate and boy does it go down easily!!! Do you know that both coca-cola and chocolate contain caffeine and with chocolate you get a serotonin release? No wonder they're addictive!!! Well done for losing all that weight!! Wow - I;d be totally delighted. Is there any reason why you haven;t had any more fills? I CANNOT eat more than a cup of solid food - I'm just tooooo full and want to be sick. It has made the way I view a plate of food totally different. I get the Alfredo meal - Pasta is a 'slider food' for me so I can eat way more than usual if I have it. I just try not to go there! Never heard of a 'green zone' before - what is it? Sounds like a run through the park at goal weight God bless and let's try to avoid the sliders this week.

I have an older version of the lap band that only holds 3ccs. The green zone is basically the ideal place to be with eating. You eat the portion size you are suppose to and you don't throw up or get anything stuck. I was highly.addicted to my caffeine a few weeks ago! Had the horrible caffeine headache but now I'm okay. I don't way any "white" foods because they are too much of a temptation for me to fall back into my old habits. I'm from the south and my granny loves to cook for me.. it was always homemade buttermilk biscuits, rice, MAC and cheese, fried chicken. Basically all the things that will clog your arteries! I'm staying away from those sliders too. I love Pasta and rice but have come to the realization I can't eat that stuff!

[CS2388 7]

Thanks for your encouragement... my great temptation is chocolate and boy does it go down easily!!! Do you know that both coca-cola and chocolate contain caffeine and with chocolate you get a serotonin release? No wonder they're addictive!!! Well done for losing all that weight!! Wow - I;d be totally delighted. Is there any reason why you haven;t had any more fills? I CANNOT eat more than a cup of solid food - I'm just tooooo full and want to be sick. It has made the way I view a plate of food totally different. I get the Alfredo meal - Pasta is a 'slider food' for me so I can eat way more than usual if I have it. I just try not to go there! Never heard of a 'green zone' before - what is it? Sounds like a run through the park at goal weight God bless and let's try to avoid the sliders this week.

I have an older version of the lap band that only holds 3ccs. The green zone is basically the ideal place to be with eating. You eat the portion size you are suppose to and you don't throw up or get anything stuck. I was highly.addicted to my caffeine a few weeks ago! Had the horrible caffeine headache but now I'm okay. I don't way any "white" foods because they are too much of a temptation for me to fall back into my old habits. I'm from the south and my granny loves to cook for me.. it was always homemade buttermilk biscuits, rice, MAC and cheese, fried chicken. Basically all the things that will clog your arteries! I'm staying away from those sliders too. I love Pasta and rice but have come to the realization I can't eat that stuff!

[BUNNY7 3]

Hi Bunny. I did go back yesterday for a tiny bit more in my band. I haven't been there in well over a year.

I have a great doctor, but also just a doctor, in no way is he a mentor. I just figured this out. It was not nearly as bad as i was expecting. Other then how much I have gained back.

I was worried it might be too much, as I thought I was at my sweet spot. I think now I was having some restriction, but not enough. I should be forced to eat slow, small bites, and stop at less then a cup. That is what this band does. I was lazy and started chewing less, took bigger bites, etc. I also didn't stop in time, because in reality I was NOT satisfied.... I need to go back to the less is best motto.

Good luck. you will feel better if you make the appt. if you are over filled, they can take it right back out.,

I totally get you.... and want to encourage you as I was exactly where you are in terms of not taking it slow. Since the last fill 6 months ago it has changed. I wouldn't DARE take big bites and believe it or not I am now forced to chew slowly and small bites. If I don't the 'stuck' food feeling is horrendous and I have to leave the table and walk about. Fortunately it passes - my mind has learnt not to do that so I don;t. That's pretty amazing for me who can be soooo rebellious with food. I think I just need a tiny fill more to bring the portion size to the right amount so thank you for encouraging me. I sit in the higher range for getting to the sweet spot as my band is sitting at 9ml. Most people statistically reach that right fill at 7.5ml so you are still have a lot of lattitude which is great. I will let you know when I take the next step for the next fill. Not quite ready....

