Happy Friday Everyone,

Hope everyone will have a great and restful weekend.    We all have so very many things in our lives to be grateful for everyday.   We should be grateful everyday for all the things that we have....afterall...when we were born we were born with no guarantees of anything at all.    Today I am grateful for my wonderful family.    I am about to be blessed in about 5 weeks with my first grandchild and after having 3 sons I am SO excited that my grandchild is a baby girl.    I am also grateful for my husband of 35 yrs and his job and the decision we made 31 yrs ago for me to be a stay at home mom.    PLEASE share if you will what YOU are grateful for today.


Hugs and blessings ~~~ Vivian

I see you are passionate about this.
I am just having a hard time relating. I have lost 75lbs that I never would have without my band. I am STILL  losing weight. I am determined to reach my goal. A while back, I had serious pain in my arm and my hand went numb. I had a couple bulging discs in my neck. I didn't feel like exercising and didn't care what I ate. I gained weight. I realized that the band was NOT going to keep me from gaining weight, It was up to me. The band didn't fail, I failed to use the band. After I had surgery to repair my neck, I started to get back on track. As soon as I did, the band worked. So I have a hard time blaming the band for failure when I know in my heart if I don't use it properly if course it is not going to work. I understand that there are people who have serious complications. I'm not disputing that. But failure of regain or not losing weight I believe has more to do with compliance. And there are serious complications and failures with all the wls. Our insurance will not pay for the sleeve. (which I originally wanted. my husband will not consider having his guts rearranged lol) So that only leaves the band. Without it, he doesn't stand a chance. So our choice is the band or nothing. I want my husband to do something. And the fact that he has agreed to it AT ALL is amazing. He has been adamant about not having ANY surgery at all. (he still has his wisdom teeth that come up about once a year giving him a great deal of pain but refuses to get them out)
I believe if he uses the band like he's supposed to and barring any complications, that he can be successful.

Some of us are against the band b/c of the low long term success rate. Had we known in advance just how high the complications were a lot of us would never have gotten it. Even the ASMBS now says how ineffective the bands are.

 It has worked for me...I'm so appreciative of how I have been able to maintain significant weight loss for the first time in my life. I'm really upset at the problems I'm having and hope my band will cooperate and be good for a lot longer.  Best wishes to your husband and congrats on your success.

  The first step to getting anywherer is deciding you're no longer willing to stay where you are.