I get banded November 17,2011 and I'm doing research to make sure I have this whole eating thing down pact and m fully stocked on nutritional goodies. The only confusing part is how many meals do I eat?? I was told by my surgeon to eat 3meals w no snacks (seems a little far fetched) I've seen a few websites say its ok to have

breakfast

Snack

lunch

Snack

Dinner

As long as u stop Eating by 8??

I just want to loose this weight ...HOW SHOULD I EAT...HOW DO U EAT???

It is a hard question to answer since everybody is different. I eat 3 meals and 3 snacks when I am hungry...if I am not hungry I skip a snack.

Mimi

And you don't have any problems loosing weight with the snacks?

I eat 6 times a day on a normal day. I am hungry every couple of hours and it works great for me.

It's a hard question for me to answer because my band is fickle and somedays I can do 3 meals and a snack and other days I'm lucky to get in 1 or 2 meals. For the most part I try for a yoplait in the morning, small lunch and an early dinner because if I eat late i'm sure to get the dreded heartburn.

Ok thanx now I no m not alone for wanting to eat more then 3 times

Why do you think you will want to eat more than three times is my question. You may or may not need to . I eat three meals and maybe one snack thats it and no more. Your mind set needs to be not thinking about food and how much and how often. You need to replace eating with something else. Its not necessary to snack. My doctor said three meals and no snacks. The snacking only comes because of my blood sugar dropping not because Im hungry. Rethink your eating now.

I eat 3 meals a day now because im on my diet before surgery but I do snack 2-3 times even though my Dr said try not to. That's why I was asking if it would change once m banded. I am trying to change my eating habits n so far so good I just feel guilty snacking even though m not banded yet because I don't want snacking to become a hard habit to get rid of

I think the important part about snacking is not to make it part of the schedule like " it's 3 o'clock time for my snack" if you're not hungry don't have a snack if you're hungry but it's nowhere near your next meal time than a healthy protein rich snack is better than you waiting for dinner and being so famished you gobble up excess calories because once you are banded that will lead to you being sick. I know pre band if I got too hungry I couldn't eat fast enough and threw my whole day off. This is what the tool is for to help you listen to your body. Good luck,

Thank you all for the helpful advice

The most important and often hardest thing to do is listen to your hunger signals and learn to separate the head hunger from real hunger. Good luck

My doctor also says 3 meals no snacks. His opinion is you may have a snack even it you are not truely hungry because the snack is a habit. I do have a low cal protein shake pre work out because my work out is 6 hours after lunch; and I don't have dinner till after my work out. So lunch and dinner are usually 8 hours apart.

Left to my own devices, I eat meals AND graze all day. My weight loss is best and I am most in control when I eat 3 meals, no Snacks.

I truly do not need to eat between Breakfast and lunch, and dont have a lot of desire to either. The stretch between lunch and dinner is much harder, but I find, add a snack and it just breaks my resolve and I keep on eating, its easier to just ban eating all together. And as long as I"m busy, I dont really get hungry. However, its a good point above about not eating just because its snack time at 3 oclock. That's what I tend to do when I plan snacks and becuase I wasnt really hungry anyway, they dont satisfy. Snacks to me are much more about "hmmmm, I fancy a bit of that....." Which is not good, diet wise! If I"m truly hungry between meals then I will eat something and I find that when I was really hungry, for some reason I can stop eating more easily. Probably because if I eat despite not being hungry, I was eating out of boredom or something, and eating doesnt satisfy boredom and never will but I keep going looking for a stop signal that just never comes.

There's no real evidence to suggest that eating sixn times a day increases weight loss either, its a negligable effect on your metabolism. But there's plenty of evidence that our hunger hormones are much better controlled with long breaks between meals. Humans are opportunistic, meaning they traditionally at anything, anytime, anywhere, sometimes the gorged and then didnt eat for days and other times they might have eaten much more often as they came across something edible. What really matters is that you do what fits with your lifestyle, your eating personality and seems to have a positive effect on your weight loss.

I've only been banded one month, but I've settled into a routine of 3 meals and maybe one snack.

