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What are you eating? If you are not and only drinking the tightening (fill) won't help. My suggestion is stay away from Starbucks or wherever younarengetting your drinks. You have to break the habit, once you do your taste buds may change. Mine did, but it took a couple weeks of staying away from the sugary drinks and now I can't stand the taste. Find a substitute. I make my own tee and flavored drinks using truvia. I know it is hard, but you can do it. I also find that logging everything keeps me accountable. I love food, so I don't drink my calories.

Daydra, I just had the sleeve in June at Madigan, since it is a Military Treatment Facility TriCare covered all of my costs, no out of pocket expense at all...just had to go thru the MAMC Education Pathway (took about three months) and then the surgery.

Hi other sleevers! I had my surgery on the 22nd of Jan and for the most part feel great. I have an embarrassing question to ask though. I'm having a lot if loose bowl movements and I'm only having Water with a little Protein water. (My dr has me on Clear liquids for a week) I'm also having a hard time drinking the 60 oz of liquids. How do you do this? Has anyone else experienced this? I just don't recall anyone saying this in class. Thanks!

I was sleeved on 7/31 and and a little over 3 week out, I eat eggs, Beans, cottage cheese, cheese sticks, Jello, apple sauce and Protein drinks, I am starting to get bored and I wanted to get ideas from people who were sleeve the same time as me. What are u all eating at this point??! I am also a slow looser I started my journey at 204 and I am at 192 currently, I really thought this process would of been faster but it's ok I am learning to be patient and not give up, I am a band to sleeve patient and know the weight isn't going to melt off.

I had my surgery on the 22nd also and I have had the opposite problem I haven't gone for over a week. I haven't had any discomfort from it yet but I am worried I will soon. My diet is different than most as I have three double milks a day That is skim milk with sugar free instant breakfast or dry milk mixed with it. They do not want us to use protein powder at all and I am okay with that. I have been eating alot of sugarfree popsicles and that helps with getting liquids in..

ok, some of this is perception - I thought i looked older until about 20 people all told me, at different times and places that I look 15 years younger! I hear people do injections and stuff, what happens is you lose upper cheek fullness which gives a bit of a drawn look. I don't have wrinkles, but I definatley have that. When I smile, it disappears, so keep smiling. I am doing plastics on my body in 2 weeks, maybe in the next few years i will consider doing injections or fillers or whatever it is they do for the face.

Actually, you MIGHT not need another fill. The difference is between "full" and "satisfied". There's a BIG difference between those things, and that is one of the hardest things to learn with the band. Of course, we all have overeating problems that led us to get banded. Before getting another fill, try seeing if you are blowing past your "stop signs": 1. Are you eating small bites, chewing very thoroughly (20-30x)? 2. Are you sitting down to eat with no distractions (computer, TV, etc)? 3. Are you drinking with your meals? (Stop!) 4. When you are midway through eating your (premeasured, no more than 1 to 1.5 cup of solid food) meal, do you notice anything like: -a sigh -a hiccup -nose running -burp -shoulder pain If you do--stop eating. You are "full". There are others, you can google them and find what other people notice is their soft stop sign. These signs can be very subtle, so it's important to pay attention to them. Being "full" is a thing of the past. This is an important thing to learn if you want to be successful with the band. It's not easy, but it isn't as hard as it seems once you get used to it. Try watching for this for a week, and see if you notice anything different. If you do stop eating once you notice a soft stop sign, see how long it takes before you start to get hungry again. If you find yourself hungry in less than 3 hours, you do need another fill. (This is of course if your meal is solid food. If you're eating Soup, ice cream, Protein shakes, or anything that isn't solid food, it will go right through the band and you'll be hungry again in no time.) But if you stop eating at this point, whatever it is for you, instead of waiting until you feel "full" like we're used to from pre-band days, and you can feel satisfied for 3-4 hours, your restriction is right. I hope this helps. These things are hard to learn. It sounds like emotional eating is also a big problem, like it is for so many of us. Separating "wanting to eat" from "hungry" is hard, and if you can start working on that, you might have more success as well. See if you can make a list of things to do to distract yourself from eating when you feel like eating but aren't hungry. That is a good place to start. You can do this--it will take work, though. Good luck to you and let us know how it goes!

