marfar7

Almost there! About 9 more lbs left to get to 135!! It's been over 2 yrs for me
Marci

Actually, to be honest, Im sometimes jealous of the amount of food other people can eat. Especially on holidays. Its not like Im drolling over watching people eat, cuz I seriously have no more interest in eating. I just sometimes wish I would drool a litte. Does that make sense? It doesn't really to me!.
But, no, normally it doesn't bother me to sit and watch others eat. Usually by the time Im done eating, my husband and friends are waiting on me to finish so I don't usually watch others eat.
Good luck!
Marci

Actually, to be honest, Im sometimes jealous of the amount of food other people can eat. Especially on holidays. Its not like Im drolling over watching people eat, cuz I seriously have no more interest in eating. I just sometimes wish I would drool a litte. Does that make sense? It doesn't really to me!.
But, no, normally it doesn't bother me to sit and watch others eat. Usually by the time Im done eating, my husband and friends are waiting on me to finish so I don't usually watch others eat.
Good luck!
Marci

For me, the green zone is where I eat about 10 bites of any given food (never measure or weigh anything) and I'm full. By full I mean I can't eat another bite. I was at the green zone after my 3rd fill unti about 8 mths ago, when I lost 100 lbs and had to have another fill. It's been so so ever since. I'm really seeking that same "zone" again, as I still need to lose about 15 lbs.
Good luck!
Marci

"Found a hospital with a barbaric surgeon on staff, but of course by the time I was admitted, he was gone for the night."
Sorry, no advice. I just had to laugh at the typo, I think! Is it sposed to be "bariatric surgeon" or did you actually mean "barbaric surgeon"?
Thanks for the LOL!
Marci

I hope you don't mind but I'm going to copy a previous post about this because it very much applies to your situation:
-------------------------------------------------
It seems to me there is a lot of misunderstanding out there when it comes to restriction. Over and over, I read post after post of the following statements:
"I have had fills but can still eat whatever I want"
While some people do have issues eating certain foods, there is absolutely no truth that you shouldn't be able to eat foods like breads, Pasta, and rice. If you are following a low carb diet that's one thing, but being banded doesn't mean you shouldn't be physically able to eat them anymore. Many of us can still eat absolutely everything we ate before surgery.
"I have had fills but I can still eat more than 1 cup of food"
This may be true, however, just because you can eat more than a cup of food doesn't mean you should. More often than not, if you eat slowly and stop after eating no more than 1 cup of food, you will find that you are satisfied and no longer hungry despite the fact you could still physically eat more. Quit trying to test your band to see how much you can eat, because the only one that will fail the test is you, not the band.
"I have had fills but I don't feel full"
Big misconception- the band will make you feel full. Wrong. It's true some people do feel full but it's a different full sensation than we had before banded. In fact, it's almost uncomfortable. The band is not supposed to make you feel stuffed full, it's supposed to make you feel satisfied with less food for longer periods of time. If you keep getting fill after fill because you don't feel stuffed full, you are going to end up one of the many people who have bands too tight and slips as a result. Being satisfied means you are no longer hungry, not that you feel as though you just ate a seven course Thanksgiving dinner. Quit trying to feel full and start listening to your body because it will tell you when it's satisfied.
I encourage everyone to educate themselves on the Lap-Band, what it does, and what it doesn't do. Too many people are walking around banded completely ignorant to the facts and I fear many will have complications and slips because of it. It's your body, take responsibility for educating yourself on it.

I agree. It took me almost 3 yrs of regular vomiting to slip my band (not telling you to do so, however). I doubt if it'll slip on your first vomiting episode. That said, I definitely don't recommend vomiting regularly.
I wouldn't worry too much about it. Sometimes it happens.
Marci

Marci-great job on your weight loss!
Canderson04 - I was banded on 7/4 and don't get a fill until 8/20. I now understand Bandster Hell. I have recently started to get hungry. I didn't for quite some time after surgery. I'm keeping my plates saucer size and measuring portions. I am walking. I feel like I'm on another diet and feeling a tad deprived and sorry for myself. HOWEVER...I've lost almost 40 lbs starting with pre-surgery required weight loss+ post surgery so I have alot to be thankful for and alot lost! I will endure this and will be as successful as possible. WE CAN DO THIS!!! WE'VE come this far! Let me know how your first fill goes!

