I don't know what has happened to me. I was doing great, I had lost 100 lbs and I have managed to put 20 of that back on. I am eating chocolate like there is no tomorrow. It seems that the junk is easier to get down. I have been banded for 2 years now. I want desparately to start losing again. I have 65 lbs until i reach goal and cannot seem to get on track. It is like I am at war with myself with the food. I am at my wits end and need some support. I feel like such a failure having to turn to others for help. I paid 13,000 for the support of the lapband, and that is not enough. HOW DO I GET BACK ON TRACK?? I need a show in weight loss to get motivated. I just want to scream. Sometimes i think it would be better if i Just had the band removed and be fat like i was destined to be. Anyone else in the same boat as me.....Help Please! I am giving up on myself I need some help!

Thank you so much!

maybe you need another fill? maybe you should join weight watchers so you DO have to go in for weekly weigh-ins?

You have not failed, you are just at a road block. Sounds like you need to talk to someone about your weight issues. Like a lot of people you can loose the weight to a point, but then it stops and you go back to your old habbits. I think that it is because we haven't delt with our emotional issues about food. I know for myself that when I get to a certain point I always end up right back where I started because there is a wall that I need break through, and talking to someone who can help you get past that really helps. Don't give up, just take a step back and look at the success you have had. No one was meant to be over weight, it is just a challenge that we have to deal with in our lives.

Hey there Cindy,

I am so sorry you are going through this. I'm actually a bit worried I'm on the same trend. I was banded in Sep of 05 and like you lost nearly 100 pounds but ever since I had plastic surgery last fall I've been slowly gaining weight. Depending on if you add in the weight of the skin the doc says he removed I've gained as much as 25 pounds!

I was closer to goal than you stated but am still beginning to get into a similar panic.

After so many years of being banded I am starting to discover that running for a fill everytime the weight doesn't come off is not always the answer and in my case can sometimes be contributing to the cause. About a month ago when I went in for another fill to help stop this weight gain my doc actually ended up taking nearly all the fill out.

I had approx 11 cc's in the lapband VG and he thinks that I had lived with a fill that was actually too tight for over a year. I hadn't been pb'ing but I've had bad heartburn and reflux almost nightly for over a year and had moved more and more away from solid Protein rich foods to softer carb heavy foods like mash potatoes (as they didn't give me heartburn as bad). I was also finding that I was slowly eating larger portions of food than I use to. The doc believes this is because I had stretched out my esophagus but that it should shrink back to normal after "resting" for a month or two with no fill.

Sorry to give you a novel here and for not having any wonderful solutions to suggest. But I wanted you to know you are not alone and I'd be glad to "buddy" up and try to work on reversing our trends together.

Don't give up! You have come so far. My advice is, go pay a visit to your doctor. Tell him what is going on. There may be other patients with the same problem and he may have the solution for you. Cindy, you are worth it and you have come too far to give up on yourself.

Don't give up on yourself. You can do this, you have already proven that in the first 100 pound loss. Perhaps it is time to start documenting your food intake again to get back on track.

You may also need to either completely give up chocolate for a while or move to something like sugar free pudding until you can put the cravings back in their place. For me, if I get off track regularly with a food, I can't just reduce and consume in moderation, I have to get away from it completely for a while until it loses its hold.

How is your exercise? I find that it is easier for me to stay on track with my eating when I am also exercising because I know what it takes to work off the extra 100-500 calories and I usually decide it just isnt worth overindulging.

Has there been any significant or small changes in your life? Sometimes we get determined to lose weight at first because of a new relationship or we are starting over again. Once everything seems comfortable we lapse and temporarily lose site of everything. I am not saying this is you, but for whatever reasons we have failed on other programs in the past, could happen here as well. Perhaps it has nothing to do with food, but more of how you are feeling about something personal in your life.

I fear this happening to me one day, because I have always been an emotional eater. I have always done well with diets and lost significant amounts of weight only to put it back on because I wasn't dealing with the real issues at hand.

If it is just about food, then just don't buy the things that are causing your weight gain. Distract yourself from eating by getting out of the house and being active. Spend time with friends and family. Go to support meetings and share your experiences. You aren't a failure by any means. Make a new commitment to yourself and get started. Sometimes you just have to be creative and make a new strategy when the old one fails. You are a winner in my book.

