Okay I've got a question for the people that have not gotten any fills in their band. I'm not talking about people that just had surgery I'm curious about the people that have had there band for several months and choose not to have a fill, because they are losing weight. How are you losing weight?? I though that the band has no restriction itself, so are you "dieting"? Why get the band then? I'm just curious. I've seen several people on the forums say they have no fills at all.

I had my surgery in June, 08. I went for my scheduled fills but never felt any restriction until 4 1/2 months later. Without dieting during that time I lost 60 pounds. I never really had any hunger. I think that during the 8 week post op liquid diet my stomach contracted and I never ate enough to stretch it back out so I never felt hunger. Plus I got so addicted to the numbers going down on the scale that it gave me incredible incentive!

My band was empty when it was placed but the doc said it does provide some restriction (or it can) and that it seems to press on the vagus nerve which reduces appetite. I think that was true and it lasted me about six weeks.

Okay I've got a question for the people that have not gotten any fills in their band. I'm not talking about people that just had surgery I'm curious about the people that have had there band for several months and choose not to have a fill, because they are losing weight. How are you losing weight?? I though that the band has no restriction itself, so are you "dieting"? Why get the band then? I'm just curious. I've seen several people on the forums say they have no fills at all.

Well I am 10 months out never had a fill!! Nothing was put in the band!!! My stomach has always felt full since I got the band!! I am down 55 pounds and I am ok with that!!! So I always felt if I got a fill even if it was a small one it would be to much!!! Hope this answer your questions

The band is restrictive regardless if you get a fill..it creates a pouch- like putting a rubber band around a balloon . Some people never get a fill.... i have had 4 fills to the amount of 8cc's( my band holds 14cc's) I havent had a fill in 5 months. Weight loss has slowed down. My surgery was almost 2 years ago. I have lost 80 lbs.

I am only 3 months out and I do not have a fill and am very close to 60 pounds gone. I agree with poster above. I believe that my stomach shrunk during the liquid diet. I am not hungry and sometimes have to make myself eat because I need the calories. My weight loss is slowing down, but I believe that is due to my lack of exercise. I was walking about 3.5 miles, 30 mins on the Wii fit and weights/band everyday! I found out I have arthritis in both of my knees and the orthopaedic wants me to slow down on the exercising until the pain is minimal. I do not feel like I am dieting at all! I wish I would of done this years ago!

How are you losing weight?? I though that the band has no restriction itself, so are you "dieting"? Why get the band then? I'm just curious.

It's not like these people go into surgery planning to never get fills. If they'er losing weight just by dieting once they get the band... they still already got the band, kwim? I'm not being snarky, I'm just saying, it's not like people go "oh I learned I didn't really need fills after all and I could do it all by myself so I decided to get the band back out."

Some people get a great benefit just by having the band placed, and some people get to a full fill level and don't ever feel a difference. It's too bad we don't all have the textbook response to having a band placed and having a couple of fills. If we did, this board would be a lot quieter

I got three months out without a fill and I lost about 40lb in that time - half my excess weight. My weight loss slowed right down after that, to average about 1lb a week and then about 1lb a month, and it took me 2 and a half years in the end to lose 120lb (obviously I lost more than just my "excess"). In hindsight I could have gone longer and as it was, I only had tiny fills, building the restriction up very slowly over that first year.

I had superb restriction - I have a 4cc band I really believe the older bands were much better than the newer in the earlier stages - with the surgicial swelling mine gave good restriction - better than I've ever achieved since with fills since it was very snug and I could only eat less than a cup 3 times a day and never had head hunger or even thought about food. If I tried to go that tight now, I'd have vomiting and reflux at night. It was just really easy - that weight loss was like magic, effortless and automatic.

I went for a walk the day I got home from the hospital and exercised every single day, back to vigorous 40 minutes on the elliptical by week 3 and then by about week 6, I started running. So I was exercising, I was highly motivated, spurred on by fast results, it was a real honeymoon period. It got much harder after that.

You do "diet" with the band. I mean, you cant eat crap just in small quantities and you do have to say no to a lot of your food impulses. You have to exercise. We have all failed at that before but we can all do it or getting a band wont make much impact. The difference with the band is that you can actually keep it up and if you do fall off the wagon, in general you cant eat enough to do much damage. You cant eat a cookie, think yo'uve blown it and then eat an entire pizza, a tub of icecream and a birthday cake!

