I am writing because I want to know if other people have this issue. I had surgery 7/2008. I had issues feeling restriction and it took a long time and MANY fills. My last fill was 2/2010. I am well over 7cc. I lost weight like a rock star in the beginning, but I was hungry all the time. My lowest weight was 227 in 6/2009, I'm now at 245, just 30 lbs below my surgery day weight of 275. I was at 308 when I started the whole journey. I have been a size 18 since september 2008.

I am very tight in the mornings. I can't even eat a scrambled egg. I have no appetite whatsoever. My mornings consist of coffee and a Protein shake or nothing or cottage cheese. I start to growl at about 10:30/11:00 am. I eat a normal lunch. . . lean cuisines, maybe a loaded salad, a chicken taco. I am then starving all afternoon. I get extremely snacky. When I get home, dinner feels like a 24 hour vegas buffet. I can eat anything! (ok, almost anything).

I know that I struggle with food choice, so if you're reading this saying--well, honey, you just shouldn't eat that--I know. I know exactly how many calories are in everything. 11 Doritos has 140. There, see.

So tonight, I ate a trader joes indian food thing. I ate both servings in the pack. Chickpeas in a yummy glop (410 calories) and a salad with homemade dressing. I ate that at 6:50pm. It is now 9:40 pm and I am grumbling. Dinner is horrid for me, because I know that I shouldn't be able to eat normal person portions.

So if other people have this issues, I would love to hear from you. I feel like a freak of lap-band nature.

Thanks, Megan

It sounds as though the foods you are choosing are not dense enough to be digested slowly and give you saiety. Instead of a lean cuisine which generally has very little of anything in it why not have some chicken and salad or tuna and salad etc. At dinner have some meat(chicken, fish etc) vegies and a small portion of carbs.Again that should keep you full for longer. If you still find you are hungry a couple of hours later why not have something healthy like fruit + yogurt or a piece of cheese .........

What you eat makes a huge difference.

I've played around quite a bit with what and when I'm eating. Last night I had about 3 oz of lean pork, green Beans and a salad at 6:30. Again, by 9:00 I was grumbling. When I say grumbling, we're talking horrid discomfort with audible sounds able to be heard across the living room.

Note: the frozen meals I eat for lunch always have 15+ grams of Protein, I always eat the chicken/shrimp first, veggies second and if there is a carb, i eat that last.

Megan

It sounds as though the foods you are choosing are not dense enough to be digested slowly and give you saiety. Instead of a lean cuisine which generally has very little of anything in it why not have some chicken and salad or tuna and salad etc. At dinner have some meat(chicken, fish etc) vegies and a small portion of carbs.Again that should keep you full for longer. If you still find you are hungry a couple of hours later why not have something healthy like fruit + yogurt or a piece of cheese .........

What you eat makes a huge difference.

Your stomach grumbling does not mean that you are hungry. Mine makes noises all the time, often so loud that other people can hear it. I am not sure why but it is not because of hunger.

I laughed out loud at the vegas buffet comment lol. My band is the same way. I don't even try to eat anything in the morning anymore. Puking everyday got old fast so I won't even attempt breakfast or a solid lunch. I have a protein shake at noon and then dinner anywhere between 6-8:30PM. Sometimes when we eat dinner earlier (closer to 6) I still get stuck. However if we eat dinner at 7 (or my band just decides to loosen up earlier) I can eat anything and everything. I usually always have a REALLY healthy dinner. I love cooking and am very innovative with recipes. I'm always satisfied after dinner which is usually 2-6 ounces of protein...I don't eat pork, red meat, or poultry, so my protein is always seafood or soy protein and sometimes legumes. Occasionally I have a veggie and rarely do I have a carb (although I don't limit myself...if I want to eat some rice or pasta or potato I do...I'm not a restricter). However after dinner, I am generally able to eat EVERYTHING. And since my binge eating is SO BAD at night its often a recipe for disaster (and this issue isnt really about my band...its my head). Its a bummer but thats just how my band works. If I were a binger in the morning, that habit would quickly be broken. Anyhow, Im just trying to work with it. And therapy is helping. Im rarely ACTUALLY hungry at night. Its almost all in my head.

Thank you so much for sharing. I'm really looking for others with this issue. It drives me crazy. I want another fill to help with afternoon/night time issues, but am afraid to lose my ability to even eat lunch. I like my Protein shakes, but certainly am not interested in drinking 2 a day forever. I wish I could control my band externally. It would be great to adjust as my tightness changes.

Thanks again for sharing!

