bandpal

It's so great that we are still communicating as our five year anniversary nears. I've been between 68 - 65 kilo for most of the year, maintaining a 62 kilo (136.lb) pound loss with a BMI of 23.2. Right now, I'm not eating breakfast, having a main meal at lunch and doing fruits (so good here this time of year!) and veggies for the rest of the day. Learning how to deal with stressors which used to make me eat, forgiving myself for slips and trying to be an all around good guy.

This takes a long time. We are changing the habits of a lifetime. The advice here is good: don't get too hungry, use a baby spoon (I even tried eating from the thin end of a spoon!) or chopsticks, put your utensil down between bites, chew thoroughly (one of the best lessons the band teaches) and avoid distractions while eating, which allows you to listen to your body. Overall, a lot of what I've been reading about mindful eating resonates to me. Good luck!

I live in Israel, so it was an easy choice - plus, a great surgeon, a private hospital and national health insurance that paid for all but about $500.00. What's not to love? Good luck, Hopeful - you should be! Lapband has been one of the best things I've ever done for myself. I wish that for you.

Hi Hopeful, Congratulations on you decision and welcome! I had my surgery a tad northeast of Mexico (see my signature) but I do have one piece of advice to pass on: take it for what it's worth. When the big day comes, see if you can make sure that your surgery is among the first ones your doc performs, before s/he is tired or pressed for time. That's the way it was for me, and I've always felt it got me started on the right foot. All the best, good luck on your journey.

Hooray for your doc! Gym membership might not obligate you to press forward (when are people going to figure out that things like that don't work for us?!) but I bet you'll work hard to justify your PCP's support and belief in you! Sounds like you are moving along just fine!

It's been a week since my unfill from 6 to 5 cm after a year of discomfort, and I find myself asking why I waited so long. I've had a great week: been able to reintegrate fresh fruit and vegetables into my diet and enjoy a cup of coffee in the morning without seeing it again later on. Perhaps most importantly, I've been eating slower and chewing thoroughly, and have made it through meals without drinking, something I've realized was not good for me. I actually feel the food go down more than I did when I was tighter (probably because of drinking less), but I get stopped up alot less. I've hardly had any pb's during the week, and the infamous "spit cup" which accompanied me to meals (and which I often needed in between meals as well) has been relegated to the cupboard beneath the sink. My daily routine consists of coffee in the morning, about a cup of either meat, meat and vegetable or meat, vegetable and carb (I vary between the three every day) for lunch, and then either salad or a fruit for snack and fruit or a salad for dinner. I've had 2 or 3 mini binges during the week (I say "mini" because there's no comparison in quantity to what went on before the band), but I just get up the next day and go back to my routine. No recrimination, no beating myself up, no drama. That is the great divide between life pre and post band. If, before, I had five "bad" days and two "good" ones, then now I have maybe six good ones and one bad one, which works out to a batting average of .833, so what am I going to complain about when I'm good enough for the Hall of Fame. If I keep going this way, I'll have Cooperstown asking for my fork! Thanks for listening, everyone, and thanks for being there!

It's been a week since my unfill from 6 to 5 cm after a year of discomfort, and I find myself asking why I waited so long. I've had a great week: been able to reintegrate fresh fruit and vegetables into my diet and enjoy a cup of coffee in the morning without seeing it again later on. Perhaps most importantly, I've been eating slower and chewing thoroughly, and have made it through meals without drinking, something I've realized was not good for me. I actually feel the food go down more than I did when I was tighter (probably because of drinking less), but I get stopped up alot less. I've hardly had any pb's during the week, and the infamous "spit cup" which accompanied me to meals (and which I often needed in between meals as well) has been relegated to the cupboard beneath the sink. My daily routine consists of coffee in the morning, about a cup of either meat, meat and vegetable or meat, vegetable and carb (I vary between the three every day) for lunch, and then either salad or a fruit for snack and fruit or a salad for dinner. I've had 2 or 3 mini binges during the week (I say "mini" because there's no comparison in quantity to what went on before the band), but I just get up the next day and go back to my routine. No recrimination, no beating myself up, no drama. That is the great divide between life pre and post band. If, before, I had five "bad" days and two "good" ones, then now I have maybe six good ones and one bad one, which works out to a batting average of .833, so what am I going to complain about when I'm good enough for the Hall of Fame. If I keep going this way, I'll have Cooperstown asking for my fork! Thanks for listening, everyone, and thanks for being there!

Hopefull, looks to me like you received a lot of good feedback here, so take what you need and leave the rest. I think your question was entirely legitimate, and judging from the responses, so did many others. What I got out of this discussion was the concept of appetite restriction versus physical restriction from the band. I am comfortable thinking about the band as an appetite dimmer, decreasing the volume of the black, bottomless abyss inside of me that I always ate to fill. For today, that hole is a puddle, and for that I am grateful! Good luck,

Wow, congratulations Bobrocky! Four hours from soup to nuts - that's pretty amazing. To think that I considered it pretty extreme getting kicked out into the rain at 0600 on the morning after my banding... Good luck, keep the posts coming.

Wow, congratulations Bobrocky! Four hours from Soup to nuts - that's pretty amazing. To think that I considered it pretty extreme getting kicked out into the rain at 0600 on the morning after my banding... Good luck, keep the posts coming.