I am soooo discouraged. I am 13 months post op and have lost 70+lb. I havent lost a single pound since February. I just cant get over this hump. My last fill was April 17th. I have 3.2 cc in a 4 cc band. My doc says after the first year most people have lost all that they are going to lose but I am NOT ready for this to be the end. I have 40 lb to goal and I AM GOING TO GET THERE!!!! Granted I have lost motivation but by God I got it back and am going on a crusade to lose the remaining 40lbs! I am going to resort back to Slim Fast shakes and exercise my rear off and count the crap out of calories. Anybody else want to jump on my belly buster wagon and kick some butt!

To add to this, after the point where it's not as easy to lose, it's not any harder than if you'd gotten yourself to that point with no band...

This is why I cringe when I see people writing that they are going to take their time losing weight. Saw someone yesterday (forget who) who said that the weight didn't come on overnight, it wouldn't come off overnight. She was giving herself three years to lose her weight.

Why not do it when it is easiest?

When I see anything like that I want to jump in and wave flags, scream, yell, anything to get the attention of a poster but I also realize that some people are just not ready to give up excess calories. So I force myself to walk away and for me that is nooooo easy task.

I love your Bushism....

I do know that for me, I have to sit at a plateau for awhile and adjust and then move on losing weight. I don't consciously do it, but it seems to be my pattern. Maybe I'm trying to let my skin catch up. :-) I guess some folks need a longer adjustment.

Anyway, my goal is all weight gone within a year at the most. That's an average of 1.8 pounds a week, done in fits and starts. And I can already feel the slow down...so I'm getting more serious about exercise and compliance every day....

I'm 20 months out and as long as I get fills, I still lose. The problem is that I have tired of being overfilled and having that pain in my back and chest. I have had a complete unfill (6ccs) and just had him refill me up to 4ccs. I hope I don't start to gain but have resolved myself to the fact that I have to "diet" again, count calories, and exercise. We'll see how it goes. If I start to gain you'd better believe I'll go get a fill! I'm only about 12 pounds from where I want to be.

Bingo!

I figure my DH's aunt who was banded almost 2 years ago, had one fill, and doesn't look a bit different to me even though she claims to have lost 70 pounds will make up for me losing all I want to!:heh:

yikes, thats scary.. I was banded two years ago.. I have lost about 100 pounds.. losing most all of it in the first year... I wonder if any one notices and thinks these thoughts about me.

I still have over 100 pounds more to lose.. I will be 200 pounds FAT still then,,

sad

sad

sad

I was told too that I would lose only 60% of my excess weight......however....I lost it all and in one year reached my goal. The band certainly did 75% of the work but I did the rest. If you focus more on losing 100% of your excess weight rather than on what someone else's expectations are, then for sure you can do it.

Good luck.

Carol

I'm 50% of the way there in 6 months. The next 6 months will be harder. My goal this week is to exercise each day and no snacking between 2 and 5 PM (my downfall). That's as far ahead as I'm going to look.

I'd say that by 12 months I had lost all I was going to lose without major effort - luckily for me this was 100% of my "excess" weight, bringing me to the high end of my healthy weight range.

I'd like to lose a bit more. But its going to take major effort, more than perhaps I'm willing to put in. I've achieved a normal relationship with food and I excercise regularly and absolutely love it. I dont want to mess with that by purposely eating much less or forcing myself to exercise in ways I just dont want to (like a lot of strength work, ugh) which is what I know it would take. I know how to fine tune my body, I understand the science behind it but brown rice and tuna for meals and hours of strength training a day? Forget it, lol.

I'll just keep eating healthy foods and enjoying my hour long runs. And that'll take me where it takes me. Its been easy and natural to this point.

It depends how strongly you feel about it. Its entirely reasonable to not give up on your ultimate goal for ANYTHING, afterall you were passionate enough about it to have WLS. You sound determined and positive, I bet you'll get there, just stick with it.

I also have 40lbs to go..I WANT TO LOOSE THIS WEIGHT..I just starting going to a gym 3-6 times a week but im still only loosing a lb every two weeks..Its so discouraging..I think i need to start protien shakes again..Or somone had mentioned eating 6 small meals a day????//

~Kristen

Doctors say...will loose approx. 60% of your weight in one year. THAT'S an AVERAGE!!!

Who here is AVERAGE? NOT ME!!

Calories in Engery out! Plain and simple.

Plateuas are not fun and everyone will hit them. Let your body adjust for a week or two after that..it's something you are not doing correctly to loose. Why do I know this? I was the orginal poster girl for every diet known to man. After the inital loss..I got bored, complaint, etc and of course I didn't lose.

Look at WHAT you are eating. Is it dense? Takes time to chew and eat and doesn't slide right on down? Excercise? Just walking does wonders for burning calories and mood enhancing.

What I'm trying to say is..you can loose all the weight YOU want to lose. NO ONE can say X number of pounds and the band won't let you lose more. Only YOU can do that.

Be happy that you have a tool. Get in the right frame of mind to continue your journey.

Hugs to all!

I've had an interesting week. I've been in such a slump lately, and recommitting to exercise helped, but I also decided to go back to basics and track my food. I'm now totally convinced that I can't trust myself. Things slip and slide food-wise and unless I write it down at least one week of the month, I'm not getting honest with myslef. For the last few days, I feel SOOOO much better and clearer. I also know without a doubt that protein shakes---any sugar or sweetener---give me terrible cravings. The most I can do without totally messing up is to drink a glass of water with just a splash of protein drink in it, so that by the end of a 3-4 hours, I will have ingested a full shake on days when I need that extra protein and I'm just not getting it in. Anyway, it's been a good week.

This theory has always worked for me everytime I have dieted. There are many times when we plateau and the tendency is to force ourselves to eat less and less to get that scale to go down.

When this happens to me, I take one day to eat complete crap, whatever I want. Everytime without fail, within one to two days after doing that, I start dropping again. I think it is just a signal to your body that it isn't actually starving and to give up on trying to hold you back.

Now, I am not saying to do this often. I only use it when I am having a plateau that I cannot seem to break.

That's interesting. I've done that too. In fact with other areas of my life, sometime just doing something different...whether it makes sense or not...shakes up the system and leads to growth. Er, or in our case, loss. I like your theory.

Don't get discouraged your surgeon is WRONG!!!! Most can expect to lose 75% of their excess weight in the first 2years. It never ends with the band. It only ends if you give up and eat junk and go back to old habits. There are people on this board who are still working on those last few pounds 3-5 years later and they are coming off slowly but surely. Stay on plan and excersize you can do it I know you can!

I had an interesting support gorup meeting yesterday. I went to one that's not my regular group, and it was all bandsters who had lost 150 pounds or more and had been banded for 2 or more years. No newbies. No complications. amazing. All these gut wrenching plateaus and questions were behind them. They are fine, at peace, and healthy. It was nice for a change to see the forest and not the trees.

Something you might try to beat the plateau, is change up your excercise routine if your doing a lot of walking try an eliptical or a bike and so on. I havent gotten to that point, but thats what my trainer has told me.

Also is it true that you lose the majority of weight between 6-18 months? Anyone?