Ok Im going to break it as gently to the new folks as I can. YOU ARE GOING TO BE HUNGRY. If you are never hungry you would be skinny. Just because you get banded does not in any way shape or form take away your hunger. Even after fills you will be hungry. Your stomach is still there and when its empty you are going to be hungry. Over and over I see this post and it is just plain and simple you are going to be hungry. Please make a note of it. People wonder why old bandsters stop posting or leave the site its because everyone keeps asking the same questions over and over again. Your going to have gas, pain, hunger, shoulder pain, a runny nose, hiccups, gas may never go away. It is a diet forever forever forever. You can not eat whatever you want and lose weight just like with every single diet we all tried before the band. Who knows when you will get restriction. You may never but measure your food and know its enough. You dont need a whole plate of food to satisfy hunger. Write down every single thing you eat all day and drink drink drink.

Fluffy: You posted on the 8th, the next day you check on what people said and re-post "since this has went on this long you all have no life". A day posting and we have no life?! Who has no life? Fluffy I am betting, since she needed to check back in on the posting and then post something even Snarkier and flat out rude!

I haven't had surgery yet and I was reading this to see if it had any good information to help me with my choice and diet forever and ever and being hungry all the time doesn't speak well for this surgery, since that is me now.

Hi Rennie,

I'm sorry you're getting a bad feeling about the band from this posting. The Hungry Hungry Hungry thing is not the experience of many bandsters. I think what was meant to be expressed.. and done very poorly IMO.. was that there will be times you are hungry, but the band will help you control it.

Some folks go into banding either not being told, or they didn't hear this part, that there is a time immediately after surgery that you don't feel hungry because of the post-op swelling. Once the swelling goes down, hunger comes back and it seems worse than ever for a period of time. Between surgery and your first fill can be anywhere from 4 weeks to 2 months, most surgeons seem to settle at 6 weeks. The first fill might help DIM the hunger a bit, but then again it might not.

It may take anywhere from 3 to 4 fills to get really good hunger dimming. People talk about restriction on this site alot. I don't believe in using my band to restrict my food intake. I don't use it as a strangulation device (thanks to a bandbuddie on another list for that great quote!!), but as a tool to help me make better choices. With my hunger restrained, I can more easily chose healthier foods. Not that I don't slip up and make a bad choice now and then.. but it's one chocolate instead of a bag.. or one plate of nachos instead of 3 or 4.

Hope this helps a little.

Fluffy is just cranky because she's hungry hungry hungry!

I have a question. Do any of you know why I am HUNGRY??

(lol)

Most of we members of the *Tribe of the Morbidly Obese* spent much of our lives 'consumed with consuming' while 'hunger' had little to do with our eatEatEAT habits.

I experienced 'hunger' in a far different sense than preOp, and have learned to actually enjoy aspects of it, rather like an approaching storm front in spring.

Now often only a bite or two is plenty to banish 'hunger' for considerable time.

Most of our time we have all responded to 'hunger' with EATEATEAT.

Normos have a different approach to hunger.

They get hungry. They eat. They stop.

They recognize 'hunger', 'satiety' and 'full' as being very different.

As a *MofTotMO*(see above) my response to food for far too long, was to equate 'full' with 'not hungry' and 'not full' with eatEatEATEATEAT until I was 'full'.

That of course doesn't work very well.

Success for shrinking my BMI from 47.5 to 34 was coming to recognize the important difference in 'hunger' vs 'sport eating'.

Food satisfies physiological hunger. When I recognized the difference it became far easier to enjoy 'being hungry' as I could enjoy 'eating' rather than 'eatEatEATing'.

cheers to all of us this year on our journeys

I haven't read all the responses, so I don't know what kind of turn the thread has taken. But in response to the first post, I have to semi-disagree.

It's true that many of us are hungry at first---but as we approach and achieve restriction, the hunger is usually very well-controlled.

Yes, I am hungry before meals. I'msupposed to be! You're supposed to be! It's an important signal our bodies are supposed to have!

When I eat, the hunger abates. I am never stuffed. In fact, I am never FULL any more. "Full" does not exist any longer, because when I get to that point, I am terribly uncomfortable. But I am satisfied.

And I stay that way...until I am appropriately hungry again.

Hunger is not the enemy.

Uncontrolled hunger is. And the band has 100 percent removed that, for me.

added note:

In retrospect, my own preOp eating behavior was more related to 'the ANXIETY of becoming hungry' rather than actually eating because I WAS hungry.

The fear and anticipation of becoming hungry resulted in a non-physiological eating behavior that amplified my own loss of the relationship between the Normo complex of : hunger-eat-satiety-STOP eating.

The problem postOp is not to satisfy hunger. IMHO the problem is to learn to stop eating when NOT hungry.

We *MofTotMOs* must learn new rational eating behavior based on physiological hunger rather than our old habits.

While I don't read most posts, I can say that when I see the same questions being asked repeatedly, it lets me know that the subject is something many people experience, and I feel like what I'm experiencing must be somewhat normal, and not something to stress about.