So I am waiting in the lobby of my surgeon's office yesterday for my 2 week post op appt. After a long, hard road, I finally got my Lap Band on April 10th. This attractive obese woman sitting next to me speaks up and warns me that the doctor is running approx. 45 minutes behind. We engage in small talk and when one of the staff members notice me and comments on my recent weight loss, she asks me when I had surgery. I tell her, and she was amazed that I was looking so "full of energy" so quickly.

She is clearly obese, but tells she had the RNY surgery...6 years ago! (Not done by my surgeon, but another in a different town) It made me wonder what weight she may have started from. She is bundled up in a sweatshirt (it's 74 degrees) and I ask her if she's cold. She tells me she is just trying to hide her fat rolls. We laugh and I tell her she is in the safest place to not worry about that at the moment! She goes on to share with me that although she had orginally lost a significant amount of weight, she had started gaining. She said her weight gain was now out of control. She warned me..."whatever you do, make sure you change the way you eat!" "I could eat anything I wanted and still lost weight. I never learned to make any changes".

I told her how the Band works, and how we must change our eating habits immediately after surgery. I told her that we still have absorbtion of all the calories and fat, etc. We are 'forced' to change our lifestyles as this is only a tool. She thought that was wonderful and wished that dietary changes had been stressed to her for long term success.

She had come to see my surgeon to see if there was any further surgery that could be done to correct the stretched out pouch she'd created and hopefully get her back on track. I felt bad for her. I can't imagine going through all of this (or any other kind of WLS) only to gain it all back. How sad. She knew she was going to have to change her lifestyle.

I have been struggling with hunger since surgery, but have so far found the will power and strength to resist eating too much, too often or the wrong food. I hope I am able to do this until my first fill or however many fills it takes to keep my Band working hard! I am so grateful that we are told up front that this is not easy. That we will have to work for it. That this is only a tool. I'm glad that I will get the satisfaction in the end of all this, knowing that I worked for the weight loss. That is didn't come easy. That I had to exercise and choose healthy foods.

So meeting her, I realized that I don't want to see myself in a surgeon's office in 6 years warning someone else about watching what they eat and taking care of the gift we were given! So I just wanted to share and encourage everyone that we can do this! We were given this wonderful tool to help us get healthy, not just skinny. Let's make the best of it! Learn from the wonderful staff of doctors, nurses and dieticians! They are there to help us, and keep us accountable. And of course, we have eachother!

Have a wonderful day and a great life!

~C

Great story albeit sad.

I have several bandster friends who also had the RNY and regained the weight before switching to the band. Maybe this will be an option for her as well.

very true. definitely have to change the way you eat.

lap band is only a tool to help.

most of it is up to you to change your eating habits, and exercise.

I didn't go through all this trouble to get surgery only to screw it up by keeping my sloppy habits.

I even bothered to visit a nutrionist, etc...

I wish you long term success!

I am about 8 weeks post op and have about .75 ccs in my 10cc band, I have lost about 18lbs all together and have been stuck at 212.5 for about a week and a half. I go for a second fill in about a week. In regards to you saying that you have had the willpower to eat right and change thus far and hope that you will continue to have willpower after the newness wears off. I am loosing steam and my willpower is fading. I do eat less than before and I have always been aware of the right type of food so I try to make the best choices possible but it is starting to get hard and I am frustrated that I have not lost any more weight. I need to kick the exercising into gear and count my calories but at this point I feel like I am back to the old "start a diet, do well for 4-6 weeks, loose motivation, back to old habits" cycle. I can eat anything and quite a bit of it to full me up. We are also struggling a bit financially right now so my grocery budget is has room for milk, bread and diapers and thats about it so I am eating whatever I can scrape together to make for the family. Ugggggh, I need something to pick me up. Anyways, I just wanted to comment on your concern with the motivation dying out bc I definately have experienced that.

Best Wishes.

Thank you for all your well wishes, but they go back to all you also! I shared that story so we could all learn from her mistake. It doesn't really matter that she had the RNY and we had Lap Band. What matters, is that she didn't change her thinking.

Of course I want to be the star patient! I want to lose the most and look great, be healthy, exercise and all the wonderful benefits of the changes that could be mine! But alas, we are human, and we make mistakes. Old habits die hard for sure! They say, that to change a habit, it takes at least 30 days to retrain yourself. I say that in some cases longer. I think of a habit as an addiction. Smoking, drinking, eating (too much), etc. Those things are life long purposeful efforts to stay away from, change or whatever.