Megan

I laughed out loud at the vegas buffet comment lol. My band is the same way. I don't even try to eat anything in the morning anymore. Puking everyday got old fast so I won't even attempt breakfast or a solid lunch. I have a Protein shake at noon and then dinner anywhere between 6-8:30PM. Sometimes when we eat dinner earlier (closer to 6) I still get stuck. However if we eat dinner at 7 (or my band just decides to loosen up earlier) I can eat anything and everything. I usually always have a REALLY healthy dinner. I love cooking and am very innovative with recipes. I'm always satisfied after dinner which is usually 2-6 ounces of protein...I don't eat pork, red meat, or poultry, so my protein is always seafood or soy protein and sometimes legumes. Occasionally I have a veggie and rarely do I have a carb (although I don't limit myself...if I want to eat some rice or Pasta or potato I do...I'm not a restricter). However after dinner, I am generally able to eat EVERYTHING. And since my binge eating is SO BAD at night its often a recipe for disaster (and this issue isnt really about my band...its my head). Its a bummer but thats just how my band works. If I were a binger in the morning, that habit would quickly be broken. Anyhow, Im just trying to work with it. And therapy is helping. Im rarely ACTUALLY hungry at night. Its almost all in my head.

I'm aware of the differences between hunger and random weird stomach sounds. Hunger comes with discomfort, random sounds do not. Trust me, it's legit hunger.

Today's lunch was 3 oz of chicken breast, spinach/carrot/snow pea stir fry mixed with about 1/3 cup of wheat penne. I ate the chicken first, then the veggies then the Pasta. I took 25 min to eat, concluded at 12:40. I was starving at 3:00.

Your stomach grumbling does not mean that you are hungry. Mine makes noises all the time, often so loud that other people can hear it. I am not sure why but it is not because of hunger.

Hmmm....

that was odd......

I just heard something very strange coming from Elcee's direction........

S.

Have you tried eating every 2 to 3 hours? That may help. For the last few days I have been getting extremly hungry around 830 or 9PM and I have no idea why this started. It's very irritating so I understand what you are going through! Last night I drunk a cup of lemonade and it took the big hunger pains away and then I just went to sleep to avoid eating when that wore off. I am going to try to eat something even if it's yogurt every 2 to 3 hours to see if this will help me.

I am in the same boat. I feel like a failure. My long story as short as I can. I was banded 12/09 I received fills very slowly due to a hernia just above the band which I was told they would fix during surgery. They did not and then couldn't give me fills very fast due to reflux which I never felt but the could see under fluro.

Most of my weight loss has been just after fills. Which is 45 pounds in just over a year. I have I think 5.25 ccs and I'm not sure how much it holds b/c I've always been told that does not matter restriction does. At my last fill I received .25 ccs and was told that would probably be all that I would get for a long time. After the fill which has been over a month I feel less restriction than I did before. This does confuse me.

Anyway, I can only eat mushies for breakfast. I eat high Protein. Usually egg and cottage cheese warmed. I know all the rules and follow them. I can eat a healthy lunch. By supper time I am starving. I can usually eat 1 1/2 -2 cups of food. I always eat high protein low carb! I have been slack with exercise in the last month. I am now back on the treadmill doing 20 minutes and will build back up. So why am I a slow looser? I was up to a walk/jog for 30 mins with this same eating pattern before and still not loosing.

I can't get satisfied at night. I can't eat solids in the morning and can't eat really dense meat so I know I have restriction. Plus the doctor shows me I do under fluro.

Like the previous poster said I am trying to focus on eating pure protein every 2-3 hours and working out. Hopefully something will start working for me soon b/c I feel like a total failure lately.

A little update. I went to see my surgeon last Monday. She did not want to give me another fill. I understood that, noting the fact that eating is not happening in the am. As for my mid afternoon/evening issues, we're trying a few new approaches.

1. Do not force myself to consume calories in the morning. The whole you have to eat breakfast thing, she said, is not really proven, it's just assumed. So if I have no appetite, then there is no reason to be eating.

2. Eat more plant based protein. Not sure why--something about my body sustaining better with soy/beans and such better than with meat. I've been totally vegetarian for the last three days. Good think i know what to do with tofu!

3. ANd this one, i have yet to do, because I hate exercising. HATE HATE HATE it. . . . anyway, they want me to go for an aerobic walk just after work to help hold off hunger. I guess when one works out, glucose is released from the liver, thus holding off hunger. Not really sure if I'm buying it, because the last time I was in a workout class, I was always hungry throughout and after the class.

4. And finally, I'll be getting a resting energy test to discover what my current calorie burn actually is. My surgeon thinks I'm probably around 1100.

