so im 1 month post op, down 15 lbs a nd doing fine with 1 fill so far. the other night i attended my monthly support group meeting and during the meeting the know it all blowhard " leader" monopolized the 1st 35 mins of the meeting with all his stories about his life, weight loss, family stories etc. i finally politely interrupted him a nd explained that being new to this i had some questions. he asked me what my weight loss goal was . i told him i would be happy if i got to 140 lbs, but i would be really happy if i surpassed that and got back down to 125 lbs. his flat response was "well, 125 is not going to happen, thats just not realistic ." ( im a 53 yr old woman , 5'3 and was 125 all through my teenage years and mid 20's. i did;nt start having a weight prob until 30. im now down from a high of 225 to 215 in 6 weeks- yay me !) i though how the hell do you know you blowhard ? you;ve known me all of 35 mins, and all you've done is talk about yourself ?? anyone have an opinion on this weight loss goal ?? realistic or not ? thanks !!

Hmmm I was 175 when I graduated high school in 1978..... but its funny...my Dr is ONLY concerned about my BMI. I saw him last week and I asked him if I should change my goal from 160 to 150. He said... I don't care what you weigh as long as your BMI gets below 30 (I started @ 54...now 32) and you stop losing when you hit 26. So.... I guess I will see how 160lbs looks on my 5'9 fram and take it from there.

Well, it all depends on the person and how dedicated they can be. The average weight loss with the band is 50lbs. From my experience, I've been banded a year, somewhere around 5-6 months, I had some distractions, I gave up. I started eating more normally (I'm lucky, or unlucky that nothing gets stuck in my band). I had lost 60lbs at this point, now I've been putting on weight. Honestly, it's all a matter of how you go about it, if you have willpower and can stick to the plan. For me, I stopped being afraid of my band.

I'm working on a restart, but it's hard! Not gonna lie, the initial love affair with your band wears off.

HeatherinCA, the average weight loss with the band is 60% of the amount of weight you are above your ideal weight. For example, of all the poeple who have 100 pounds to lose, the average weight loss is 60 pounds. Since it's an average, there are people who lose a lot less and people who lose a lot more.

Actually 60%, I believe, and correct me if I'm wrong, includes those whose band failed, and therefore lost no weight at all. Or the ones who never came back for after care, may have continued to lose weight, but whose weights were not recorded. And the ones who never came back for aftercare, gained all their weight back but whose weights were not recorded.

I never intended to lose just 60% of my excess weight. It is not my Dr's philosophy either. He expected me to lose 100% of it, as long as I worked with my band, exercised and continued my after care. And I ended up losing 130% of it.

Of course those numbers reflect that, and they should. It's important to know how many people fail, give up, gain weight as well as succeed.. It's just the reality of getting banded. I think it says a lot about the band. I know it works amazing for some people which is great, but it also says, most people can only manage to lose 60% of their weight.

oh I agree Heather. But I suppose what I was trying to say is that I didn't take it to mean that that's all I would lose, or that was all I should expect to lose. That vivid events like band faliure will skew the average, just as vivid events like losing more than 100% of your excess weight will as well.

I knew about this 60% average weight loss before i chose to have the lap band, as far as i am concerned 60 % of my excess body weight was still miles from where i started off, for relatively minor sugery those averages i think are good. I was watching Biggest loser last night on tv, another failed gastric bypass contestant is on , thats the second one ive seen on biggest loser at least. To go through all that major surgery and fail is by far bigger step than a lap band as far as i am concerned .. for me i was determined to beat the averages and i have, along with a good few others on this forum.

In fact, there actually may be no one who only loses 60% of their excess weight. When you add all the weight losses and then divide them buy the total number of weight losses, that's the average, or mean, weight loss. The numbers could be half very high and half very low and still come out somewhere in the middle. So basically it's a useless statistic and we should probably ignore it!

Your goal weight should be whatever you and your physician agree upon as healthy. My screen name is wannabe21bmi. I've since revised this goal to wanting to be 140 pounds. That's a BMI of 24.8. I will see how I look at 140 pounds (I'm 5'3" as well) and I may go lower. When I tell people that I want to lose at least another 20 pounds they tell me I'm going to be too skinny. I tell them that's only because they are not used to seeing me skinny.

My experience in life has been that people who feel good about themselves spend time building others up instead of tearing others down. Be proud of your loss and aim "low" if that is what would make you happy and healthy.

Set your goal to whatever you want it to be! I set my first goal to 160 because 75 pounds to lose seemed like an eternity away! I am now 155, with a goal of 140. The other morning I was thinking to myself, "Dang, I think I just might be able to keep going and get into the 130's!!"

i had this problem too...When I first went to my doctor he asked me what weight I wanted to get to. I said I would love to get to 160 one day but, for now I want to set a goal of 200. He said Why? I said because 160 seems unbelieveable. He said to set my ultimate goal and then a have small goals before reaching the ultmate goal. That way i feel like I am accomplishing a goal. So..right now my goal is to lose 40 pounds. then we will go from there. Slow and steady is what I like about lap band. i look forward to the day when I can say " you haven't seen me skinny"