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6 months and a week ago, i had no health problems even with a 47 BMI - BUT i felt so disgusting. I hated clothes. I wore things just to hide myself. I knew I had a pretty face but that all others saw was the fat. Today, 6 months after surgery and 88 pounds later, I feel INCREDIBLE. i am all about what i'm wearing, my make up, I feel just plain unstoppable. I want you to know that yes there can be complications. I have experienced none so far (truly this is thanks to GOD and following my surgeon's instructions) - but they can happen. I am very, very sorry I did not do this 10 years ago (I'm 38). But i cannot dwell on that. This is a LIFE CHANGING thing if you let it be. I truly wish all of you the best of luck in your decision and if you have the surgery - the best of luck on your journey. It TRULY is a journey. God bless us all!!!!

Laying in bed this morning and my arm hits something on my leg...I think to myself...what the hell? Turns out I have a hip and leg bone that has been hiding in my thigh for at least 3 decades. Needless to say it's pretty cool to find all these bones that have always been there but have been hiding...collar bones, shoulder bones, now hip bones...oh and I am even seeing ankles too, real ankles and not cankles. Just thought I would post this in my blog today. Feels good.

Im confused why some people are continuing to stay on this website when they SAY "the band didn't work". It looks like they are here to cause trouble and bash the band? If you SAY the BAND is the reason you didn't lose weight. Then move on. right? Not that I can say leave, because obviously I can't and wouldn't do that . But i've noticed the same person going post to post arguing with people. Honestly, how do we know the band is preventing you from losing weight? How do we know you didn't eat right ? Just saying. The band helps with over eating. It does not make you lose weight. They don't place the band and the weight just comes off. It's all about your diet. Sounds like some one needs something to blame it on. Im new WITH the BAND, but im not NEW when it comes TO the band. Ive done a lot of research on the Band.

Dear Food, I know you think I'm stupid for talking to you because...well, you're food and you can't hear me. I just want to tell you that it's been quite a ride these last 42 years. We've had our ups and ups and ups and ups and downs and ups and ups. It's time for our relationship to change. I'm not breaking up with you, because I still need you to live, however, our relationship has to change now. And really....believe me when I say...It's not you. It's me. I'm the one with the problem, so don't ever blame yourself. You're really sweet. And salty. And delicious...OH WHAT AM I SAYING....how can we ever part?? NO!! We must part for a time. Two weeks- no more than five, I promise. When we come back together- things will be different. You must hide your sweetness from me. Don't tempt me further with your refinements. I want to see the REAL you....the one with all the vitamins and minerals and protein...yes...I said protein. Hey, I told you things were going to change. And for pete's sake, stop bringing your friends around! But don't worry...you'll always have a place...sorta...close to my heart... No, I didn't have a mental break. I start liquids Monday. (siiiigh)

I was also feeling really gross about my appearance. I was tired of hearing "you have such a pretty face". In my head, I was hearing "you have such a fat ugly body". Its only been about 5 weeks since my surgery and since then I've lost a few lbs, hired a personal trainer and work out 3 x per week. Even though its clear that I have an incredibly long journey ahead of me, I'm feeling so psyched that I've finally started the journey. It feels so good to be doing something about my fitness and my health instead of just feeling horrible about myself. I was not expecting to feel better about my appearance before losing a significant amount of weight but here I am feeling great just because I'm taking action and doing something about it. I'm not sure how I'm going to feel after the first "dreaded fill" but I'm up for the challenge. I already feel more confident and attractive and wore 2 dresses to work this week that I have not been able to fit for OVER 2 YEARS!!

I had surgery on March 8, 2011. I have been working my a** off (literally!) I am so proud of myself - I will say it because I deserve it! I have a good restriction right now. I watch my calories but, honestly not too strict with it. I eat low carb, high Protein, don't do bread or Pasta at all. I don't deprive myself, if I want something I have it. A small portion of it. I started working out about 8 weeks after surgery. I work out 4-5 days a week, two of those days with a trainer. I love it. I went from a tight size 26/28 to a 16 (!!!!). I started this journey at 371lbs and now weigh 256lbs. I want to get under 200 and then I will decide on a goal weight. I wanted to share some pictures to show my progress. I love my band! Sorry if the pictures are huge - I was having trouble resizing!!! Before (02/2011) During (Thanksgiving 2011)

Well I'm totally committed (or my husband would say I need to BE committed!) to exercising. I know that the scale staying at 18lbs lost for a week was because I needed to get up and shake what my momma gave me! I am doing Zumba on Tuesdays/Thursdays, but I was searching for something I could do at home. Low and behold, I bought the Just Dance 3 for the Wii. HIGHLY recommend! Everynight when my hubby goes to bed I get my controller strapped on to my wrist and I go to town. I'm sure if anyone was videotaping me I would go viral instantly because I'm sure that is a funny site to see! It actually lets you keep track of your week and your "sweat points". Not sure really what that means, but I'll take it! NSV of the week: Going back to work and having two boxes of Krispy Kreme GLAZED donuts on the table and not even having a desire to eat one!

