Hey everyone,

I just thought it would be nice to hear some stories and tips from everyone about how they broke their old habits and got into new better ones.

If you have a story or any tips about how to make it through a meal with out drinking, or how you choose that healthy food over the unhealthy one, or how you got into your exercise routine and kept it up, or any thing to do with making the better you, we would love to hear it!

The hard thing for me was exercising. I just could not motivate myself to do it. Then, one of the other April bandsters started an exercise challenge for the month of September. Our goal was to exercise 15 times during the month for 30 minutes. That was just what I needed. I joined and met the challenge. After doing it for a month, I found I actually now have less energy and feel worse when I don't exercise, so that challenge worked wonderful for me and we are doing it again in October.

with exercise I found something I loved - running. We were having a chat online about it the other day on another non lapband forum and I have two friends there that share my love of it. Anyway someone else piped up and said that you dont need to run, fast walking is fine and that she used to be a size 10 at 6ft but she ran ran ran and went to the gym etc and was very intense and that she was happier now that she'd given that up.

I thought to myself "she just doesnt get it". Honestly, you dont run to lose weight. If you make yourself go out there and get it over with to lose weight its not going to be fun and it is going to be a chore to keep going. You run for the pure love of it, to me weightloss is a side effect, not my primary aim.

If you can find something like that, its easy to keep going.

Other stuff (like good food choices) you just do and do and do and then do them some more. I find 10 months down the track, I finally feel those things starting to become habit.