MeganA

Thanks for the kind words Darcy and Donali. Donali- I had stored my surgeon's number in my cell phone...what a life saver!!! Megan

Alexandra.... I feel exactly the same way...but I couldn't articulate it quite yet. Donali's post has had me thinking, too, and I'm so glad to know that I'm not alone in feeling like this is the rest of my life and it's ok to not have an answer when people say "how much weight do you want to loose?" Megan

Joan- I was back at work in three days...I believe there are some lifting restrictions, but laproscopic surgery makes the recovery so much easier. Every one is different- some people have severe gas pains for a few days, some people don't need any pain meds after the first day or so. Best of luck! Megan

Jonathan- I'm so sorry you're going through this! I was one of those that recovered very fast with little trouble so I can't tell you that I've been through it and know what you're going through but I wanted you to know that I'm thinking of you. As long as you are in constant contact with your doctor, and you're on fluids, I'm assuming that you aren't going to die. You may feel like it, but odds are pretty slim. I know for me that every PB I have, I get more and more swollen. I hope that once you get a tiny bit unswollen you'll be able to keep your siliva down, at least. I sure hope you are feeling better soon. Keep us posted and I'll be sure to send positive thoughts your way. Megan

FINALLY you got the help you needed. Dr. Billy sounds like a fantastic Dr. and I am so glad he took such good care of you. You deserve it! It really sounds like he is an angel and exactly what you need to get you healed up finally. Can I ask what homework he gave you? I'm on a recommittment to my band journey at the moment. Did he say anything that really hit home that all of us might benefit from? Thanks for the NSAIDs info...I hate Tylenol but it's a small price to pay. Reading everything that Penni and John have done for you is wonderful. I'm so glad she has been there for you through all of this. I'm sure there are times when you don't feel you deserve her help and love, but you do, Lisa. And Penni knows that you'll be there for her too. That's what true friends do for each other. You two are so lucky to have found each other. Feel better soon... Megan

This is just the kind of thread I need today. When I start to get discouraged, I try to get out my before photos and not only look at the difference physically, but feel how different I am inside as well. Thanks, Lisa for doing this! I've lost another 10 since this photo but I don't have a new one scanned in yet. I'll work on getting a new one scanned in this weekend. Megan