ANd this one, i have yet to do, because I hate exercising. HATE HATE HATE it. . . . anyway, they want me to go for an aerobic walk just after work to help hold off hunger. I guess when one works out, glucose is released from the liver, thus holding off hunger. Not really sure if I'm buying it, because the last time I was in a workout class, I was always hungry throughout and after the class.

That hasn't been my experience. When I exercise, I get *hungry*. I finally had to restructure my Tae Bo sessions so that they were right before a meal. Otherwise, I'd do my Tae Bo and then start looking for something to eat.

A number of research studies show that while exercise is good for health reasons, there is little difference in the weight loss between groups who just dieted and did not exercise and groups who did exercise and diet. They believed this was because those who exercised claimed to be hungry and ended up eating 'more' after they exercised. Just another thought. YMMV.

.

Oh Megan, you're not alone! My experience is EXACTLY the same. I gave up even trying to eat breakfast a long time ago, and lunch is very small and either Soup or crackers. But evenings, I could eat a massive amount of food! I was living like this for a long time, and not losing weight because I was eating too much at night (and/or eating junk). So, I just got another fill. Now I feel like my restriction level is great--I still don't eat breakfast (just slowly sip tea with some soy milk), and lunch is tiny. But my evening eating is now nicely restricted, so I feel quite full after just a small amount of food. I feel like the level is perfect, but guess what? Now I have major heartburn and am waking up every night with acid reflux (sometimes I even vomit). So, obviously that's no good. I'll probably end up having to get the fill removed if this doesn't get better. And then I'll be right back to where I was, with not much restriction at all in the evenings.

Anyway, just so you know, you're not the only one in that boat. And I struggle with making poor choices, and being hungry, and cravings, etc. If I didn't have issues with food, I wouldn't have needed the band in the first place! I've only lost 40 lbs in 10 months. I'm ok with that, though. The way I see it, this is a learning process. I am tweaking my restriction till I find what works best for me overall, and then learning to work with life at that level of restriction. Don't be too hard on yourself! In my opinion, that kind of thinking can actually lead to behaviour that causes weight gain. As long as you've lost weight, that's good. Just keep heading in that direction--it's a heck of a lot better than gaining!

I'm going through exactly the same thing as well. I'm very tight in the morning and I can only have a whey Protein shake. lunch I can eat but I really have to work at it. After that - watch out food - I could eat the rest of the day if I let

myself and believe me sometimes I do. I know I have some issues to deal with regarding head hunger. I have been losing very little for the past 6 weeks.

As I read this thread, I fel tlike I could've written it myself. I don't even bother with breakfast, try to eat lunch and then late afternoon & evening I feel like I could eat everything in sight. Actually, I am restricted, so I can't REALLY eat everything, but I WANT to, so I eat the things that go down...ice cream, chocolate, chips, crackers... I know I'm an emotional/stress eater, I just don't know how to combat it...

I've been having a very similar experience - I won't have anything for an hour after I get up in the mornings, can't even have a cup of tea immediately after waking as it seems to take a long time going down, lots of gurgling and the unpleasant 'rising bubbles up the throat' feeling. From then on until about 4 in the evening I have very little appetite and tend to have small portions of softer things, definitely couldn't manage something like chicken or Pasta.

But then, come evening, I can start to eat a lot more stuff, and I do feel like I want to eat and eat - and at this point even if the food's not going down so good and I have to take a break, I'll pick up again once the food's gone down past the band. It's pretty depressing as I had thought the band would give me a feeling of fullness, but all I've ever had close to that is the stuck feeling, which can be as mild as needing to wait for the food to go down amidst lots of gurgling, or as bad as needing to vomit, with the thick saliva being the precursor to that.

Like others have said, obviously not a case of needing more restriction. It's unfortunately all too easy to slip into a bad cycle of eating with the band, going for softer foods for the majority of the day, then binging in the evening when you know you can get more down. It's terrible really, I never ever thought I'd be doing this when I first chose to get the band done, but I was working on the assumption that I'd have a very distinct full feeling after just a couple mouthfuls of a meal. I know I must not be using my band correctly, but I also realise now that I have pretty big issues with food and needing to binge eat, and I have been able to work out how to eat around my band in order to fulfil my compulsions.

Also wondering if people do this thing I do sometimes - if I have to go for a meal out at a restaurant or something with people who do not know I'm banded, I will tend to eat some stuff in preparation, like start with something soft, then have something a bit more textured, sort of 'warming up' my stomach? Then when we're eating out, I find my stomach can handle the meal much better. Does this sound like a total abuse of the band? I've just found it's yet another way you can eat around the band if you're really determined to. I don't feel happy about it, but there it is.