I am getting the lap band, my BMI is 39.5 all my life I have been a big girl. I am 5'6 @ 236 pds with a large frame, I would say I hold my weight very well. Anyway I dont have a problem losing weight on a 1000 cal diet, I have a hard time keeping it off once I go back to a normal like eating pattern. I never have binged, over ate or ate when I was full as a matter of fat my skinny husband out eats me and isnt active like me. As a matter of fact that all the women on both sides of my family are overweight, and the ones that aren't have to starve themselves to keep thin! No lie!!! So my rant is this, I am really mad, even after explaining to my dietitian and nurse that I don't over eat, don't binge or glutton myself! I may have not eattan all the correct foods and not worked out an hr a day!!! But they sit there and act as tho I binge eat every day and thats why I am fat! SCREW YOU PEOPLE!! I have a crappy metabolism and been put on a diet since I was 9 yrs old, I been yo yo dieting since then! You think perhaps that has screwed up my metabolism? DAH?!

Now on my pre opt diet, I was put on a 1500 cal diet, doesn't work! So now I am on my 1000 cal starvo diet, taking diet pills to reduce my appetite's and working out 1 hr a day plus all the other crap I have to do a day! So I can lose the other 5pds before I get approved for the lapband! I tell ya.. it drives me nuts that they treat me like this! GRRRRRR!!! :eek::sad::Dancing_sorry::wub::Dancing_wub::smile2:

It does feel as though some Dr.'s don't treat you as individuals----just lumping us all together, and expect each of us to react the same way.

My fill Dr. is a bit this way--he thinks if it is good for one person it will be good for another, not especially receptive to listening. He does not like that I am unwilling to have more restriction.....makes me want to scream too----this is MY band....MY life, and MY choice!!!!

I hear what you are saying! Good luck---at least YOU know how you react, and what needs to be done. And the band is awesome at helping to maintain weight loss!!! Sounds like you will be an ideal candidate for banding!!!

Welcome to LBT!

Kat

Mariposa,

I know what you are talking about, although I do binge occasionally. I was on Atkins for three years, ate a lot of lean meats and roasted vegetables to total about 1600 cal a day, stayed under 30 g of carbs a day, but my portions were too large and I gradually gained back 35 of the 65 lb I lost.

Doctors just smiled when I said I rode my bike 10 miles a day and didn't eat sugar. Yeah, sure.

The band has worked well for me so far, by severely limiting my portion amounts. I expect my weight loss will slow down, but I'm 15 lb from my doctor's goal for me and 25 from my own personal goal. Just go for it and forget them!

A big "me too" here on the yo yo dieting. And I have heard that it screws up your metabolism. Think about it...how could it NOT? I've lost and gained back enough weight to make 2 or 3 more people, and I'm tired of it. My kids are little, and I'm as big as I've ever been 5"8" & 240 lbs. My BMI is 35 or 36, so I'm REALLY hoping to get approved by my insurance.

I have not had bad experiences with any of my current Drs though. Previous Drs have had simular attitudes and it does pi$$ you off! As more and more is learned about obesity, I think the younger generation of new Drs will be more sympathetic.

Good luck!

Thank you all for your support. Yea I always feel that there is 3 type of over weight people. I believe their is emotional eaters like Oprah, then their is people that have a medical or metabolism problem and then just people who just have plain old bad eating habits! lol.. I am not an emotional eater! I lol.. even sat in a while ago in an O.A. group and was shocked of what people ate!! I was like omg?! I am deff. not one of these people. Like today, I have a EAS Protein shake with cup of 1% milk for breakfast, then for lunch I have a tuna sandwich, 1cup of strawberries, half a pickle and couldn't finish my low fat pudding! I was so full I thought I was going to get sick. I haven't even been banded and this is the diet they have me on! OMG?! I just kinda laughed to myself and thought it was sord of funny! I been on the body for life (Body-for-LIFE) where you have to eat 6times a day, I could never do it, simple because I would have their breakfast and would be full for 5hrs! lol..So I cut the meals from 6 to 2 meals and a snack, was on ephedrine , drank my water and worked out like how they suggested! I dropped 25 pds in 2 months! Y didn't I keep it off? Well I went back to normal eating and they took ephedrine off the market! Thanks ppl! lol

