So far I haven't told too many people about my lapband plans, because each time I have it's a huge ordeal. As soon as I mention "surgery" and "weight loss" in the same sentence the reaction is immediately negative. I have to explain 1) why I've concluded I need surgical assistance, 2) what a bypass actually is, and 3) what the Band is and--more importantly--what it is NOT. By the time I'm done my listener has come around, but it's hardly worth the effort required so I stopped bringing it up at all.

But when I start losing weight, people are going to notice. When they ask how I'm doing it I don't want to say "surgery" because that will just start the whole q & a up again.

What do you say? Do you just shrug and say "diet and exercise" or go into the whole detail? Is there any quick way to describe the procedure?

Alexandra,

I have not had that hard of a time with telling, but I came up with a way to describe it that I think works (for the uninformed anyway). This is how I explained it to my grandma:

<blockquote>*** I am not having that stomach stapling or bypass kind of surgery - that's WAY too drastic for me! They aren't going to cut into my stomach or rearrange my inards or anything like that. All they are doing is adding a little silicon doughnut shaped band around my stomach to create an hourglass shape in there. The top half of the hourglass is smaller than the bottom half. That means that when I eat the top half of my stomach fills up and I feel full. Then the food works its way down through the restricted part and into the bottom half of my stomach where it gets digested normally. The band is adjustable (without further surgery) so they can restrict how much I can eat until it is just right and I am losing weight comfortably.

If I get sick or pregnant they can unfill the band and I can eat more normally. If there are any problems or later down the road I want to go back to eating freely or some other improved weight loss method comes along I can have the band removed an everything is just right back to the way it was pre-surgery.***</blockquote>

This explaination does not get into the gory details of fills and stuff but it was enough to give her the idea and releave her worries. She came back later with more pointed questions of course but the basic explaination seemed to do the trick.