lellow

yeah was the same for me. The first time I even FELT the band was at 6.5cc. I was beginning to think that they cut me up but didn't put anything in. But they did and the day came when a fill actually made me feel something. It still took up to 8.5cc to get to the green zone for me though. As for the leak, I knew something was wrong because I had had great, quite constant restriction for 3 years at 8.5cc and then lost all restriction. I couldn't feel the band at all again. They removed all the Fluid from my band and I only had about 4cc in my band instead of the 8.5cc they put in. AND then it took 15 months to resolve the leak because leaks (especially slow ones) can only be defected if you don't have any fills and then come back months later to find that some fluid has disappeared from your band. So attempts to fix the leak failed twice before I finally got a full band replacement in April this year. Having said that, though, leaky bands are not common and that's why I say if you can't feel anything right now, it is almost certainly because you need a higher level of fill and you just haven't gotten close to that level yet. I seriously doubt it's a leak.

Oh lord can I relate. All the people who were banded with me got restriction early and started losing. Me? I had to diet like all hell and exercise like a demon to lose half the weight they were losing. I felt like I'd never get to that 'elusive' green zone. Why was it so much harder for me??? But the funny thing is that the eating habits and exercising that I did helped me lose most of my weight before I even got to green zone. Once I did get there (8.5cc in a 10cc band) it became EASY. To lose the rest, to keep losing past goal, and then to maintain for 3 years because I had learnt the good lessons about how to eat and how to keep active. And on average, my 'slow' loss was actually about 10lbs a month on average. Less to start with and more as I got fitter and I felt the effects of the band with my later fills. I lost 70lbs in 7 months, but if you told me that in the beginning I wouldn't have thought it was possible. Yes it's different for different people but it doesn't mean it's a bad different. It's just different. Hang in there.

I worry when any provider tells you they want to get you tighter so you will start losing. It's a fine balance and finding the perfect spot means NOT being too tight. Tighter is NOT better. If you're only eating fruit bars and broth you're too tight. This is a chart that tells you where you should be. Being too tight not only slows your weight loss (or halts it completely) but can damage you.

There you go Luka! The best way to deal with getting stuck is to revert to liquids so your stoma can heal. Continuing to irritate your stoma can actually damage it in the long run.

Restriction changed for me every time the band was unfilled, so don't worry about the numbers, just concentrate on how it makes you feel and how well you're working with it. Also the swelling that occurs after a fill may settle in a few days and you might start to feel less restricted, so my suggestion is if you do, maybe do itty bitty fills from now on just to 'perfect' the fill level that will right for you.

Good luck. It sounds like you're going into this with your eyes open and I think that's a great start. At a BMI of 35, which others may not think was that heavy, I felt heavy. And in hindsight I never realised how much it impacted on my life. As long as you have realisitic goals, understand the fight you will have with your food demons and are prepared for them, I expect you will be successful where you haven't been able to be before. Isn't that all that every bander wants?

I didn't feel my band until I had 6.5cc in my 10cc band. Some people just need more fills. Between fills, try to stay on program. It's hard when you're hungry but it can be done. Think of the end game, what you're trying to achieve, and stay on program. Having said that I had 3 years of green zone and then suddenly lost all restriction. I had a leak. So damage is possible but I would say so early in the piece it's far more likely that you just aren't at the right fill restriction yet.

dawalsh, when I used to track calories while my band was leaking, yes I used MFP. I found it the easiest to use of all the apps around, but to be honest calorie countring was not fun for me. When my band is working, I don't count calories. I have a pretty good grip on what's 'good' food and I try to keep my diet to whole foods (minimise processed foods) so generally I just let my band tell me how much to eat, I try to eat well, and I lose/maintain that way. The reason I suggested that the OP count calories for a while is that I find that many things that are marketed as 'healthy' are in fact calorie-laden, full of sugar or increases hunger (like sugar substitues) so for someone who can't figure out why they're not losing, it can actually be a great way to learn about which foods they should avoid and to not listen to the marketing.

Haz is right, don't increase time, increase intensity. You should be sweating like all hell to get a good fat burning workout. Weight training is important for long term maintenance too. Muscle = increased metabolism. And one thing we do as lapbanders is eat less which in turn can compromise our metabolisms. So cardio is great for weight loss, but muscle is great to keep it off. The sooner you start strength training, obviously, the better your metabolism will be.

This last 0.1cc fill has certainly made a difference, yes. You don't need big fills to get to green zone, you just need the right level of fill. Doing small fills gives you a better chance of finding it instead of going past it.