[BUNNY7 3]

I have an older version of the lap band that only holds 3ccs. The green zone is basically the ideal place to be with eating. You eat the portion size you are suppose to and you don't throw up or get anything stuck. I was highly.addicted to my caffeine a few weeks ago! Had the horrible caffeine headache but now I'm okay. I don't way any "white" foods because they are too much of a temptation for me to fall back into my old habits. I'm from the south and my granny loves to cook for me.. it was always homemade buttermilk biscuits, rice, MAC and cheese, fried chicken. Basically all the things that will clog your arteries! I'm staying away from those sliders too. I love Pasta and rice but have come to the realization I can't eat that stuff!

That was a quick reply Well I'm also from the South - South Africa and we have our own dietry bad habits. Red meat, rice and potatoes in huge quantities. We're a meat eating nation and barbecues are a way of life. Well done for realising what the cholestral does - I have a high cholestral count and am permanently on meds for it. You are making such a great choice - you must miss the fried chicken. We have Kentucky Fast food here but you southern fried chicken is probably way tastier. I also avoid it as it's just loaded with everything we bandsters are avoiding. I have just made a huge pot of vegetable and lean meat Soup which is a Godsend when I'm feeling hungry and deprived - it satisfies both needs.

[AquarianCrab 8]

All I can say is "wow". I also need to start over. I was banded 1/10/11 and lost 90 lbs. Then came Christmas. I thought, ok, it's a holiday, a few Cookies won't hurt me. Well, those few Cookies reignited my sugar fire with a vengeance. I just haven't been able to go a day without sugar since. I've regained 20 lbs. My surgeon is not happy with me. I've been ok with the slow loss, especially since I went from taking 9 pills a day to only 2. No more diabetes. So, even with the 20 lb. gain, it's a success story. But now my clothes are getting tight, and I've given away everything larger. So I need to get back on track. Listening to all of you that have also gone through a gain is encouraging.

I, too, am having difficulty understanding my band. Some days I can eat 3 slices of pizza with no problems, and other days I puke after 3 bites. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to what I can and can't tolerate. It's always different. Rice or bread is ok one day, not the next. It's gotten to where I hate to cook anything because I never know if it will go down or get stuck. That led to me eating smoothies for lunch so I wouldn't puke at work. They also fed the sugar monster within me.

Now I'm newly retired, so I have no reason to eat out and every reason to eat healthy. I also have the time to exercise (which, to me is a fate worse than death - I absolutely HATE it). So here's to me, for success in starting over. My self-imposed homework: Step One, re-read all of the information books that I got during my pre-surgery visits.

My present weight is 212 (down from 286). I will check back here often for more words of encouragement and post my weight again in one month.

Denise

[brenty 27]

I think it's important to remember that, while we have a lot in common, everyone is unique. What 'clicks' for me may not hit the spot for you.

My wife smoked for 15 years and tried to quit at least 5 times that I'm aware of (and I haven't known her all that time!) My struggle with food and managing my weight is the closest I can come to understanding what that must have been like for her, but in the end we both did it.

Never give up! You just have to keep trying until you find what works for you. It is worth it. YOU are worth it!

Personally, it was a matter of changing my unhealthy habits to healthier ones over time. If I moved too quickly, I just got frustrated and ended up back at square one.

Weighing myself every day and logging my food and exercise allowed me to identify patterns -- both good and bad -- and make adjustments to get more of the results I wanted and avoid setbacks as much as possible.

This was a lot of 'two steps forward, one step back', but over time I could see that I was getting somewhere...which motivated me to try even harder.

Sure, I'd screw up sometimes. I still do. But I don't have to do it every day. I know that if I mess up today and eat too much of things I shouldn't that I just need to try harder tomorrow and the next day.

We all lose some battles, but if we keep at it and we'll win the war!

[BackInTheSaddle 9]

Post Preview

Absolutely: don't despair or give up! This has been an amazing and very interesting journey....I may have 15-20 lbs to "re-lose" [and still 25 or so more to get to goal] but I still consider my weight loss a huge success overall.