Anyway, I am doing the lap band simple because I realize then I will never be able to have mcdonalds, pizza, or any regular food again! That was my mistake. So I figured once I get this weight off, I will forever keep it off when I get the lapband! :sad::smile2:

That really isn't true though. If you get the lap band you actually will still be able to eat regular food. Once you get filled enough though, you will eat much smaller amounts of regular food.

I am glad I paid myself. There is no way I would have made it through anyone telling me to lose weight before surgery and telling me what to eat. I made the decision and had surgery immediately.

A BMI of 39.5 is not that high at all.

Wow, I didn't know there was another Mariposa on this board.

Really? Thats what I thought, but they have been telling me another thing! They even told me that I can have any kind of alcohol for an entire year, I am like a glass of wine here and there I cant have? I am only 75pds over weight and they are treating me as tho I am 600pds! Me not happy! :sneaky:

butterfly :sneaky:

Well - a few points. Contrary to what you might think, years of dieting probably did nothing to your metabolism. I'd wager it's just fine, if not a bit low from lack of exercise (which I assume you lack from your post).

It will help to look deep and find the reasons for your obesity. It's probably not your metabolism, and it's probably not genetics. (I came very close to having a degree in genetic science, not for lack of the genetics classes, and it's going to take a lot for someone to convince me of genetics over behavior). EVERYONE overeats (who's physically capable of it), even my size "2" co-worker. It's just a matter of how frequently more than anything, and after that - what foods and what degree of overeating. And eating less than your skinny husband doesn't mean you aren't overeating for your own body and caloric requirements. My husband was skinny and ate way more than me, but that doesn't mean that I should have been skinny just because I ate less than him. That's not even logical. How long have you been on the 1500 calorie diet?

You say you can lose the weight, but it comes right back when you resume "normal eating." Chances are that's your normal, and not a medical normal. With the very rare exceptional, rare case we don't gain weight if we're consuming as much as or less than the number of calories to satisfy a range between our AMR and BMR. Outside of unusual (empasis on that) circumstances, it just doesn't happen. If it truly happens, there's something medically out of whack that needs to be looked into.

If you're honestly and truly eating 1500 calories, mobile, and not seeing weightloss after a reasonable poeriod (let's say a month), then you should call your doctor, not a band surgeon. If you can't lose weight on a 1000-1500 calorie diet pre-op, then I'm not sure you'd lose weight on a 1000-1500 calorie diet post-op. The band in and of itself isn't going to change anything.

They even told me that I can have any kind of alcohol for an entire year, I am like a glass of wine here and there I cant have? I am only 75pds over weight and they are treating me as tho I am 600pds! Me not happy! :sneaky:

So... ppl with 75 lbs to lose (over and over) should be treated differently from someone with 600 lbs to lose? I don't know that I agree with that, but it looks like you'd definitely benefit from hanging out and doing some research. I don't know who "they" is, but it seems like some of their information was inaccurate, at least for standard banded guidelines. HOWEVER, don't take it so personally. Someone telling you not to have a glass of wine doesn't mean they're "treating you like you have 600 lbs to lose," it probably just means that it's in line with what they've found to give the best success, and would probably feel amiss if they didn't give you the same advice as anyone else. I've yet to find a band surgeon who will give a more leanient or open diet to someone who has "just" 75 lbs to lose, over someone who has 150+. "Rules" for best results don't change because you have more or less weight to lose than someone else.

You say its not genentics, well I have to disagree, on both sides of my family, the women struggle very hard to lose and keep the weight off. The men in the family struggle very little but the woman, if not constantly working out and eating a low cal diet ( basically if it taste good spit it out rule) you wont stay with in a good rate of eating well.