I'm worried now. Anytime I ever did any kind of weight loss program I have never checked with my doctor because either I didn't have a doctor at the time or the doctor I have has never showed any interest in me or asked me if i wanted to help for my weight issue. Well now I am currently transferring to a new doctor but my first appointment isn't until June. So no weight loss attempts in the past have been medically documented. However I've done the atkins diet (2004), calorie control (2011), seen a dietician (last year) and did the LA weight loss program (over a decade ago). The ONLY weight loss attempt that might be documented is having seen the dietician but then she only had me come for two apppoinements, a week apart, never weighed me, just gave me the dietary plan she put together for me and then sent me on my way. Never asked that I have a follow up appointment with her or anything like that. So would that be enough for documented weight loss attempts? If there isn't enough documented proof then they require patients to go through a 6 month nutrition/weight loss program before getting the surgery. I really don't want to go through that and have to wait even longer for the surgery. Any way around this? or are my previous weight loss attempts enough? Also I think they said at the seminar the weight loss attempts have to be within the last 5 years (I think?). (also, they do not require any weight loss prior to the surgery but they said that the insurance company might require a 5% weight loss before surgery. I don't know if my insurance company requires that or not. I have BCBS of south carolina, even though I'm not from south carolina).

I am excited but starting to get nervous!! I go in for my pre-op on the 28th. It will be even MORE real then! EEEKKK!!

yeah so this week... 4.5 weeks since surgery... and im hungry hungry hungry... i cant eat half as much as pre-surgery...during meals... but am hungry like and hour or two later... my first fill is this wed... and i cant wait... but being hungry is scarring me... will it save me??:cool2:

I'm never really hungry, just want to eat. Have trouble remembering to eat/chew slowly. Had only 1cc first fill, at my request. Scared of being sick, burping, etc.. Next fill not for 4 more weeks. Any advice for slowing down with eating?

I had my band removed 6 weeks ago. There was a lot of scar tissue around the esophagus and upper stomach. I had symptoms of end stage achalasia, verified by manometry. The achalasia symptoms have resolved after removal. I was on a soft diet for 4 weeks post op because of the tissue being so damaged. I'm fine now, but because of the damage I cannot revise.

This is the first time I have been on this. I had my surgery on Jan.24. Everything went great! I lost 25 pounds the first 2 weeks, and now I havn't lost anything. Have other people gone thru this? I have my first fill next Friday. I can't wait! I want to start losing again!!!

18 pounds is great. I am in the same boat. I lost about 25 pounds the first 2 weeks, and I havn't lost anything since. It is very frustrating, but it is a long process. I am waiting to get my first fill next week. Just keep your mind on how good your going to look this summer! Thats what I keep telling myself!

