Just discovered this site!

Hi. My name is Melinda and I had my lap-band surgery March 6, 2002 with Hadar Spivak. As of June 2004 I had kept off 50 pounds. I am 5'7" and started out at 255 pounds. I was at 205 for a long time. Then in June 2004 I was prescribed Bontril and have lost another 30+ pounds and am at about 173 right now. I started out at about a size 20 and am now a size 12! My weight loss was slow because I wasn't exercising and found a new love for mushy foods like ice cream, mashed potatoes with gravy etc. It's amazing what we can do to continue to eat cr*p! I never really ate that stuff before, but it took the place of pizza etc. I am really happy where I am now, but would like to lose about 10 more pounds to be a small size 12 where I can shop at the cute stores and their "size 12" is really a size 10. The last time I saw Dr. Spivak was for a check up in April 2004 when I was at 205 and he said something very interesting to me...he said that I was a success at 205 and for losing 50 pounds because the success rate for band patienst is 50% and that for gastric bypass patients it's only 60%!!! That was surprising to me but encouraging at the same time. I have a question though, do you all continue to see your doctors for yearly check-ups? I'm thinking about going in to see Dr. Spivak again this year just to make sure that everything is okay. I'll post more later and congrats to everyone!