Best wishes,

Stephanie

Wow, I am really going through the same thing. I had my surgery on 10/11/07 and lost 78 pounds by Easter. Well, I have gained back 34 since then. I cannot get enough sugar. Cookies, ice cream, chocolate, I feel like I eat it non-stop. Getting fills makes it harder to eat the healthy stuff, so I end up with the stuff that does go down. The more sugar I eat the more I want! I feel a huge cloud of depression when I think about how well I was doing. I was exercising an hour a day and wasn't eating anything bad for me. I got off track, and now I'm in a downward spiral. I went to my doctor's office and the nurse said I still have to have self-control. I thought afterward that if I had self-control, I wouldn't have needed the lap-band! How are you guys losing over 100 pounds! I need to lose another 100 to get to a 'normal' weight, and with my addiction to sugar I just don't think it's possible. I am so impressed by those of you who are so close to goal. How are you doing it???:thumbup:

Wow, I am really going through the same thing. I had my surgery on 10/11/07 and lost 78 pounds by Easter. Well, I have gained back 34 since then. I cannot get enough sugar. Cookies, ice cream, chocolate, I feel like I eat it non-stop. Getting fills makes it harder to eat the healthy stuff, so I end up with the stuff that does go down. The more sugar I eat the more I want! I feel a huge cloud of depression when I think about how well I was doing. I was exercising an hour a day and wasn't eating anything bad for me. I got off track, and now I'm in a downward spiral. I went to my doctor's office and the nurse said I still have to have self-control. I thought afterward that if I had self-control, I wouldn't have needed the lap-band! How are you guys losing over 100 pounds! I need to lose another 100 to get to a 'normal' weight, and with my addiction to sugar I just don't think it's possible. I am so impressed by those of you who are so close to goal. How are you doing it???:thumbup:

I had a similar problem in that I was a sugar/carbohydrate addict. For me, the only way to combat it was to eliminate it from my diet. When I start eating sugary things, I just have to have more and more and they start permeating my thoughts. By eliminating them, they lost their hold and I don't crave them 90% of the time.

As far as self control is concerned for myself. I just had to have a sit-down hard discussion with myself regarding where I wanted to be in a year and what I needed to do to get their. No excuses, I just do it . . . and this has worked for me. Posting online in forums has really helped a lot as well in that it has truly became a support system for me.

Well I have not had any changes in my life that would contrast with my eating. Last year in august I had surgery, I had a full hysterectomy, well before the surgery I was totally focused. Working out 75 minutes a day, I was only losing like 4 to 6 lbs a month but i was still losing. Well after the surgery, I couldnt work out for 2 months, needless to say I never started back and I didnt get my fills and realized that i could eat pretty much what i wanted and it was like i was out of control. I just got a fill on July 15th, and I am thinking about getting another one. I always seem to go to the junk food because it is easier to get it down. With a fill it takes almost an hour to eat a 4 oz chicken breast, and then sometimes it gets stuck. I have to admit I am a junk food junkie....i love chocolate...i crave it. I feel like i have to eat something salty which is usually a carb and then follow with something sweet. I am just in a funk, i know what i need to do, its just getting motivated to do it. I am suppose to be getting my tonsils out soon, so that may jump start me, kill the sugar cravings because i wont be able to eat nething. I thank all of you for replying to me and i hope i get more responses..i need them to help me. I have now set lapbandtalk.com to my home page that way everytime I get on the computer I have to think about it....Thanks Everyone!!

I dont know that a fill will help, honestly, in fact you might need just the opposite.

I got to exactly the same place as you only I was lucky enough to get there well below my original goal weight. But I was eating tons of chocolate, eating muffins, slices etc, and not eating anywhere near enough solid Protein, fruit or vegetables. I didnt eat Breakfast or lunch, I was just grazing all day. I stopped losing well and truly, but the quantities were small and there was no gaining, thank goodness. But nonetheless i realised I'd fallen off the wagon and had to get back on.

The minute you put that pressure on yourself, it gets even harder, doesnt it?

Thank god I love running the way I do. Its not connected to my weight or what I eat anymore, its just something that I do. So my exercise schedule was never disrupted.