IN & OUT OF THE WLS CLOSET I was happy about my decision to have WLS and thrilled when my insurance company finally approved it. I shared this happy news with many friends, acquaintances, family members, and coworkers. I don’t know but I assume that they discussed it amongst themselves to some extent, expressed opinions or concerns, and perhaps worried about my decision, but none of them gave me frankly negative feedback. They might have been thinking it, but they didn’t say it. I very much doubt I would have reversed my decision if someone had said, “That’s too risky/it’s a bad idea/I don’t want you to/you’re crazy/or whatever.” I’m going to assume that you, the reader of this article, are an adult over the age of 18, with the right to vote, the obligation to serve in the military, and (at some point, depending on your location) the right to purchase and use tobacco and liquor. Unless a judge has declared you mentally incompetent (and that’s harder to accomplish than you’d think), you are the one who’s responsible for your body – for its care and nourishment and any medical treatments or procedures that affect it. So if you’re in the early stages of considering WLS, whose input are you going to trust to inform your final decision? A bariatric surgeon, or your dad? Your primary care physician, or your sister? Your therapist, or your hairdresser? And hey, I’m not slamming hairdressers. Mine could do very well indeed as a therapist, but she has a cosmetology license, not a mental health practitioner license. Last summer I was startled to hear a 50-something bandster state that she had gotten her husband’s permission to have plastic surgery. His permission? Huh? Does that mean he’s the only adult in that relationship, or what? I’m not against asking permission, mind you. I ask my boss’s permission to undertake certain tasks or projects at work; I ask the State of Tennessee for permission (i.e., a driving license) to drive a car; if I still lived in a suburban development, I might ask the zoning board for permission to add a room to my house; I ask the government of China for permission (i.e., a visa) to travel in that country. I’m an extremely independent person in many ways, so I have to stop and think carefully about what I might ask my husband permission to do. We have our own separate checking accounts as well as a joint account, so I might ask him for “permission” to spend a chunk of that joint account on a big purchase like a computer or a car. Everything else gets negotiated. I have a lot of experience in negotiation because of my business career. I negotiated things with everyone from my coworkers to my suppliers. But people who do that kind of thing for a living aren’t the only ones who negotiate, and negotiators aren’t necessarily politicians or manipulators trying to advance some evil cause. My own career as a negotiator probably started when I was a child who realized that good behavior often yielded a treat. My negotiations with my mother went something like this: It’s 7:00 o’clock on Thursday morning. Mom is brushing the tangled cobweb of my hair in preparation for braiding it. I am sniveling because the untangling hurts. The negotiation begins. Mom says: “Jeannie, if you stop whining right this minute, you can have Cocoa Puffs for breakfast.” Jeannie sees an opportunity and negotiates this agreement by asking, “Can I have chocolate milk on my Cocoa Puffs?” Mom sighs and yanks at a hank of hair. Jeannie snivels a little bit more. Finally Mom says, “Yes, you can have chocolate milk on your Cocoa Puffs.” Jeannie instantly shuts up. Negotiation over. It’s a win-win situation. Everybody’s happy… for maybe 15 minutes. In 15 minutes, Jeannie’s hair is finally tamed into two narrow braids and it’s time to choose an outfit for school. This time Jeannie begins the negotiation. “Can I wear my pink dress to school?” Mom says: “That dress is brand new. We’re going to save it for church.” Jeannie says: “I promise not to get it dirty.” And so on and so forth. Well, that’s enough time spent traipsing along Memory Lane. My point (and, like Ellen Degeneres, I do have one) is that the “yes or no” WLS decision is yours. Everything else (how to make it work best; what your family can do to help you; how much to tell your nosy coworker) needs to be negotiated with (or modulated by) the people who will be involved in your WLS journey on a daily basis and possibly renegotiated as time goes on and your needs change. The negotiation may be simple (“Will you take the kids to McDonald’s for lunch if I pick up your dry cleaning?”) or complex (“Let’s talk about how we’ll handle Thanksgiving Dinner this year”) or downright messy (“I feel like you’re trying to sabotage my weight loss.”). That’s life, isn’t it? BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU ASK FOR Getting feedback from others is usually a mixed bag experience. It’s wonderful to get the positive stuff and uncomfortable to get the negative stuff. It’s also very frustrating when your announcement elicits no response at all. What if you tell your sister, “I’ve decided to have weight loss surgery,” and all she says is “Oh.” What’s that all about? She’s shared her thoughts about your hairstyle, your boss, your kid’s struggles with math, your parents’ new car, your high blood pressure and now she has nothing to say about something as momentous as weight loss surgery? If you’re like me, your mind gets busy filling in all the empty spaces with scenarios and speculation. My own little mind is always full of running commentary (most of it – well, some of it – never uttered aloud). When I’m exercising, I’m planning what to wear to work that day. When I’m driving to work, I’m considering the best way to write the first or fifth or fifteenth sentence of my next article. When I’m driving home at the end of that day, I’m replaying a conversation I had with a coworker and fiddling with what I could have said better. So when I encounter my complete opposite (someone who has nothing to say on a matter that’s important to me), I cast my fishing net into my teeming mental pond, scoop up a dozen squirming fish, and off I go into Wonderland. “Wonderland” as in the land where I wonder, and wander, on an endless circular track. Around and around Jean goes, and where she stops, nobody knows, least of all Jean. The official term for that is “projection”. You project your own internal drama onto someone else’s blank white movie screen without having the first clue about what’s really going on behind that blank screen. You’ve known your sister all her life, ever since she supplanted you as the baby of the family. That’s what, 35 long years? After 35 years together, you might think you could predict her reaction to almost anything, but it’s also quite possible that you cannot correctly read her mind. Your suspicions about her reaction to your weight loss surgery announcement may be accurate, but you’ll never know that unless you specifically ask her. That’s more or less what happened to me when I first began discussing weight loss surgery with my husband. We had been married for 20 years, so he had two long decades of experience with his wife launching herself into risky situations (be it a new job, an overseas trip, adopting a pet, redecorating a house, taking fen-phen). He had been amazingly patient through all of that, not just because he loves and supports me but also because he knows that hell hath no fury like Jean with an obstacle in her path. So when I said, “Today I made an appointment to go to a bariatric surgery seminar,” and he said nothing in response, a dozen things ran through my mind. He thinks I should be able to lose weight by dieting. He doesn’t want me to lose weight because he likes fat girls. He thinks this is another of Jean’s wild goose chases and if he leaves it alone, she’ll get over it and move on to some other project…and so on and so forth. What was actually going on in his head was probably more like, “I wonder if there’s more rice in that saucepan, but if Jean forgot to buy soy sauce again, I won’t have another helping because I can’t eat rice without soy sauce. If Jean has weight loss surgery, will we ever get to eat rice with soy sauce again? Will we be living on warm water and melba toast? Did I remember to fill the cat’s water dish before I came in the house? We really need to get the cat fixed but I don’t want another argument about whose turn it is to take a critter to the vet. Oh no, Georgie’s puking in the living room again. If I ignore it, can I get Jean to clean it up? I’m going to write SOY SAUCE on the grocery list in big letters so Jean won’t forget to buy it. Maybe if I ignore the weight loss surgery thing, it’ll disappear, like Georgie’s puke”…and so on and so forth. I’m not trying to make my husband’s thought processes sound asinine (for a taste of truly asinine thinking, you really need to listen to a few minutes of my own stream of consciousness). I’m just making the point that our minds are full of stuff that may be worthwhile or interesting to us but doesn’t necessarily have to be shared in detail with everyone around us, and that nobody but the Amazing Kreskin can hear someone else’s thoughts. When my husband finished his dinner (without a second helping of rice) that night without making any response to my bariatric ambitions, I asked him, “So what do you think of the idea of me having weight loss surgery?” And he said, “I’m not crazy about it, but if you really believe it will help you, I’ll do my best to support you.” And what did I say to that? All I said was, “Thank you.” I could have said a lot of other things. I could have said, “Why aren’t you crazy about the idea?” I could have quizzed his knowledge about weight loss and weight loss surgery. I could have asked him if he would still love me and desire me when I was thin. I could have gone on and on for hours, while adding to my own anxiety and creating a host of brand new anxieties in his poor head. But instead I said, “Thank you,” because his promise of support was all I needed to hear at that time, and we had a lifetime of conversations ahead of us. And I said “Thank you” because when I’m in the planning stages of something big that will require a group effort, I try not to invite discussion that will derail the whole project even before its engine starts. You may have a different style, and you may think I was postponing a discussion that should be tackled immediately, but my approach is: one step at a time. I don’t try to build Rome in one day. I pick up one brick, walk it over to where I want the wall, put it down, and go back for another brick. Eventually the wall (or Rome) gets built. IN & OUT OF THE BAND CLOSET My feelings about sharing my WLS journey with other people have changed as time has gone on. For three months before and about 18 months after my band surgery, bariatrics was the #1 subject in my mind at least 75% of the time. I had to exert effort to not talk about it constantly. If I hadn’t discovered online WLS forums, where I could talk about it constantly with other people who talked about it constantly, I think my head may have exploded. I didn’t talk