Yes, you're in "Bandster Hell". It's the time after surgery but before you find your "sweet spot" of restriction. It'll happen. You have to be PATIENT. I know how hard that is. You had wls, you want the pounds off now. Unfortunately, it doesn't work this way. I hate to tell you, but you probably won't have restriction after this 1st fill either. Maybe, but probably not. It took 3 fills and 5 mths for me to get restriction. I lost maybe 4 pounds during that 5 months.
If you follow the rules, measure out your portions, exercise, act like you actually have restriciton, you'll have more success. Or you can just do what I did - wait till I actually have restriction before losing.
Good luck with the patience!
Marci

I have hypothyroidism and have been banded almost 3 years. The loss of over 100 lbs hasn't affected my dosage of Synthroid, however. They do blood tests for my TSH every 6 mths or so and find it perfect, no reason to change my dosage. I've heard alot of people say that their dosage goes down with weight loss tho.
So yes, I have it and have been successful! Good luck to you! Oh, I've had it for over 8 yrs now.
Marci

Yes, you're in "Bandster Hell". It's the time after surgery but before you find your "sweet spot" of restriction. It'll happen. You have to be PATIENT. I know how hard that is. You had wls, you want the pounds off now. Unfortunately, it doesn't work this way. I hate to tell you, but you probably won't have restriction after this 1st fill either. Maybe, but probably not. It took 3 fills and 5 mths for me to get restriction. I lost maybe 4 pounds during that 5 months.
If you follow the rules, measure out your portions, exercise, act like you actually have restriciton, you'll have more success. Or you can just do what I did - wait till I actually have restriction before losing.
Good luck with the patience!
Marci

Isn't that funny? I always get stuck on yogurt. I can manage to eat 1/2 container of yogurt over a period of about 30 minutes. If I take 1 more bite, I get stuck. Ice cream does the same thing. And milkshakes. Thought these were sliders?
Marci

Almost there! About 9 more lbs left to get to 135!! It's been over 2 yrs for me
Marci

Please don't feel like that! Patience is the first key to lapband life. For the first 5 mths after my surgery (until my 3rd fill) I lost an amazing 4 lbs! Yep, you read it right. Because I COULD eat just as much before surgery, I did. I didn't get restriction until my 3rd fill. About 7.5cc in a 14cc band. As soon as I got that 3rd fill, the magic started happening. I felt full after just a toddlers portion. I promise you - it WILL kick in eventually.
You have to be patient....it will be all worth it soon!
Marci

8/5 is my 4 year bandiversary. I'm happy to say that I've lost over 150 lbs and I've managed to keep it off. It changed my life and I have no regrets. I'm living the life of my dreams. Thank you Dr. Montgomery.

I'm almost 3 years out. My weight loss was slower compared to most on here. The first year (I didn't get restriction till my 3rd fill, almost 5 mths out) was about 70lbs.I began dating then. I had ben widowed for about 3 yrs by then and felt uncomfortable dating. I met my now husband at about an 80 lbs loss. The 2nd year, I lost another 20 lbs, making it 104 lbs in 2 yrs. This is my 3rd year and I began having complications with my band. I gained back about 11 of those pounds.
Hopefully after my 2nd slip, they'll be able to remove my Fluid and start fresh. Hoping they won't have to manually reposition it. Even though I'm now having complications, I would do it all over again. It's so nice to wear a size 8! I've never worn a single digit my entire adult life. I gave away all of my size 3x clothing, so I really can't afford to gain it back!
Good luck to you! You can do it! You're worth it! Even tho you feel like you're starving right now on the liquid diet, it will be a bleep on your lifetime radar! Oh, and I eat anything I want - including bread, rice, and Pasta. Just VERY small amounts of them. Anytime I go to Olive Garden, it's usually about 5 meals for me. I get sick of it or it goes bad in my frig before I eat the rest of it! My husband complains how much food I waste. Oh well. Better in the trash than on my body!
Oh and some advice: Be patient. can't say that enuf. For the first 5 mths and until my 3rd fill, I felt like I failed yet another diet. It was the 3rd fill that got me to restriction, where I could only take about 6 bites of a meal and be done with it. I don't think I researched it too much before, so I truly thought once I got it, I'd start losing immediately. Doesn't happen. Most people need from 2-5 fills before feeling the restriction.
Marci