You know how sometimes the answers come to you right when you need them? This article did that for me...and there are many messages in it that we discuss here. I couldn't find a link to it, so I typed it up because I thought it was so important for everyone here to read. It's long, so grab a bottle of Water and settle in. Size and Sensibility Losing half her body weight was no picnic. But living thin—and expanding her sense of self—nearly made Frances Kuffle’s world blow up I had been summoned to The Show, the Holy Grail for authors and the fulfillment of all my mother’s dreams. In a harried day of phone calls from Chicago, at the tail end of a snowstorm, the producers of Oprah decided, with 90 minutes to catch the last shuttle out of LaGuardia, that they might want me. You’d think, on the eve of what could catapult my book to national attention, that I would be too nervous to eat. I am never too nervous to eat. As I grazed the basket of goodies in my expensive suite, I had two questions. First: Would Harpo Productions’ bean counters go over my hotel tab and ask, “Isn’t that the woman who lost all that weight? What are these charges for chocolate-covered almonds and honey peanuts doing here?” Second: Why am I eating all this stuff? I might be on TV tomorrow! What with Oprah replaying 24/7, everyone in America could count the bread crumbs on my velvet dress. So much for the can-do kid, who, after 42 years of obesity and missed opportunities, had lost 188 pounds and written a book about it. Passing for Thin: Losing Half My Weight And Finding My Self is an account of how I used my radical change in weight to turn a small, private worlds of eating and surviving into one as big as my former size 32 dresses. I climbed mountains! I swaddled myself in cashmere and had lovers; I went to Italy. I floated out of the gym after lifting weights, I sat in restaurant booths, wore bracelets, and crossed my legs and took the middle seat in airplanes. Then I used my weight loss to do the next impossible thing: I became and author. Being thin opened the doors to experience and intimacy. National exposure, however, was an intrusion I hadn’t considered. I am not a pundit or a role model. You’re going to be pilloried, Frances, I thought with the vehemence of a Sicilian curse. And yet, there I was gobbling Oprah’s $12 Cookies. I put on my pajamas and pulled back the comforter on the king-size bed. It was littered with wrappers. My cheeks were burning with shame and calories. Tomorrow, I promised myself solemnly. And when tomorrow came, I smiled and joked, and I was gracious when I wasn’t, after all, needed for the show. I ached not from disappointment but with the hangover of sugar in my muscles, the sour gas in my gut and the heartbreak of being a liar. After a failed romance and a change of jobs, I drifted into relapse in March 2003, a year before Oprah, I had time on my hands—and time, in my case, is the enemy. I filled it by studying where and how I went wrong, at the office, in the bedroom. Intellectually, I knew that the boyfriend was emotionally frozen and that my former employer was abusive and infantilizing, but I couldn’t shake my ingrained conviction that I was responsible for everything that went wrong. I stopped going to the gym: I started eating peanuts or rice cakes between meals. A little of this, a little of that, and one morning I announced to a friend that I saw no reason why I couldn’t eat blackberry pie and ice cream, get the craving out of my system and return to my abstinence by noon. I wasn’t talking about a slice of pie a la mode. I was talking about a whole pie and a pint of ice cream. A whole pie? That summer I was reminded at every turn that I needed to be thin to promote my book. “You don’t want those cookies, honey”, my mom said as I carried off a stack I’d grabbed from the cooling rack. “Remember: You’re going to be in Oprah’s Magazine.” She was wrong. I did want those cookies, and I didn’t need reminding about Oprah. I sighed and took two more. When I asked myself what I needed, I was met with an unconsoling barrage of hungers. I needed to know I was not disposable. I needed a resting place. I needed to know I had enough stuff to carry off the rest of my life—enough talent, discipline, and intelligence—and enough sufficiency to protect myself from more heartbreak. I needed enough hope to find the friends and man I mourned the lack of. From August 1999 to August 2003, I’d gambled that losing weight would get me closer to all that, and I was told what to eat in those years. Now, after three years of maintaining my weight loss, I needed to be told what to feel when everyone but me has an opinion of who I am. I knew I—not just my body but my very self—was in trouble when I brushed aside a fleeting thought about how fat I looked with the answer “Never mind. You’ll like yourself when you get thin.” How does one live with self acceptance as a future and an always-conditional state of mind? More pragmatically, in lieu of my size 8 clothes, my career depended on self assurance. When asked, I admitted that I’d gained weight, adding that I never presented myself as the poster girl of thin. I said this with poise, which is not the same thing as confidence. Poise is teachable; confidence is one of the elements missing from the periodic table, three parts self respect to two parts experience. To get to confidence, I was going to have to listen to my self-accusations and sit with the rejections. Maybe shame had something to teach me. My next recovery period from food addiction would be based on therapy, heretofore more a matter of coaching than peeling back the layers of self. My psychiatrist’s and therapist’s offices became the places I could air my feelings about myself and the hopes I could change my self-perception. “There’s no point in getting depressed just because I’m depressed” I told my psychiatrist, who increased my morning meds anyway. That October, on a blue-and-gold afternoon, I had Indian food with Lanie, a friend visiting from my hometown, Missoula, Montana. I described how depressed I was by my weight gain until she preempted me. “You’ve been very fat, Frances, and you’ve been very thin. Welcome to where the rest of us live.” I twiddled my fork in my plate of saag panir. I think of Lanie as being very tall and very thin, but a few months earlier I’d helped her pick out a dress. Her dress size was similar to what I was wearing that day. The event we shopped for had been a gathering of Montana writers, many of them old friends, all middle-aged. One had a rounder face than I remembered; another wore layers of a truly terrible print in the style that catalogs and store clerks describe as “flattering”. Someone else was still very thin but looked drawn and brittle as age caught up with her bone structure. These were woman I’d long envied for their pretty thinness, and yet I’d been less like them when I was a size 8 than I was now. At size 8, I had to admit, I was so self-conscious (and secretly, overweening proud of it) that often that was all I was. I could have programmed my answering machine to announce, “Hi, you’ve reached a size 8. Please leave a message and either the size 8 or Frances will get back to you.” None of the women at that party, or Lanie savoring her lamb jurma across from me, claimed their identities from their weights that night. They wanted to gossip, compare stories of their kids and discuss what they were writing, tell old jokes more cleverly than thy had at the last party, and sample the Desserts weighing down the potluck buffet. I was not unlike them. Smaller by a size than Lanie, larger by