That was a truly brave story, and I won't lie, I had moments too in my time where I was convinced that the tighter my band was, the better I would do. There are lots of really ingrained ideas that we get as overweight people that actually sabotage us, e.g. we should lose the weight at any cost, not eating at all is better than eating healthily, fast weight loss is what we look for, and anything less than that is failure. I do think that it's why support places like LBT is so important. Because if you want to, you can find people who have had success by following the lifestyle that you're supposed to live with your band, the lifestyle that won't cause you damage in the long run. It took me a while to get it, but when I realised that a super-tight band was counter-productive (and in fact could be dangerous), when I realised that if I wanted to lose, eating well while exercising was the best way to do it, and when I realised that all the band did was help with your physical hunger, that's when living the band life became easier. It was people on this very forum who taught me all those things, and for that I'm grateful, and probably why I've hung around this place on and off for the last 5 years like a bad smell. I really applaud you for telling your story with so much honesty. The band can be dangerous with misuse, as your story clearly attests to, and I'm sorry that you suffered as a result. I wish you all the very best for your start-over, I for one believe you can do it this time without any further damage to yourself.

ChicagoRose is right. I have times where I feel like I can eat anything and other times I'm tight, usually at TOM or if I'm a little dehydrated (when it's hot or I'm just not drinking enough). And if I'm tight and I try to eat something that will stick, I'm guaranteed to be tight for a few days because I've aggravated the stoma and there's swelling. If I keep trying to eat solids while the swelling is present, it will stay aggravated and suddenly it feels like I'm constantly tight, when in fact it's just staying swollen. This is what I sometimes think happens when people get 'suddenly tight'. Expect that there will be times in the month you may be tight. When those times roll around and something sticks, baby the band with liquids, then mushies for a couple of days before trying solids again. And if none of the above applies in your case, then I'd go back and discuss this with your doctor.

I find tattoos on men sexy too, but funnily enough most of my long term relationships have been with men who have no tattoos. My first husband and I got our first tattoos together, and I started to outstrip him in a matter of years. He was the only one of my LTR that had any tattoos. And bayou, I don't like chest tatts either. If others like them, awesome, but I wouldn't get any on my chest. I like the unadulterated expanse of cleavage!

Good luck, I wish you well! I know some people are perfectly capable of losing and keeping it off, I'm just not one of them. I hope you are!

I have never personally heard of food intolerances being related to the band. The band itself does not alter the composition of your stomach, so I would assume that it would not make you intolerant to certain foods that you weren't ALREADY prone to be intolerant too. My partner, who is not banded, has developed gluten and lactose intolerances over the last couple of years, at 41 years of age, and imo, that is more related to the changes in the way that wheat is grown (GMO) and milk is processed (permeates etc) than his body changing. If you have intolerances, these may be a more likely cause than the band, imo. But that's my non-medical opinion.

I have a lot. I can't remember how many. Also if you blend one tattoo with a couple of others, does it make it one tatt or 3 tatts? I think in terms of how many distinct times I've been tattooed, it would be maybe 40? My latest one is my favourite. It's a tattooed mermaid that covers most of my left outer thigh, but seeing as it's NSFW (she's topless), I won't post a pic of it in here. It's in my gallery if anyone is interested. I have just paid a deposit on my next tattoo. I have a pic of my son coming out of an egg on my right arm, but have gotten an AMAZING realistic tattoo artist who will convert that to a half sleeve. I have to wait til Febuary coz of his waiting list, but unlike when I was young, I am VERY happy to wait to get a first class tattoo these days, especially as I don't have a lot of bare skin left!

I think WLS should be a last resort, so if you believe you can do this on your own, I say go for it! For me, I certainly had the will power to stay on the pre-op diet. I had the will power to lose before my band was restricted, I lost all my weight and kept it off. But when my band started leaking I gained 35lbs so easily that it shocked me. I lost 15 of those pounds without the band's help leading up to my band replacement and did question whether I needed to have my band replaced at all. I did though because for me, keeping the weight off with the band is MUCH easier. I like not fighting hunger. When my band was leaking, I was still eating well and avoiding junk (or I would have gained FAR more than 35lbs in a year) but the weight slowly crept back on nonetheless just because my portions got bigger. Now I don't have to work to not gain/keep it off because the band helps remind me what my portions should look like.

