I am 5'9" and weigh 200 lbs. My BMI is 30ish. I'm getting banded next week. Yikes! I'm kind of scared. Any advice or words of wisdom from anyone who's been through this before? Thanks very much!

I am kind of suprised you actually qualify for the surgery. But that aside, I hope all goes well for you. I hope to be banded in June.

congratulations on you going to get banded. the one main advise i can give you is you need to excerise and eat right. because you dont have as much weight to lose as others who get banded it will be alot harder for you to lose the weight being banded. its like this if you get banded 100 lbs over weight the first 50 is pretty much cake its the last 50 or 40 that is the hardest to lose so eating right and excerising will really help alot. (now im not saying your not doing this already) but this is my advice and i know you prob hear this a million times over but the band is not a miracle and the pounds wont come off on its own. i do think that this is a good decision at your weight i wish i could have done it when i was only at 30 bmi. the band is a life changing procedure not only for your body but for your mind. and if you find yourself getting stuck and plateaud. ask yourself "what are you doing about it?" when i started my journey my friend told me that because i know its not a miracle but i thought the lbs will just come flying off over the months and that was not the case. and those words got me thinking about why i really got banded and what am i going to do with my life and how im going to change. so i got my lazy ass up and got a gym membership and a trainer and started to work out alot. ive lost over 80lbs so far and over 30inches in my body. so with that being said good luck on your journey and i wish you much success.

I'm right there with ya! I'm 5'10 and 221. I barely qualify, and still waiting for my insurance to pick it up! Good luck!

I think its a great preventative measure and of course, if you've never had a BMI of 40 and 30 is the heaviest you've hit, then you feel just as fat and out of control of the next person. Everyone who has a BMI of 40 had one of 30 at some stage.

There's loads of evidence that the band works best for low BMI patients and tends to be more difficult for heavier ones. But you probably wont have the spectacular initial losses some people have. Then again you're light enough to do some serious exercise right form the start.

Good luck!