about WLS with every single person in my everyday circle of friends and acquaintances (for example, I decided not to tell my church friends about it, mostly out of laziness), but most of the people who knew me as obese also knew about my surgery. When I had lost my excess weight, the focus of my life began to shift to other things. Yes, bariatric surgery was still important to me, and so fascinating that I wrote a 500+ page book about it, but as my interests and activities grew and changed, I acquired a whole new set of friends, acquaintances, and coworkers who had never known Fat Jean. It didn’t occur to me to tell them I’d had WLS any more that it occurred to me to tell them I’d had a hysterectomy or hemorrhoids. If the subject of weight loss or dieting or exercise came up, I was willing to talk about those topics, but not necessarily in the context of weight loss surgery. I guess you could say I was in the band closet then, though I won’t admit to hiding in there. I still wanted to talk about bariatric topics, but not with the general public. I made two new friends during that time who know about my band surgery. One of them had heard about it from her mother (a former coworker of mine) and the other heard about it from me. Otherwise I was kind of enjoying being perceived as a “normal” woman by people who couldn’t even imagine me as a fat woman. But one day my feelings changed. I opened the door of my band closet and peered out. It was time to get out of there. Here’s what happened. During an exercise class at my fitness studio, another (naturally slender) student began making fun of fat people, and a few more people there chimed in. They just couldn’t imagine how someone could “let themselves go” like that. It sounded to me like these well-meaning people were saying that obesity is a choice – that the fat people had made a conscious decision to overeat, under-exercise, and gain an unhealthy amount of weight. It sounded to me like these well-meaning people were saying that fat people don’t have the willpower or intelligence to maintain a healthy weight. And suddenly I heard myself say out loud, “Those people aren’t proud of their fat. Don’t be making fun of them.” After a minute or two of mumbled objections, those well-meaning people fell silent, and soon the conversation took a new direction. Months later, when I was about to publish Bandwagon Cookery, my friend, instructor and personal trainer, Caroline, suggested holding a book-signing event at the fitness studio. At first I was wary of the idea. It would require me to step out of the band closet and expose my bariatric secret to a community of people who had never known Fat Jean. It would require me to step out of my comfort zone and into the limelight. I’m not afraid of public speaking – I actually enjoy it in most circumstances – and I’ve told my WLS journey story plenty of times, but mostly to bariatric patients and professionals. At Caroline’s loving insistence, we hosted the book signing, which was well-attended by women for whom weight management was an interest but for whom obesity was not an issue. One of them had a sister who was banded, but the rest of the guests were blank slates when it came to bariatrics. I want to share with you what I told this audience after announcing that I had weight loss surgery, something that I felt they needed to hear before I could tell my nitty-gritty obesity story: “I need to talk about the elephants in the room. The elephants are the beliefs that many people have, that obesity is a moral failing and that weight loss surgery is taking the easy way out. Obesity is not a choice, nor is it evidence of inadequate willpower. It’s a chronic and incurable disease caused by a combination of genetics, environment, and behavior. Weight loss surgery is the only effective long term treatment for obesity available in the United States today. And weight loss surgery is by no means the easy way out. Weight loss is hard work with or without the help of surgery. Has my weight loss been easier because I had bariatric surgery? Of course it has. That’s one of the reasons I chose surgery – because without it, my previous weight loss attempts had been so difficult and so ineffective. “I’m glad to have my Lap-Band, but it’s just a little piece of plastic, a tool that reduces my appetite. When I stick my hand in a bag of potato chips, my band doesn’t yank it out again. When my alarm goes off in the morning and I want to roll over and go back to sleep, my band isn’t what gets me out of bed, into workout clothes, and into this fitness studio. When I’m thinking that I need a 2nd helping of mashed potatoes, my band doesn’t shout, “Don’t do it, Jean!” When I’m sad and thinking that buying and eating a gallon of ice cream would make me feel so much better, my band doesn’t hide my car keys on me. “I am the one who makes decisions about what I eat and how I exercise. I am the one who’s responsible for making good food choices and changing my eating and exercise behavior. So I get the credit for my weight loss, and I’m the one who has committed to maintaining that weight loss for the rest of my life.” Looking back, I’m not sure how much of an impact that speech had on any of my listeners, but it had an impact on me. Hearing myself say those words affirmed my important and life-changing decision to have bariatric surgery. Whatever you do as you go forward on your weight loss journey, be proud of what you’re doing. It’s a courageous thing. If no one else congratulates you for the undertaking, you should still pat yourself on the back for it.

