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If you stick to band sized portions and stay within your daily calories, you will continue to lose weight despite having a band unfilled or replaced. Remember, the band has nothing to do with weight loss. The band controls your hunger, your weight loss is 100% dependent on how many calories you consume versus the amount you burn. I had to have my band totally unfilled in August for an emergency surgery (not band related). I wasn't back in the Green Zone again until October but I still lost weight even though my band was empty.

Try GNC Isopure lean shakes low calorie high Protein Sent from my SM-G920V using the BariatricPal App

You are only 6 days post op. Give it a few weeks as you will see your stamina increase. Right now your diet is extremely calorie restrictive and thus you will be tired. My surgeon told me to stick to walking and light exercise for 6 weeks. I was cleared for weights but no abs after that. At 12 weeks I was allowed to start ab exercises. Now I'm an exercise junkie...something I definitely was not before surgery. You will get back to your old routine in no time. Just try not to overdo it.

Terry how many calories do you eat a day and do you eat your exercise calories? I miss exercising so much. I walked my dog for about 20 minutes yesterday (very slowly) and it was hard on me.

Since you are still healing you shouldn't "give up" on Protein. Adding a scoop on unflavored protein powder to 8 oz of 1% milk will give you 28 grams of protein. You can favor it with an almost endless choice sugar free syrups. I like to add a handful of ice and blend it. On the keto diet you can even add some heavy cream. You need just drink this just three times a day to get 90 grams of protein in around 600 calories.

In the past I have dropped to 1000 calorie diets and lost a lot of weight. But I worked out a lot and found I was very light headed at the end. Oh, and I was FAMISHED all day long. I was doing 6 small meals, no carbs or ANYTHING with sugar after 2. This from a girl who has 1 large meal a day eating habbits! My metabolism didn't know what to do! It was a fantastic plan, but with my lifestyle it was very hard to follow. I do a lot of business lunches and dinners... plus I found it very difficult to eat after noon because I got so busy at work. I see the Dr. for the first time next week for prelim testing for a hopeful operation later this spring. I feel really out of control with my weight gain right now and need to work on getting control between now and then. Would any of you reccommend that I go on a liquid diet before surgery?

I was told to do 3 meal a day with no snacking as well. For the most part, I stick to that pretty good. If I do have a snack, it is usually 1 oz. of nuts or a 100 calorie pack.

I just a made a meatloaf with a package of stove top stuffing mixed in - it was delicious and moist and a small piece is not going to kills us calorie wise.

I'm a firm believer in journaling, here is an interesting article on that very subject. I hope this helps you with your struggles, it sure does help me. Write Your Way to Weight Loss Find out how keeping a journal can keep off those pounds. By Madeline Vann, MPH Medically reviewed by Lindsey Marcellin, MD, MPH Writing down what you eat can double your weight-loss success and help you keep those pounds off permanently. After all, maintaining your weight can be harder than losing it, so you need all the helpful tools you can get. Keep Your New Weight: Why Journaling Works A study of 1,700 overweight men and women showed that those who kept a regular food and exercise journal, along with eating a low-fat diet and exercising 30 minutes per day, lost 18 pounds in 20 weeks, compared to a nine-pound loss among those who did no journaling. Researchers believe food journals work because: They make you accountable. They help you identify where extra calories are sneaking back into your diet. They can act as a deterrent — if you know you have to write down that you ate a second generous wedge of double fudge chocolate chip brownie pie, you might not eat it! They provide a concrete record of your success. One of the lessons many people take from their experience of food journaling is the difference between a serving size as printed on a nutrition label and the amount of a food that they consider to be a helping. For example, a serving of Pasta is about a half a cup, so you may be surprised when you start keeping your food journal that your usual helping of spaghetti could be as many as four servings. Keep Your New Weight: Find Your Best Journal Format Be creative with your weight journal format if that also helps keep you on track. The word journal may conjure up the image of a leather-bound diary tucked under your pillow, but 21st century dieters can get the same benefit with a high-tech twist — texting. An eight-week study of 31 families showed that tech-savvy teens were nearly twice as likely to stick to a diet plan if they could text-message about their diet and exercise choices. The study's authors concluded that an immediate response from a nutritionist helped keep them motivated. You could achieve the same results by texting a diet buddy. Another option is keeping a log of your dietary choices online, which may also give you access to interactive tools such as calorie counters and weight trackers as well as personalized meal and exercise plans. Keep Your New Weight: What to Journal Whether you're a next-generation smart phone texter or a spiral notebook traditionalist, you need to keep track of specific details for the best results. Here is a general guide for what information to track in your log: Your weight at the start of maintenance and at your regular weigh-ins. Your goals and any specific guidelines for your meal plan. Specific measurements you are tracking, such as your waistline. Portion sizes of foods — remember to make it servings, not helpings — and food groups. Nutritional information associated with the servings you are eating, such as calories, salt content, fat content, Fiber, and carbohydrates. Minutes of exercise expended, plus any other exercise data you record, such as heart rate. Any other habits that you believe are relevant to your weight, such as the time you spend watching TV or playing video games. Any other details about your eating experience, such as where you ate, who you were with, and how you were feeling emotionally at that time. Write down everything that you eat or drink, including Snacks and Water. And another success tip: For greater accuracy jot down what you ate right after you eat it. By keeping a food diary, you'll be able to see if you're about to go over your allotted calories for your current weight on any given day, as well as if you're eating too many or too few calories over the course of a week. Since it's important to shake up your exercise routine periodically to keep your body challenged, your journal will also allow you to review past workouts and alert you when you’re due for a change. Journaling is a great motivator, keeping you on the straight and narrow and preventing you from slipping back into old patterns that caused your weight gain.