I have the meals because I'm hungry. If I'm hungry between lunch and dinner, I'll have a snack. (With no guilt, because I'm eating out of hunger, not out of habit or greed ) If I'm hungry a few hours after dinner, I'll have a snack too because I'm NOT going to bed hungry.

My weight loss has been fine, particularly when you consider that I haven't had a fill yet. It stopped when I went onto full solids, but it's dropping off again now.

The biggest point to remember is that everyone is different - however EVERYONE is the same in that if you listen to your STOMACH, you will find what works for you - if you DON'T listen to your stomach, you'll struggle. Your stomach will tell you when it's time to eat, and when it's time to stop eating, your head will tell you the opposite of what your stomach says (to keep eating). Fight your head and only respond to your stomach, it will take time, but you WILL win the battle, and the head voice gets really weak after a bit. Also remember that alot of the great advise you'll get from these boards are from time tested bandsters, and while that advise is very valuable, you have to remember that it's going to take you a little time before you get to where their advise applies to you in full, most times that's not until you reach some decent restriction, so until then just do what feels right for you and listen to your body, it will tell you!

When I was FIRST banded, and for a few months afterward, I needed Snacks between meals. At first life was more like "I'm on a diet" and WAY less like "I've had weight loss surgery". I could eat WAY less right after surgery, but after about a month I was healed, swelling was gone and I could eat a lot more than at first (that was dissapointing), at 6 weeks you get your first fill, but don't expect to feel much, for most people it takes time to get to that restriction level where you're experiencing the wonders of the band that you read about. For me, loosing weight at first was all me, will power and working out, I didn't feel the band's help until about my last fill. For me, banster hell wasn't the time between surgery and my first fill, it was the time between my first fill and my most recent fill, those 4-5 months in between surgery and true restriction were hard. I had to fight discouragement, fight the thoughts that "this didn't work for me", fight the urge to overeat, fight to urge to quit. And then I had another fill, started to feel some help, and it's all been WONDERFUL since! Just get through it, it'll happen, don't give up!

I've been banded for 7 months, my last fill, 4 weeks ago, changed everything for me! I CAN'T WAIT for my next one to see how things change again, I think with my next fill I'll be at my sweet spot, I'm so close to it now. And where I'm at now compared to where I was even right before this fill is a night and day difference! So remember that, it's going to take some time to reach a good restriction level where your hunger is more controlled and it's not as difficult to keep portions small, until then it's A LOT of will power. The band WORKS, but you have to be patient to get to restriction, that's when life gets easier. NOW I can truly say that I "eat to live", instead of "living to eat". It was a process getting here, and I can say that I saw myself slowly but steadily move away from "living to eat" and step by step getting closer to "eating to live". But it didn't happen just because I had surgery, it was a product of using will power to stop eating once I felt satisfied (NOT full, but satisfied), eating healthy, and working out. All of those things contributed to my thoughts towards food changing. I don't allow myself to eat unless I'm hungry, if I'm hungry I have a snack. I count my calories and aim for 1,200 a day, now that I'm reaching decent restriction, I rarely eat all of those calories because I don't need them, if I stop when I'm satisfied and only eat when I'm hungry I don't use all the calories. At night sometimes, if I have enough calories leftover and I'm craving something sweet, I'll have a treat even if I"m not hungry, because sometimes you just need a treat, and it's not wrong to have something sweet. But honestly, most nights I don't even want it anymore, I'm not hungry and I have no urge to snack. You'll get there, but it takes time.

So many people are against counting calories, but my HUGE recommendation is to make yourself count calories for long enough to learn the nutritional value in your food, how else will you know you're making healthy choices if you don't first learn what's in your food? Who would know that there's 100 calories in 1 tablespoon of butter and oil!?

Good luck to you!

Obviously everybody is very different, but I went to the doctor today and I thought I'd share what she told me. Basically she told me that they tell people (granted this is solely at my dr's office) to try to only eat three meals a day in order to prevent people from over eating. In reality she told me that she could care less how often I eat as long as I don't go over 1200 calories. She told me that if I can eat all day and manage to not go over that amount, then that is perfectly fine.

But overall I just maintain that you should eat when you're hungry. Don't let yourself starve because then you'll overeat at the next meal and you could stretch out your stomach and you don't want that to happen.

Good luck