Hey, Bandsters!

It’s been a long winter for many of us, and spring is finally in the air! Take advantage of your new healthy lifestyle as you lose a little weight while celebrating the season. Burn a few calories by doing a little spring cleaning, and eat egg whites instead of chocolate eggs for Easter. If you can, hit the park or gym to shoot some hoops in honor of March Madness and the NCAA Basketball Tournament. Before you get going, though, take a few minutes to get motivated with this month’s newsletter. Here’s what you’ll find.

• Help Us Out and Win a Book!

• Bandster Poll: How Will You Celebrate March Madness?

• Member Spotlight: Get to Know Maddysgram!

• What Do You Do when You’re Not Losing Weight Fast?

We hope you enjoy the newsletter and have a healthy, happy spring. Be sure to login to Alex Brecher

Founder

LapBandTalk.com

Help Us Out and Get Yourself Published!

You know we’re always busy around LapBandTalk.com. We already published The BIG Book on the Lap-Band: Everything You Need To Know To Lose Weight and Live Well with the Adjustable Gastric Band. The book has practical advice for anyone thinking about the lap-band or any weight loss surgery. It’s packed with information from the earliest stages of your weight loss journey through your lifelong diet. It’s available in print and ebook from food lists, meal plans, recipes, exercise and tips for preventing and dealing with complications. It’ll be a motivational book, too.

The book can be better with your help! This month, we’re asking LapBandTalk.com members to send us your recipes to publish in the book. Please submit your recipe by sending a PM (private message) to chicken wings until I can’t eat anymore. Chicken is high in Protein, so what’s the problem?

E. What are you talking about? I’m so busy eating right and working out that I don’t know what March Madness is. It better not interfere with my weight loss!

We want to know how you’re going to celebrate March Madness! Answer the poll and explain your answer on the conversation on Breakfast each day, but she says she’s been doing pretty well. She’s also looking forward to her knee replacement surgery so she can walk without pain. She loves walking for miles at a time while discovering nature.

Maddysgram happily admits that she replaced her food addiction with an addiction to BariatricPal.com! She’s made tons of friends and loves hanging out with her women friends in The Banded Bs! She says she learned more about pre-op and nutrition from the forums than from the hospital, and she continues to be active on the forums to help others.

Maddysgram has some good advice for other banders. First, follow your doctor’s orders and stick to the lap-band diet. If it’s not working, get help from your surgeon and nutritionist. Another tip is to educate yourself on how the band works and take advantage of the forums for good advice. Finally, she says, remember that you can do it!

Thanks, Maddysgram, for being in the Member Spotlight! Congratulations on your success so far and we’re thankful to have you on the boards!

What Do You Do when You’re Not Losing Weight Fast?

For many weight loss surgery patients, weight loss starts off so fast that motivation is no problem. Before surgery, you’re eager to follow your diet perfectly so that you qualify for surgery. Shortly after surgery, you’re motivated to stick to your diet because you are losing weight quickly, you want your surgery wounds to heal properly and the band makes overeating more difficult. Seeing the pounds come off is positive feedback to encourage you to keep working hard.

But what happens a little later, when you’re not losing weight as fast? Where is the encouragement when you hit a plateau and have trouble losing weight; when you’re approaching your goal weight and are having trouble losing those last few pounds; or when you’re at goal and need to keep the pounds off? Since the numbers on the scale aren’t dropping as fast as they were before, you’ll need to find other ways to motivate yourself to stick to your new healthy lifestyle.

These are a few ideas for keeping yourself motivated without focusing on the scale.

• Place your “before” and “after” pictures where you can see them frequently – on the fridge, on your desk or as your computer desktop picture. There’s no question that you don’t want to slip up and go back to your “before” self!

• On the fridge, post a list of reasons why you don’t want to ruin the hard work that you’ve already put in. You might list activities that you can do now but couldn’t do before get where you are now, feeling proud of yourself and having lower blood sugar.

• Pick out a dream outfit in your goal size and keep trying it on to see how well it fits.

• If you notice that you’re slipping back into your former habits, write a note to your former self. Explain that you’re a different person now, and describe the ways in which you are different. You might explain that now, you don’t have to eat because you’re bored or stressed. Now, you measure portions of healthy foods and stop eating when you’re full. Now, you’re proud of yourself and your ability to control your diet.

• Even if you’re not currently having trouble staying motivated, you might want to write a note to your future self. Remind yourself how hard you’re working and how you feel better each day that you stick to your diet and get active. Later, if your resolve ever wavers, you can read this note and remember that you don’t want to undo the effort that you’ve put in.

How do you keep yourself motivated when your weight loss hits a plateau? For those of you who are already approaching goal weight or are at maintenance, how do you convince yourself to stay on track once your weight loss slows or stops? Let us know over in the forums and see if you can pick up a few tips from other LapBandTalk.com members!

We hope this newsletter has been motivational for you. Thanks for reading it, and as always, please feel free to contact us! We’re looking for recipes, and we’re also happy to get member feedback!

Take care of yourself and each other.

Sincerely,

Alex

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Hey Alex... Maddysgram is on LBT, not Bariatic talk! Lets advertise ourselves! Mads is a great friend and mentor to many on the forums. She is always helpful and supportive. Way to go Mads for your feature article!

~laughs~ I had to go back and read that a few times myself Gram......

Madds....great reading up on you....but I already knew you were a fanyastic lady !!

BariatricPal.com appears to be the center hub or maybe even the portal of all of Alex created WLS sites. Maybe Maddy frequents more then just LBT but it's all part of one big family.

Nope, just LBT.com, never heard of BariatricPal until now,lol.

I consider LBT my family.

Thank you Alex for another great newsletter!