RedTulips3

Hey All! I'm planned to have surgery January 9th! There is no thread for January 08 Bandsters, but Dec. is close enough. I can't wait, I'm counting down the days(as you can see from my ticker) I am a full time student so I had no choice but to do it during my break in between semesters. I totally understand! The maintaining is the hard part. We always go back to the way we were eating before. Even though I am getting the surgery and I will lose weight, I figured I might as well do something until then. I decided to do a low-carb diet, for many reasons: First because I feel healthy(and I am healthy) when I cut out all the empty carbohydrates and sugar. Second, because it worked well for me before. Third because anything I lose this time and keep off until surgery will be gone forever, unlike the last time I did it and lost 50lbs and then proceeded to gain it all back plus more, because...well...because that's how it goes! You go back to eating the way you did before. Fourthly, I will have less to lose with the band and I will get to my goal weight all the more quickly. It's a great motivation for me to persevere and stick with my diet until January. Luckily, my brother got the band in August, so he's been a great support and motivation to keep me going until January as well. I'm going to be using the same Doc as him because he had a great experience with him. Even though we can't post about post-op, fills etc, LBT is a great place to keep us going strong until we join the world of Bandsters. Good luck everyone! Keep it up!

Ebeth, I'm 20, also young like you and I'm planning to have the band this coming January. I totally understand where you're coming from. I've been overweight most of my life and diets just don't work. We have our whole lives ahead of us and we want to be able to enjoy them and be healthy. Like other posters said here and elsewhere that they wish that the band was around when they were younger. If we have the opportunity to do something that will give us the ability to be healthy and enjoy the rest of our lives then why not? with everything!

I am also not banded yet. I'm scheduled for this coming January, which is a while from now. I figured that I shouldn't wait until then to lose the weight from the band, so I started now. I'm doing low-carb because it worked great in the past(50lbs) and I felt healthy while doing it. As I see it, I can enjoy this weight loss while eating the things I like on this diet and I'll have less to lose with the band! And I know I only have to do it until January and won't gain it back (like you said trystelle). The surgery is a great motivation to stick to my diet even when I'm bored with it. I feel like my low-carb diet right now is practice for the band too. I can't have liquid calories like regular soda and ice cream and in general I'm controlling what I'm putting into my mouth as opposed to eating whatever I want. I did practice the chewing, and man, it's so much chewing for 1 bite. After 2 bites I get annoyed with it and just go back to normal chewing. Maybe when surgery is a little closer, I'll do a practice run of shakes and slow chewing. Trystelle- what were you doing that you lost 40lbs? Just chewing slower? Eating bandster sized portions with shakes? Or were you doing a diet?

I'm also 20 and I'm scheduled to be banded January! I hope January comes quickly!