I started this journey with the need to lose 180 pounds. I am more than half way there and I'm only 10 months out from surgery (tomorrow!) and I can't be more thrilled.

The band has been fantastic and will continue to be the best thing I've done for myself.

Oh Juli, You look amazing, and I am sure you have worked hard for it! I am excited about getting there. The new pic of you is so cute! Your a beautiful lady, and I hope your receiving lots of benefits for your hard work! Congrats!

Is it hard for you to take compliments? It is for me I just wonder how others deal with it?

I still have over a hundred pounds to loose..I have lost about 80 and still moving...I am looking forward to the 100 pound mark. I never realized how much exercise it took....I am hitting the gym more than I ever have...I never realized how many bad behaviors I had until being banded...I am learning how to face them, but what a challenge....Who knew I would have been here almost five months ago??? I am so thankful I did..

I've got about 100 lbs to lose, I would like to be a healthier weight, and while tenetatively that weight is 150, I know it's bound to change. My goal is to be healthier and keep improving, and never get back to 263 and the awful hip pains I had. Every pound lost is 4 lbs off the joints...

So far so good, 6 weeks out, and I'm improving... (no pain meds!). I lost a little more than 25 lbs--the equivalent of carrying around my 18 month old all day. That feels good. And I've got my sparkle back -- as my mom says. And that in and of itself, was worth the surgery. Now I've just got to live up to my dedication.... and keep consistently improving.

Good Luck to everyone!

My highest weight (that I know of) was 311.8 lbs back in February of last year ... I weighed in at 291.6 the morning before my surgery and since then I've lost 60+ lbs. I'm almost halfway to my goal!:whoo:

I set my goal at 160 although I'd really like to try to get down to 135. I've been overweight for so long though, I think anything under 200 would make me happy

Hi Everyone:):

My name is Sue. I started at 324 and was 230.6 this morning. So, that's 93 down, with seventy to go. I'm thinking that I'll be happy at 160, thinking that I'll be a size 12, but I may want to stop sooner if I get to the magic size 12. Oh yeah, I'm 5'7".

I started my journey last April and decided I couldn't stand living in the huge body anymore. I dieted before banding and lost 38 pounds pre-band. I was banded 7/26/07.

Most days I love my band. I think I need another fill. I just ate a smart ones frozen chicken, broccoli, ziti (yummy) and was still hungry, and had room for a half an apple too. Too much for one sitting as far as I'm concerned. That's probably why I keep playing with these 3 pounds. Overall my weight loss has been great averaging about 10 pounds per month. I guess I was due for a plateau. I see my doctor again on the 18th.

I walk quite a bit. I usually walk 4 to 5 miles 6 days per week. I enjoy walking with my MP3 playing rock'n roll. I find that if I walk to slow music I walk slow, fast music I walk faster. I have an office job, so I need to do something for exercise because I sit on my butt while working.

Nice to see the new weight categories on this site. I hope that I picked the right one.

I'm probably going to need plastic surgery by the time I finish up, so I look at that thread alot. So much scarier than the lap band surgery - yipes!

Nice to meet you and join the 100+ group. Please let me know if I'm on the wrong thread.

Sue

Sue,

You're amazing! That's great. You'll hit that 100 pound goal to be sure!

Bloo Eyes,

I always call it, "My highest known weight" assuming it could and probably was higher. That was 338.

Princess,

You're just a little over a month out and doing really, really well! Congrats!

Jess,

About compliments, a while back a friend taught me a lesson. It went like this:

Liz says to Juli, "You look really nice."

Juli replies, "You're kidding, right?" or some such thing.

Liz says, "The appropriate reply is 'Thank You'.

Juli, embarassed, grumbles, "Thank You."

Liz says, "Now that wasn't so hard, was it?"

I walked away with the lesson learned. I try really hard not to be self depricating because no one wants to hear that and it's uglier than any kind of fat I might be lugging around.

XO- J

Hi all, you can see all of my info in my signature. Right now, I'll just be glad not to see a "3" anymore when I get on the scale.

Well I have 150 pounds to lose ... I am 5'10 inches tall and would love to be about 175 ... I don't wanna mess around and get to skinny. I have no desire to be a 2 ... 12 or 14 nothing smaller than a 10 ... I love my curves! So I wouldn't mind being a double digit chick.