She is correct that if you don't get enough calories your lean muscle mass will go down. That being said, you are eating like a bandster. My trainer had me on 1200 calories a week and I did really well. Still to what your surgeon says. It will be worth it in the end.

I have a dog that requires me to be out all winter walking. I just dress in thermals- besides walking warms you up and you burn more calories shivering! I do not walk when it is way below zero or really bad wind chill or icy sidewalks. I do not want to be laid up when I wrench my bad knees. But, by the time we get out ( around 6pm) the wind usually has died down and it is clear and cold but beautiful. Also bought a recumbent bike for the days I do not walk ( and those i do also). I have not lost enough to where i feel comfy at a gym or better yet , a pool.

It's hard and you definitely aren't alone. I don't know how many times I've made myself these plates of foods at least twice as much as I can eat. Old habits die hard, and while the band may help reduce hunger and the amount we can consume, it does change our heads. In my opinion, the head is the hardest to retrain, too. It will get easier when you get some restriction. The first couple months until then are often referred to as "bandster hell because you can often eat as though you're not banded at all until after a couple fills. The good news is, restriction does help. A good example- on Easter I decided to give myself a freebie day and didn't count calories. (I normally log everything on an app called Lose It!) I had exactly one Reeses Egg and was immediately full. Part of me was silently irritated I couldn't just sit and graze on candy anymore, but I realized it was also saving me a scale trauma because seriously over-eating was literally impossible. Hang in there, it does get easier.

I feel your pain. I felt like I tried everything also and the weight just kept creeping up. I would diet with friends and be more strict with the calories and more intense with the exercise and still lose less than they did. I would diet for literally 5 months to lose 20 lbs and my diet buddies would lose 2 and 3 times that. Being banded the weight has come off slow for me, but has come OFF nonetheless. I think you need to keep researching your options and see what seems right for you. I wish you the best.

