Hi everyone,

I have a helpful medical team who are a phone call away from guiding me on my path to better health through this operation.

However I read many posts on this forum to educate myself on things that my medical people might leave out. It's informative and interesting to read about different experiences with all kinds of food reactions, weight loss progress (or lack of), tips, tricks and general encouragement.

I do however think it is unnecessary for people to slam each other on this forum when people write in admitting to defeat, struggling with adjusting to a new life or are asking for advice that isn't necessarily 'medical' but more experienced based.

Hopefully all of us at some stage had a medical team who instructed us on what to do to succeed. But stuff happens!

We are all on different gears and while some people are sobered up by the concept of resorting to surgery to tackle weight loss and respond well, others may take time to adjust to the new way of living.

I think it's too harsh to verbally berate someone who for eg says "i am not losing weight and i am eating ice cream..." Obviously we can all see what that person is doing wrong, but lets not forget how we got here... cos we couldn't control ourselves to the point of threatening our health and possibly our lives! So off to the surgeon to get a plastic ring placed around our stomachs to aid us in losing weight.... So let's step down from our high horses and encourage each other cos we ALL have known failure and we ALL know the lapband is an aid, not a cure all.

I agree sometimes people need a bit of a wake up call, but to those who feel the need to pummel someone with negative words like "disgusting" etc... it just doesn't help. Yes this surgery and it's consequences should be taken extremely seriously, but i believe if we exercise compassion and understanding in our responses (even if you just wanna snap someone out of it!), we'll all benefit from it.

If people are posting over and over with the same problems and not doing anything to change it, surely people will get tired of this and that person will stop getting responses + eventually get some kind of message.

I am getting banded in 10 days and i know i will be on here with many struggles/questions/concerns and possibly a failure or few... i would love to know you guys are here to help me out and not make me feel hopeless or like some kind of loser.

Having said all this, most people are extremely helpful and it's wonderful to have us all supporting each other!

Cheers to everyone on making this life changing decision.

Peace, love and skinny jeans hah!

great post!

Hi everyone' date='

I have a helpful medical team who are a phone call away from guiding me on my path to better health through this operation.

However I read many posts on this forum to educate myself on things that my medical people might leave out. It's informative and interesting to read about different experiences with all kinds of food reactions, weight loss progress (or lack of), tips, tricks and general encouragement.

I do however think it is unnecessary for people to slam each other on this forum when people write in admitting to defeat, struggling with adjusting to a new life or are asking for advice that isn't necessarily 'medical' but more experienced based.

Hopefully all of us at some stage had a medical team who instructed us on what to do to succeed. But stuff happens!

We are all on different gears and while some people are sobered up by the concept of resorting to surgery to tackle weight loss and respond well, others may take time to adjust to the new way of living.

I think it's too harsh to verbally berate someone who for eg says "i am not losing weight and i am eating ice cream..." Obviously we can all see what that person is doing wrong, but lets not forget how we got here... cos we couldn't control ourselves to the point of threatening our health and possibly our lives! So off to the surgeon to get a plastic ring placed around our stomachs to aid us in losing weight.... So let's step down from our high horses and encourage each other cos we ALL have known failure and we ALL know the lapband is an aid, not a cure all.

I agree sometimes people need a bit of a wake up call, but to those who feel the need to pummel someone with negative words like "disgusting" etc... it just doesn't help. Yes this surgery and it's consequences should be taken extremely seriously, but i believe if we exercise compassion and understanding in our responses (even if you just wanna snap someone out of it!), we'll all benefit from it.

If people are posting over and over with the same problems and not doing anything to change it, surely people will get tired of this and that person will stop getting responses + eventually get some kind of message.

I am getting banded in 10 days and i know i will be on here with many struggles/questions/concerns and possibly a failure or few... i would love to know you guys are here to help me out and not make me feel hopeless or like some kind of loser.

Having said all this, most people are extremely helpful and it's wonderful to have us all supporting each other!

Cheers to everyone on making this life changing decision.

Peace, love and skinny jeans hah!

<img src='http://www.bariatricpal.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />[/quote']

Good post!