I've been out for lunch today, to a barbecue. I had 2 glasses of wine, a bit of salad, potato salad, a chicken skewer and a piece of the french stick, then I had a nibble at the cheese platter afterwards with a coffee. It was spread over a couple of hours and to be honest, I was embarrassed by my tiny plate of lunch - one skewer (lucky to be 50 grams of chicken), three small cubes of potato salad, a lettuce leaf, cherry tomato and slice of cucumber and a piece of bread the size of a cracker. It looked pretty funny compared to others' plates. Maybe 3 pieces of brie and 3 crackers and a date and a few walnuts. Probably less than 800 calories all up. But even to enjoy that, I only had a coffee and a small yogurt for Breakfast and dinner is a very small bowl of homemade Soup - even though truth be told, I could eat a normal dinner and will probably go to bed a bit hungry. I have to plan for it, and work around it to "indulge' but I feel exactly like I did in the old days when my plate was piled with steak, loads of potato, etc. I enjoyed it and feel like I had an indulgence. That's what's so great about the band. A day out, social eating but no real damage done. The only "cost" is that I have to economise on the other two meals and I went for a run at 7 am on a Sunday morning (ugh, not my idea of fun). And when DH offered me a wine a minute ago, I had to say no thanks. Two in a day is enough.

I am 4 and a half months out. No fills and 42 lbs lighter. I am not dieting per se but I am watching what goes into my body more. I thought of getting the band as more of a lifestyle change more than anything. It changed the way I look at food. I still enjoy food but no longer look for it as a source of comfort for me like I used to. I am also a lot more active then I used to be.

I didn't get the surgery thinking I wouldnt have fills. I just thought I would do what my surgeon requested. The two times I saw him for fills he was fine with the amount I am losing. The last time I saw him he said he would let me on my own for a while (my next appointment is at the end of the month). I think as long as I am losing I will choose to not get fills.

Hard work, determination and will power. The lap band helps but the rest is up to you.

I haven't had a fill, had my surgery on May 26th.. I lost 24 from Feb to May...but am down a total of 70 since Feb. I do it by watching my portions and what kind of food I eat. In my old way of thinking it would be a diet, but with my new way of thinking it is my lifestyle change. I figure sometime, when my loss slows down, I might need a fill..but for now its all good. Good Luck

i did not enter into surgery with the thought of "Oh, I'll just get this band placed and then I will go on a severe diet..." I chose the band because I needed help in controlling my intake of food and in the research process discovered that I would also have to practice life long behavior mod with how and what I choose to eat.

The unexpected benefit for me was that along with the band placement and my own natural pysiology I have yet to experience hunger pangs...A year or so out from surgery and still no hunger pangs...will this go on forever...I have not the foggest idea.

The only thing that I do know is that I eat with portion control, I exercise, I stay in touch with my center of excellence and see my surgeon when he tells me I should. Do I do the additionals? (journal, low carbs, get my Water in, weigh my food) yes I do. Since I do not feel hungry (I do hear my stomach growl if I go over 6 hours without eating) I do have a routine of when to have my meals. Am I regimented? Not really. I miss my scheduled meal times and when my stomach growls or if I feel like I need to eat then I do. Do I understand that the hunger pangs may and/or will come back? yup, I do and I plan to go and get a fill when I need to.

My surgeon tells me that I can get a fill if: 1) I start feeling hunger pangs before 4 hours between meals or / and 2) hit a plateau lasting longer than 1-2 months and I do not need to wait for my next appointment to come in to recieve help or a fill.

If I could have done this with just diet alone, I would have done it years ago and even up to last time that I did a major diet. Each and every time I would gain it plus some back after the diet ended.

This is not an easy process for those that get fills nor for those that don't get fills. We need assistance with this process and that is where the band comes in.

I was banded June 2010 and had weight loss from that date. I have had 4 fills and have lost 100 lbs. I stand by the fact that weight loss is 85% band and 15% mental (if not more)

I was banded June 2010 and had weight loss from that date. I have had 4 fills and have lost 100 lbs. I stand by the fact that weight loss is 85% band and 15% mental (if not more)

Wow, I'd say it's 50/50 or even more mental/less band (but that's just the way I'm feeling lately!)

I dont think you can say its 85/15 or 50/50 or 40/60 becuase its different for everyone.Everyone has different eating issues - I found parts of the process quite easy because for me, I was a healthy eater before the band but lacked the control to stop when I was done, and indulged in a lot of UNhealthy foods on top of what was a good basic diet. I didnt have to wean myself off horrible habits like McDonalds drive through breakfasts or huge whipped cream iced coffee concoctions or fast food for lunch every day becuase I didnt eat that way anyway. I already ate oatmeal for breakfast, salads for lunch and stuck to ordinary coffee with a dash of milk! I had to cut out the between meal cookies, muffins, cakes, the couple of glasses of wine with dinner and the mentality that everytime I ate out it was an excuse to hoe in big time. The downside is that I was a grazer, I miss eating all the time, I still ahve loads of headhunger and a deathly attraction to sugary carby foods. Other people were huge volume eaters, but not snackers or grazers and dont have to deal with the same issues. I was willing and able and enjoyed running and exercising very hard, others dont want to do this. I probably needed less fill than some because I could lose eating 1500 calories a day because of the amount of hard exercise I do, good trade off in my mind but someone else would rather be tight and eat 800 a day to avoid going for a run every day. So there's no "formula" to it, its individual.

