Medeering,

Since you’re a veteran to the band, my advice to you is different to the newbies. For you, I would strongly suggest “journaling" what you’re eating to see how many calories you’re taking in. Do this for a week, and get an average. Once you know that, then you can figure out from there what your daily intake should be.

Remember it takes about 3,500 calories deficit to lose 1 pound. Of course we can’t do that all in one day, so you want to reduce your current calorie intake by 500 calories a day if you want to lose 1 pound a week. Please note, the average healthy weight loss it 1 to 2 pounds a week, so if you aim for 750 calories LESS a day then you should be ok.

Of course if you add in exercise, then your numbers will change.

There are a lot of great on-line journal websites. I recommend: Realizemysuccess; the Daily Plate; Fitday; Lapband.com; just to name a few.

Now for the “newbies": In the beginning don’t be too concerned/worry about “calories, fats, sugars, carbs, etc". Make sure you are getting your 60 to 80 grams of protein. THIS IS IMPORTANT TO WEIGHT LOSS. In the future you can worry about all those other things, but for now - WORRY ABOUT THE PROTEIN. Now don’t get me wrong - I don’t want you to eat a bag of chips, or whole cake or drink tons of ice cream shakes in order to get protein in. You need to use some common sense :) !!

Last year when I first had the operation I noticed if I ate 4 ounces of protein I didn’t feel full - however if I ate 6 ounces I did. I spoke to my Doctor about it. FOR ME he said that those “numbers" are somewhat guidelines. He went on to explain there are some folks who feel full on 2 ounces of protein while some need 6 or 8. He also explained that the calories intake should not be too much of a concern in the beginning. The way he explained it to me was: Prior the operation I may have been taken 3,000 calories per day. After the operation, with the amount of food I was taking in - I may have been taking in 1700 calories. While that’s 500 calories more then the recommended daily allotment - it was actually 1300 calories less then what I normally took in. So not only was I loosing weight, but was also feel full. We need to worry about calories when out weight slows downs/stops or starts going up. ADVICE WARNING: TALK TO THE DOCTOR BEFORE INCREASING YOUR INTAKE.