Now you may think that I am inactive, all my life I was very active, all the way up to a year ago. When I got really ill and stopped working out. Then that alone I put on 20pds just like it was nothing. I was a very active child, I didn't sit at home all day playing video games or watching tv. I was every day after school riding my bike and being a typical tom boy. I still carried around 20pds of extra weight. Then having children and yo yo dieting and then thinking that I didn't have to stay on a 1000 cal diet I would be able to keep the weight down if I ate regular in moderation and worked out. That wasn't the case, the weight creeped back to where I was, but stayed there for a long time. I continued to work out and maintained a weight at 220pds for 10 yrs! So do you think that maybe my "body has an ideal weight of it being to high"? Seeing that all the woman on both sides of the family are over weight and fairly active. I am constantly moving. When I say I eat way less then my husband is no lie, good example the other day we went out to a pizza shop, I had one slice pizza and 3 wings and a coke, and I was stuffed!!! The boys on the other hand ate the entire large pizza and ate the rest of the wings a several beers before they were stuffed! Now tell me did I over eat? I only had that day a bowl of cheerios, 1%milk and cup of coffee, and was cleaning all day before we went out!? I don't think on average that I eat more then 2000-2500 cals a day, granted you may be right that is obviously way to much for my body! So yes my metabolism doesn't burn as fast as this skinny girl who eats everything in site!

Trust me all I do is think about what I am putting into my mouth! I don't know what its like to not think twice about what I am eating and wonder if I will fit into my jeans next week!

Yes I believe that genetics do play a role, I watched national geographic dealing with weight issues, yes I believe that if you are not gorging yourself and eating fast food everyday, yet your body seems to not burn what it should, there is something wrong that scientist haven't found yet!

When you look at all the women down to both my great grandma's and they are very over weight, you cant tell him that gene's dont have a hand in it!

As for me, getting the band done, I have associated back problems, I have to get this weight off and everything that worked for me in the past they took off the market! I know, that anything over 1200 cals a day is to much, I get that now. Its just one more thing in my life that I have to manage and work extra hard at! Just like everything else. As for the dietitians, no I am not pleased that they don't believe that I don't binge eat! When I am full I am full, I eat no more! Thats what I am ranting at, and the funny thing is, it doesn't take much to make me full!!!

I get what you are saying, I was in the medical field and have done tons of research on this and explored many diets and eating healthy things to find out why I struggle so much! :drool::sneaky:

Just to make a point I am honest. I am active, most of the food I buy is low fat, lite etc, I buy and drink no soda, I do normally drink water or diet green tea have for years.

I didn't say I didn't lose weight off of a 1500-2000 cal diet with 15-20mis of yoga 3 x a week. I do, but its like 2 pds a month!

Now if i want to lose 1-3pds a week, then I have to go on a 1000-1200 cal diet and live on the FOREVER!!! Then yea I will lose weight and I have to drink water, like mad which I do anyway and when I am at the computer I am on a exercise ball!

I can lose weight there is nothing obviously medically wrong with me, its just very very sluggish when I do anything thats not below 1200 cals a day with 1 hr of exercise on top of my already active life style!

The thing is.. that 1200 cals I go to bed starving and I mean my stomach is full fledge growling, but I ignore and go to bed. Its really hard to stay on this long term when your appetites doesn't work with what my body burns, get it? Its not that I eat continuously, I don't. I am not saying from time to time that I haven't over indulged I mean on a regular everyday basis that actually prevents someone from being thin. No.

Thats why I am getting the lap band. It will finally bring my appetite down to what my body actually burns!

And no offense, but almost getting your degree doesn't make you an expert, a good educated guess sure, but no expert. I believe it being Norway or Switzerland they actually discovered a protein in which the body stores fat when it should burn it! HMMM??? :drool:

Thanks for your opinion, but I know myself better then you know me! :sneaky:

I may have missed it, I did not go back and read-------but have you had a thorough check up with your Dr.? What is your thyroid doing? Have you had it checked on a regular basis, one test every year or 2 can be misleading. What about your monthly cycle is it normal? Have you been checked for PCOS? It makes weight loss very difficult, and both tend to run in family lines. Which could explain many of your relatives issues too.

