1970MaleJaxFL

Nice! I got my 2nd fill yesterday. Another cc on top of the 6 I got on the first fill. Nice restriction for now.

I've lost 112 lbs in 19 weeks.

Wow. Nice work. May I ask what your starting weight and goal weight are and what you did to get those great results?

I have no idea why but the band seemed to kick in about 2 weeks after my first fill. I started dropping like crazy losing around 7 lbs. in a week and a half. i think my brain finally started seeing portions in a more reasonable way. No normal looks like a lot less food to me.

Wow, that is great. I lost about 20 lbs. before surgery and nothing changed for the first 6 weeks after surgery. It actually didn't start going down again until 2 weeks after my first fill at around the 7 1/2 week mark. How many fills have you had and when did the band start helping you? I can feel it help me a little since the first fill but not much.

I was banded on April 11th 2011. I just got off the liquid diet and have lost 23 pounds while on liquids and 75 pounds since I started the program. I get my first fill in a week.

Man, I'm kind of jealous of you guys who are on your 3rd fill. I was a late April bandster (the 28th) and it took me 6 weeks to get to a doctor for my first fill (6 cc's in a large size lapband) and won't get my second one until about a week into July. After reading all of the posts about folks being on their 3rd and it is making me try to slip into the doctor's office early next week to get the 2nd one going. I can still eat 4-5 cups of food in a sitting and never need to crush pills so I'm thinking I need a little more help.

I take 4 small prescription pills a day (all just under tick tack size). I've never had to cut or crush them to get them down. I pop all 4 in my mouth take a swig of Water and it's all good. I've only had 1 fill (6 cc's in a large sized Lap Band) so far. Is the pill issue a good barometer of the need for more fills/ restriction?

Wow, the volume I can take in after 1 fill is still much more than you guys are eating. I've been eating "unwich" sandwiches from Jimmy John's subs for lunch every day. They are just breadless subs with lettuce where the bread would be but they are huge compared to the volume you guys are measuring out. With the pickle that I get, I'd guess it is 4-5 cups worth. But I've been losing .2 - 1 lb/ day every day that I've switched to the unwiches for lunch (no cardio either).

Sorry to be so late in responding to this.

IMO you did right to measure the chili in a measuring cup rather than weigh it. And you're right in the thought to weigh solid Proteins. And MOST of the time, I measure my veggies in a measuring cup (my doc says 1/2 cup lower carb veggies). I've started weighing them too, just out of curiosity, and different veggies weigh different amounts. I know some bariatric surgeons say it's really more important to go by volume than weight when managing food intake.

Your doctor or nutritionist may have other ideas, but when it comes to weighing food, I don't worry if it's 2.7 or 3.2 oz.. as long as it's close to 3oz, that's fine. And if I've been working out extremely hard or if the Protein is a very low calorie one.. like fish, I will sometimes have 4oz. I try not to increase my Protein very often though as it could be a slippery slope back to weight gain.

It can be a very confusing thing to try to decide how to measure your food, but you, your doc and your nut or dietician should be able to come up with a method that works for you, the individual. Remember the band "rules" aren't really all that rigid.. they can be modified to work with the individual. That's why I much prefer to call them guidelines.

All this is based on my experience.. others might have differing views and that's ok too.

The scale started moving for me finally. I've been bouncing around between 338-341 since my surgery on April 28th. I've been losing everyday for the last several days and got down to 335 and change. The next fill in 2 weeks should get me to a good level of restriction.

Thanks for the feedback. I hope to jump to 8-10 cc's with next month's fill.

Wow, that's 35 lbs in less than a month after surgery?! How much weight did you have to lose? I didn't drop a single lb. In the month after surgery. Hope that changes now that I have a fill.

Yeah, I'm ordering much less than I normally would. It is taking me a while to adjust to what the new 'normal' food quantity should look like. I'm so used to the years of crazy portions.

Temptation. When you master your temptation to over eat, you lose weight and become more attractive to others. Then you face another kind of temptation because you have more options for mating/ dating. If you 'settled' when you get hitched to your spouse, that relationship may not withstand the situation when more options open up to you. On the other hand, if you married for the right reasons, your relationship will probably be fine.

So I went about 6 weeks post-surgery before my first fill. I lost about 20 lbs. before surgery but nothing in the 6 weeks since. Of course there was no restriction at all and I maintained the loss through willpower.