For me, the first year was the quickest and most weight loss, then more gradual after that. Before the surgery, I read and researched a LOT, and so I felt pretty prepared. One of the "downers" [at least I thought so at the time, but it so was not a downer, in the long run] of what I read was that one book talked about "success" with a lap band being a loss of 50% of the excess weight. Well, phooey, I thought, when I figured that out, being then at 280 lbs with a goal of 150, or a hopeful loss of 130 lbs. [which seemed insurmountable at the time....I was convinced that I would be the one person in the world for whom this surgery wouldn't work].

So, 50% of 130 would be a loss of 65 lbs, and this particular bariatric center writing the book would think I was a success, and anything else would be gravy [always with the food images, of course.] Big Whoop.

But when I actually HAD lost that 65 lbs I was amazed that it was such a huge difference, physically, mentally, in all ways. While I certainly wanted to lose more, some part of me also knew that yes, this WAS a success, and that if for some reason that was it for the weight loss, I could live with it, and feel good about it. [And then I gradually just kept losing weight, which was of course very satisfying, regardless of what I just said!]

Sometimes, especially in that first year, I felt as though learning to live with my LapBand was like learning to live with an infant, who quickly became a cranky toddler, who could be sweet as could be at times and an unpredictable demon at other times. I had to learn to figure out the subtle signals [to avoid the temper tantrums], couldn't imagine how this could POSSIBLY make me throw up, when yesterday I ate that just fine, and so on. And just like with a child, might love him/her dearly, but some days leaving that wee beastie on someone else's doorstep seemed like a good idea. :wub:

Portions: ha! It took forever to figure out, and BELIEVE, that that itty bitty thing on my plate would be ENOUGH, certainly I needed to fix TWO hamburgers, plus fries, that's what my mind told me, even if yesterday I could only eat less than a half of one, and had felt full and satisfied. Talk about a learning curve: sometimes it was a steep one, and sometimes it was flat, and sometimes I didn't seem to be learning a darned thing. <img src='http://cdn.lapbandtalk.com/public/style_emoticons/default/colorful/mad2.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':mad3:' />

It took a while to realize that this wasn't going to be a finite project, with surgery done, lose weight, then forget about it and on with life. It continues to be a day to day process, just like living with a child. A pain at times, but so worth it in the long run. [And it is soooooo nice to be able to buy clothes without any X's in the size!].......Diane

[BackInTheSaddle 9]

I know this is an old Thread but THANK YOU! You're so right! Relating the band &this journey to my toddler made a so much sense to me & really put things in perspective! I've been afraid to get a fill (sadly because I didn't want to not be able to eat this or that) but that's why I have the band to help me control my portions! Boy oh boy this whole thing really is a mental struggle for me more than anything!!!

[lmccrn62 0]

I liked reading this thread let me realize my journey is no different than anyone else. It will be 2 yrs in December since I was banded. I lost 40 lbs initially then had foot surgery due to severe foot pain. It laid me up for 4 months and used that excuse not to exercise. Life has continued to be complicated and using slider foods to cope. I started back getting on track and now have severe pain in my other foot. I know I can't continue to let my feet to be an excuse for not exercising. I need a plan and get myself together.

[BackInTheSaddle 9]

I liked reading this thread let me realize my journey is no different than anyone else. It will be 2 yrs in December since I was banded. I lost 40 lbs initially then had foot surgery due to severe foot pain. It laid me up for 4 months and used that excuse not to exercise. Life has continued to be complicated and using slider foods to cope. I started back getting on track and now have severe pain in my other foot. I know I can't continue to let my feet to be an excuse for not exercising. I need a plan and get myself together.

[BackInTheSaddle 9]

Have you tried Water aerobics? It's a ton of fun & no stress to the joints... I enjoyed it because it didn't effect the severe arthritis in my ankle. Just a thought way to go getting back in track though... I think that's the first step, accepting the fact it's time for change. You can do it!!!