a size than Laura, a little fresher looking than Diane. Of the Americans who lose weight, 95 percent gain it back within five years. I had gained a third of it back. Not all of it. To some extent, I had beaten the odds. I was stronger than the echoes of the boyfriend and boss allowed me to hear. I was determined not to repeat the mistake of being, rather than having, a thin body. I’d lived through my size all of my life, so acutely aware and ashamed of my obesity that the likable things about me—my sense of humor, my intelligence, talent, friendliness, kindness—were as illusory to me as a magician’s stacked card deck. As long as I defined myself by my body size, I would not experience those qualities for myself. As fall turned to a snowy winter, I picked through the spiral of relationships that had unglued me the year before. I didn’t blame the boyfriend or my boss for my relapse. I had been half of the problem; healthier self esteem would not have collapsed under their judgments of me. In obesity, I had clamped my arms to my sides to keep from swinging as I walked. I craned my body over armrests in theaters and airplanes, stood in the back of group photos to minimize the space I took up. I got thin and continued to hide. Whatever reasons the boyfriend had come up with for not seeing me, I met with amicability and sympathy. Had I reacted honestly, even to myself, I might have ended the relationship. Instead I’d gambled all my sweetness only to find out I was disposable. Likewise, I had not pressed my boss for an agenda of responsibilities from the start, nor had I clarified with her that her work and recreation styles frustrated and frightened me. Slowly I began to find toeholds in the avalanche of food and doubt. I worried about how fat I looked to potential readers and what I could possible wear to flatter or disguise the 40 pounds I’d gained. At the same time, however, I had become the canvas of makeup artists, stylists, photographers and publicists. They weren’t looking at my stomach. “Give me a hundred-watt smile,” commanded a photographer whose censure I thought I’d seen when I walked in. I licked my teeth and flashed a grin only somewhat longer than her camera flare. “Wow.” She straightened up at the tripod. “That really is a hundred watts. These are gonna be great.”. When I saw myself in the magazine, my smile was, in fact, the focal point. When I began dating, at the age of 45, my smile was an attribute men commented on, but I hadn’t really seen it until it was emblazoned on glossy paper. It was bigger, it seemed, than my face itself. I’d been a size 8 in my author photo, taken as my food plan was wobbling but not yet in smithereens, in June 2003. I was surprised to see I still looked like….myself, apparently. The power of my smile fueled me through more publicity, giving me a sense of authentic attractiveness that allowed me to enjoy the process. When I had a couple of days in Santa Monica between readings, I had a chance to assess and absorb at my own pace. Walking along the Palisades, I admired the sea-twisted pines and pearly mist funneling out of Malibu Canyon. I felt as lucky as I had once felt by being hired, by being loved, and I felt worthy of my luck because I appreciated the prettiness of the place, the serendipity that brought me there and my particular grateful awareness that knitted the moment together. I’d tried to rob myself of that by punishing myself for the boss and the boyfriend. You should not have treated me that way, I thought. The emphasis was on “me”, and just then I knew who that was. I looked around carefully. There was a family reunion going on, or so I assumed until I got closer and realized it was cookout hosted for the park’s lost and unfound citizens. I smiled to myself. How…California. No gritty, iron-shuttered Salvation Army outposts here, no Soup and Jell-O punishment for being a bum. No siree Bob. In California, the homeless are just one more variant on the Beach Boys. I laughed out load. I’m here, I gloated. I like my own company. I was tired of the games—with food, with hiding what I looked like under big clothes and my big smile, with waiting until I was a size 8 again to like myself. I recommitted to chipping at my food addiction, but I let go of some of the rigidity I’d had in the first years of losing and maintaining my weight loss. “I want to be praised when I do things right, and I want to be forgiven when I mess up.” I told people closest to me. “And I want milk in my coffee.” It was a small list, but significant because it allowed me to fumble as I gained my momentum of eating sanely. Esteem, kindness, patience, forgiveness: By cloaking myself in these qualities, I could build a self that was not afraid of authority figures and charming men who have one eye on the door. Maybe these attributes will curb the millions of things that make me want to eat, starting with seeing my parents or returning to Montana. I turn into the kid whose mother had to make her school uniform, whose big tummy stretched the plaid into an Etcher cartoon; I became the sad, joking fat college student who was reading The Fairy Queene while her girlfriends were soaking up the half-naked wonder of being 20 years old. I think of my parents’ kitchens, and my mouth waters for gingerbread and well-buttered toast. I regress when I let people like Lanie, whose struggle is different, comment or take chare of what I eat. “That’s two Entrees, Francis,” Lanie pointed out when I said I wanted goat cheese salad and roast chicken for our first lunch together in Paris. “Oh, Well, then, I’ll have the salad I guess,” I settled, grumpily. That’s the way I eat, that’s how I lost 188 pounds; vegetables and Protein. I was allowing her to limit me to a smidgen of cheese, or insufficient vegetables, and allowing her supervision is how I got so mad--the fatal elixir of anger and crazed desire—that I bought all the chocolate in Charles De Gaulle for my untasting delectation. I am the kid who, when told not to put Beans up her nose, heads directly to the pantry. “I have got to learn to tell people to stay out of my food,” I reported to my therapist back in new York. Then again, perhaps this is an evolutionary process rather than a one-time miracle cure. In 2003, I denned up for two months in Montana and ate. In 2004, I struggled again in Montana but I also did a lot of hiking, alone with my dog and with my niece. My slow pace didn’t frustrate either of them. I went horseback riding and got a terrific tan while swimming every afternoon. My thighs did not chafe in the August heat along the Seine, and I was thrilled to cross the Appalachian Trail later that autumn. I had spells of disappointment and fear from the way I ate, but I was living in my body, on my body’s terms. It’s a small world I’ve pulled from the wrappers, boxes and crumbs in the past two years, but a very human one. I’ve seen my family, close friends and therapists hold on to the stubborn believe that I would come through this. They loved me enough to countenance my mistakes and let me start over. Each day, I venture a little farther from the safety of food, and my courage comes from understanding that I am a lot like a lot of people—a family member, a friend, a dog owner, a recidivist, a middle aged woman, a writer who got a good rhythm going and forgot to brush her hair. There is safety in numbers. Depression and relapse would have to wait for a different excuse than my size. I am ready to hope again. Frances Kuffel is the author of Passing for Thin: Losing Half My Weight And Finding My Self (Broadway books, 2004). Her website is www.franceskuffel.net