Don't u just love automatic spell check? Puts words in that I didn't actually type into my phone. Hope u can understand the above post...
Marci

Just out of curiosity: Why would anyone with a band want to try yet another diet plan? I'm thru with all diets - I've done them all and where did it leave me? At 248 lbs and having band surgery. I'm really amazed that lapbanders would fall for such diets again.
I don't know anything about Advocare, but I've done every other diet plan under the sun. Some of them gave me a weight loss. But thru all of them, I gained it back + some. This time, I'm not gunna gain it back!
JMHO...
Marci

Just out of curiosity: Why would anyone with a band want to try yet another diet plan? I'm thru with all diets - I've done them all and where did it leave me? At 248 lbs and having band surgery. I'm really amazed that lapbanders would fall for such diets again.
I don't know anything about Advocare, but I've done every other diet plan under the sun. Some of them gave me a weight loss. But thru all of them, I gained it back + some. This time, I'm not gunna gain it back!
JMHO...
Marci

David Letterman isn’t the only one who composes top 10 lists. Here’s my top 10 list of the things you need to know about gastric band surgery, served with a generous helping of GJTL™ - Genuine Jean Tuff Luv™.


TIME FOR SOME TOUGH LOVE?
Genuine Jean Tuff Luv™? What’s that? It’s my version of the kind of love that hurts so good, because it gets you going in the direction you want to go.
Stern but caring parents, teachers and coaches who maintain strict rules and demanding training regimens are said to practice tough love. Those rules and regimens may not be fun, but they can turn around kids, students or athletes who’ve gotten off track or are underachieving.
Tough love may seem too severe, too tough. It works best when the parent, teacher or coach believes in, proclaims, and respects the inherent value and purpose of the person they’re trying to help. Sometimes all we need is a wakeup call to shake us out of our stupor and pull us out of a rut. The drills and discipline of tough love can help (even as they hurt) when our bandwagons have gotten lost or stalled somewhere along the way to success.
A bandster once said of me, “Jean tells people the things they don’t want to hear.” I chose to take that as a compliment. Many times in my life, I’ve benefited from a slap upside the head by a concerned friend. When I do the slapping, I try to do it with just enough emphasis to get a friend’s attention long enough to deliver an important message, followed by a gentle and loving kick in the butt. So here’s my top 10 list of things you need to know about adjustable gastric band surgery. Consider yourself kicked!
THE GJTL TOP TEN LIST
1. You will not wake up in the recovery room at your goal weight. Average weight loss with the band is 1-2 pounds per week, and virtually no one loses weight at a nice steady pace of (say) 1.75 pounds per week. Some weeks you’ll lose, some weeks you’ll stall and some weeks you’ll gain, but as long as the overall trend is downward, you’re doing great!
2. Slower weight loss with the band does not prevent sagging or excess skin. How your skin reacts to massive weight loss depends mostly on your genetics and your age. As we age, our skin loses elasticity. If the possibility of sagging or excess skin worries you, start tossing your change into a plastic surgery piggy bank.
3. Weight loss surgery (of any type) does NOT cure obesity. Obesity is a chronic and incurable disease characterized by relapse and recurrence. Although bariatric surgery is currently the most effective way of treating obesity, obesity is something you’re going to have to manage for the rest of your life, with or without surgery. For most of us, a tool like the adjustable gastric band makes that a lot easier, but it’s not effortless, either.
4. Most eating problems after band surgery are due to user error, and can be prevented by using good band eating skills. Read an article about those skills by clicking here: How to Eat Like a Bandster.