OK, here's what I know, for what it's worth. I'm learning as I go along, and just share what I know... I'm willing to read labels and bring in more info, because I just ASSUME (silly me) that everyone is kind of on the same page. I didn't research how Mexico works, because I didn't do that. So... My surgeon is part of a group that includes him, two dieticians (or, on here, NUTs), an exercise physiologist (trainer) with a gym we can use, an insurance coordinator (my hero), a nurse-case manager, and an office manager. The program involves seeing the NUT and the trainer every month to meet the insurance requirements that their coordinator knows by heart because it's all she does. She gets us approved! The nurse case-manager handles the medication change questions, and other individual things like CPAP and heart and diabetes... So we see her when we are having our freak outs. She's just left, and they are hiring a replacement (not that she can be replaced, but another one, anyway). And monthly support groups. So the program IS the dietician who knows bariatrics. The surgery happens, but it's the tool we use with the NUT program and the gym work we do. I'm shocked that you don't have a NUT. HOWEVER, don't freak out at weight loss numbers. I was sleeved May 13, BUT that was after I had lost almost 60 lbs already, through diet and exercise with the program. (shocked me, let me tell you). I'm thinking I'm losing slowly now, but when we're in a stall, here's what they ask us: Are you tracking your food (measuring and weighing and writing it all down)? are you hitting your Protein goals (they set them based on gender and height. I'm 5'10" and a girl and mine is 85g / day)? Are you getting your fluids (64 oz of non-calorie, but your Protein shake counts)? No caffeine, no carbonation. Low carb diet. No more than 5 eating points a day. A shake a day. (if pressed, they will give a calorie target, mine is like 1000/day). Eating your Vitamins? No more than 1 c of food at a time. Does that help? Feel free to ask me more questions. I have lots of paperwork that I refer to - I'm a scientist

Surgery isn't pleasant but I think you'll survive that fine. Just don't get dehydrated like I did. I don't think you're going to have to give up all of your favorite foods. I'm only in the mushy stage but it sounds like you can eat almost anything within reason. Some people can even eat bread. I felt the same way before my surgery, even thought about cancelling but the benfits are gonna outweigh negatives. I didn't have any problem with the liquids diet after surgery and so far I'm actually trying to figure out how to get enough calories with mushies. I know you're surgery is over now. Hope it went great.

I think I need to change things up too. I went through a period, when I first started eating regular food again, that I ate 800-900 calories a day and dropped rapidly, then plateaued. So then I went up to 1000-1200 calories and started losing rapidly again. Now I'm slowing down again, like from 5 lbs a week to just 1 or 2 the last week. I also tend to eat the same things over and over because a) I'm picky and I'm not at all creative in the kitchen. I would love to give myself permission to have some bad days, but I feel so damn guilty when I do. I am like Crystal--I eat healthy most of the time and allow myself treats (like this past Saturday night, we went to McDonalds and had ice cream cones--yuuuuuum!) but I account for those in my daily intake and still don't let myself go over 1200 calories at absolute most. I'm wondering if dropping back to 800-900 a day would do the trick. Maybe I'll let myself be bad this weekend and see how things go.

Thanks for the advice. Yes, I'm aware of the calories. I do air popcorn use very little salt and butter.

While that is an extreme example, it is not unusual for restaurant entree salads to be calorie heavy, usually over 1000; As with a basic potato which is fundamentally a healthy food and low/moderate calories, commercially the seem to feel the neeg=d to load them up with a lot of calorie rich extras to make them sellable. The dressings alone can easily add 3-500+ calories with the amount that gets glopped on. You can probably do a similar salad at home with 1/3 the calories - and that would still be much more than we could normally eat.

So I was banded back in April 2010.... losing appropriately and well... ALMOST to onederland..... the past week though has been a HUGE challenge and I know I've narrowed it down but I don't GET IT! Milk and OJ have ALWAYS been ok.. no issues.. not a care in the world. Watching the calorie content of course but for the past week I've been sliming BADLY whenever I drink milk or OJ.... I eat my normal meal then a few hours later it was a cup of oj and then milk before bed .. Anyone else had a similar issue post banding and post healing? I know my band isn't too tight because solid foods I can handle.. but this so off the wal... I went straight to H2O this am and the sliming stopped! Argh!