I can see that I will struggle, just like most on this site have. I will try very hard and at the end of the day I hope I will be able to say that I did my best. Then a new day will start and I get another chance to do my best again!

We can do this! We need love and support and encouragement from eachother and our loved ones. I don't think it means that we can never indulge in a decadent mouthful of whatever it is we love to eat. I there is room for that in our lives. We just have to alter how we approach the food...fuel for the body vs. satisfying a craving. I dunno...I'm still new and excited. I may feel differently as my struggles get harder! LOL

Let's not give up!

~C

Thanks for sharing her story with us, Turler. Kinda puts things in perspective for me as a pre-bandster. You hear things, READ everything and have an idea of how things might be after surgery but hearing her story made it even clearer for me. The band is the surgery for ME and I'm going to have to work my butt off myself, not sit back on said butt and wait for things to happen for me.

abeaher, I'm so sorry you're struggling. From what I understand, you are in bandster hell, this time between surgery and your first fill. Hang in there. Try to distract yourself from always thinking about food. I hear others saying they walked every time they started thinking about food and it wasn't time to eat. Or they get on here, or they play video games, or.... Really anything to keep them from going in to the kitchen. Do a search on here for bandster hell and see what threads pop up, the posts in those may help you find ways to combat this til you can get in for a fill. Again hang in there, and congrats on your weight loss so far! Best wishes.

Turler, whenever you feel like you're struggling with your appetite, all you have to do is.....not eat. Sometimes you only have to resist temptation for 5 minutes to feel better, sometimes it's an multi-hour fight. And if you do slip off the bandwagon from time to time (like every-dang-body does) just climb back on without beating yourself up too much. You seem to have a great attitude. I know you'll do well.

Plain: Thank you for your encouragement. I am so determined as I know most everyone is in the beginning! I don't want this to be like every diet either...you know, lose then gain back. I want this to last!

~C

When I first get the urge to snack---I try drinking a glass of ice Water, for some reason thirst makes me think I am hungry. If that does not get rid of the urge, I try to take a walk, or hit the elliptical. Sometimes just knowing if I keep thinking about it, I have to go get on the devil machine, I avoid it getting worse!!!

One big thing to me, that has helped with my eating differences, is learning to chew my food well. Highly processed foods, do not chew well! They begin to taste terrible to me!!!

I have also learned to have "good" things around and ready to eat. When I fix my chicken strips up---I bake a few extra. I can heat them easily. When I roast a chicken, I try to roast 2....then I have the chicken ready for chicken salad, or chicken enchiladas---a variety of things, without all the extra work when I want it!

Nutrition has been a MUCH bigger part of my thought process since being banded than it ever was before, knowing I have to get proper nutrition from such a small amount of food, makes it challenging---and I do like a challenge!! Yeah, I know I am weird!!!

Kat

Kat: You are right! I can't believe how creative I've become in just a few short weeks! I do not like to cook, so I started with a few points against me. I have used some of the recipes on here and elsewhere looking for high Protein mushie food. Not just mushie, but yummy mushie. Not an easy task. LOL

So how do you know the difference between being hungry, or just thinking you're hungry? I am so new to all this, and I've been darn hungry already. I can't seem to stick to the schedule as it's literally all consuming...sip, sip, sip, wait long time, chew, chew, chew...wait a long time, sip, sip, sip and on it goes. I am to be sipping or chewing for 18 hours of the day!!! I can't keep trying to do this. It's exhausting and I'm constantly thinking of food. I do the best when I'm at work and CAN'T get a snack, lunch or something to drink. Of course, that isn't that great either since I'm not getting enough to drink or eat! Ugh!

BTW: Anyone have any good ideas of stuff to eat on mushie stage?

~C

turler your honestly in your Lap Band story shows your determination & grit - you will be more than a success.

in the mushie stage (and i'm a big time cook) - i relied on the following:

cottage cheese

hummus

FF refried Beans w/ light sour cream / salsa

egg drop Soup...LOTS of egg drop soup

poached eggs

egg / tuna salad....mushed up good

there are a couple of good threads in the nutrion/food forum to give you some ideas:)

That was a great post. Thanks for sharing!

You are on the right track by watching what you eat during this time that you don't have restriction. I did the same thing and have happily been losing weight even when I was in "bandster" hell. Truthfully, now I can hardly remember how bad those first few weeks were. Keep it up and in no time you'll be in the same place!

-H