I am 4 and a half months out. No fills and 42 lbs lighter. I am not dieting per se but I am watching what goes into my body more. I thought of getting the band as more of a lifestyle change more than anything. It changed the way I look at food. I still enjoy food but no longer look for it as a source of comfort for me like I used to. I am also a lot more active then I used to be.

I didn't get the surgery thinking I wouldnt have fills. I just thought I would do what my surgeon requested. The two times I saw him for fills he was fine with the amount I am losing. The last time I saw him he said he would let me on my own for a while (my next appointment is at the end of the month). I think as long as I am losing I will choose to not get fills.

Hard work, determination and will power. The lap band helps but the rest is up to you.

I am pretty much right there with Thee-O. Tomorrow is my 5 month surgiversary and I am 70 pounds lighter with no fills. I didn't get this surgery to stop eating altogether. I love food and I still enjoy it. I eat pretty much whatever I want to eat, but not nearly in the quantities I used to eat in. I was a bulk eater and not really a grazer. With the band in place I am really physically unable to sit and eat and eat and eat, nor do I want to do that any longer.

With the band in place, I have a sensation of reaching a kind of feeling of fullness (not sure if that's the best word to use since prior to the band I never knew what it was like to feel full.) It has done something in my head, maybe it's the supression of the Vegas nerve, I'm not really sure what it is, but I don't think about and obsess over food constantly. I am not thinking about what my next meal will be and this is a HUGE change for me.

as for what I eat, well, I can eat anything. there are things that I try to stay away from, but I don't beat myself up if I cave in and have something. If there is something I want to eat, I will eat it (or a couple of bites of it) and then I am done. I don't have to eat the whole thing or 2 or 3 of a thing (like pizza or burgers). I am satisfied with half of a thing.

Because, for me, the band is working like I want it to, i.e. keeping me from eating everything in sight, I haven't felt the need to have fills. My goal isn't to have so much restriction that I can't swallow more than a cup of something or that I live only on Soups. Losing weight isn't so important to me that I give up living a well rounded life that includes foods that I enjoy eating. My goal is to eat like a normal person in portions that normal people eat. I go out with friends, I enjoy a beer now and again, or a glass of wine. I eat shrimp, lobster, etc with no PBing whatsover and nobody is any the wiser that I am on a diet. I don't stay away from trouble foods, I just don't go overboard and eat them constantly. I do balance with healthy eating of lots of Protein and my diet is really heavily centered on fish. But I also eat mcdonald's, burger king, wendy's, ranch 1, etc....i don't deny myself.

I don't consider myself as being on a diet per se, and it's only a lifestyle change for me in the sense that I now have a plastic thing inside of me that keeps me from bulk eating. I don't get hungry really at all and I know that the band is the reason why. I did have to have this surgery and I could not have done this well by just dieting. really, having that band inside me has changed something. I don't know what it is, but for me it is working. I know that the loss will slow down and maybe one day I'll have to have a fill...who knows? But as long as I am feeling great and eating healthy as much as possible, I am really happy with that. I hope I never have to have a fill. right now, life is good.

The band was just enough of a mental thing for me telling me I dont need to eat like a piggy no more . I dont need to sit down and eat a large sub and 4 slices of pizza. I can sit down and eat a slice or two of pizza and I am happy with that and that is what I wanted.

I told the doc when I first met him I do not want to be where I only eat a three bites of food and I am done , or I can only eat 1/2 cup of food that just isn't me and to be honest and this is my opinion only I dont think it teaches you anything eating that way. My friend relied so much on her band with the restriction part of the band that she learned nothing from her band and when she lost it , she gained all her weight back because she didn't learn the lessons on how to eat and I dont want to be like that . If I lose my band tomorrow I want to know that I can go forward losing weight because I have learned the proper ways of losing weight if that makes sense.

I wanted to get the band to teach me how to eat healthy, how to eat all my favorite foods in moderation , teach me portion control. teach me how often to eat my favorite foods . Like the above poster said to eat normal human being portions .

If you watch most thin people they eat 4-6 oz of Protein , a carb and veggie for their meals that is what I wanted .

The band alone is a reminder that I dont need to go back for second or thirds no more , that I can eat a nice dinner and be happy with that .

My weight loss is probably slower doing it this way but that is okay , I'm learning how to eat, and I'm learning more about myself also . I am a much stronger person I never knew that till I had this surgery .

Maybe one of these days I will go get a fill who knows it could be next month, it could be never but I'm happy with my 5 pounds per month. and still enjoy all my favorite foods that I enjoyed before I got the band .

A guy in my support group lost over 200 pounds with this band and it was totally empty . He was a big inspiration to me when I saw him and heard him talk about how he did things.