You're welcome, everybody. I'm glad you all could find something in it that resonates with you. Progress, not perfection, is so right... Megan

Six Patterns for Weight Loss Management Researchers Say Certain Habits Can Maintain Weight Loss Efforts By Kelli A. Miller WebMD Medical News Reviewed By Brunilda Nazario, MD on Tuesday, August 03, 2004 Aug. 4, 2004 -- Has dieting got you down? Concentrating more on your behavioral patterns and less on your middle may help keep off the pounds for good. A study published in the July 2004 Nursing Science Quarterly reports that 18 women who lost 10% of their body weight and kept it off for at least a year did so by embracing six behavioral patterns. Study author Diane berry, a postdoctoral fellow at Yale School of Nursing, evaluated the weight loss experiences of 20 women, aged 33 to 82, who were enrolled in Weight Watchers or Take Off Pounds Sensibly (TOPS). Berry questioned the women about their childhood, their relationships with others, stable periods of time in life, and major life-changing events. Ninety percent of the women successfully maintained a weight loss of 15 pounds to 144 pounds for a period of one to 27 years. Those who were successful exhibited six common trends. The patterns involved an initial period of chaos, followed by a time of conscious decision-making, and the development of new behaviors. In pattern one, women exhibited self-consciousness, low self-esteem, and a high sense of vulnerability before losing weight. They were also naïve regarding events that contributed to their weight gain. Pattern two involved problem recognition and a readiness to change. Making a decision to lose weight gave the women more overall energy, according to the study. Pattern three revealed the women taking control and engaging in behavior change. During this phase, women felt empowered and experienced a new sense of control over their lives in general. Pattern four showed women regularly incorporating the new behaviors into their life, such as routine exercise and food portion control. All women reported an increased awareness of food. Pattern five showed that social support was immensely valuable in reinforcing behavior change. Attending weekly weight loss meetings offered comfort and helped foster new friendships. Some women required more support than others. Pattern six brought increased self-confidence, self-esteem, and weight loss maintenance. Positive energy abounded across the group. Once women reached this step, weight loss was maintained. While many diets can help shed pounds, most provide only short-term success. Researchers say close study of the six patterns may shed new understanding on why some women can maintain weight loss while others cannot.

