I thought I understood, but not so sure now. How does the band help you?

I'm pre-band.  In fact, I have an appointment for my consultation with the surgeon this Friday.  I visit this website everyday, and everyday I read posts that menton that the band takes "hard work", "willpower", and "good food choices".  Frankly, if I had willpower and had the tendency to make good food choices, I wouldn't be looking into weight loss surgery.  How does the band really help you?  I understand that it limits the amount of food you can eat, but what prevents you or gives you the willpower to resist giving into bad choices. I've done lots of diets where I lost weight, but I never sustained the diet until I lose ALL the weight.  I did reach my goal weight once, but gained it back over a few years.  How does the lap band help you to stick to a weight loss program? Also, how common is this sliming and PB'ing that is mentioned all the time?  Is it an accepted way of life with the lap band?  That seems kind of harsh and a really tough trade off for losing weight.  Or Is it mostly a part of the learning phase?  Or is it something you control with your choices.  I'm picking up on so many reasons for it. I am so close to gettijng the lap band, and I'm worried about these things.  Any responses would be very much appreciated.  Thanks. Debbie

The band helps by making the hardest parts of dieting easier...portion control and hunger/satiety management. There is no type of weight loss surgery out there that will allow you to eat anything you want, still lose weight and keep it off. All these procedures require major lifestyle changes. The other thing is while we overall want to make better choices, we dont' have to be perfect/diet strictly. If you eat like a bandster 70-80% of the time, you'll do fine. It's about a lifestyle of moderation.  WHen you're properly adjusted, you're seriously not hungry after a meal so the idea of grazing really doesn't appeal. And for most folks, if they pu**** and their band pushes back and causes a nasty PB episode or discomfort, they'll think twice about pushing it like that  again and start learning to listen to their bodies. In order to lose weight and keep it off, we need to change...these surgeries merely give us tools that make those changes easier but they don't make them for us. Nothing about any of these surgeries make our food choices for us...that's 100% on us and it's all part of making those permanent lifestyle changes. Nancy

The band is much more than "just another diet" . This is an answer i posted awhile ago that i kept , for this common question: " With the band, you're NOT just doing the same things again! You'll be learning new, permanent ways to eat and choose better nutrition. You'll hopefully incorporate some daily exercise. You'll be learning to permanently change old bad habits, and learning many new things. We're also replacing many things we thought we knew about dieting (like "The less I eat, the better I will lose" - not true at all with the band!) But, most importantly, you'll be adding the band to the mixture. We've all tried diets and medications and God-knows-what-else to lose weight. Most of us HAVE lost weight - and some a huge amount of weight - but it all came back again. the difference this time is the BAND and the permanent changes we make in lifestyle and choices. And the goal of the band is not just losing weight, but regaining our health and learning habits that will allow us to MAINTAIN the weight loss for life. Physiologically, The band works in 3 ways - First, by physically limiting the amounts you can comfortably eat. If you try to Eat more, you'll barf and oftern have pain. thast's a great incentive to stop eating when you feel the first sign of full! Behavior modification at it's best! :-) Secondly, when you have eaten a good band meal, the full pouch will press on the stomach nerves that send a message to your brain that says "I'm satisfied. no need to eat any more." Some of us have NEVER had this feeling of "FULL" before, no matter how much we ate. It is theorized that there is a real satiety disorder involved. With a good fill and this nerve activation, you are simply disinterested in food. Really! Hard to believe, or to undertstand, until you are there and feel it. You'll have to trust us on this - it's QUITE amazing!! Food will just not have the huge place in our lives that it had before. some really have trouble finding a replacement activity - and many actually mourn food for awhile. You'll need find activites to get involved in things to fill the void! Third, the band slows the passage of food from the pouch so that you stay full and satisfied much longer. 3 small meals a day, plus (maybe) 1-2 small protein snacks will be entirely enough food (when you get to a good fill level). It will take your brain awhile to get used to that, and accept that the small bit of food in your plate is REALLY enough for health and safe weight loss. The band is not a magic cure, or any kind of guarantee for weight loss. There are many things you'll need to change over time. You'll need to learn a lot more about better nutrition, and choose better foods most of the time (not ALL the time - no one is perfect!) You'll need to get some decent exercise - even just a daily walk and slowly more, if needed. THis is important to improve your strength and muscle tone, so that you burn fat more efficiently. And very importantly, you'll need to work on the emotional reasons we ALL eat/ate. Most of us ate when we were NOT hungry at all, but were actually bored, sad, depressed, anxious, happy, worried, stressed - and every other possible emotion and "excuse". We need to learn to put food back into it's rightful place - for nutrition, and to find healthier ways to meet our emotional needs. IMO, a great many of those who do poorer than they would wish are having trouble in this specific area. I believe the emotional aspects of banding are grestly underemphasized. Many of us work with a good therapist to help in this area, and starting even before banding is ideal. There really is a physiological reason that the band works - it's not just some theory in outer space that is not understood and taken on blind faith. Just as there are physical reasons for all the band rules you'll learn. WHY to eat protein first. WHY to get in a lot of water. WHY adequate fiber and calbium are important. WHY (a lot of other things) Hope this helps! Good luck with your surgery .  Sandy " No, barfing and pb's should NEVER occur regularly!! We need to learn good band eating and band food choices, and they are not that hard. We barf or PB only when we forget one of the band rules. No one more than a couple months out should be barfing often at all (but we all goof occasionally) . If we spend the time needed at first to learn better habits, they become automatic - which they should be, since we will need to follow them for the rest of our lives. We should be able to forget we even have a band most of the time.  It should never be ongoing misery, deprivation, or pain!  Sandy R

