Okay, been wondering this for awhile.

I know that a persons stomach (a muscle as well as an organ) shrinks during dieting which causes less food intake to feel full. Then when you stop dieting you slowly expand your stomach again.

SOOOOOOO, my question is to all the veteran bandsters (1 year after banding?) do you feel as if your stomach has "shrunk" naturally and that if someone removed your band completely you would not eat as much as you did when you were at your heaviest? Hence, needing less food to satisfy naturally?

In my experience, yes it certainly does.... BUT like any muscle, once you start excersising it again, grows. After my second surgery, and since my band had slipped and I had been eating almost nothing solid for 3 months by then, I was never hungry, so after the liquid and mushy stages, I really believed I was in control of how much I ate.... and I was, up to xmas that is, when I went back into binge mode and ate everything in sight, but couldnt manage to eat as much as I would before banding...

after that, and with regular binges (not proud, just sacrastic), I ended up eating as much, if not more than before banding, and ran for fills....

This little excersise taught me that unfortunately, I am what I am.....