eatoandc

I agree hazel now when I go out I just ask for the meat instead of the whole thing lol... Some look at me weird but I don't see the sense in wasting bread...just might as well not use it. I use to love sandwiches but now it just seems easier to leave the bread alone (because its a hassle and hurts not because I want to) and just eat them meat. Bread was my biggest enemy though...I'm kind of glad it gets stuck.

Had my last visit today! It's been a long 6 months and I know the next 2-4 weeks are gonna drag on waiting for insurance approval:( here's to a quick and good response!

Insurance companies differ in the way they require information from everyone. Even if it's the same company there could be different tiers of coverage that have different requirements.
The best thing to do is to call your insurance company and then give them what they ask for. Sometimes the surgeon's office will find out for you.
I like to take an active role in finding out what's needed and getting it to the right places, sometimes there are so many moving parts to getting this done, it can get complicated. I kept a file for myself of all my medical records and tests just in case something was missing I had a copy of it

Thank y'all that helps I think I'm just getting a little anxious!!

Hope it goes well! I have appointment with the surgeon next week! I used to be hyperthyroid and had an ablation so now I'm on the other end... One reason it's so hard for me to lose weight.

Thank y'all that helps I think I'm just getting a little anxious!!

In fall of 2011 I was kicked off a roller coaster because the safety bar would not secure because I was too fat. It was the most humiliating thing ever! My son was so upset that we couldn't ride and I felt like the worlds worst mom. Well today we went back and I rode that coaster with my kids!!! Happiest day ever!

In the cart behind my minis! This is living!

In 5 weeks I have lost 20 pounds!! I had my second fill last week so I'm expected to lose another 3 lbs this coming week before my third fill in 2 wks. Feeling great!!

Not so glum chum! I think a majority of people who have gone through this process felt the same way. I know I did. You have chosen a GREAT time of your life to do this, I wish it would have been an option for me at your age - I would have gone for it in an instant. The time is right because:
Your weight hasn't begun affecting your health.
Your body can recover from damage that was done from carrying extra weight.
You'll feel better.
You'll look better.
Your self esteem will skyrocket.
You'll have greater career opportunities.
When it's time to become a mommy, your baby will be healthier.
You'll be able to enjoy theme park rides.
You'll want to do things you were afraid to do before.
You will be more confident.
You will inspire others.
You'll like buying clothes much more.
Your clothes will be cuter.
You will have a sense of accomplishment.
You will feel more in control of your eating.
You will be motivated to try other new things.
You'll get to know some awesome new people...like me!
Is that enough? If not, I have more...we can do this all day girlfriend.

It took exactly 2 weeks for my approval w UHC!
Sent from my iPhone5 using LapBandTalk

Hi! I just wanted to remind everyone that it depends on your employer. For example, two people can have united health care, but have totally different plans, even if its in the sae state, etc. is your employer self insured? ( they just pay uhc to administer the plan)? That makes a difference.
If your employer provides you with a benefits advocate ( growing in popularity) that person can be very helpful Also, ask your employer ( or spouses if covered through spouse) for a copy ( electronic copy preferably ) of the SPD ( summary plan description) of your particular plan. That way, you can find the requirements yourself and use segments from the SPD should an appeal be necessary. Again, if your employer offers a benefits advocate, they deal with stuff all the time and can be helpful ( I am one for a major US corporation) .
You never know when your denial can be based on something as simple as the wrong CPT code etc.... Or many times, you the insured gets a denial letter bc " additional information needed". Simply contact your insurance company and ask what info? Write down exactly what they say, write down date and time, as well as name of rep spoken with, then call your provider and ask them to resubmit with the exact information required.
Again, if your employer provides someone like me, use them......they deal with insurance all day everyday and its their job to help you.....for me, it's also my pleasure

Wow lucky you! I am doing the waiting game now for ins to approve!! Good luck and keep us updated!!!

SEPTEMBER 17TH!!! Two weeks. They called me today!! YAY! I'm ecstatic. Nerves will probly start tomorrow, lol.