5. In order to decrease your weight and increase your health, you must decrease your food intake and increase the quality of your food choices and the time you spend exercising. While you may be able to lose weight for a while by just eating much smaller portions of chicken McNuggets, potato chips, and candy bars, eventually that approach will stop working, and at the same time it will start biting your health in the butt. And though it may be difficult for you to exercise at first, each pound you lose will make it easier, and each additional hour you spend exercising will not only burn calories but improve your physical and mental health.
6. No weight loss surgery procedure will cure eating disorders, eating demons, emotional eating, boredom eating, stress eating, celebratory eating or food addiction. Changing those behaviors is your job. If it’s too hard to tackle yourself, consider getting some counseling with a therapist experienced with eating disorder and WLS patients, and/or joining a 12-step group like Overeater’s Anonymous.
7. The band rarely works without fills. Even if you initially lose weight with one or no fills, sooner or later, you’re going to have to face the fill needle. And if you’re too needle-phobic to tolerate a fill needle, why did you choose band surgery in the first place?
8. The restriction “sweet spot” is a myth. There is no such thing as “perfect” restriction, or if there is, you can’t count on it to last more than one hour, one day or one week. This is because the band is an inert silicone object implanted in a living, breathing human body that changes constantly in reaction to the time of day, time of month, time of year, hydration, illness, medication, stress, you name it. Restriction variability is part of the gastric band package.
9. There is nothing magic in the band that makes you lose weight. Changing your eating and exercise behavior is what makes you lose weight. All the band does is make that work easier for you by reducing your physical hunger and increasing your satiety.
10. YOU are responsible for your weight loss. Not your band, not your surgeon, and not the server at McDonald’s who invariably asks you, “Want to supersize that?”

I'm almost 3 years out. My weight loss was slower compared to most on here. The first year (I didn't get restriction till my 3rd fill, almost 5 mths out) was about 70lbs.I began dating then. I had ben widowed for about 3 yrs by then and felt uncomfortable dating. I met my now husband at about an 80 lbs loss. The 2nd year, I lost another 20 lbs, making it 104 lbs in 2 yrs. This is my 3rd year and I began having complications with my band. I gained back about 11 of those pounds.
Hopefully after my 2nd slip, they'll be able to remove my Fluid and start fresh. Hoping they won't have to manually reposition it. Even though I'm now having complications, I would do it all over again. It's so nice to wear a size 8! I've never worn a single digit my entire adult life. I gave away all of my size 3x clothing, so I really can't afford to gain it back!
Good luck to you! You can do it! You're worth it! Even tho you feel like you're starving right now on the liquid diet, it will be a bleep on your lifetime radar! Oh, and I eat anything I want - including bread, rice, and Pasta. Just VERY small amounts of them. Anytime I go to Olive Garden, it's usually about 5 meals for me. I get sick of it or it goes bad in my frig before I eat the rest of it! My husband complains how much food I waste. Oh well. Better in the trash than on my body!
Oh and some advice: Be patient. can't say that enuf. For the first 5 mths and until my 3rd fill, I felt like I failed yet another diet. It was the 3rd fill that got me to restriction, where I could only take about 6 bites of a meal and be done with it. I don't think I researched it too much before, so I truly thought once I got it, I'd start losing immediately. Doesn't happen. Most people need from 2-5 fills before feeling the restriction.
Marci

Please don't feel like that! Patience is the first key to lapband life. For the first 5 mths after my surgery (until my 3rd fill) I lost an amazing 4 lbs! Yep, you read it right. Because I COULD eat just as much before surgery, I did. I didn't get restriction until my 3rd fill. About 7.5cc in a 14cc band. As soon as I got that 3rd fill, the magic started happening. I felt full after just a toddlers portion. I promise you - it WILL kick in eventually.
You have to be patient....it will be all worth it soon!
Marci