When I was on liquids I got the weirdest cravings for pizza and spagetti. Then I discovered that cambells Soup at hand has a pizza flavored soup...It really helped me work through some of the cravings. Now I find myself watching the food Network and reading cookbooks like they are romance novels. I'm in love with food and the idea of cooking these grandious things that I know I would take three bites of and be done with. Isn't that weird? Megan

Hot dogs are a HUGE PB issue with me. I can't eat them at all. I can eat the little smokies ones if I chew and take little tiny bites...but regular hot dogs seem to plug me up immediately. Sausage seems to be fine for me, I think the texture is different. Be careful with hot dogs- they really aren't worth the risk of Pbing. Megan

Lisa- I'm so glad you have some answers...I just wish they were different ones. I am amazed by your strength to continue on with the band even though it hurts and you don't know how long you'll be able to keep it. Your story has inspired me to not take one day with my band for granted. I hope that your wound heals up this time and the pain gets better every day. You deserve to have this band work for you after all you've been through. Thinking of you, Megan

When I was in the liquid stage it drove me crazy too...there isn't much you can do but really take it one moment at a time. Looking back, it really was one of the hardest things about having surgery. I remember a terrible taste in my mouth all the time while I was on liquids. I thought it was from all the artificial sweetners I was eating in Jello and stuff like that- but really it was ketosis and now I LOVE it when I have that taste because I know I'm loosing weight. If you can have full liquids- try drinking milk. I do that now when I get swollen or PB and it really seems to turn my hunger off. Hang in there- and don't eat anything until you are supposed to no matter what. It's a short term pain for long term gain at this point. Later you'll take comfort that your band is well healed into place. Megan

It sure sounds like you're on your way to restriction! It's funny how sometimes it takes awhile for a fill to kick in. It may not last either, so if you start to feel like you can eat more again and you are hungry- time to get another little fill!!! Megan

Kathy- thanks for the update. I am so glad you are feeling better. It's a scary thing to feel like you can't keep anything down. Every day will get better and better the more you take it easy. I'm glad to hear you can sip water- I bet this fill is going to be just fine once your swelling goes down. Hang in there... Megan

Kathy- First, if you could drink Water after the fill, you're going to be fine. You're probably just really swollen and need to give your stomach a break for a few days. I *always* have this happen after a fill. If I PB, it makes it 10 times worse because then I REALLY get swollen ( and then I have to do liquids for three days at least!!). It also didn't help that you got shocking news right after that can make you an emotional mess and that affects the band, too, as we all know. You don't need to panic and get an unfill...you worked too hard to get this fill so give it a few days. What I would recommend, as I always do when people get tight- is sip water...don't drink it. Make it warm water. No coffee or tea- could cause reflux. Sip sip sip all day long. Then eat only cream Soups for a day or two. I sound like a broken record and pretty soon everyone's going to call me "Megan the cream Soup pusher" but it worked for me so I know it works. Cream soup is heavier than water so it flows through the band without needing as much help from the esophogus. If you try this for the next few days and then go to mushies and have trouble or reflux, then I bet you do need an unfill. But for now, sip water and eat little spoonfuls of soup. keep us posted and good luck! Megan

Hi everyone...I'm curious to know what everyone thinks that follow up care SHOULD be like? What services do you wish your surgeon's office offered? What do they offer you now that you find very valuable? I have a meeting with my surgeon in a couple of weeks and I'd like to bring him information like this to help him better serve his patients. Thanks!! Megan

I have flown several times and haven't had a problem. I was at my friend's house the other day and he had a super strong magnet on his fridge that you can hardly pull off. I asked him if I could have it, and darn it if it didn't pull on my little port when I put it on my tummy! It didn't stick, but it sure felt cool and was a great party trick. Megan

Michelle, Welcome to the board. I had lots of questions, too, when I started out my journey so don't be afraid to ask. As far as having the band removed- yes that can happen if there are complications such as erosion (where the band migrates into the stomach) or severe slippage (the stomach comes through the band). These are very rare but can happen. In such cases, the band is removed and the patient's stomach heals. In some cases a band can be placed again. This is the most severe of the complications. In RNY complications are generally much more severe and life threatening. As far as eating with pain all the time- there is a period of time when eating is painful because you are learning how to eat all over again. It is not painful ALL the time- just when you eat too fast, don't chew enough, or don't stop when you should. I've been banded for 14 months and have lost 60 pounds. I am a very slow loser- and the holidays haven't helped much. I'm back on track though, and that's the very best thing about the band- you can start over any time you want by making good food choices. You won't find a lot of people on this board who think the RNY is the way to go- and on RNY boards they won't think the band is the way to go either- so really it just comes down to which lifestyle change you are willing to make, and what sort of complications you are willing to risk. Best of luck, and ask more questions if you have them! Megan

Jonathan- Don't beat yourself up for gaining the weight back...now is the time to be thinking only positive, looking forward thoughts. You sure are a cutie. You don't happen to be single do you :-) Megan