Well it's been a year. A very triumphant year if I may say so myself. I have lost 80 pounds and even though I have hit a plateau I have no doubt I will break through it soon.
So much has changed...I went from sporadically active to exercising 6 days a week. I actually haven't missed a workout this entire year. I have NEVER been that committed to exercise...EVER!!!
I don't really eat carbs, especially doughy ones. I watch my calories and track them. I choose Protein before other types of food.
I went from wearing a size 20/22 to a 12 or 13 depending on women's or juniors. My tops and dresses are now medium instead of XXL. I can actually confidently by clothing without trying it on and it fits. I wear a bikini...been a really long time since that one happened last. My addiction to shoes and clothing (and don't forget accessories) is getting worse but it really is oh so fun.
I am more active with my kids. I don't wake up with aches and pains. The mattress I thought was horrible is actually quite comfortable now. ???¯ And let's not leave out how amazing my sex life with hubby is now ???œ
I have lost 12 inches in my waist, 9 in hips, over 4 in each thigh, almost 3 in each arm and sadly 6 in my boobies (but I would look weird if they hadn't shrunk too).
I know I have been absent lately but I wanna thank all the wonderful people on this site for their continuing support and wish everyone just starting this journey luck. The journey is what you decide to make of it. You can do it!!!
Thanks for letting me brag

Are you a member of the clean plate club? Perhaps a lifetime member? Perhaps even its president?