Went this afternoon to have the drain removed. Down 8 pounds since surgery on 11/14. Start puréed stage Tuesday and go back in 3 weeks. Now for this soreness to go away I'll be a happy camper!!! Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

Hi MsRhonda, Your port can be sensitive for a little while. Have you overdone it? Other than walking most docs tell you not to start exercising until the 6th week. I know I did around the 3rd week and wasn't a good idea as I did feel it in the port area and my bariatrics center told me to stop as I was in the healing phase. If you are concerned then call your surgeon's office and def. call if it gets worse.

I dont know what I was worried about. I felt no pain whatsoever. It felt funny when he pulled the needle out but I never felt any pain. I already feel some restriction from it. Will this last or does it feel tighter and gradually loosen up over the next couple of days? He put 1.5ml in, plus he put some in when I had the op so...I think it is up to 3.5ml in a 10 or 11ml Vanguard. He said I can come in each week till I find the restriction I need. Kel

I did not save any of my larger sizes, I needed the room in my closet to put my smaller sizes. I'm only 6 weeks out, but have lost enough to start needing smaller sizes. I have bagged up the larger sizes and will be donating them soon. I found a few pairs of capris that I bought on sale a couple of years ago that I had packed away, but they fit for now. I live in the south, so I have been shopping the clearance racks for some good buys to get me through my current need, knowing that I will be shopping again in the spring for my next smaller sizes. I even bought a few things that were great bargains to pack up for my future use!

Ladies, I volunteer! I don't know how good I'll be, but my surgery date was May 13, 2013 and I'm an email junkie I have lost 55 lbs since surgery. I have my weigh in numbers from the 2, 4, and 6 week check-ins at the doctor. But I want to tell you, like you'll hear until you want to scream, everyone is different. We had major surgery! They yanked out part of our body! You're healing! Follow your doctor's advice about your diet phases (they sound slightly different than mine), and put the scale away! Only weigh once a week. Remember that as you heal you're only getting in a minimum number of calories just because of swelling and stuff. So you lose a lot, and then your body starts hoarding everything, and then you adjust and start losing again. So it's a bit wonky at first. The weight will come off. It has to! Our surgeon's office had a In-Body body composition scale, and it could spit out what your resting metabolic rate is, which is how many calories it takes for your body to function. So, at my pre-op weight of 268 and 5'10" tall, my resting rate was 2100 calories. At my 3 month appointment (around 220 lbs, I think), It was still around 1800-2000 calories. (my numbers are at home) So since I'm only getting around 1000-1200 calories a day, I'm losing weight. It's not fast, but it's still losing. And I say it's not fast, but I'm apparantly still on "bypass rate" in terms of my average weight loss. I did lose a lot pre-op, which put me in good shape for post-op recovery and getting back to the gym. But don't rush going back to the gym. Walking and sipping are the initial things to do, until you're back at full calories (the new "full", about 1000 / day) so that you don't pass out (which I came close to doing until I remembered about the major surgery!). Keep hydrated. Keep getting your Protein. Because you want to lose fat and not muscle. Things will happen, but we didn't get overweight overnight, so we won't get thin overnight either. As I said, I volunteer to help. I'm on the board generally at lunch, but send me a private message if you want my email address for outside of here... Good luck!