I would have to dig up some old studies that I looked at when I was concidering the band, and I just moved so it's unlikely I'd find them quickly...but I know that the average is 75% after three years. The key is the three years part. A lot of surgeons try to compare the bypass and the band- in a year a bypass patient typically looses 75% of their excess weight. Bandsters do too- it just takes us three years instead. Don't be discouraged. You get out of the band what you put into it! Megan

Donali- How I've missed the sunshine you always bring with you! Although I know that you are struggling with your weight and I can imagine how hard it is to deal with all those habits without the band...you still always amaze me with your positivity. Thanks so much for checking in. I guess I assumed that since we hadn't heard from you that things must be going very well for you. I'm glad it's true. You deserve to be happy. And happiness has not a whole heck of a lot to do with the numbers on a scale!!! Love, Megan

Great question!! I don't think I really understood my preband relationship with food until I was banded. I didn't really realize that I binged and gorged. I mean, I weighed 308 pounds so I knew I had a pretty crappy relationship, but I didn't really "get" where I was with food. Now that I have been banded...I realize that with any stressful situation- be it happy/sad good/bad I want to eat. I can be in pretty big denial about how something in my life is affecting me...but now the band tells me. I have to deal with the issue because I can't just eat something and feel better - or at least numb. The biggest change with my relationship with food is that I no longer eat Pasta and potatoes when I am stressed. My band doesn't allow it. But I have noticed that I am able to eat candy and Cookies with no problem- so sometimes I find that I am binging on those items. I am currently trying hard to not eat those things for a week to cleanse my system of all the sugar and I can't believe what a hold it has on me. What the band has also taught me is that I have a very slow metabolism. I am a slow looser even though I have significantly cut my calories down and I choose healthier foods. Before the band I would have given up a long time ago because I "Wasn't losing weight" but I didn't really realize that each pound adds up. Megan

Sheryl- You don't have to feel alone in your struggle! That's the best part of this forum...there are people at all different stages of banding and all different emotional stages after banding. We're almost band sisters- I had mine placed on 10/15/03. And Ilive in Minnesota. I'd be more than happy to chat with you on the phone (email me for the number) or meet you for a cup of coffee sometime. This journey really is about a whole lot of moments of starting new. I don't know what your doctor recommended..but here's my story and what has worked for me. I went through a period where I PBed ALOT. Almost every meal. It's kind of a viscious cycle.. once you PB, the stomach gets irritaed and swollen and it doesn't take much to do it again...and again...and again. But YOU"RE HUNGRY!!! So you push it because you're either really hungry or head hungry and all the stress of PBing is making you think you are a failure so you need to eat more to make THAT pain go away but the band won't let you. The very first thing I'd say is to get the PBing under control. You can do that in just a few days (since you're band is in ok shape). I'd recommend taking two days on liquids. Soups- especially yummy creamy ones- treat yourself to all the Soups you usually don't "let" yourself have. Let your stomach rest. After two days, go to mushy for a day or two. Then go to real food. But cut everything up into bites like you'd feed a toddler. Measure out portions. If you need a fill you are going to be able to eat more than what your doctor probably wants you to but that's ok!!!! You're stop signal may not be working right because of the PBing...you have to work towards getting to know what it is again. And if you feel like you want to keep eating after your band has obviously told you to stop...walk away from your plate...but keep it out. Don't put it in the fridge, or in the trash, etc. Leave it out so you feel like as soon as that stop signal goes away you can have more. I find that I've usually gotten so busy doing something else that I forget that I wanted more. Or- I'm satisfied and it doesn't look good anymore. I don't know why, but my brain wants whatever I can't have worse than anything I can. I've used this trick a lot- and sometimes I go back and have a few more bites but most of the time I'm fine with what I ate before. Once you haven't PBed in awhile (I'm sure your doctor and you discussed this) then go in and get a fill. This will significantly help the hunger issue and then you can concentrate on loosing weight. You are not a failure in the least. You are fully cabable of getting yourself back on track. I would say that your focus should not be on loosing weight at this time (what? But that's why I got the band!) instead it should be on getting healthy. Making sure you have a HEALTHY stomach and band. There is plenty of time to loose weight. Just my two cents...hang in there. You aren't alone in your struggle!! Megan

On the Pill? Extra Weight Ups Pregnancy Risk Obese Women Get Less Birth Control Pill Protection Check it out at : http://webcenter.health.webmd.netscape.com/content/article/98/105012.htm All I have to say is there but for the grace of God have I gone ....oooh eee. Megan