I belonged to the CPC (Clean Plate Club) for over 50 years, so I consider myself something of an expert on it (and I am, after all, The World’s Greatest Living Expert on Everything). I thought it was a lifetime membership, but my bariatric surgeon rescued me from the CPC Cult – oh, excuse me, Club - and deprogrammed me so that I’m able to function more or less like a normal person now. Here’s my story.
I was inducted to the CPC as a child, when I was too young to realize that the promise of going to heaven if I always cleaned my plate was a bit more complicated than it sounded at the time. All I wanted to do at the time was to please the cult leaders: my mother and my grandmother.
I have reason to believe that my grandmother, whom I called Dranny, was the original founder of the CPC. Orphaned as a small child, she was passed around the family like a piece of unwanted furniture, and she raised her own children during the Great Depression. Through the combination of those circumstances and her own peculiar (and wonderful) character, Dranny was a pack rat. She didn’t live in filth and disorder (just the opposite, actually), but she couldn’t bear to throw anything away, especially not food. If three green peas were leftover from a meal and she hadn’t been able to persuade someone to eat them, she would lovingly place them in a custard cup covered with a shower-cap style cover (this was in the days before Glad Wrap), and store them in the fridge, where they would remain until someone ate them (or my mother threw them out while Dranny was in another room).
I’m a lot like my grandmother in various ways, and also something of a pack rat. So after eating my way through hundreds of childhood meals with Dranny and my mom (who was not a pack rat, but who was offended by the idea of wasting food that she’d worked so hard to procure and prepare), I emerged into adolescence with warring impulses – part of me still wanted to clean my plate, and part of me wanted to starve so that I could lose weight and be as skinny as the British supermodel, Twiggy.
101 WAYS TO CLEAN YOUR PLATE
One of my problems with meal planning and storage is that it's hard for me to predict how much food I'll be able to eat at a future meal. Often I don't know that until I've eaten several bites. My basic strategy for dealing with this unpredictability is to keep my plate clean from the very start so that the food I leave behind doesn't overwhelm me or provoke an attack of guilt that could bring down Dranny's loving wrath upon me.
A simple way to keep your plate clean is to prepare smaller batches of food so you won't be tempted by serving dishes overflowing with food or burdened with an excess of leftovers. I can't speak to recipes for baked goods (not my department), but most other recipes can be easily cut in half, thirds, or even quarters through the use of simple arithmetic.
Sometimes I prepare the whole recipe, subdivide into 2 or 3 batches, serve one batch immediately and freeze the other 2 for future use. When we lived in the northeast, the elderly widow who lived next door was delighted when we shared excess food with her. Sharing food with family, friends, and coworkers can yield multiple benefits. When I'm craving a food or recipe whose leftovers would be a problem for me to store (or resist), I prepare a big batch of it for whatever social event is on the horizon and keep only one or two portions of it at home so that we get to enjoy it without having to worry about to do with all that food. I use cheap, recycled, throw-away packaging so that no one can insist that I take my corning ware, Pyrex or tupperware container of leftovers home with me.
You can also keep your plate clean by using the portioning technique I recommend for bandsters who are still learning their band eating skills, food portion sizes, and stop signals. Here's how it works for me. When planning my day's food (which I commit to my food log and my accountability partner every morning), I might decide that I'll eat 4 ounces (by weight) of chicken thigh and 1/2 cup of barley and veggy salad for dinner. Come dinner time, I grab my small plate (a salad plate) and put half of my planned meal on it: 2 ounces of chicken and ¼ cup of the salad. If I'm able to finish that, great. If I'm still physically hungry when I'm done with it, I go back to the kitchen and dish up the remaining 2 ounces of chicken and ¼ cup of salad. At the end of the meal, I'll probably have only 1 or 2 tablespoons worth of food to save or throw out instead of a plateful of food, therefore much less guilt to deal with.
When I do have a plateful of food leftover, I usually scrape it into a small plastic container that I can quickly grab and stick in my lunch bag when I go to work the next day. Fortunately, we actually like leftovers at our house, and arguments occasionally break out over unauthorized consumption of leftover food ("Who ate the rest of the eggplant Parmesan?!?"). The same approach works with restaurant meals. We're happy to take leftovers home in what used to be called a doggy bag (as if I'd share my Maryland crab cakes with a dog!).
My sister-in-law used to scrape leftover food into a bucket to add to her garden compost pile. I have no idea if that's a good practice. We'd have to have a 40' high electrified fence dug 20' into the ground and topped with razor wire in order to keep dogs, cats, deer, rats, raccoons, and other critters out of that kind of compost pile. I've also known people (including my mother) who fed leftover food to their 4-footed garbage disposals (dogs & cats), another practice that we avoid because why would you want to cultivate a fussy eater? Our pets have survived eating (stolen) candies (complete with foil wrappers), latex paint, and kip tails (fishing flies), and at our house, a fussy eater will end up starving because someone else is always willing to clean your plate for you, sometimes long before you've decided you're finished with it.
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE STARVING CHILDREN?
After over 6 years of post-WLS life, I'm now better able to detach myself from my emotional attachment to the food on my plate enough to throw out what's left. If it didn't taste right because my tummy was in an odd mood, if it caused me eating problems, if it wouldn't reheat or store well, I let it go. I haven't been struck by lightning for doing that, nor has God punished me with plagues, floods, or infestations (apart from the dog infestation, that is).
Like many, I was raised to eat every meal while listening to a chorus singing the Children Are Starving in (fill in the blank) hymn. I agree that in world where so many children (and adults, and animals) go hungry, it is just plain wrong for an overfed middle-class person like me to waste or throw out food. But the fact is that me eating more food than my body needs (rather than throwing out) is not the solution to the problem of world hunger. The solution to world hunger, and to diminishing global food resources, is far, far more complicated than that. Working in your community (be it a village, a city, a country, or a planet) to solve that problem is a worthwhile effort, but you taking personal responsibility for causing the death of a starving, unknown child in India or Appalachia because you threw out a chicken wing and 5 green Beans last night is (in my opinion) a misguided and foolish use of your energy.
And you eating that extra bite of food just because you can't bear the thought of throwing it away is also foolish from a medical standpoint. If that extra bite causes you to PB, get stuck, or over-pack your pouch, it could lead to messy and expensive medical complications like esophageal or pouch dilation and/or band slips, especially if you eat that way on a regular basis.
Finally, as long as overeating endangers your health through co-morbidities and through disrespecting your band, you may never be able to help deal with the hunger problem, whether on an individual, local, or global basis. So, first things first: make a top priority of eating sensibly for your own sake before you tackle the rest of the world.

Deciding who to tell about your WLS is a tricky business. Do you tell your friends, family, neighbors, hairdresser or dentist? What about all those coworkers? What (if anything) should you tell them?


