Hope all goes well with your surgery today Shortgal, my thoughts and prayers are with you at this time. :cool2:

Dear Judy,

I was sad to read that your band had to be removed. I know that you can make the best of your situation. It's true that you did make great strides forward with apparently no restriction and that is an accomplishment which I hope you can appreciate and build on. Take things day by day. I truly feel for you and wish you all the best.

Love, Bandpal

Your support means so much and I might really fall apart if I didn't have it. I have friends and family that are supportive, but they are not all overweight and have not been banded, so I think it's harder for them to really understand my feelings. Heck, many of them don;t understand why I got a band! Well, you guys know what I mean.

I will lurk on the November threads because I care about all of you, too and will want to know how you're all doing.

The whole process has been hard for me, I have already struggled without restriction for months, but I thought it was temporary, now it's permanent. How long can I hang in there? I just don't know. I just know I will try and some days will be better than others. You all remember life before your bands, when it was a struggle everyday, and I'm back there.

Now that I have half of the weight off, walking and exercising is easier, so I do it and I will continue that. That could end up being the difference of keeping it off or gaining it back.

Thank you all, I might not be around as often, I just don't know yet, but I'll check in.

Cindy, I promise to post a photo from my son's wedding! Fitting into my dress is keeping me motivated for now.

Judy

Shortgal - I'm so sorry!!! But you will ALWAYS be a November Nymph. Please check in if you feel you can and don't just lurk, post too! You don't have a band, but you went through bandster hell like all the rest of us. We were in the trenches together! That is a bond that never goes away.

Thanks Linda,

What a difference a week makes. My mind set is in a much better place, maybe the effects of the anesthesia were getting me down, the first few days.

I don't think I could have gotten this weight off without the band, but I am actually believing I can keep it off, with my walking. Now that the weight is off, doing things is much easier so I move more and the weight stays off easier. Heck, I even believe I can take off a few more pounds, altho' I doubt it will be as rapid as with the band.

So I am feeling much better about everything. I might even join in the next challenge with a small goal, we'll see.

Shortgal, I know you can do it! I think we all probably could lose without the band, but we've either forgotten how little to eat or not exercised appropriately. The band has helped in that area. Now that I can see how little I actually need to eat, if I ever lose the band, I will see without my rose-colored glasses exactly what I need to do. It would be harder since the band helps me with my problem - binging. So, with a will of iron, I could do it, and you will be able to as well, especially since you're down to a good weight now and things just are better. It's easier to maintain a healthy weight when you already are a healthy weight. When I was overweight it was easy to stay that way because all I could look forward to was food, and being skinny was a looonng way away. Now that I'm at a decent weight, exercising and eating right are not hard things to do because my weightloss has opened up a whole world that doesn't involve eating as my only pleasure. I'm glad that you're feeling better and more optimistic. If I ever lost my band, I hope I'd feel comfortable coming back here for support, so I hope you feel the same too!

Thanks Linda, I have changed a lot of my habits, so if I can stick to the changes, it'll make a big difference. I am more active in general and the walking helps a lot.

I'm just going to do the best I can. Some days the forum is a help and some days it isn't. I'm learning to stay away from certain threads that aren't positive for me and stick to the ones that are, like my November Nymph ones!

Hi Shortgal,

For me the band is a tool, something I was fortunate enough to find at a time when I felt completely hopeless. I was 130 pounds overweight. I had gained fifty pounds since I had started to see a dietician. I was picking up comorbidities like sh-t gathers flies, and I hated myself.

Into my life came this tool that made me feel full after eating almost nothing; that made binging much more difficult than it had been before, and that produced immediate and dramatic weight loss. I will always be grateful. I will never know whether the band saved my life, but as far as my quality of life is concerned - no question there.

However, the band is a temporary tool - an intervention, a leveling of the playing field. Now that the field is nearly level (60 or so pounds away) I have to think about how to maintain my loss, a maintanaince which may very well take place without the band.

This is a time for me to internalize the things which the band has helped me to feel. I know I will not die if I don't have my nightly inhaling session with the fridge. I know one bad day doesn't have to lead to another. I know that I lived for a week on liquids and that nothing happened to me. I know what feeling full and not stuffed feels like. And I know a lot more about the empty places inside of me which lead to my binging, and how to approach them.

We all have to prepare for life without the band. You just got there sooner than we did. I'm so sorry for the way it happened, but I hope you'll keep sharing with us because we are all going to be where you are at some point in our lives, and this is just another way in which our shared experience can help each other. Your experiences have a lot of value to us. Amd, whatever benefits you did or didn't get from the band, you got our friendship and support - hang on to that!

Thank you Bandpal, You have a way with words and a unique way of seeing a situation. It absolutely never occured to me that my experience without the band and how to deal with that could be beneficial to anyone, especially a banded person.

I have learned many of the same lessons you have, like several days of liquids don't kill you.

Now as to the feeling of feeling full on almost no food, well I never really had that. I lost the weight following the post op diet and doing the required two days of liquids after each fill. I would feel tight for about two or three days after a fill, but it would never last more than that. The only food that went down slowly was fruit, but it went down. Steak, bread, chicken, shrimp all of it, no problem.

