xavier

Well I think right now I am eating 800-1000 calories a day. Right now I was just eating some cake (a craving I had to get out of my system!). I am a vegetarian sort of because I do eat fish. I dont tell myself there's anything I CANT have but there are a few things I MUST have. That way I dont feel deprived. I have a rule about getting at least 60 grams of Protein every day which since I dont eat meat I have t be careful of. I am very tight in the morning so a lot of times I have a Protein shake (Cosco Premier Protein, 160 cals and 30 gms protein). Sometimes greek yogurt but I get sick of both and just force myself since I have no appetite (I never did) in the morning. Then later when I do get hungry I might want to eat junk food and I might let myself have it (I can only eat about a 100 calorie size of potato chips for example...not nutritious but not too big of a deal). So after morning protein I may eat another five times that day...tiny meals means eating and being hungry more often but I think thats ok. So of those 5 'meals' I try to make sure two or three are protein like tuna salad or a Boca burger with cheese. I have a hard time sometimes with rice, Pasta bread but I can eat small amounts of them. I eat a lot of sushi but I really have to chew. I drink wine almost every evening because one glass seems to keep me from the after dinner TV snacking! I refuse to eat anything that had reduced calorie or fake sugar or whatever. I walk my fat dachshund maybe every other day but I dont work out or go to ga gym and I never will. I hate diets (they made me fatter) and I hate gyms (I'm naturally lazy). Ask me anything I am no model of perfection but I am very honest. I just want people to know that you can be successful without becoming a dieting gym rat...how long could I keep that up anyway???

Ok, I know I'm going to get myself in trouble but it seems like most of you are basically on a very restricitive diet! If that works long term, great, but I think all my dieting is how I got fat. I eat small portions of regular food! I will NEVER eat anything low fat or low calorie or fake sugar or anything like that! I eat regular food, focus on protein, but my band only lets me eat tiny meals.... yesterday I had two portions of lasagna, a serving of sauteed spinach , some sushi, cheeses and crackers, and some wine. I probably eat bout six times a day...

Probably 800 - 1000. I dont count and I just focus on protein. I dont exercise other than a few walks of the dog and I surely dont diet!

Go back to what you know works...listen to yourself!!!

I say wear it if you like it...myself, it just makes me feel fat and miserable. Its just punishment to a fat girl which in my head I guess Ill always be...

Have him go all over this site...the truth is all here and the successes are the VAST majority. I would say dont involve yourself too much in helping him decide because it will be entirely his responsibility to deal with it and work the band... He will get any and all questions answered here and lots of support. PS: I love my band so much I would even self-pay again if I had to!!!

Dear Vez, Good luck you have been through everyones nightmare and you have handled it. I hope you surgeon sewed your band in place so you cant get a slippage. Mine does that on all bands and he has never had a slippage. The other thing is the throwing up which I have done more of than I care to admit but I have learned my band now and it is very rare. I think I was a slow learner though. Anyway I hope you are super careful because with previous tendency to slip you really need to minimize the throwing up as much as possible! Easier said than done! Anyway good luck and be nice to yourself in these hard and hungry early days...its not a race!

Dear Amber, What you are describing sounds like head hunger where you really want food but you are not physically hungry. We all have that and have to deal with it. If you are truly physically hungry you will eat anything like an apple. Head hunger means you want fries and even though the apple is right in front of you you will drive somewhere to get the fries. That being said, yes, I am hungry much less but I still want to eat when I am not physically hungry and sometimes I give in and do it...but my band is nice and snug and only lets me eat a tiny amount of food and then I feel full and I am over it. An hour after dinner I might want to eat pizza and back in the day could probably eaten a whole one...but now if I give in to the pizza head hunger I can barely eat a whole slice... Good LUck!

I never thought I would be here either. I have been obese for 20 years. I lost weight many times and always gained it back and more. This has been a crazy ride but relatively easy and I can now be sure I will never gain it back. I still see myself in a mirror or shop window or in a picture and dont think its me!

You are doing the right thing by just giving it a rest with the mushies. Mine can be variable too and I will never probably fully understand it or predict it! I think my tightness is similar to my wedding ring...in the morning I can barely get it off and in the evening its falling off but also some wild variations of that once in a while! Anyway I will never be able to eat solid food before 11:00 am and after dinner I have to be careful not to oversnack! I always say about my band "Its mystery is only exceeded by its power" and if you havent seen the movie Dude, Wheres my Car...you'll just think I'm crazy!

I have definitely been hungry less with the band but when I am hungry I eat and I eat pretty much whatever I want (hello! if I had any discipline I wouldnt need a band!) anyway I can only eat tiny meals and that works for me.I dont exercise and I dont diet! The other possibility is that the person who said they were always hungry had head hunger and didnt know the difference. We all want to eat when we are not hungry (and, yes, sometimes I give in to it) but thats head hunger not physical hunger. To me, the best way to tell which is which is to think about an apple or a piece of cake. When you are truly physically hungry you will eat anything even an apple! When it is head hunger and the apple is right in front of you you will drive across town for the cake! Good luck!

I think I see this a little differently than a lot of others so bear with me. I keep my band pretty tight and I like it and need it that way. Yes, it is variable day to day and at different times of the day very similar to the rings on my fingers. I can eat an egg and I can eat a veggie patty but not at the same time. That would be two different meals for me and that's ok with me. Also your band will loosen up as you lose weight because there is actually fat under it on your stomach. So if you can live with these outrageously tiny meals for a while, you will lose weight and eventually you will be able to eat both with no problem but you may plateau on your weight loss. To me that means time for another fill. I eat very tiny meals and actually quite often but I have never dieted or exercised and this has actually been relatively easy for me...good luck!

