Long story short I dont have good..well any restriction right now and because of mine and my doctors schedule i wont be able to get another fill till after the holiday. i go to my mom's house in the south for thanksgiving. i have no idea how to control myself around my mom's good ole southern cooking. right now i've not had restriction for over a week and my weight is just stagnate, which i'm ok with, but i just dont wanna gain any. i am still in the gym 4 times a week, but as far as eating, i can eat as much as i did before the band. ugh! i started appetitie supressants, but i'm so bad with remembering to take pills that i never remember them.

any suggestions to get me through the holidays without gaiing 10 pounds!

drink lots of water and drink protein shakes with high protein! They are suppost to help keep you full! And give you a full feeling! Remember your rules~ Eat slow! Don't drink with your meal. That's all I got right now! Hope it helps some!

Put an eating schedule on your mirror at home, set your phone to go off every morning to take your meds.........most importantly, enjoy the time with your family. I know you don't want to gain, but you also don't want to make yourself crazy fretting over it. That may make you gain weight in itself....."stress eating". Drink lots of water and try to stick to some sort of an eating schedule. Mine EVERY day is 9am, 12pm, 3pm and 6 pm. I try the best I can to not eat around those times, and when I find myself wanting food I think "its only 1 more hour before I can eat, I can do it". Good luck to you, hang in there, and you are stronger than you think you are!!

Thanksgiving is always at my brother's house. He and my sister-in-law are great cooks and it's very hard to not eat myself sick. My solution is I just don't go. I tell them I'll see in December and then I cross the border into Canada where it's not a holiday and I spend the day shopping. I realize that not everyone has the convenience of an international border outside their door but there are other things you can do. Clean and start decorating for Christmas (or Chanukah) or use the opportunity to do some other project you've been putting off. Since my banding, I really enjoy the solitude of Thanksgiving Day and my mother and siblings understand. It also helps that my daughter always spends it with her in-laws and my son is 600 miles away at college and doesn't make the trip home until early December.

I think the key is to allow yourself small indulgences. A trick someone told me that works for me at Thanksgiving dinner is to choose foods that you don't get to eat normally and pass on the stuff that you have every day (ie: eat the stuffing but pass on the mashed potatoes). Eat your dinner on a lunch-sized plate rather than a large dinner plate (it will appear that you are eating more than you really are). I know drinking right before eating is a big lap band no-no, but filling up on a glass of water right before you eat will help you to get full earlier and not over eat. Also eat breakfast like you normally would so you're not starving at dinner. And remember, no one loses weight over the holidays so you are not alone!! Even my doctor says his expectations for his patients is to simply maintain their weight over the holidays, and if you gain 2 or 3 pounds no big deal. It's only one month out of the year, so enjoy it but don't overdo it. Focus on being with friends and family, which is where the real magic of the holidays lies!

Go and enjoy yourself, weight loss isn't worth missing out on family. Yeah maybe you eat the wrong stuff for one meal, it's ok. This is a journey.

Very Realistic post. I am so glad I am working Thanksgiving night but if I were in the situation, I would eat sensibly but only a small amount of my favorite foods and scale back the rest of the week eating very healthy. I bet you won't gain. I have lost 54 lbs and have not deprived myself of any food. I certainly don't eat the quantity I use to and I never gain an obsurd amount of weight afterwards. Relax,have fun but don't go wild.

Thanksgiving is a once a year event. I definitely won't say "go crazy", but enjoy yourself. You don't have any restriction yet, so you're not going to feel that "four bites and I'm full" feeling, but the band makes you aware. Go, eat, and enjoy your family. But when you're eating, eat slow until you feel satisfied. Pay attention and stop there. Just use it as practice. I don't believe in missing out on good food and family for the sake of my band. One "awful" meal is not going to sabotage your success. I would know.

Good luck!

The only thing you have to be careful with is okay, Thanksgiving is only one day a year, well so is Christmas Eve parties, Christmas dinner, New Years Eve parties, New Years day dinner, and that is only 2 months. You have to be careful I have seen too many people totally blow it in those 2 months.