As much as I love my band, I have to say that it's a fickle mistress. It can take several fills to achieve optimal restriction, and then as you lose weight and the fat surrounding your inner organs (including your stomach) shrinks, your band will feel looser so you'll need more fill. Also, restriction can be affected by the time of day, the climate, medications, allergies, hormones, and the position of Mars in the sky. You'll feel more restriction when you're making healthy food choices of SOLID foods, less restriction when you're choosing to eat soft and slider foods (some of which are healthy, like yogurt, but a lot of them are high-calorie and nutrient-poor, like ice cream and potato chips). We're all sick of dieting by the time we have WLS, but in a sense success with the band does involve dieting. Your band can't make good food choices for you, it can't make you exercise, it can't make you say no to trigger foods. That's all up to you. I'm over 4 years post op, 2 lbs. below my goal weight, with excellent restriction, and I still have to work on all of that in order to maintain my weight loss. It's a lifetime project. Finally I have to say: just because you can eat anything or overeat doesn't mean you should. Overeating can indeed stretch your pouch and/or esophagus and it can indeed cause your band to slip. Nowadays self-control seems to be a no-no word, but portion control is up to you, at least until you learn your soft stops. Your band won't ring a bell or flash some lights when it's time for you to stop eating. You have to eat slowly and pay close attention to how you feel as you eat. Soft stops are usually subtle - a hiccup, a sneeze, a sigh, a burp, an urge to clear your throat. If you eat through that kind of signal, looking for your pre-op sense of satiety (what I call "Thanksgiving dinner Full"), you'll go on struggling indefinitely. Success with the band is a lot of work. Although it's possible that you've stretched your pouch, only an upper GI study can prove that. If you go on overeating, it'll just make the situation worse. So I suggest that you make yourself do the evil D word (diet) for a week, pay very close attention to your satiety signals, keep a food log including the times of your meals or Snacks so you can get a handle on how long your satiety lasts, and only then go back to your bariatric surgeon to discuss another fill. Jean

I'm one day post-op and I feel like a million bucks. I'm sore of course, but I haven't taken any pain medicine all day - I figure if my menstrual cramps were this bad, I wouldn't take pain meds for them, so why for this? All in all, I feel pretty good - its hard to get comfortable for me because i'm a stomach sleeper - well - at least I won't be for a while. We checked in at the hotel and its a beautiful room - just kinda haning out - hubby is snoozing - I took a little nap. Time seems to crawl by - I have to be back at the clinic for a checkup at 5- they come to get us. I swear if the peope at the clinc were any nicer, they'd melt in the rain like sugar. I can't get over how they are so genuinely sweet. They don't condescend to you, they don't forget about you. They're really there to take care of you. I'm now to the point where I can sip water, but I still feel pretty hydrated from the iv's. I cannot wait to take a shower. Hopefully that will be tonite. I'm still a little gassy, but nothing spectacular. I'm hoping to sleep through the night, but don't have any expectations to. Again, that's just me - I'm an insomniac. Oh - and everyone at the clinic is just gorgeous. Inside and out.