I went through about three months of this, off and on. I'd pull myself together for a few weeks and then be off again. I decided I needed a fill, so I went and got a tiny one. For a few weeks it was awesome, I lost weight, got to 68kg, unheard of, I was beyond thrilled. Then gradually my eating habits slid again until it really got terrible and I was barely eating anything much at all other than crap since every single healthy food was just too hard. No reflux or pbing, just terrible eating habits. And my running was suffering. It took a weekend away with other people commenting on was I anorexic, eat something for crying out loud for me to move, but I went and got an unfill.

For the first time in my weight loss journey, I've begun logging in and calorie counting to try to reteach myself what a healthy portion of healthy food is, to regain my confidence in listening to my body and eating properly. I'm much hungrier since the unfill but I'm able to fill myself with healthy food, so the overall quality of my diet has improved tenfold, I'm back to eating meals, not grazing, with Snacks. I've gained maybe 2lb, nothign more than a resettling of fluids, my clothes all fit the same, but I am finding it easy once again to eat properly and not crave all the junk. The cravings happen because you're body is starving and not being adequately nourished. When you're like that and think you're being a pig, a fill will NOT help you, it will probably worsen the situation. If you struggle with eating enough healthy foods, then you really should try an unfill, if you can be brave enough, I found it VERY confronting to try it, I was so afraid of gaining.

And at the very least, start exercising again, it really does help to prevent weight regain.

Great Post Jaqui!

You know it may sound crazy, oh how do I say this without it coming out wrong?

... I've always felt like I would never be successful at reaching my weight goals unless I fixed all my head issues with food, exercise shoot and life in general. And every time I would start to get close to my goals I'd find myself self sabotaging it like I didn't feel I deserved to get there as I hadn't "fixed" all the other issues yet.

But when people, like yourself, who I look up to as an example of Lapband success are willing to open up and share their continued struggles with food and or exercise it really helps. Not because misery loves company or that I want to feel my own failings are being validated. But because it helps to remind me that I can succeed on the scale even while I'm still struggling with the head issues.

Who knows I've spent my entire life stressing and struggling with my weight. More importantly I've always assumed the "beautiful people" in life didn't have those same issues and that was why they didn't have the problems with the scale that I did. But maybe I'm wrong, maybe they aren't all that different than me and are dealing with many of the same problems with food. Maybe they have just learned to catch themselves and bring themselves back from the brink before there is any permanent weight gain.

My suspicion is that the true difference between the "beatiful people" and myself is the level of guilt I associate with my slips and how that guilt tends to pull me even deeper down rather than just shaking it off and moving forward.

I'm not one here that can give you great advise because I right there with you in the same chocolate boat...in fact I posted something about this yesterday. All I can say is stick with it. You're worth it...someone posted the following to my thread and I hope it helps (I wish I could give credit to this person but I printed this out and taped it to my computer)

"When I go through a self sabotaging period, I try to remind myself of the following to get past it and back onto the weight loss road:

1) all the money and effort that went into getting this band and how I don't want to mess that opportunity up (some people are lucky enough to have this opportunity)

2) I'm NOT perfect so when I mess up, I forgive myself and try to do better the next time.

3) How even thought it doesn't seem like it, I actually do have control over what I do. Nobody can force me to eat - I have to make that decision!"

So today I decided that I'm starting over...and I'm going to work at this until I get it right...because I owe it to myself..and you owe it to yourself. You can do it!

I've had a slowdown in loss because I'm close to goal. Consequently, I am having a bit of a hard time of it now. Amazingly, what has been helping me is to read the following from Goethe each morning. Maybe it will help someone else, too.

Each indecision brings its own delays,

And days are lost lamenting over lost days.

Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute;

What you can do, or dream you can do, begin it;

Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.

I am starting about to get mine on Tuesday, DON'T YOU DARE GIVE UP YOU COME TOO FAR TO THINK THAT WAY!!!! PUT THE BRAKES ON AND SLOW DOWN AND TAKE ONE STEP AT A TIME!!!! Someone mentioned weight watchers try them, but don't give up!!!!!

Legster,

Those words of inspiration are what I need to here. Thank you.

Karely