You are doing fine! Try to be s nice to yourself as you are to others! A year from now it wont matter and you wont even remember exactly how many pounds you lost in what period of time! Just relax its not a race...

Papaya enzyme is with the vitamins in all the stores. Walmart and Walgreens for sure. Its chewable and it works pretty well. Sometimes you just have to yak it up...

I disagree with Acadia but I know the band is different for all of us. Yes, I'm less hungry and yes, I feel full longer. But the reason I have lost weight consistently without exercising or dieting is because I can't eat as much at one time. For me , its all about restriction! Sometimes I eat when I'm not hungry and sometimes I (try to ) overeat...but my band doesnt let me eat more than about 3/4 cup of food!

Definitely make an appointment to see your Doctor, not the nurse. If the Doc tells you that (I doubt it) go to someone else. I have a 10cc band and when I had 6.5 I had no restriction and lost no weight...I would have self payed for nothing... Good luck!

Not sure who told you that about the breathing tube but it is not correct. For one thing if you need the breathing tube (endotracheal intubation) you are about to die without it and the only alternative is a hole in your neck (tracheotomy). You dont get intubated for fainting as long as you are still breathing which you would usually be. That tube is for someone who is not breathing. Your trachea (for breathing) is not your esophagus (for food ) so the tracheal tube wiil not harm your band. Also your band is on your stomach which is way lower down than where the breathing tube would go. All that said, more medical info for anyone taking care of you is always good so the bracelet or wallet card is probably all good.

I have been a slow loser but looking back its mainly because of two things. One I didnt get a fill when I hit a plateau and I had two of them that lasted me nearly a year total. My fill doc was far away and I was thinking if I idont gain weight my retriction must be fine.Through this whole thing I have never gained more than two pounds which is great. Second I have never dieted, eaten diet food, or exercised. At a good level of restriction I always lost about five pounds a month which was good I think. It is more than two years since my band and I am at normal BMI and will probably continue to lose a little from here as my restriction is pretty tight. My first jeans were a Levis 505 size 16 short and now I wear the same 505s in a 6 short. Usually I wear an 8 everywhere else like at the Gap.

Late to the thread but new to normal BMI and pretty big port bump now! Any ideas on cost of getting it replaced with a low profile? Thanks!

For SLPcat...you can tell them you are losing by eating less and that will be the truth. The rest is medical info only to be shared with people in your inner circle. To the thread starter I have found that witty comebacks just prolong a conversation I dont want to be having. If it is a comment (as opposed to a question) I usually nod as if I am thinking it over and dont actually respond. If it is an inappropriately personal question I take my response from the old Dear Abby, " Oh, I'm SURE you don't want me to answer something SOOOOO personal!" It really puts people in their place that they are out of line... Good luck, be careful who you tell, who ever said there are a lot of haters was dead on!

Great blog!!!

Well I 'only' had to lose 70 to get to normal BMI so of course I had to self pay. I consider myself a low BMIer. I can eat anything or drink anything and I dont chew obsessively...BUT...I can only eat about a half a cup of anything at a time. My husband teases me that I eat so little I am a very cheap date! I can order a regular meal in a restaurant (come'on, girls we all know those portions are for an NFL linebacker, but we know we have eaten them!) and take the rest home and live on it for days! I LOVE my band because at the right fill level it absolutely prevents me from overeating. I have never dieted, counted calories, eaten diet food or low fat food, or exercised since I had the band, Hell, I had done all that many times before and failed or should I say succeeded in getting fatter everytime i lost then regained the weight?! I definitely eat and am more than happy with tiny portions but people do notice it when I eat with other people and I just had to get over that feeling of being judged. I didnt tell anyone except immediate fam that I am banded so I think my friends who see how little I eat think I am starving myself and maybe they even think I am judging them for eating the whole restaurant meal. I used to feel bad about that and would even overeat to the point of having to yak to try to cover how little I would eat...I dont do that any more I just dont care what people think! Getting to that point was probably the hardest thing about having the band. I went from a size 16 jeans to a size 6...nuff said! Juicy, good luck...thanks for friending me and dont listen to people who say its about following the rules and living at the gym (if we could do that...) its all about restriction...fight till you get your RIGHT level of restriction!! After that, its a (tiny) piece of cake!

This is a bad deal and I feel bad for you...BUT, statistically, the likelihood of bad events and bad health consequences is much higher for an obese person than for a person with normal weight and a lap band (me). I am a self payer who had a good outcome and got my health back. Lifelong obesity has a risk and so does having the band...I am just saying the risks are higher with the lifelong obesity... quote name='ForMyBoys' timestamp='1269472730' post='1418466'] Word of Caution to all self payers. I was a self pay over a year ago. My insurance would not cover my surgery. At 9 months post op I had 2 hospital stays, surgery, and 2 ER visits. My tubing was wrapped around an intestine. Then my tubing got stuck in scar tissue. I am now at 15 months and have ran test for the last week . I have an eroded esophagas and tubing stuck again. Guess what, if insurance doesn't pay for surgery then they don't pay for complications either. I've lost 95 pounds and my life savings along with it trying to save my life from the complications of this band. People just think about the initial cost because we don't want to believe that anything will go wrong. I would take back every pound I lost to have my health back. My advise is if insurance doesn't cover it than RUN. Don't get yourselves in my situation. Actually at this point the best advise I could give anyone is Don't Do It . Losing the weight is not worth losing your life to complications. Look into the complication rate of this surgery. I wish I had.

I have also taken some fairly long and high dose courses of prednisone! Theres no diet that can take that off! You need the band or some other kind of weight loss surgery!

I'm sure you are just trying to help but I dont think you are supposed to sell or advertise stuff here. Also your article on aspartame has no references which means its just someone's opinion without the real science to back it up. Sorry but I speak the truth.