While it is true we all have different issues with losing weight, or gaining weight---our metabolism all runs differently. But I really feel like it is as Wheetsin said, an issue with yours being slow, as you do less now than what your body adjusted to for years. Most of us do....and any hormonal imbalances in the body---can affect others. And hormonal fluctuations are VERY common in women, it is part of our usual monthly cycle...so if you have other imbalances, my surgeon said it just makes finding the problem that much harder.

I believe the band will work for someone like you--who recognizes a proper way to eat, and is not at issue with portion control. But I also believe it is imperitive that a complete work up with your Dr. be done first, as some things make losing weight even with a band difficult!

I lost without issue for well over a year. Then it stopped. I thought I was plateaued, which happens to us all eventually. But I worked with it. Upped the work outs, dropped the calories, nothing. So I upped the calories, and tweaked the diet some....nothing. I went this way for a few months. Weight did not budge. Then I got sick---had a sore throat, etc. thought I had strep throat, I was feeling my glands they were all swollen. Noticed where I usually had a hollow in my throat, I had a huge lump. Cold went away, glands went down, the lump did not. So off to the Dr, I go. I have multiple thyroid tumors, one extremely large, and growing fast. Went through all the tests, and biopsies, and junk. Ended up in surgery. Had most of my thyroid removed. Now we are working to try to adjust my thyroid hormone to get to a normal level again. My weight continues to drop but ever so slowly! Now whether that still has anything to do with my thyroid---or whether it is solely that my workouts stalled during recovery....or whether it is my calories need to drop again now that I weigh less....or bits and pieces of all of the above....I don't know. But even banded---it is not always an easy thing to figure out. A good relationship with a Dr. helping to figure these things out is invaluable!

Kat

I'll try to hit on everything. I hate multi-quotes, so forgive the font changes but it's the most concise way I can think of to do this. Responses in blue below.

You say its not genentics, well I have to disagree, on both sides of my family, the women struggle very hard to lose and keep the weight off. The men in the family struggle very little but the woman, if not constantly working out and eating a low cal diet ( basically if it taste good spit it out rule) you wont stay with in a good rate of eating well. No, that's not what I said. I said I would have a hard time being convinced it was genetics. You come from a whole family of obese women, then it seems natural that you would learn behaviors that come from an obese lifestyle. Men genetics, and women genetics - no. Genetics are genetics. By and large, you're just as likely to get something from your father as you are your mother. So for all women to be fat, and all men to be skinny, doesn't make sense from a genetic perspective. What does make sense is learned behaviors, even subconscious ones. It also makes sense that physiologically and statistically, men do better at weightloss than women. "Won't stay within a good rate of eating well" sounds 100% behavioral. Eating well is not gentic, it's behavioral. There's nothing genetic about whether or not someone eats well, that's defined by personal choices and maybe some influencing factors such as socio-economic status (and all that other good naturalism stuff).

So do you think that maybe my "body has an ideal weight of it being to high"? I'm not sure what you're asking here. I wouldn't even worry about "ideal body weight" if I were you. I would find my BMR and my AMR and identify an attainable number between the two, then compare that to where you're at on an average basis.

When I say I eat way less then my husband is no lie, You may have misunderstood what I was saying. I have no objections to the idea that you eat less than your husband. I ate way less than my husband, and still ballooned up to nearly 400 lbs while he put on... 25 or 30 lbs. Who eats more than whom is irrelvant.

good example the other day we went out to a pizza shop, I had one slice pizza and 3 wings and a coke, and I was stuffed!!! The boys on the other hand ate the entire large pizza and ate the rest of the wings a several beers before they were stuffed! Still irrelevant. You can't take different genders, different body types, different activity levels, etc. and say that weight their weight should be higher because they eat more. Now tell me did I over eat? I only had that day a bowl of cheerios, 1%milk and cup of coffee, and was cleaning all day before we went out!? I don't think on average that I eat more then 2000-2500 cals a day If that's all you ate then I wouldn't say that one that day you overate, but if you get 2000-2500 calories per day, you're maybe eating more than you realize because what you're reporting isn't near that number. , granted you may be right that is obviously way to much for my body! So yes my metabolism doesn't burn as fast as this skinny girl who eats everything in site! Perhaps not, but there are a LOT of other factors, too many to start listing.