Your body may be developing an intolerance to them. It's quite common actually. I'd say stop drinking Milk and OJ. You don't need either of them - they're empty calories. You can get the Calcium and Vitamin D you need from Vitamins, which you should be taking anyway, and too much Vitamin C is linked to kidney stones. Chances are, you're getting more than enough just by eating and taking your vitamins. A few things to consider about Orange juice - it's really not good for your system. And I know this could get a lot of responses but take a look at this (fully documented by Tim Ferris - The Four Hour Body): THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT: FRUCTOSE Can fruit juice really screw up fat-loss? Oh, yes. And it screws up much more. Not to speculate, I tested the effect of fructose in two tests, the first during a no-fructose diet (no juice, no fruit) and the second after one week of consuming 14 ounces-about 1.5 large glasses-of pulp-free orange juice upon waking and before bed. The orange juice was the only thing distinguishing diets A and B. The changes were incredible. Before (10/16, no fructose) and after (10/23, orange juice): Cholesterol: 203 -> 243 (out of “healthy” range) LDL: 127 -> 165 (also out of range) There were two other values that shot up unexpectedly: Albumin: 4.3 -> 4.9 (out of range) Iron: 71 -> 191 (!) (out of range aka into the stratosphere) Albumin binds to testosterone and renders it inert, much like SHBG (discussed in “Sex Machine”) but weaker. I don’t want either to be out-of-range high. Bad for the manly arts. If you said “Holy sh*t!” when you saw the Iron jump, we’re in the same boat. This result was completely out of the blue and is not good, especially in men. It might come as a surprise, but men don’t menstruate. This means that men lack a good method for clearing out excessive iron, which can be toxic. The increase in iron was far more alarming to me than the changes in cholesterol. Here is just one of several explanations from the research literature: In addition to contributing to metabolic abnormalities, the consumption of fructose has been reported to affect homeostasis of numerous trace elements. Fructose has been shown to increase iron absorption in humans and experimental animals. Fructose intake [also] decreases the activity of the copper enzyme superoxide dismutase (SOD) and reduces the concentration of serum and hepatic copper. The moral of the story? Don’t drink fruit juice, and absolutely avoid a high-fructose diet. It doesn’t do the body good.

My nutritionist explained it this way. Our bodies need a certain amount of Protein and Vitamins and minerals every day to stay healthy and keep our muscle mass. This can be done on 800-1000 calories with nearly PERFECT food choices. Fat people have excess energy stored (as fat). So as long as we've covered what we need to stay healthy and keep our muscle mass (the 800-1000 calories of healthy food to get in the new vitamins, minerals, protein we need), no matter how much you exercise, you don't "need" extra food because you have stored energy for your body to burn. That said, if you do very long workouts (high cardio workouts over 90 minutes -- i.e. distance biking, running, etc.), your body uses all the glycogen (readily available energy in the blood) it has and you can feel weak until your body has a chance to convert fat in storage into glycogen. Hence why endurance athletes, even ones with excess fat, sometimes need to eat/drink calories while exercising or just after exercising. When I'm in heavy marathon training (weeks where I'm running more than 30 miles per week), I probably eat 400 calories more per day than other times. I wake up hungry at 2 a.m., something that was never a problem for me, even when dieting, before I was an endurance athlete. I guess what it comes down to is, I don't believe you need excess calories overall TO BE HEALTHY in terms of your vitamins, minerals, and protein just because you're an endurance athlete, if you're still trying to lose weight, except possibly WHILE you're exercising. That's not to say that you won't be hungrier -- you might be -- and if you are and if it works for you to eat a little more, that's ok too. But you don't "need" it, if that makes sense.

I watch calories, Protein, sodium, fat, and carbs. I also watch Fiber because I have a family history of colon cancer and fiber is important. I don't freak out if I miss a day, I generally keep an eye on it, though.

I think the differences that the fitbit is a pedometer so it measures steps taken and the Polar is a heart monitor... The difference in calories burned according to them is that if you walk the same amount of steps at a higher intensity level so your heart rate raises you actually burn more calories than if you walk them at a lower intensity even though its the same amount... The fitbit will tell you you burned this amount because you walked this amount of steps but won't take into account if you ran those steps and raised your heart rate.. The polar does take it into account because its a heart rate monitor... When you raise your heart rate you burn more calories that must be why they say different things with the same workout...

Welcome Keith! I noticed your username, so may I add Hook 'Em Horns to my greetings? Maybe we can burn off a few calories by yelling and jumping while watching the College World Series this afternoon on the TV! Just no snacking!

oh man, being too tight is MISERABLE! I sure feel for you, and agree with everyone else, you need an unfill, and you need more calories. Why didn't he schedule you to fix your flip?