I have the large size lapband. The surgeon said I had .8 cc's already in it and he added 6 more after the Water drinking test during my first fill last thursday. I'm now feeling a little help from the band but can still eat an almost normal sized plate of food but maybe half of what i used to. It does feel like i can go hours between meals without getting hungry though. My next fill is about 3 weeks away.

Does all of this sound pretty typical?

I went to regular food faster than I should have. It happens and complications are the risk. Listen to whatever the doc says. In my novice opinion, going to normal food 2 weeks out is not nearly the risk that doing it within the first week would be.

I'm morbidly obese and have 120 lbs. to lose. Though many of the women I know are extremely yummy, I don't have access to their magic bits because I get relegated to 'friend' status. Have any of you guys found that you get intimate access to your hot female friends once you lose your excess weight or do they ever become able to see you that way?

Similar deal here. Totally dove in and lost 20 lbs in the month before surgery and nothing off since. I'm a month out with no fill and am struggling to keep the 20 off that I earned pre-band. I go for my first fill on Monday.

Thanks ladies. I appreciate the honest feedback. I'm in a pretty low activity lifestyle at 40 years old. Thinking back on my days of cutting carbs and dropping 90 lbs in 90 days at 19 years old is probably distorting my expectations a bit.

I have a couple of comments:

You said you have not found a single food you can't eat - but your tag said you should still be on a restricted diet for another couple of weeks at least. Are you eating what is on your diet? That really has nothing to do so with your question, but caught my eye.

Yes, my restricted diet was extremely limited in duration. The info. in my signature was the projection for each stage but those estimates didn't hold true. The band isn't really limiting me at all. I'm kind of doing everything via a conscious effort right now. It is netting me a slight weight loss every week.

I was banded about 10 days ago and ate there last night. I had the chicken Trio, skipped the salad/ Soup option and took half of the entree home. It was still probably a 1,000 calorie meal but it is one of my favorite dishes. I had about 2/3s of one piece of bread when I would normally eat 3/4ths of the entire loaf, plus 100% of the salad and entree. Hopefully, once the fills start, I will probably only be able to eat 1/4-1/3 of the entree.

I can imagine that you have developed a pretty nice, humble and friendly personality, which will be very attractive on top of your new physical form once you hit your goal weight. Your sense of self image will likely lag many months behind your physical transformation but you will eventually gain an accurate assessment of yourself.

I'm only about 10 days out from surgery. My hunger is gone but I don't have much restriction. I have not had a single PB or found a single food that I cannot eat post-band. I now have total control over the content and volume of what I take in. After losing about 20 lbs. between April 1st through a couple of days post-op (May 1st), my weight loss has slowed to about 1/4 - 1/3 a lb. a day. I intended to lose at least a lb. every other day but I am way off of that schedule based on my current results. For Breakfast I can eat 2 scrambled eggs with cheese and a side of turkey bacon. How does that amount of food compare to the volume that you folks losing 3-4 lbs./ week take in per meal?

I lost 8.5% (28 lb) the first week after surgery and 115 lb (30%) the first year.

Cindy,

That first week loss is incredible. What were you eating and doing for workouts that week? What do you attribute that extreme weight change to that first week?

So my post-surgery discomfort was still in full effect but I had my 4 year old and we had an active day yesterday. I accidentally grabbed a piece of his popcorn at the movie! It scared me that I had eaten something so bad. Sat there waiting to have a huge problem. But nothing happened so I accidentally ate a couple more throughout the movie and nothing happened. I had small quantities of various things throughout the day yesterday. Probably 1/2 - 1 cup servings every 3-4 hours. My body didn't register a gain (lately I've been able to accurately feel a weight change up or down) but my head was thinking I would have zero loss or a 1 lb. gain. But when I weighed today, I was down 2 lbs.! Oh and pretty much all of the post-surgery discomfort seems to have passed by this morning.

Got some chicken and stars. It is pretty thin.

I'm "watching" you.! Buy the Protein powder like I suggested,follow the lapband rules, so you can get get to your all important "skinny bucket" to do list! I'm glad to see your doing well.

Ha ha, good-stay on me about messing up. Thanks again for all of the tips and the great care on Thurs. The lbs. are falling off already.