So one of the things I'm still working on figuring out nearly 8 weeks after banding is what foods are worth it for me to eat. This is a new equation in my life. Before banding, I just ate. Half the time I didn't think about what I was putting in my mouth (if I did, I would have lived in a state of perpetual self-disgust) and the other half, I just didn't care. I was already fat and unhealthy, so why stress about the food that was making me that way? Clearly, I was eating too many calories, but now I'm realizing that the amount of calories I was eating may have mattered less than whether those calories were worth eating. What I mean by that is that as I make better, more sensible food choices, it is becoming clearer to me that "real food" is much more satisfying than the alternatives. "Real food" is a hot topic these days. You can find whole books about it in your local bookstore, whole pages of books on the topic, if you cruise through Amazon. For my purposes, though, when I talk about real food, I'm referring to anything that isn't processed or prepackaged. Things like eggs (pasture raised, please), meat (ditto), milk (three for three), vegetables (organic, please), fruits (yuppers), and grains (certainly in the "o" column). To many, my obsession with organics and pasture-raised animals may make me a snob or a hippie, but I'm okay with that. Even before banding, I preferred to choose those foods when possible, but now I'm realizing that the alternatives aren't worth it. I try to keep my calories at somewhere around 1000/day. I say around, because there are days I eat 850 and days I eat 1400. Mostly, I average between 1000 and 1100. Before banding, I could get 1000 calories having coffee, a piece of toast, and a single fast food sandwich, and then everything else I ate that day would be those excess calories that made me fat. Theoretically, even with the band, I could still make those food choices, but now they're just not worth it to me. Today, I would say that most of that food isn't real food, and therefore, I'd rather not eat it. This morning, I had toast and coffee for breakfast. Not the bandster's first choice, perhaps, but I find I can't eat anything too rich or too heavy in the morning without severe nausea and potential for vomiting (I've always been that way, even before banding). The difference here is that the coffee was made with real raw sugar (half a teaspoon) and organic, pasture raised half-and-half. One tablespoon of that. For a total of 37 calories. The toast was a thin slice of home-baked bread (made last night from organic flour and natural ingredients) with a teaspoon of pasture raised butter. Low in protein, but I'll have meat for lunch and dinner, so I'll have no trouble meeting my protein goal for the day. So far for the day, I've had 137 calories, less than 15% of my allowance for the day, and every single one of those calories was totally worth it. They all tasted good, none of them cost the environment more than necessary, and all of them allowed me to live with my band while feeling content and satisfied. If I'd tweaked that just a little, gotten a small nonfat latte and a bagel with non-fat cream cheese from Starbucks, for example, I'd have eaten 500 calories of food that wasn't really worth it to me. Even if the band had stopped me at half the bagel, that would still have been 250 calories (113 more than I actually ate). It would have contained less fat, but also less satisfaction and it wouldn't have tasted as good. To me, the unprocessed "real food" I ate at home was a better, healthier choice and worked with my band. True, a lot of bandsters would tell me I should have had Greek yogurt instead. Or maybe a scrambled egg. There are days when I do that, but here's my confession: I love bread. Love it. It is my favorite of all foods. I adore it more than ice cream (meh) or potato chips (one of my trigger foods and a life-long addiction for me). Give me a choice between a handful of chocolate and a piece of fresh baked bread (home-made or from a real bakery) and I will go for the bread 9-1/2 times out of 10. My brother and sister-in-law are gluten intolerant, and have cut all products containing wheat out of their diets. I'd rather cut off my own arm. Seriously, I can't live without bread. Which could be a problem for a bandster, both because of the low protein/high carb nature of bread, and because the texture of bread can have trouble passing through the band. But here's the thing. "Real" bread (the kind from the bakery or from my very own oven) passes through the band pretty well. It has fiber and texture and it tastes so good, that it's worth it to me to take small bites, chew slowly, and get it through the band. Pre-sliced generic white sandwich bread? Not real food and definitely not worth it. Also lower in fiber, higher in sugar, stickier in texture, full of chemicals, AND higher in calories. Clearly the unhealthy choice. As a bandster, I have had to reshape my priorities. Homemade bread is a priority; processed, pre-sliced bread is not. It's all about priorities. And balance. For breakfast today, I had a carb-heavy, protein-light meal. For lunch, I will have a couple of slices of roast chicken (heritage breed, pasture raised) and some veggies. Or maybe a small serving a chili with pastured ground beef. The meat cost a lot more than the supermarket alternatives, but it was locally and sustainable raised and frankly, it tastes so much better that I don't feel deprived from eating only 2-3oz of it as a time. It's so full of flavor that 2oz feels more like a meal than 6oz or the alternative. For dinner, there's either the chicken or some leftovers from an organic rabbit I stewed over the weekend in red wine and prunes. And more veggies. So worth every single calorie and so, soooooooooo satisfying. One of the reasons I got the band and not another procedure like bypass was because I wanted to be able to eat and enjoy real food, I just wanted to eat less of it. I didn't want to give up my bread (obviously) or my chocolate or my steak. I wanted a smaller slice, nibble, or cut. I'm doing that with the help of the band, and because I'm choosing real food, I'm doing it with happy tastebuds and a smile on my face. ------ I hope no one interprets this as a lecture, or me claiming to be better than anyone else. My priorities are my own. I happen to live in an area where organic, pasture raised foods are easily accessible. They're sold at my local groceries and at the weekend farmer's market in my town, less than 5 miles from my house. I also only have myself to feed and worry about. I'm not trying to budget to feed myself, a husband and three kids, let alone saving for college, paying for daycare, or providing clothes to cover bodies that seem to double in size every few months. My animals and myself are the only things I have to spend my money on, so it's easy for me to justify funding my environmental and health agenda. Everyone has to do the best they can with what they have, and no one--least of all me--should fault them for it. Make your own priorities, and then live by them. I hope it brings you the same satisfaction it brings me.