It can get harder to lose the closer you get to goal. The reason is that your Basal Metabolic Rate lowers as you lose, and where you could eat 1600 cals and not exercise when you were at a BMI of 40 and still lose, you can't do that when you're lighter. That why you lose big numbers when you first start out, but then it slows down. I would suggest either tracking your calories for a few days to see what your calorie intake is and/or doing more cardio exercises. I think adding strength training is a great idea too now you're close to goal, because building muscle (and therefore increasing your metabolism) will help you in maintenance. Being too tight and eating high calorie sliders can DEFINITELY stop weight loss. Sliders also don't promote that feeling of 'satisfaction' that you get with more solid food, which then defeats the purpose of the band.

taking some out was absolutely the right thing to do. Throwing Water up as soon as you're filled means it was too tight. It doesn't mean you can't have some put back in if you need it later on. But slowly. I get 0.1cc fills at a time now so as to ensure I don't go over.

I'm a size 4-6. I still have many days where I see a fat girl in the mirror. I was one of those who actually lost to a point of being too thin and have since committed to staying healthy instead of thin. Now don't get me wrong, long past are the days where I would pick up clothes FAR too big for me at the shops. I know what size I am. Where I used to hang my shirts up and think 'omg they're so small', these days they look 'normal' sized to me, so I wonder if I'm too heavy again often. Your head can be your worst enemy. I still struggle with mine.

I don't expect everyone to feel the same way as I do about this, so of course I accept that there will be those who don't want to say anything, and those who do, but I decided to tell everyone. And the reasons were 1) I wanted to be accountable. If I failed on the band, and everyone knew I had one, I only had myself to blame. 2) I didn't want anyone who was overweight to think that I 'miraculously' lost the weight and kept it off for years all on my own, because it would have made ME feel like a complete failure with no willpower if I were them 3) I wanted to show them that when you have a problem, you do what you need to in order to fix it. There is no shame in that. I've never regretted telling everyone. I think I represent a good outcome as a lapband patient, and if that helps someone else make the decision to change their lives, I'm proud of that.

Australian doctors actually advocate the band for low BMI banders. The prognosis for banders with low BMIs are very good indeed. As long as a bander shows a history of trying to lose and being active already, they're actually the best candidates for lapband wls, because they already have a lot of the lifestyle elements that assist with losing weight, so the transition is easier. My BMI was 35 at surgery and I'd already lost about 30lbs on my own by my estimate before deciding on getting a lapband. I walked a lot, and I was strong, if not fit. And had lost and gained many times previously and I was looking for something that would keep it off. What I needed was something that would help with my hunger. Even before I got the green zone where the band eradicated most of my hunger, I was working out, sticking to band sized portions and in fact, I lost the majority of my excess weight before finding that perfect restriction. I believed that once I got there, the band would help me keep it off so this wasn't a diet where I could 'fall off the wagon'. If I hung in there, it would eventually kick in and would make it easier. And it did. I won't say it wasn't a learning curve in identifying what the band helped me with as opposed to what I thought it would do, but in the end, what I REALLY needed it to do was control my hunger, and that's just what it did. For the rest of it, I put in the work, and I lost all of my excess weight and more as a result. I also believe that had I not gotten the band, I probably would have gotten less active as I got older, would have continued to gain (as I had slowly but surely all my life) and eventually gotten to the point of being at a BMI that was much, much higher with possible co-morbs that would have made the surgery more dangerous. I'm glad I did something about it early, because I honestly don't think I could have done this by myself otherwise.

It was harder than I initially thought it would be. Initially I thought the band would stop me eating and BAM I'd be thin coz I'd eat less. But with research I realised the part I would have to play in it. But it wasn't hard. I ate well, exercised and the weight came off steadily. And when I finally got to green zone, my hunger pretty much became non-existent (like after you were first banded) and then it was easy. The hardest part was staying on program while I trusted that I would get to the green zone eventually.

Yeah my husband was not at all jealous when I was bigger. That really changed when Iost. I didn't even know he had it in him to be that jealous. Funnily enough though, that didn't actually translate to him changing the way he treated me.

Ok this is just my perspective. I loved my ex-husband. He wasn't romantic and our marriage was very much one of friendship not passion, and I had hoped that when I lost weight, things would change. Things changed, yes. He got more jealous of other men looking at me. But what didn't change was the way he treated me. And perhaps it wasn't fair of me to expect that, because if he had, I think I would have been equally disappointed. In the end, I left him. Because the fact is, he couldn't win either way. If he had loved me the way I had hoped to be loved, it should have been from the first day, whatever size I was. And I realised that was not the case, but only after I lost the weight. It's not a great story but I guess what I'm trying to say is this: your weight loss SHOULDN'T change your relationship, it should make a strong relationship stronger. If you can say that, then no, you're not going to change your mind. If you can't, then I'd say it may well break you.