Coworkers occupy a unique position in our lives. They’re closer than acquaintances, but not as close as families and friends even though we generally spend more time with them than just about anyone else in our lives.
Keeping your own private business private at your workplace can be a challenge under the best of circumstances, and it can be dangerous territory for someone having weight loss surgery. Any kind of medical procedure, from a root canal to open heart surgery, is so fascinating that it’s almost instantly transmitted via the office grapevine no matter how solemnly your good friend and coworker swears to keep it a secret. On Monday morning, I tell Amy about my upcoming band surgery in the hushed tones of utmost confidence, and she promises to tell no one. On Monday afternoon, Bud waves at me while passing through the hallway and says, “Good luck with your surgery!” How did that happen? Did Amy betray my confidence? No, not exactly. She called her husband Tim at lunchtime and told him because his mother is considering bariatric surgery, and Tim’s office mate overheard the conversation and called his cousin Dale to ask if it’s true that Jean’s having weight loss surgery…and so on and so forth.
Pre-op, who (if anyone) are you going to tell you’re having bariatric surgery? You’ll have to explain your absence (not necessarily in gory detail) to your immediate supervisor and/or a human resources person, and (depending on your employer’s policies) provide a letter from your doctor excusing your absence. You are not obliged to divulge the details of your surgery to anyone; a letter from your surgeon (preferably not on stationery imprinted with “The Hometown Center for Surgical Weight Loss”), stating that you are under his/her care and will need XX days off work to undergo surgery and recovery, should be enough. Be aware, though, that the employer who provides your health insurance probably has access to more of your confidential medical information than you might like. In these days of the Information Age, it’s quite possible that Michelle Obama and the Prime Minister of Japan could discover the details of your weight loss surgery (assuming they even cared). I have no idea how to control that and suggest that you focus your privacy efforts at the local level. If you tell your employer’s human resources manager that you’re having bariatric surgery and later discover (or surmise) that she told the payroll clerk, the receptionist, and her sister Maybelline about it, it would be appropriate to let her know (in private) that she violated the confidentiality of your medical information, but it might not be worthwhile to start a war over it, especially because workplace wars tend to draw curious crowds and foster the growth of the office grapevine. As my wise friend Miss Pat says, “You gotta pick your battles.”
Let’s look at a few possible pre- and post-op workplace scenarios.
1. You don’t tell your coworkers about the nature of your surgery, and/or the one coworker you tell keeps her lips zipped. Your cover story is that you’re having your gall bladder removed. Remember please that you have only one gall bladder, and if eventually the real one has to go, you’re going to have to come up with another story. Every other person in your workplace bends your ear with their own gall bladder stories and finally they all get bored with it and move on to the next burning issue, like the fact that Jack got written up for putting a photo of Beyoncé’s backside on his cubicle wall. You come back to work, life goes on, and everything’s fine until you decline an invitation to go out for pizza, or you sit down in the lunch room with a lunch so tiny compared to your pre-op meals that five observers jump to the conclusion that you’re on a diet again, and want to know all the details. Deal with the situation in a way that suits your style and doesn’t back you into an awkward corner. My response to the diet inquisitors would be something like, “I’m just trying to eat less and exercise more,” and then change the subject by saying, “Did you hear that (fill in the blank with the latest office gossip thread)?” or “Hey, when are they supposed to finish painting the lines in the parking lot?” or (as I recently told a coworker who exclaimed, “I don’t know why you even bother!” when she saw my tiny lunch), “Things must be mighty slow if my lunch is the most interesting thing you’ve seen all day.”
2. You’re like I was, so delighted to be having weight loss surgery that you tell everybody and their brother and their dentist and their mail carrier. Instant experts crawl out of the woodwork. Walking into the lunchroom gets to be like turning on the light in that ratty first apartment you had, where the bright light revealed an army of cockroaches swarming over the room. Before your surgery, the cockroaches (excuse me, coworkers) tell you every fractured and horrifying bariatric fairy tale they ever heard, tell you that they know you can lose the weight without doing something drastic like surgery, or proclaim that they would never do such a thing to themselves. If you are extremely patient (not my strong point), you can conduct your own personal bariatric surgery ministry by correcting the cockroaches’ misconceptions (I’m not sure that cockroaches even have ears, however). Or you can perform another version of the strategy outlined above and repeat the same phrase every single time they try to “educate” you. Say, “Thanks for your concern,” and change the subject.
3. After your surgery, you are no longer the center of attention. Life goes on, with occasional excitement when Jack once again gets written up, this time for repeating an off-color joke within the hearing of Mary Smith, the Senior Vice President of S.E.I. (Something Extremely Important). You gradually lose weight, pound after pound. You begin to buy new clothes, you change your hairstyle, you become more outgoing, and eventually several things happen:
a) You wonder why no one has noticed your weight loss. Can’t they see the difference now that you’re 40 pounds lighter? What kind of friends are they, anyway? Remember, they’re work friends. Very likely they’re jealous friends, or self-centered friends (and so am I – I care a lot more about my weight than yours), or distracted friends (they’re thinking about their daughter’s need for expensive orthodonture, for example).
You wish people would stop saying, “So how much weight have you lost so far?” You can answer honestly and deal with the feedback, or you can follow my example and say something lighthearted like, “20 tons!” or “Not enough!” or “My doctor’s thrilled with my weight loss.”
c) The next time someone says, “I hope you’re done losing weight. You’re beginning to look sickly,” you want to smack them upside the head. Instead you can say cheerfully, “I’m sorry to hear you say that, because I’ve never felt better in my entire life.”
d) Someone says, “You’ve lost 40 pounds? Really? I just don’t see it.” You run into the restroom and cry for 20 minutes. When you’re done mopping up mascara trails, march right back out there and give that jerk his or her comeuppance with a belated comeback like, “You have an IQ of 40? Really? I just don’t see it.”
e) A former eating pal says, “You’re so stuck up now. You never some with us for lunch at Pizza-Rama.” You can respond by saying, “I’m sorry you feel that way, but I’m trying to avoid pizza right now. How about we have lunch at Veggy Heaven today?” If that “pal” frowns at the very idea of eating veggies and the only way they enjoy being with you involves food, you may have to write her/him off. Don’t worry, you’ll find another friend sooner or later, one who can appreciate you for who you are, not what you eat!