Please don't feel like that! Patience is the first key to lapband life. For the first 5 mths after my surgery (until my 3rd fill) I lost an amazing 4 lbs! Yep, you read it right. Because I COULD eat just as much before surgery, I did. I didn't get restriction until my 3rd fill. About 7.5cc in a 14cc band. As soon as I got that 3rd fill, the magic started happening. I felt full after just a toddlers portion. I promise you - it WILL kick in eventually.
You have to be patient....it will be all worth it soon!
Marci

I'm almost 3 years out. My weight loss was slower compared to most on here. The first year (I didn't get restriction till my 3rd fill, almost 5 mths out) was about 70lbs.I began dating then. I had ben widowed for about 3 yrs by then and felt uncomfortable dating. I met my now husband at about an 80 lbs loss. The 2nd year, I lost another 20 lbs, making it 104 lbs in 2 yrs. This is my 3rd year and I began having complications with my band. I gained back about 11 of those pounds.
Hopefully after my 2nd slip, they'll be able to remove my Fluid and start fresh. Hoping they won't have to manually reposition it. Even though I'm now having complications, I would do it all over again. It's so nice to wear a size 8! I've never worn a single digit my entire adult life. I gave away all of my size 3x clothing, so I really can't afford to gain it back!
Good luck to you! You can do it! You're worth it! Even tho you feel like you're starving right now on the liquid diet, it will be a bleep on your lifetime radar! Oh, and I eat anything I want - including bread, rice, and Pasta. Just VERY small amounts of them. Anytime I go to Olive Garden, it's usually about 5 meals for me. I get sick of it or it goes bad in my frig before I eat the rest of it! My husband complains how much food I waste. Oh well. Better in the trash than on my body!
Oh and some advice: Be patient. can't say that enuf. For the first 5 mths and until my 3rd fill, I felt like I failed yet another diet. It was the 3rd fill that got me to restriction, where I could only take about 6 bites of a meal and be done with it. I don't think I researched it too much before, so I truly thought once I got it, I'd start losing immediately. Doesn't happen. Most people need from 2-5 fills before feeling the restriction.
Marci

I'm almost 3 years out. My weight loss was slower compared to most on here. The first year (I didn't get restriction till my 3rd fill, almost 5 mths out) was about 70lbs.I began dating then. I had ben widowed for about 3 yrs by then and felt uncomfortable dating. I met my now husband at about an 80 lbs loss. The 2nd year, I lost another 20 lbs, making it 104 lbs in 2 yrs. This is my 3rd year and I began having complications with my band. I gained back about 11 of those pounds.
Hopefully after my 2nd slip, they'll be able to remove my Fluid and start fresh. Hoping they won't have to manually reposition it. Even though I'm now having complications, I would do it all over again. It's so nice to wear a size 8! I've never worn a single digit my entire adult life. I gave away all of my size 3x clothing, so I really can't afford to gain it back!
Good luck to you! You can do it! You're worth it! Even tho you feel like you're starving right now on the liquid diet, it will be a bleep on your lifetime radar! Oh, and I eat anything I want - including bread, rice, and Pasta. Just VERY small amounts of them. Anytime I go to Olive Garden, it's usually about 5 meals for me. I get sick of it or it goes bad in my frig before I eat the rest of it! My husband complains how much food I waste. Oh well. Better in the trash than on my body!
Oh and some advice: Be patient. can't say that enuf. For the first 5 mths and until my 3rd fill, I felt like I failed yet another diet. It was the 3rd fill that got me to restriction, where I could only take about 6 bites of a meal and be done with it. I don't think I researched it too much before, so I truly thought once I got it, I'd start losing immediately. Doesn't happen. Most people need from 2-5 fills before feeling the restriction.
Marci