The misleading word of restriction....

OK, So I should have listened a little more when you ladies were saying it isn't really restriction you feel..instead its satisfaction after the correct serving of protein/veggies....I am a thick minded individual so it has taken me a little while to realize I was wrong.

So my sister has been banded for 3+ years now and is always vomiting and sliming etc... but of course has had great weight loss success. With that being said I had associated her success with the "restriction" of not being able to eat or running to the bathroom while in a restaurant because she took one bite to many.

So after being banded, I would eat...expecting to feel some sort of pain, tighness or a gross burp or something to tell me to stop eating like my sister always had. I was sooo wrong and realize that my sister probably has always been a little too tight. (not as bad anymore)

So for all the newbies that are waiting for the pain or tightness or whatever that magic feeling is that tells us to stop eating.....erase that mind set... and RE-THINK.

Eat the portion recommended.. then walk away!! You will not feel FULL if done right.. but you will not feel HUNGRY for hours..you will be surprised at how long it takes before you start thinking about your next meal. Which is amazing considering you only ate such a small amount of food. :)

Good for you, MANY use the band the wrong way and unfortunately suffer the consequences of eventually getting it removed.

The band is not meant to be a surgically induce bulimic procedure, but many use it that way until it slips sadly. The band is SUPPOSE to work by giving you a feeling a satiety...it IS NOT MEANT to stop you from eating but HELP YOU STOP...the problem is many people get too tight and they don't get that feeling of fullness... instead they get a feeling of pain and vomiting as their hard stop which is THE NUMBER ONE CAUSE OF BAND SLIPPAGE if done every single day.

Those who use the band properly tend to lose more weight since they get satisfied on small amounts of solid foods rather than being too tight and depending mainly on slider foods.

wish people in my dang support group could read this *sigh*.  I went to May's support group and that will be my last one I ever go to .

I have never seen or heard people talk like they do .  some of them eat only 1/4 cup of food, or they are scared to go out and eat because they dont know if they will throw up at the table or not , or one guy even told the newbies there go for the maximum fill right off the bat and well now he is major trouble with muscle mass and blood work  because he basically starved himself to lose weight but he dont care because he lost 200 pounds and thin now .

I just dont understand why people would want to live like that . I know we all want to get the weight off but gosh doing it the unhealthy way can be just as deadly as staying overweight. 

I wish people would understand that .  I even had one girl while I was sitting in the doc's office tell me just to lie to the doctor so you can get another fill , she said that is what I do :o( 

urgh!  they are sabotaging themselves! 

I don't understand . Lie to the Dr and tell him what?

I can't lie to my DR. He almost refused to give me a fill on my last visit because I had only lost 1 lb in the last 2 months.

I don't understand what you can lie about . The nurse weighs you and the scale tells the story.

Not being snarky at all, I'm just sincerely curious . Her Dr. must be kinda dense if she can lie to him.

all she has to do is say I eat more then a cup of food . It's not always the surgeon that sees the patients when  you get fills its their nurses .

Like the month before  at my appointment I didnt see my surgeon I saw somebody else and her and I dont see eye to eye on the band .
 
She thinks I need a fill and I tell I dont . 

 I know the surgeon doesn't see you every time. I think this was my 4th fill since surgery and last month was the 1st time my surgeon gave me a fill. I always get a fill from his PA which I'm not complaining about because she does a quick painless job.

Oh , she says she can eat more than a cup of food so she can get a fill  !!  Ok. I got it !!

I can understand wanting to get to the sweet spot faster but I don't want to be overfilled either and start going through that roller coaster. When I was first banded I was disappointed that my Dr is very conservative with his fills . No more than 1cc at a time but I see the wisdom of it now.

Thanks for the reply.
Dee

Well, I've been banded for almost 2 1/2 years and I still don't get it.  I seldom weigh/measure my food, but I know that I eat about 1/2 cup to a cup per meal depending on what I'm eating (and whether I'm eating good bandster food - let's not go there because I've really been eating way too many sliders for awhile and have just recently got back on track) if only because of the containers I use - they only hold 1 cup.  I just stop when I feel satisfied and just know that one more bite would be one more bite too much. I never eat to "stuffed" or uncomfortable.  I always feel like I want more, but I know I've had enough.   I rarely pb  or slime - only if I've eaten too fast and got stuck and if I'm going to do it, it's after only a few bites - not because I've eaten too much.   But no matter how much I eat - whether 1/2 or 1 cup of good dense protein/veggie, I'm always hungry - stomach growling - in about 2 -3 hours.  I've never experienced what others bandsters talk about - no hunger for 4-5 hours.  I just know that's never going to happen for me.  I don't need another fill - I'm at a good place.  I just think the journey is different for all of us and restriction means different things for different people.  And that's okay.

cat

Cat I'm on the verge of being where you are.

Before I've had the good appetite dimming.. where I'm not hungry for 3 to 5 hours.  Even one blessed morning where I forgot to eat!

But recently started getting hungry 2 hours after my weighed and measured meals..and it was consistent, going on for a month or more, so I got another tiny fill (.2cc's).

Well, it's definitely there, I can tell a difference, but it's not the same as previous fills.  Not sure exactly what is going on.  I probably need to cut out the saltines and anything else processed and see if that helps.

I know some of mine is head hunger.. will always hate dealing with that.

Lisa,

The head hunger gosh that is sooo hard to deal with and so hard to resist .  I have my days that I can control and then I have my days especially the week before my period its a ***** *sigh*.

I'm dealing with major head hunger right now its a week or so before my TOM and nothing I eat is satisfying my taste buds.  It's not that I'm hungry but the food I'm eating is just not what I want and then I end up eating things to find that one food that I'm craving .

I'm not a chocolate eater at all and yesterday I had a pkg of them skinny cow new Carmel delights that they came out with. 

Head hunger is the hardest thing to deal with when you are trying to lose weight .  If we can conquer that , then I think 90% of our problems would go away IMO.