Yes I believe that genetics do play a role, I watched national geographic dealing with weight issues, yes I believe that if you are not gorging yourself and eating fast food everyday, yet your body seems to not burn what it should, there is something wrong that scientist haven't found yet! You realize that medical science has found many reasons for weight gain despite a healthy diet, right? Hence my statement that if you are being honest about what you eat, then you need to seek an aggressive medical provider. I'm not saying you're lying. You don't eat below a BMR/AMR range, for any significant length of time, and be active on top of it, and gain weight, without something being wrong. It just doesn't happen. And if it does, then it's time to seek a doctor's help -- probably with some urgency. That doesn't mean you need to seek a genetic answer. For example, a member here, VinesQueen, had similar trouble, and walked away with a pituitary tumor.

When you look at all the women down to both my great grandma's and they are very over weight, you cant tell him that gene's dont have a hand in it! I'm not sure who "him" is - but yeah, I would tell him that. If some weight anomoly occured randomly, or could be traced through the family history, or linked back to some genetic issue, then I would believe gentics more quickly than I can when I hear "every woman." When I hear someone say "every woman in my family is fat" I think - wow, it's sad that the women are perpetuating poor behaviors. A fat mother is going to teach her child poor behaviors, even if it's not intentional, and even if the child is able to avoid manifesting the behaviors.

A fat woman who learned fat behaviors from her fat mother who learned them from her fat mother who learned them from her fat mother... is going to have that much more chance of passing on the behaviors down, and so on. Add to that the amplified effect of a female child who sees her mother, aunts, grandmothers, sisters, etc. all overweight. This is no different from other "family" behaviors. You could just as easily have said, "Every man in my family beats his wife." That doesn't mean there's a wife-beating gene, maybe it just means that boys have learned from watching their parents and other family members.

Anyway. This was not a personal attack. You posted in RnR so I didn't assume you were seeking support or validation. Best of luck to you on your band journey. :blushing:

I think you are very similar to me. We started out with almost the same BMI and want to lose almost the same amount of weight.

I just want you to know that I had a resting metabolic test taken.(After all the thyroid tests) I was hooked up to a computer and they put this clothes pin type thing on my nose and I had to breathe in and out of my mouth for 20 minutes. I wasn't allowed to exercise for 48 hours before the test . It showed that I burn only 1,000 calories a day .

I am only telling you this because I have had months where I didn't lose anything. I didn't lose 2 lbs a week. I go for months and lose nothing, then all of a sudden, I will drop 5 lbs. I lost the majority of my weight the first 4 weeks on the post op diet.

I lost another big chunk when my doctor though I had a leak and overfilled me. I only live 5 min from his office, so we were able to fool around with fills trying to figure out why I wasn't losing. I got that fill on a friday and Mon. I had a little bit taken out. I tried to stick with that fill for another month. I lived on egg flower Soup and Protein shakes. I lost a big chunk of weight that month too. I knew it wasn't

safe to be that tight and had another defill.

I just want you to know that people who don't have as much to lose do lose slower. I gave up caring about that because as long as I have my band, I feel like I will be able to get to where I want to be and stay there.

I think it's been said in a roundabout way, but the bottom line is, if you're not lying.. and you're eating within your BMR, active, etc.. and you believe it's 'genetics' causing you to be overweight, the band will not do anything for you. The band restricts what you eat, thus restricting caloric intake. What you're describing is an anomoly. That despite doing things that maintain a healthy weight, you have gained weight. The band will not fix whatever is wrong with your body that is causing it not to function right.

You need to talk to other doctors before you think about the band, because based on what you said, the band will not do anything for you.