I need help I totally fell off the wagon. I had my lap band surgery 3/31/14 and lost 40lbs by September 2014. Since then I gained back 8lbs and have no motivation. Please share you tips on how you were re motivated to lose the weight. I have a doctors appointment 6/16.

Here's an arm up. And a secret.

I get off the wagon every night and climb back on every morning. This is a lifetime commitment for me. I'm not perfect. I've made changes that have lasted, but not perfectly and certainly not all at once.

Every day and every meal is a choice. Climb back up! You can do it!

I Have felt off the wagon lately too. It's not that I eat alot. It's what I eat. Crazy how the bad for you stuff goes down so easily and in large amounts but the good for you food goes down more difficultly and definitely in much smaller portions.

I think we can get back on track making healthy food choices. It won't be easy at first but each day we make good choices we'll get stronger and it will become more and more easy.

Don't feel so bad , many of us have fallen off the wagon before too. I gained 10 lbs back over the winter because of a foot injury and baking way too much ! Sweets are my downfall !! But I 've lost the 10 and an additional 5 !! I just find that when Im full of protien, fruit and veggies, I dont crave the sweets as much. That , and adding in some exercise that I really like helped me drop the weight. Maybe you could try those ideas ?? Results = more motivation !! Good luck !!

Is your band doing anything?

I can do nothing on my own, that was why I had to have WLS.....

I always have to ask..."What about the band?"

Ah I have these issues myself. My band does what it's there to do...it's Me that doesn't always do what I am supposed to even though I know better!!!

I know what I should be eating how much how to exercise etc. We all know it, and let me tell you more of us then not are guilty of falling off the wagon...if we allow ourselves to be guilty. I prefer to use my lapses as learning tools, I know fully well what I am doing wrong, how I am compensating and all the tricks I have up my sleeve to justify my eating choices

When I get myself too far off ...I pay the price for it in the way I feel. I know when I am not drinking enough Water I am sluggish and I have a headache, (that's kind of happening now) I know when I have had too much coffee and sugar and been digging into to the sweeties to make me "feel" better when I am stressed or down and I know better than to do that and it's not all about the weight for me, it's how I feel after doing that to myself. I might not gain a pound, in fact sometimes I lose weight...but I feel like crap!

My head is foggy and unfocused I can't physically do all the things I expect my body to do with no Protein to fuel it, it's running on carbs and sugar and eating up the muscles I am at the gym trying to build.

Sometimes I am just focused on the moment and not on the consequences. We don't eat as much as we used to, and what we do eat should be good for our bodies. I can fit all the ice cream in...and even then I can't eat as much of that as I used to thanks to my band, but what is the ice cream doing for me? Nothing. It's empty calories, there is precious little in it to help heal or nurture my body, so it needs to be an incidental not a staple meal.

As I drove into CVS this morning after a bit of a stressful AM I thought hmm...I can just get one ice cream bar and eat that on my way to work that will make you feel better Lisa....I heard myself think it as I sat waiting to make my turn and there I was having a mental mind fight with myself.

Oh NO you don't and won't be getting that ice cream! Pick up your script and your Vitamins and get back in the car and get to work. Have your Protein Bar if your hungry right now..and get over this "drama" you don't need ice cream it will only make you feel worse later.

I didn't get the ice cream. I had my protein bar when I got to the office Oh that every battle was so easy

A couple of things, first is that you are not on or off a diet, you are overall eating differently. This means not just eating diet foods, you have to learn to eat differently. Think about your eating especially when you want to eat in an unhealthy way. I have to give myself permission to eat things like ice cream but not without thinking about it. I like to journal so writing helps me to figure out why I'm doing what I do. I know that if a food is taboo then I will want it more, so nothing is taboo.

Second, get a therapist if you are struggling. I chose someone who specialized in behavior modification and not talk therapy. He was annoyingly right. Mylife in generalis better for seeing him. We don't eat the way we do just because we like food. I was medicating myself with food and needed to find better ways to feel better.