When you started your bariatric surgery journey, did you realize how much work would be involved at every stage of the trip down the Bandwagon trail?


As much as you might wish otherwise, the work that produces weight loss success and lifetime maintenance is hard, especially when you’re already worn out from health problems and from lugging all that excess weight around and from one diet failure after another. You have bariatric surgery hoping that it will make weight loss easier. What’s the point of surgery if you have to take on this tough job and never retire from it?
THE WORK ETHIC
I don’t hear the term “Protestant work ethic” used much these days, but I heard it a lot while growing up in the 1950’s & 1960’s in a Protestant home with hard-working parents. The Cliffs Notes version of the phrase is this: you must demonstrate your deservingness for salvation through hard work and frugality. That’s a big job, performed not only for the God who can save you but also fellow humans who play God by judging your performance.
Religious beliefs aside, my personal belief is that hard work benefits the individual as well as the society in which she or he functions. The same principle applies to the work ethic of life after weight loss surgery.
IS BAND SUCCESS TOO HARD?
Every WLS patient is understandably irritated when a clueless acquaintance declares that “weight loss surgery is taking the easy way out”, but an opposite belief floats around in the bariatric community: that weight loss with the adjustable gastric band takes too much work. So which is it? Too easy, or too hard? Does doing something hard automatically earn you ethical or moral brownie points? Does doing something easy automatically brand you as lazy?
I agree that success with the adjustable gastric band takes a lot of work, and I’m not convinced that success with other bariatric procedures is much easier, since regardless of what happens in the operating room, we’re all dealing with the same chronic and incurable disease – obesity. But for the sake of this discussion, let’s assume that a team of scientists in Switzerland (historically a neutral country, even when war was being waged everywhere else in Europe) has studied this matter and can somehow prove that success with the band is indeed harder than any other procedure. For the sake of this discussion, let’s say that band success is hard.
It’s hard, sure, but is it too hard?
THE VALUE OF WORK
I don’t ever want to think I’m afraid of hard work. Nor do I want to believe that my attitude makes me morally superior to someone else, but it seems to me that there is something intrinsically good about hard work. How else can I keep myself moving forward, toward a better (and perhaps easier) life? I can’t rely on good luck to make my journey easier. Raffle prizes and lottery tickets aren’t going to pay the bills and keep (healthy) food on the table.
The thorough pre- and post-op education I received from my bariatric surgeon and his staff made it clear to me that I was going to have to work hard, and make some hard lifestyle changes, in order to succeed with my band. I knew from the outset that I was taking on a big job. I was going to have to learn a lot, take responsibility for my health, and do some things I’d really rather not (like exercise) in order to make my band surgery a success.
I realize that may make me sound like an insufferable paragon of virtue, so let me add an important and seemingly contradictory statement about myself: the reason I chose to have bariatric surgery was that losing weight “on my own” had been so difficult. I most certainly wanted to take the easier path to a healthy weight. I had spent 30 years messing around with weight loss “the hard way”, and not only was it hard, it was spectacularly unsuccessful. I was ready for a different, “easier,” and longer-lasting approach.
DIVISION OF LABOR
There’s nothing wrong with avoiding some hard work. My personal resources of time, energy, and knowledge are tremendous but not infinite, so in order to stay healthy and sane, I have to prioritize tasks and spend my resources on them wisely. In my family – the small community created by my husband, 10 rescue dogs, and 3 rescue cats – we also prioritize, so that the person assigned to each task has the better chance of doing it properly and finishing it. This is why I do not attempt to change the oil in my car, my husband does not attempt to sew draperies, and our dogs are in charge of the audio portion of our security alert system (for a demonstration of that, get yourself to Memphis, then drive north until you hear barking).