The other deterent was FEAR. I went very slowly after each fill, fearing food would get stuck. I am a big chicken, but it worked to my benefit.

So in many ways, I never had a fully working "tool" and yet I lost weight, when i was never able to successfully do that before.

But oh, the self loathing and hating, yeah I had that big time, before the band. With 45 pounds off, that is gone. I am really a different person. I am more social now. While pre banding I avoided social situations that involved food for fear of gaining more, Now I know I can order a salad with grilled chicken or salmon AND have a fun chat time with a friend.

I started walking a little before being banding and started up again after the winter months. I found it so much easier with 40 pounds off, that I walked further and more often. THAT has been a big change for me. I love the walking. Being outside and the walk itself are both great for my mental outlook.

The quality of my life has greatly improved. I think for the first few days after the surgery, I was convinced I needed the band. Today, I am not so sure. Yes, like you, I did need the band to get my life and mind back in my control and not food's control.

The difference now is, if you fall off the track, you still have a band to rely on, you can call on your tool, again. Get a fresh fill etc. I do not have that to fall back on. That continues to be my one big concern. If that happens in the future, maybe I will find an old November Nymph still lurking around the forum that is struggling and we can both get back on track! Good idea!

Thanks again for your support. I have met some wonderful people here on the forum ( and a couple jerks, no, not november people) and I don't think I could just get up and leave, even if my band did.

Judy

Judy, so glad you're in a better frame of mind. The band was a helpful tool for you to get off 44.5 lbs but it was you that did it. Try to find a plan you can stick with, keep walking and I bet you can continue to lose. Please don't give up because you're unbanded.

I used to manage a few Nutri/System weight loss centers about 18 years ago. Banding did not exist and many of my clients lost over 100 pounds. The ones who kept it off excercised and stuck to a maintenance plan. Of course the band makes it easier which is why we all put ourselves through hell to have one. But...we could have still lost weight without it. It just takes more discipline and persistence.

I wish I was as focused as my successful clients. I wish I lost weight without the band. I counseled many people who were losing weight when I didn't have any weight to lose. Now that its me, I have a new found respect for them. I know that we are all capable of getting this weight off without the band but it makes it easier.

You can still do this. You're more than halfway through your journey. Stick with us. We're all in this together.

Edited August 12, 200818 yr by cindyg1212

Thanks Cindy, Even with my band, I was starting to re-evaluate how much more weight I wanted to lose. while my ticker shows 30 pounds to go, I had started to believe that 15 would be better. I already have too much loose skin hanging ( arms, legs and belly) and it will get much worse.

So like a lot of long term goals we make in life, along the way we make changes to those goals.

so my new goal is 155 and really my goal is more about dress size than anything else. I really just want to be able to easily go shopping and when I do, have the things I buy look good. I don't feel a strong need to weigh what I did in high school. I'm older now and my body is different than it was way back then!

It's really about feeling good about myself and I already do, any more weight loss is icing on the cake, but I still have the goal to stay focused and lose more.

I think you're right, it really takes someone that has had a weight problem to really understand the struggle it is to lose weight.

Thanks again for the advice and support! I do plan to hang around the November Nymphs threads.

Judy, I'm glad you decided to stay! I think it would be impossible for me to ever weigh what I did in HS. It wouldn't look right on me now. I have a couple of friends who are super skinny in their 40's and they honestly look older than me. The thinner you are, the more wrinkles show. I would prefer to have a few more pounds on than to look older.

I think that changing your goal to something more realistic is a good idea. I may change mine too as I get closer. I'll have to see when I get into the 150's.

Judy, I am so sorry your lost the band. I was so shocked when I saw the thread today. I have been working long hours and haven't been able to long in several weeks. I can't even imagine what you went through when you woke up and found out. It sounds like your are doing much better. You have a good plan in place and I know you can do it.

We will be here for you. I am so glad that you are going to stick around. In the end we all have the same goal and that is weight loss. I am a slow loser now. In the last 3 months I've last 10 pounds and I am thrilled but that is a slow rate. I still struggle with food choices which is part of my problem with the slow weight loss. So you see we can still help each other, band or no band. Learing to make good choices and keep exercising is difficult but we can do it.

Again, I am so sorry you lost the band but you will still get your goal. I believe in you.

Big Hugs,

Jill

Thanks Jill, I am feeling pretty good and my weight is holding, just hope I can keep it that way. I wish the band worked long entough for me to get some more weight off, but it is, what it is, so I have to deal with it.

I'm keeping up my walking which is a big help and I still have a goal to lose 15 more pounds. Who knows how long that might take, but it keeps me focused.

The biggest bummer is that I'm out $18,000! That's a cost of $400 per pound lost.

The biggest bummer is that I'm out $18,000! That's a cost of $400 per pound lost.

Oh God, don't say that. I never looked at it that way before!! Well, sheeooot, if that don't motivate a person, I don't know what will. :thumbup:

Yeah, that's a motivator all right. That and the fact that I do not want to have to pay for another WLS procedure, especially one that is more invasive, which is something I never wanted to begin with!