I've gained 15 pounds

[Debbydo 0]

Phyllis,

I am so there with you!!!!!!!! I was hoping to find someone here in the same boat as I am although it's not a very good space.

I have been back on the wagon so to speak for just a few days now and it has been very emotional.

I feel strong, determined and weak all at the same time.

Hang in there.

Debby

[sunshinenh 0]

I am also feeling your pain. I have gained back 28 lbs. I keep giving myself excuses, work is stressful, I'm PMS, etc. Feel like I took a 6 month leave of my band. Am trying to regain my focus but it is a daily battle. I saw a psychologist and find that she did help with some great tools, but like the band - you have to use the tools. Be patient with yourself. I am rediscovering what a fantastic friend my band can be. I took a leave, but my band didn't go anywhere.

[lrw26 0]

You can find research that says the band is not effective and you can find the same for counseling. If you look hard enough there are opinions that will suit you.

You don't know whether counseling will work, trying could not hurt. As someone said it is another tool. I also think that the band can fail if we have not dealt with WHY we eat to begin with. I have been through lits of therapy before the band and I think I know why I ate and am now able to deal with it and just KNOW that I cannot do what I used to do. Even with the band we are stuck with the same feeling that made us eat.

Just think what a shame it is to waste such a wonderful tool, the expense the frustration etc etc...

Please site your references for this research. I'm very interested to see it.

[princess_n_thep 2]

Yep, I am guilty too of falling off the band wagon. chocolate was my culprit, goes down soooooooo smooth when it melts in your mouth. I was also doing a lot of drinking my calories in shakes and such. Damn Sonic!!! Anyways, I gained back 15 lbs I had lost. I am trying to get back into motivation. I used all of the excuses too, wintertime, PMS, stress at work, kids, etc etc. Time for me to take control again. No worries, the next band wagon will be there to pick me up again!!! And they will pick you up too! Just hop on!

[Debbydo 0]

Well , thats about 4- 5 of us soooo we are definetly not alone. I am trying so hard to exercise. The walking is helping me stay out of the refridgerator at the very lease.

I found myself passing the frig and looking in for some snack - I came up stairs and went on line to lapband to regain my strengh and change my tempting location.

chocolate is EVIL!!!

[Alexandra 55]

Thanks Alexandra for your kind words of encouragement. I am really struggling and DO NOT WANT to gain more weight. Sometimes I just feel defeated and want to give up, but again I know I can't. Do you think a psychologist would help? You had your band removed. How are you doing now? Will you have another band at a future time?

Phyllis

Phyllis, I'm right now in crossed-fingers maintenance mode, trying not to gain weight before I can be re-banded in a month or so. I don't have any pipe dreams that a new band will help me lose the 50 lbs I have on me that the medical community would call "excess weight" but I am hopeful it will make the lifelong task of maintaining my weight a bit easier. Constantly clenched jaws do not make for a sensible approach to dieting.

Only you can decide if therapy can help. Personally, I've never partaken professionally but I've done a lot of soul searching. What I find hardest is taking the certain knowledge that: a) I am not hungry, and :Banane43: this next bite is unnecessary and possibly harmful , and adding them up into c) I WILL NOT PUT IT INTO MY MOUTH. I'm trying to break down the disconnect between A/B and C so that I can create a connection that will stick with me. WHY is it so hard to remember NOT to eat something? My brain simply doesn't seem to access the control button until AFTER the extra calories have gone into my mouth. Am I distracted? Self-destructive? Unconscious? Stupid? In denial? What???

I don't really think I'm an emotional eater, except on the rare occasions when I consciously know that I feel [insert emotion here] and want [insert activity here] to counteract the emotion. For me that activity is just as likely to be shopping or calling a friend as it is eating, though, so it's not a major source of my excess intake.

When I do get a grip of the thought process going on, I have found that there is a sense of entitlement at work--like "I can have this, I'm an adult, no one can tell me I can't..." Rationally I know I need to have another conversation with myself about the UP side of not eating something I COULD eat. The self-talk about entitlement is working at cross-purposes with my goal to improve my health, and I am the loser. That's an ongoing challenge for me, day after day after day. And I look forward to having a band at my side to help with that challenge by giving me other reasons to put the food down.

[WASaBubbleButt 41]

Alexandra...

(btw, that's the name of one of my dogs (Alex for short), I like that name)

I remember when I first moved out of my parents home into my own. I was a whopping 17 years old. It dawned on me that for the first time everything that was in the frig was stuff I liked. I liked it all, no more wading through blue cheese (gahhh), cucumbers and onions soaking in vinegar (blahhh), leftover squid (Ewww), cooked runny spinich sitting in a puddle of butter and vinegar (Yechhh), and other assorted gross stuff.

The concept that EVERYTHING in MY frig was stuff I liked should have been my first clue of what life was to bring in a few years~ LOL

Would it help any if instead of denying yourself and saying you will put the food down... would it help if you reminded yourself that while you don't need it now, you can have it later? Such as a next meal? That's my saving grace. I no longer feel like I am depriving myself. I might not need it today but perhaps tomorrow. It's a head game I play on myself and it works. I'm not saying I can't have it, I'm telling myself it will save and I can have it later.

Just a thought.

I don't know what the future will bring me regarding my own band so I have been watching everything you are writing about this time frame when you don't have a band. I'm already practicing if I lose my own.

[Alexandra 55]

Would it help any if instead of denying yourself and saying you will put the food down... would it help if you reminded yourself that while you don't need it now, you can have it later? Such as a next meal?

That's exactly what my band allowed me to do, constantly and effortlessly. Without it, this is not a thought that occurs to me. Not in time, anyway. :rolleyes

[Lap_dancer 8]

Alexandra...

(btw, that's the name of one of my dogs (Alex for short), I like that name)

I remember when I first moved out of my parents home into my own. I was a whopping 17 years old. It dawned on me that for the first time everything that was in the frig was stuff I liked. I liked it all, no more wading through blue cheese (gahhh), cucumbers and onions soaking in vinegar (blahhh), leftover squid (Ewww), cooked runny spinich sitting in a puddle of butter and vinegar (Yechhh), and other assorted gross stuff.

The concept that EVERYTHING in MY frig was stuff I liked should have been my first clue of what life was to bring in a few years~ LOL

Would it help any if instead of denying yourself and saying you will put the food down... would it help if you reminded yourself that while you don't need it now, you can have it later? Such as a next meal? That's my saving grace. I no longer feel like I am depriving myself. I might not need it today but perhaps tomorrow. It's a head game I play on myself and it works. I'm not saying I can't have it, I'm telling myself it will save and I can have it later.

Just a thought.

I don't know what the future will bring me regarding my own band so I have been watching everything you are writing about this time frame when you don't have a band. I'm already practicing if I lose my own.

ACK! This was funny but squid? ACK!:guess My mother and father were both southern born and bred. They had catfish fries where everyone and their third cousin came to our house. The smell of catfish cooking drove me to my room where I burned cherry incense.

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Alexandra I wish you the best. Keep on doing whatever you need to do. What fits one may not fit the other.

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