But…there’s always a “but”…the purpose of weight loss surgery is to improve your health and your life. Why should someone else – your surgeon, your nutritionist, your personal trainer, your spouse or your hamster – be in charge of something that essentially belongs to you? Of course you need help from all those people (or critters), but if you’re a mentally competent adult, shouldn’t you be the team captain who keeps everyone focused on winning the game? If you don’t want to be the captain, is that because you secretly want an excuse or a scapegoat when and if you lose the game? That kind of thinking – a basic assumption that you’re going to fail no matter what – is such a huge issue that I’ll have to save it for another article. For now, please just nod your head and smile when I tell you that you can win at weight loss.
PAIN & SUFFERING
A corollary of the “I’ve suffered too much from obesity” view is “therefore I deserve to lose weight without any suffering at all.” I don’t happen to believe that I deserve to have every wish of mine granted, be it weight loss, fame, fortune, or naturally curly hair, without any exertion on my part, just because I’ve suffered, or even just because I’m alive. I find it satisfying to work for something I want or need, to earn it myself and thank myself for it.
On the other hand, I don’t mean that I think we must all suffer in the sense of acute or chronic physical pain or inconvenience that entirely disrupts our lives. I mean instead that long-term weight loss success is going to require us to take a few side trips out of our comfort zones. You know the comfort zone, don’t you? At its center is your favorite armchair, a month’s supply of Reese’s Peanut Butter cups on the table beside you and the TV remote in your hand.
So our WLS success may involve an excursion into the Unknown. For example, if we’ve never tried lifting weights, we don’t know how difficult or painful that might be, but if we don’t give it a try, we’ll never know and never benefit from doing it. There’s a 50/50 chance that we might actually like it.
And sooner or later, we’re going to have to tolerate the discomfort of uncertainty, confusion, impatience, frustration, inconvenience, and/or disappointment. That kind of discomfort rarely lasts forever, though. I can testify that learning how to parallel park a car was not a fun experience and that I flunked my first driver’s test because of my parking ineptitude, but a year or so later, I had forgotten how hard it was and parked my car in whatever type of (legal) parking spot I wanted with skill that by then I took for granted.
Here’s another example: the first time I participate in a step aerobics class, I fell off the step twice and had to wonder if I was ever going to get the hang of it, never mind enjoy it. Since I was too proud to give up and walk out while the rest of the class sneered at my failure, I stuck it out to the end of class, at which point it seemed vaguely possible that I might do better if I tried it at least one more time. So I went back to another class, and another one, and eventually found myself hooked on it. Now it isn’t just exercise (work), it’s fun (play). If you had snatched the Reese’s peanut butter cup out of my pre-op hand and told me to get my fat butt over to the gym for a step aerobics class, I would have laughed out loud.
BUT WHAT IF?
But what if your journey on the Bandwagon stalls, or your wagon rolls off a cliff, despite all your effort? What-ifs and coulda-shouldas aren’t going to do much to fix that wagon’s broken wheel, so what can you do to get yourself moving again? I highly recommend a LBT article (by me, of course) entitled, “When Your Bandwagon Stalls.” The article won’t solve all your problems, but it may help you look at them in a new and more effective way. After that, the hard work (of course) is up to you. Click here to check it out: http://www.lapbandtalk.com/page/index.html/_/plateaus-and-regain/when-your-bandwagon-stalls-r130
Unfortunately, hard work is not absolutely, positively guaranteed to produce success, but I’m convinced that it does improve your chances of success. It will lead you out of the desert of failure and into a jungle where every exotic flower smells of success. It will increase your knowledge and wisdom so that when the time comes to evaluate, regroup, and choose a new path if necessary, you can make a good decision. Decision making will be the topic of a future article, so stay tuned!