Hey startingoveryetagain, Don't worry about that mean ole scale! Its just being a pain because you probably still have some swelling around your abdomen that fools it into thinking you haven't lost weight. Also if you haven't had a BM in a while that can keep you second guessing about how the surgery will help you lose weight. Personally, I've seen my scale go down AND up which made me go...hmmm wth?! However, I know I didn't do anything wrong so I'm going on like I hadn't been checking a few days this week. My personal advice is to continue drinking water or clear fluids so it can flush your system and in the next couple of days I'm sure you'll see the results you need to keep you focused on your goals. Good Luck!

Hello! I'm from Texas and was sleeved last week! Here's the bad: The 1st couple days were rough for me unfortunately. I kept throwing up when I tried to drink water, I had tremendous gas pains...the nausea medicines I was given didn't help at all, and I was extremely thirsty. Here's the good: I started feeling like a new person by day 3! I was drinking water by day 5 with ease but was very hungry even after taking the Pepcid to help with the acid in my stomach, which was kinda rough for a couple of days. Also, I had staples placed on all my incisions and was itching like crazy for two days straight until I got them out at my post-op yesterday. I can truly say that I feel awesome right now. I've gone back to the gym a couple of days this week only to walk on the treadmill for about 30 minutes. I can say that I felt kinda worn out after that which is crazy since I was going slow as all heck. I could do more but my stomach muscles won't let me. I'm not fit obviously, but I'm not super out of shape either since I enjoy bike rides with the family. Anyway, I'm learning things about myself everyday since the surgery. I don't have any advice other than to say keep doing what you do and don't let temptation get to you! Stay strong and good luck to everyone on their journeys!

I haven't puked.yet yay but my doc didn't put me on liquids he just said take it easy he wants me back in 3 weeks to add more

I was where you are now. In the back of my mind I just kept thinking "this won't work for me, I won't be able to control myself, lap band or not. " I was a grazer, I never had a chance to feel hungry because I was eating all day long. food was the first thing I thought of in the morning and I ate right up until bedtime. I am just about four weeks post-op, no fill yet but I am doing fine. I am satisfied on less than a cup of food and I stay satisfied 3-4 hours (sometimes longer). Yes, I do feel temptation but it is much easier for me to pass on those temptations now. I am watching my carbs too and I think that is helping a lot. My pre-op diet was mainly Protein so I was able to get the carbs out of my system and have not allowed myself any starches or sugars post-op because I know, for me, those are the foods that trigger blood sugar spikes and food cravings, I feel like if I go back to putting those carbs into my system, I will lose control. I do drink skim milk eat oatmeal cooked in milk and eat veggies and fruits but no Pasta, rice, bread, potatoes, corn or sugar. I am moving forward to the solid food stage this Friday and I am a little nervous, it has been 6 weeks since I have had solid foods and I hope I don't go too nuts!

Oh I feel your pain. I love food too, and I always responded to every emotion by wanting to eat -- sad, depressed, angry, frustrated, lonely, happy, excited, something to Celebrate -- food was the answer. I went through the same soul searching before my surgery too. I had a friend who told me about a friend who had lap band surgery and then just about freaked out in the first week when he realized he couldn't turn to food the way he used to. He wanted to remove the band, and it took his family and friends sitting him down very firmly and telling him "you can do this". He's doing fine now, but I wondered if I'd freak out like that too. I haven't even come close to freaking out. I'm so excited about the band, and my attitude towards food really is changing. I've had it for 6 weeks now and I get my second fill tomorrow. Even with only a little bit of restriction so far, I've done really well at making healthy choices and watching my portion sizes. I haven't had a potato chip or a between-meal snack in MONTHS. I never thought I would be able to say that. I haven't even thought about it. The band is a tool that works on your stomach, not your mind.... but for me, the psychological advantage of it has been a tool also. You're going to do great.... good luck tomorrow!