I would like to add that you need to make sure you have a good after care program. You have to be committed to this new way of eating and conquer your aflections to stress eating, binge eating and emotional eating. In after care I see my surgeon once a month after my weigh in, than i see my therepist, and if need be  i see the nutritionalist. My appointments take about 2 hours . Then i go to support meetings once a month. I wish they were more often. We have conditioned ourselves to  do what we do and eat how much we eat ,it takes years to do this. So with that said it does  take time to change your lifestyle. The band is to help yur portions and you have to learn to rethink how food is to be used.  You need to think food as your  fuel. We dont live to eat anymore. We eat to live . To me food was like a drug and addiction. I would cook great meals and  actually moan when eating and commenting how yummy it was. I have learned that  i was having a love affair with what i ate. Now the love affair is over.  It really caused me to be fat , have all kinds of things wrong with me. Having my health deteriorate is rough. Now I am 70 pounds less and feel so much better. My blood sugar is running normal. No high blood pressure. I still have alot to go but i feel the benefits of my band and am loving it. Yes I am human and slip up but i jump right back into my band rules and go on. YEs i get the golf ball feeling when i dont follow the rules. I thought i could be normal but normal for me is little tiny pieces and lots of chewing and no more fast eating its slow and delibarate.. When i forget yes i slime and PB but after a few times I will know when to stop and pay attention to my  food and how i am eating it. . I love this band and it is making back to be a graceful woman. I knoe God is smilingat me and my achievments with my journey.. Good Luck you will know in your heart that it is the right decision for you. If you can commit to a new lifestyle and really want it . You will do it.

Thank you - reading this and how it has changed things for you really reached out to me. I hope that my experience is as yours was --- I appreciate you taking the time to share. This helped ME alot (even though it wasn't my question!)

great info here, tonight.... sally

Thank you so much for your responses.  You folks are the best.   All of your explanations were very clear and helpful to me.  My understanding from your answers is that the PB and sliming are pretty much the lap band's lesser equivalent of "dumping", only it doesn't happen because of what we eat, but how we eat. They actually act as a deterrent from eating incorrectly -- too much, too fast.   Well, I think that  PB's & sliming would work to deter me.  I don't stick myself with pins for fun.  Another incentive would be that my husband would probably refuse to eat dinner with me. He's really squeamish about things like that and it's also one of the reasons I was a little concerned about how often it happens.  I don't want my husband to avoid the dinner table or restaurants because of my eating habits. That could get lonely for me.  The satiety aspect  of your explanation is encouraging too, and it helped me to understand why the band discourages snacking.  During the week I don't get home from wor****il 6:30-6:45, so we often don't sit down to dinner until 7:30.  I'm rarely tempted to snack after dinner because I'm not hungry or even close to running on empty by bedtime. I'm usually in bed by 10:30.   I hope the band works as well at lunchtime, because I almost always get that sweets craving at work around 3:00 pm.  It would be great if carrot sticks came to mind, but it's always those chocolate chip cookies leftover from meetings that call my name. This is definitely one of those things I have to "work" on.  Just hoping the band helps me a little in times like that.  I definitely agree about getting involved in a support group.  I believe it's very important from an emotional standpoint.  I'm not opposed to getting therapy, if necessary.  I really want this to work for me and I don't want to regret my decision because I didn't give it my best support.  Again, thank you all very much for your help. Debbie

Hello, I had the same though as you before I got my band, if I had will power, I would not need the band. But trust me it is totally different hard to explain. This is the difference for me in a nutshell, before I got my band and went on traditional starvation diets, I would get so hungry and weak, also I could NEVER eat small meals it was ALL or NOTHING...it was very hard for me to eat a few bites of someting and feel satisfied....THE LAP BAND DOES THIS FOR ME :-). That is the biggest difference for me, it does not make choices for me but it HELPS me make better choices, simply because I can only eat a little at a time so I make sure that that meal is going to be nutritious, like lean protein and veggie and honestly I don't have a desire to eat much of anything else. The only time I will "cheat" and eat junk is when I need a fill, if you take this approach with banding you will succeed, that will cut out the mindless snacking of junk...alway eat good food first and if you are properly restricted I promise you, you will not have a desire to eat much of anything else... But if you just disregard eating good food first and your daily meals are chips and cookies and pizza, which I am sure it is not :-)...you should do well.. Oh regards of PB and sliming, I have only done this once, so it is not daily for me...PBing should be a learning curve and not habit forming since this has caused many to lose their band...it may be a daily event for some who disregard the band rules or their band are much too tight, the tighter the band the more we have to refine our eating habits and make sure we chew well before swallowing and most meats for bandsters have be moist, otherwise they may have problems... Take Care N.

This is my short and sweet response to your question.  And I am in no way a model bandster, but have lost over 65 pounds. Yesterday I was in an emotional eating mood..So I thought I would go to Five Guys to get a hamburger.  Well, pre band days (in this emotional state) I would have downed 2 of thoes suckers.  Yesterday, I got down one patty of the burger..no bread.  And trust me my intentions were bad.  I wanted the whole thing, but the band was not having it. Gotta love that band!!!! Good luck on your journey

Hey cutie, I see that you do get it!!!!  Congratulations you have done so well.  Don't make yourself so scarce.