mine was submitted on Aug 21st to United Healthcare and approved on Sept 4th. I called them every 3 days to get an update, lol. I called yesterday and was told it was approved! woohoo! Good luck and I hope you get it soon.

I had my last nutritional appointment in Tuesday. My paper work was submitted yesterday and I was told I should know no later than next week. (My insurance company is local) I am a bundle of nerves. Every time I think about it I get butterflies. This LapBand is going to change my life in so many ways. I think the only thing I'm nervous about is people treating me differently. I have worked my whole life to win others over with my personality, charm, and smarts. Lets face it you have more to prove to people when you're overweight because to them it implies gluttony, laziness, and stupidity... I'm not any of those things. So once the weight is off I won't have those stereotypes to contend with. So what then?

Thx for sharing. It's the little things that are so important!!!

I have often started one of these threads, but would stop after writing a bit because while the LAP-BAND®®® has helped me lose weight and now maintain my weight for nearly two years, it seems crazy to feel like a success. I started with a low-ish BMI (37) and losing 90lbs+ didn't seem significant enough to class me as a success, I thought!
And I just felt that I was very fortunate that the band worked for me. Yes, I exercised - 40 mins 3 times a week when I was losing - but I didn't count calories, I didn't do low carb, I just got regular fills, ate when I was hungry and in time, my addiction to food diminished and I just lost weight. The band helped me with Portion Control, but more importantly, it stopped me thinking and wanting food all the time. Does that make me a success? You be the judge lol!
It's funny but opposed to other ways in which others lost weight, I think, for me, not counting calories and not worrying about not eating certain food groups actually meant that I stopped thinking about food, and that was why, in my opinion, the band worked for me. Food stopped being an obsession.
A lot of people ask me what I ate while I was losing. Well, everything really, just in much smaller portions. I ate the odd portion of chocolate sometimes, had an ice cream on occasion, but I ate everything in small portions, and as a result, didn't really ever feel deprived of anything.
The mindset that seemed to work for me consisted of general guidelines that my (Australian) Dr gave me and ones I made up for myself. These included:

Only eating when I was hungry. I often felt 'peckish' and would think of food, get cravings and feel like something naughty. But before I went to get something to eat, I'd ask myself if I was really hungry. If my stomache wasn't growling, I wouldn't eat. I'd tell myself I'd eat when I was really, truly hungry, and the funny thing is, when I really was hungry, I usually felt like something savoury and not chocolate or sweets or anything. Over time, the 'peckishness' seemed to stop.


always eating just enough food to 'tide me over' and telling myself that if I was still really hungry in 30 mins, I could have some more food. In all the time I've been banded, I've gone back for more food just once after the 30 mins. Now I just automatically eat small portions, even when I could easily eat more.


Exercising even if I didn't feel like it. I don't think anyone feels like exercising. But afterwards, I'd jump off my spin bike and do a little dance, and remind myself of how good I felt. I had set days that I'd have to exercise, and the only time I didn't do it was when I had the flu for a week. Otherwise, sore or tired or grumpy, I owed the bike the 40 mins and I'd do it, even if it was past midnight, even if I couldn't think of anything worse than exercising. No excuses. I don't exercise much on a formal level anymore, but being active has become very much something I just am now.