I am 5'8" and agree with you Apple. I love my curves. I don't want to be skinny, I want to get no smaller than a size 10, and have about 145 total pounds to lose.

Just banded 15 days ago.

Hi AppleSmith, I am also 5'10" with a goal of 175. I am built a lot like my mother and she's 5'11", the smallest size she has ever been was a 10/12 and that looked great on her. So I figure I'd like to be around there, double digits are fine as long as I can shop in the regular stores again!

Well I have 150 pounds to lose ... I am 5'10 inches tall and would love to be about 175 ... I don't wanna mess around and get to skinny. I have no desire to be a 2 ... 12 or 14 nothing smaller than a 10 ... I love my curves! So I wouldn't mind being a double digit chick.

Just wanted to let you know that it can be done. It will take time and a lot of patience , frustration, and endurance and maybe some hairloss..

I went from 150 kg (303 lbs) plus -not sure what I weighted before- to 84 kg today (169 lbs). Ideally I would like to loose another 14 kg (28 lbs) to be able to have some plastic chirgury done.

I was banded in October 2007 so 15 months in total. Before the lapband I never managed to loose even a few lbs in all my attempts to loose weight. During this 14 month with my band I never believed I could loose all the weight. I did pretty much everything wrong. I did not exercise a lot. At least I did not go to a gym. I did start to walk a lot and try to move doing things I enjoyed. Like walking on a shoppingcentre for hours or just cleaning my house. And I did some dance lessons.

I plateaued for months on ends or loose weight very very slowly like 2 lbs per month. It would totally despair me as I just did not understand why I could not loose weight. Especially as the first 6 months I lost most of the weight and after that it just sloooowed down. I tried everything from lots of exercise to starving to eating chocolates. Also started weighttraining. To going atking to no meat to only fish. My scale would not budge! Loosing weight is a huge mystery. Calories in and calories out are for sure not the only factors involved. Last week I thought well this must be my weight but no suddenly my scale started to move and I suddenly started to loose again. It is still going down.

So as long as you keep trying and keep at it even if you loose weight very slowly or you start thinking omg this is going to take years or never going to happen It will happen. I thought that and now when I think back I think wow I really made it this far so I maybe I can even make it to the end. And if I the worst eater in the world can do it I believe in anyone able with a looong breath to manage it. I have absolutely no discipline and no patience at all! Give me an box of chocolates and I'll eat it! Afterall its the end line that counts not how long it takes you to do it.

I believe you can all do it.

I was banded May 31st with 112-120lbs to lose and after 7-8 months I am about 3/4 of the way there. I hope I can lose the rest before my 1 year band anniversary, but my weight loss has slowed dramatically and I think I am plateauing. Fills don't seem to be helping either. So maybe my body just needs time.

jfran,

i hear ya!! just keep plugging away, the body will eventually give up and let those pounds go.

you have done a truly amazing job!!

HI I have 150 to lose and have lost 50 so far but now its not going any were just stuck not sure if its something im doing or not doing thats the cause

Jfran:

You are so beautiful and you're in Onederland! I'm jealous, and I'm about 50 pounds away from your weight. Can't wait to get there.

Plateauing does stink! I think I'm at a plateau right now. I'm going to give it a couple of weeks to see how my last fill works, try to change the foods I've been eating because I heard that's good for moving past a plateau, and hope to join the gym in a couple of months. It's just too blanking cold in New England to think about going to the gym after work and then going out to the freezing cold car again. I'm still walking alot, but I need to start strength training.

Good luck getting off of the plateau. Let me know if you find any tricks that work. Until then, think about all that you've accomplished and how great you look!

Sue

I've just decided it time to work hard, like I'm new at this, again.

I thought I was losing around 5 pounds a month but it's even slower than that now if I look at my stats. So I'm going to try to charge things on all levels. I'm going to add massive cardio, pack all my meals, track every bight of food and drink 1/2 gallon of Water a day.

I've rested on the -100 mark but I have my band anniversary coming up in March and I really want to be -100 from my surgery day. Here's to making significant changes to my approach.

Juli