Just remember how hard you worked a whole week and only lost one pound and how you felt. Do you want to do that again? I have seen some of my good friend put on 14 lbs between Thanksgiving and New Years, food is just food it is not family or friends. The best advice I read from the above posts was drink extra Water and eat only the foods that you only get on that day, not things you could have anytime. But it is not worth it, Just enjoy your family and friends and let the others stuff themselves and you be good, not great but good. It is harder to lose the second time the same pounds right?

Cheri

One thing my nutritionist told me is that "You aren't going to do 100% all of the time." I fall off the wagon too, and sometimes for weeks at a time. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that it's a good thing to do. It's not. I am never happy with myself when it happens. But sometimes life just does this to you. I'm always scared that I'll lose control and never get it back, but somehow, I always do. It's hard to stay on track when you are hungry.

My nutritionist told me not to go over 800 calories a day. Maybe since you don't have good control without the fill, you should consider going up to 1200-1300 calories a day and try to keep tabs on it. You won't lose weight but you won't go overboard and binge eat for weeks this way either. It's a pain, I know. I hate keeping a food diary and keeping track of calories. And on the big day of Thanksgiving, I wouldn't try to do that at all.

It's a rough patch and you will get through this!

Very Realistic post. I am so glad I am working Thanksgiving night but if I were in the situation, I would eat sensibly but only a small amount of my favorite foods and scale back the rest of the week eating very healthy. I bet you won't gain. I have lost 54 lbs and have not deprived myself of any food. I certainly don't eat the quantity I use to and I never gain an obsurd amount of weight afterwards. Relax,have fun but don't go wild.

Well said! This is the sensible approach to a lifestyle you can maintain for the rest of your life.

This panic over the holidays and the "inevitible" weight gain - that's fat thinking. That's all or nothing, food controls me and my lapband should do ALL the work thinking and whilst you indulge in that, you are never going to truly beat obesity. You can keep your band ultra tight so that it controls you with an unpleasant hard stop - until it slips or erodes or something forces you to unfill it. Or you can exercise some self control, allow a bit of indulgence on Thanksgiving day, eat healthy the rest of the week and do some extra exercise - put your shoes on and go out for a walk every day if that's all that's available while you're away. There is really nothing to stop you doing any of that.

The only reason why a whole ton of extra food and alchohol make it down your gullet and cause a weight gain will because you choose to allow it. Christmas is a hard time, but normal people gain a couple of pounds occasionally too, and a couple of pounds is easy to lose. But a bit of self control and some extra effort around the difficult days will probably net that out.

whilst I was unfilled and afraid of the same lapses in judgement, I would start my meal with a fairly large serve of raw vegies - carrot, cucumber, capscicum, mushrooms and a big glass of Water. It really did take the edge of enough to keep me to a bandster sized portion of the less healthy foods that were put in front of me. And despite having chemo, and feeling crap, I still ran and went to the gym almost daily. If you want it bad enough, you can do anything. Keepign it up long term is pretty hard, but you will get some fill eventually.

In this country, Thanksgiving is a traditional holiday. Turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. I fully intend

to enjoy it with my family, only in quantities I can live with. I have undergone a lot of self deprivation to lose the weight I have

and don't intend to gain any of it back just because of the Holidays. I can taste everything in quantities that won't

wreck all the work I've put in the last 3 or 4 months, and make it up elseware. I've been overweight the major part of

my adult life and seem to finally have a handle on it. I could easily backslide, but I'm not going to. Happy Thanksgiving

to everyone.

One thing that I haven't seen mentioned in this discussion is exercise. If you are on holidays, sure, there will be plenty of extra food around to challenge us, but we can also get out of bed half an hour earlier and go for a walk, volunteer to take your hosts' dog for a run, take the kids to the playground, explore the area on a bicycle. The band and food are only two legs of our three legged stool - exercise is the third.

Just my downunder two cents' worth!

really good advice not to be too harsh with yourself as these holidays are going to come up for the rest of your life. Even if you do gain a few you will lose it later and probably not even remember how you agonized over every pound up or down on the scale. Jachut is always a voice of reason here...she always reminds us that this is lifelong not a race and that has worked for her for the long haul.

Exactly how much you lost and how fast and how perfectly you adhered to 'the rules' is actually not going on your permanent record! It seems trivial once you have adjusted to the lifestyle...eat some good food and have some fun!