I let my surgiversary come and go with absolutely no fan fare cause I am having so many mixed emotions about my surgery. On the one hand I have lost and kept off around 60 lbs in a year and without surgery I know I would have gained instead of lost. On the other hand if I made a different choice in surgery I would probably be near goal by now instead of 100 lbs away. I researched this surgery for years and I was convinced that it would work for me. However, I am not so sure anymore. It is not working the way I thought it would. I totally take responsibilty for my part in my weight loss stall. I also recognize that I am not the only one at fault. In many ways I feel that my band has failed me. I don't think it is over yet but I am not feeling very encouraged. The way my band is working today is that I absolutely can not eat ANYTHING before 11am or 12pm - it varies and sometimes I can have issues up til 1pm. However, I wake up in the morning starving. I try to convince myself that today will be different - go ahead and have some breakfast. It has gotten so that I feel like I am bulimic only I don't want to throw up - I just want to eat when I am physically hungry and have it stay down. Now once the afternoon arrives I can eat a lot. I am starved by this time too because I have either not eaten at all or whatever I tried to eat came right back up. I have a responsibility myself to eat the right kinds of food and limit (restrict) empty calories and this is where I fall short. I have not given up and I will not give up. Tomorrow - Monday I will start the protein train with BAF. I am going to choke down protein shakes in the morning cause I already know I won't be able to eat real food. Also as of tomorrow I will not buy any food (for the most part). I have been eating out way too much. I will start cooking home cooked meals and this will help me to make better choices.  I will cut out the empty liquid calories I have been consuming and I will start yes I said START exercising. I have been really bad about this since it has been so cold, snowy, rainy and since I was working two jobs. A few weeks ago I quit my second job, it was just part time and though my budget will be very tight I am going to use the extra time to focus on me. Now with all that being said if this doesn't get my weight moving in the right direction I will strongly consider a revision surgery. I have discussed this with my doc a few months ago and he felt that I was no where near this point but with the way my band works - extremely tight in the morning and extremely loose in the afternoon and evening - I am not sure I will ever get a level of restriction that will allow me to eat normally. By normally I mean 3 small meals a day - breakfast, lunch and dinner. There was a brief time when I was able to do this - I could eat a few bites of each meal and be full but the key is I was able to eat at each meal time. I have not been able to recreate this level of restriction since. I am always either too tight or too loose. With all that being said there have been some things going on in my family and anyone reading this please pray for my family. My brother lost his job a week and a half ago. Four days later his third child was born - on Easter Sunday. She is beautiful and her name is Tahlia Antoinette. Anyway yesterday her mother - my SIL - was not feeling well and she went to the hospital. They discovered that she has a few blood clots in her lungs. She was released today but she must return to the hospital all this week for additional treatments. I am praying that these situations work themselves out - both the financial situation (my brother was the only one working) and the health situation.

Also want to add that anyone reading this that may be considering lapband surgery please don't let my story discourage you. It works for lots of people and everyone doesn't have the issues that I have. Some people find a good level of restriction and lose weight regularly as I did for the first 6 months. I can honestly say though that I haven't lost any weight for the last 6 months and if nothing changes in the next few months I will be pursuing other options. I am aware of all surgery types but I will most likely pursue RNY.