Gastric Balloon

 Has anyone had the gastric balloon? I cancelled my lap band surgery to have the balloon instead?
Does anyone have any insight?

No insight here, I decided to change my lifestyle including my diet without any surgical intervention. I hope you post your experience here - I'm curiously what it's like. For myself, I finally eat normally, no binging or mindless eating and I'm glad I didn't have invasive surgery. I would think the gastric balloon is easier on the body.

Skylar

 Hey there,
What's your story? How did you get onto a good path with your eating etc?
How overweight were you?
I promise to keep you posted about the balloon.  I'm in Australia and apparently it's not really done in the usa but very popular in Europe.  We'll see how I go.  I was booked in for the lap band but decided i didn't want it just yet,  I'm about 40 pounds overweight and need to loose it.
Please let me know what you did?
Thanks!
:)

I was so embarrassed that I don't know my top weight but 4X was tight on me and I probably weighed over 350 pounds. I do have a weight of 326 from when I had a dexa scan done earlier when my clothes weren't so tight. I started in November of last year and as of today I'm down to 225.5 pounds. I was following a diet that my Dr. had given me which was similar to the exchange diet from the American Diabetic Association and I was slowly losing weight. But then I read The China Study by T.Colin Campbell which isn't about losing weight but about what healthy people eat around the world (not just China)  and the science behind why it's healthy and that book changed my life. I immediately told my Dr. what I was doing and she was supportive. She had me come back three months later to have blood work to check how things were going - and the results were shockingly fantastic. I found what works for me is to follow the Maximum Weight Loss diet by Dr. McDougall. Here is his website http://drmcdougall.com/free.html

This isn't a diet to just lose weight, but a diet for life. I was also walking daily because I had a flare up in my autoimmune disease which left me unable to walk for more than a short distance before I'd have to sit and rest. Now I'm walking all day and quickly as if I had never had any health problems.

There are people from Oz posting on his discussion boards.

BTW I remember reading about the balloon and thinking at least that doesn't rearrange your organs - so that to me seems the safest choice. It's a shame that WLS operates on perfectly healthy organs and not where the real problem is.

Good luck, Skylar

"It's a shame that WLS operates on perfectly healthy organs and not where the real problem is."

My God, this statement you made hit me like a sledgehammer.  I think it sums up exactly why I have not seriously persued weight loss surgery but I never really articulated it before.

BTW, I can't claim any credit for that statement, I've read if many times on the main board posted by people who had surgery and were still struggling with eating problems. It just hit me one day that is why I can't go through with surgery - I needed to fix the real problem.

Skylar

 Interesting....(btw I'm still new on here, how can you tell when you've responded to the post, I didn't know you had and just came on to look now).  Just FYI I've decided against the gastric balloon.
IT's only a 6 month fix and I might just end up in the same position.  I'd love to do it naturally, but I actually just can't control my eating now.......I so wi**** was easier.