Allowing myself loads of rewards for getting to mini goals: I think we are truly hardest on ourselves and we don't think we deserve to Celebrate our successes if they're 'small'. I wrote down all the rewards I would get myself once I reached this weight or that weight, and I made sure I rewarded myself. Every single bit of motivation helps!


Telling myself that I wouldn't have to live like this forever - fighting the cravings, exercising like a demon, only ever eating when I was hungry, not indulging myself. That helped me with the will power side of things, feeling like it was just a temporary thing I had to do. Yet funnily enough a lot of the things I was doing are now habits that have become a part of my life. I now only eat when I'm hungry (and sometimes when I'm not thinking about it, I forget to eat!), I no longer have to fight cravings (just don't have many cravings anymore), I remain active and am quite fit in general. I don't have to fight to maintain because the band lifestyle has become my 'new' lifestyle and that allows me to maintain easily.


Making sure I had regular fills - this I think is crucial. The band works best when it physically prevents you from eating too much. I have never been ashamed to use my band to it's fullest potential. It stopped me over-indulging yes, but it also had the unexpected effect of making me understand how little food I actually needed to survive. And taught me to eat to live and not live to eat.
After getting to my goal weight, I had a lower body lift, and a week ago, I got breast augmentation. I still am a little stunned by the chick looking back at me in the mirror in the mornings, but I've never been happier with my life. I now surf, cycle, play soccer with my 4yo - I feel like I'm finally living the life I was meant to live.
And as glib as it might sound, it just wasn't that hard to lose the weight in hindsight. At the time I was losing, it seemed so difficult and seemed to last forever, but in the scheme of my whole life, it was really only less than a year for me to get to my goal weight. The band was an absoloute godsend to me, and I appreciate every single day of my life since it was put in.
Now can I also add the disclaimer that I am in no way advocating that my way of losing weight is the way anyone else should. I believe that band rules are there for a reason, and am all for doing whatever works for you. For me, it was more about mindset than particular details about diet or exercise, and the main lesson I learnt from all this is that you can re-train your brain to do the things you need to do to lose weight and keep it off. But I also know that without the band, I couldn't have done it, not on my own.
In the end, the proof is in the pudding though. I have been big all my life and I now have a BMI of 21 and have maintained for 18 months. I don't care why it worked, I'm just grateful it did!

I thought it would be funny to try on my wedding dress for my kids this weekend. I knew it was going to be loose but wasn't really prepared for what happened. It was so big it barely stayed up! It is at least three sizes too big! What a great 8th anniversary present....my husband has never seen my this small.
LOVE MY BAND!!
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Second fill on Saturday. I now have 7cc in my 14cc band (sorry mistyped 12cc band on earlier post) The only time I feel restriction is first thing in the morning. My doc has said it may take another couple of fills to get me in the green. I go back in three weeks for my next fill. Until then I am still in bandster hell. Have lost a total of 52 pounds now with no restriction. I just keep looking to the future. If I can lose this much with no restriction I look forward to seeing what I can do when I finally hit the green zone!!! Good luck to everyone.

I am not telling to many people. No one from work will know and most friends won't know.
I have only told my aunt (she's my ride to and from the surgery),
my kids (only because most of my appts were over the summer so they went with me),
My PCP,
and pharmacy( to see if I could switch some meds to liquid)
I know most of the people in my life are very against any type of WLS. I don't want nor need to have that negativity in my life!
I don't want people judging me if I don't lose as fast as they feel I should be. My coworkers would be the worst as my weight has been the butt of many jokes.
I do wish I could tell more people and have their support, but that's just not possible with these people!
I appreciate this forum and live that I can come here and vent and get info any time of day or night!

I am really struggling with this. I have a list called "People Who Know" in a LapBand journal I started a month or so ago. Husband, local friend, far away friend, another friend who has weight issues -- she has been most skeptical -- and that's it so far. Hospital peeps, obviously. NOT telling my mother. She is elderly and a source of body/weight issues. I don't want to have to deal with her. We have a son turning 18 and I want to tell him at the right time (near to date), but otherwise I feel like I need my privacy. Except for here -- you guys are awesome.