Hello! New around here. 29yr old wife and mom of 1. Pre-op, next appt. with Dr. Yau in Scarborough, ON is June 7th, hoping for a date then. food and I have been bestfriends for the last 15 yrs and I've expanded now to a grand total of 315lbs.

My only concern about this procedure is seeing as I have been an compulsive overeater for all these yrs, how mentally is this going to effect me, seeing as I've lived every minute of everyday for and thinking about food? Any input from all you specialists would be appreciated. Thanks in advance for your replies.

SJD

Hi, and welcome!

The compulsive overeating is a complex issue - how much of it is due to eating in response to triggers other than physical hunger (head hunger), and how much of it is due to a true saitey defect (physical hunger)?

You will definitely want to address the head hunger, as being banded will help with the quantity portion of compulsive overeating, but it can't do too much with the quality/frequency.

For some people, NOT being able to eat a large quantity of food is enough to force them to find other ways of dealing with life. For others, they learn to graze non-stop, or eat things that go down easily, like ice cream, candy, chips, etc., or they do things they know will allow them to consume more, like drinking with their meals.

If some (or all) of your compulsive overeating is due to a physical hunger (saitey defect), the band tones down the hunger enough for most people to make better choices in what they eat, because they are not starving all the time.

I believe the band can help most people, but we need to do our part, too. We have to make more nutritional choices and learn to move our bodies more. Moving our bodies more gets easier as we become smaller, and making more nutritional choices is made easier by the lessening of physical hunger, which leads to weightloss, and which makes moving easier. We also need to find other ways to deal with life's ups and downs that do not involve food.

If you are willing to make these kinds of changes, I believe you will have a successful band experience.