Hi, I'm new here. Will be having lap band surgery in 9 days. Any advice on how to prepare? Wish me luck, I am very excited to start my "new life" .Thanks.

I found it helpful to consider that I started the journey the first day I made contact with the surgeon. I felt the urge like everyone does to pig out like there was no tomorrow until I had my surgery but I got myself in the mindset that I'd already started and consequently I ate well and I recomitted to exercise a couple of months beforehand. I didnt try to lose weight, I figured there was no need to do that really but I didnt have that last supper mentality.

I felt rested, well and not too stressed when my surgery day arrived, and the weight dropped pretty quickly. What amazed me as that 3 months later I went out for a walk and decided to try jogging and jogged 4kms without stopping! I feel it really helped me to start working out seriously before I went into surgery.

Other than that I was terrified on the morning, I've had other ops before but for some reason I kept thinking "I may not see my children again". I think its easy to want to punish yourself for needing this surgery, I mean other ops I'd had were no more necessary than this one was, I could have lived with the minor problems that I'd suffered. I'm getting my eye operated on in a few weeks time and have not once stopped to think "should I be doing this?".

So spend some time thinking it through and go easy on yourself in terms of self judgement. This really is an operation to fix the most dangerous health condition you're likely to suffer and if you were having a hip replacement or a quadruple bypass you'd be scared but you wouldnt be questioning if it were necessary and nor would anyone else. Youre doing the right thing and it works to one degree or another for almost everyone!