One year now!

So I just passed my one year anniversary. I have lost 93 pounds since I got the lap band. Every single day, I just thank goodness that I made this decision. How could I not be thrilled with these results? My life is not consumed by issues surrounding food or weight. I am active, and can do the things l love to do (with ease) like hiking and biking. Man, this was really the best decision I have made, right along with all the big things in my life.

I still want to lose another 45 pounds to get to my ideal weight range of 145-150. But even if I did not lose another pound, I would still be happy I did it, because at this point, I feel fairly healthy. Most people even tell me that they dont think I need to lose much more. (but come on, I weigh 190, so I do need to lose more.)

I just started back playing squash which I love to play. I would not have attempted this at 300 pounds, even though I love it, if only just for the embarrassment of what I would look like out there. Not to mention that I could not move well enough to play! But now I am a lean mean squash playing machine (ok, that is a bit of an exagerration! lol) But it FEELS like I am!

My son has hit a plateau in his weight loss at around 75 pounds, but we feel confident that it will continue for him. He is active, works out, plays raquetball and we know that it is just a plateau, and it will start back up at some point.

Anyone that wants to know anything about this surgery, what its like aftwarwards, the pros and cons, etc, should please feel free to get in touch with me at vansie@spiralfx.com. I am happy to answer any questions or help you in any way I can.

So until next time, good luck in your journeys!
Vanessa

My Whole Family Got the Lap-Band Together

I got lap-band surgery on Nov 21, 2007 along with my two kids. We all had surgery the same day, one right after another. My kids were 24 and 18 at the time. We all were obese and struggling daily with diets, weight loss, etc. So how did we get to the point of looking into surgery? Here is our story:

In August 2006, I weighed in at 332, my son was 357 and my daughter who is 5'2" weighed about 220. My son and I started going to our family Internist on a monthly basis. He put us both on Phentermine, which you can only take for 5 months. It worked - we both lost about 40-50 pounds. But when we stopped taking the medicine, we stopped losing weight. Now keep in mind that we were working out 4-5 times a week, and starting in January '07, we even got a personal trainer that came to our house and worked with all three of us three times a week. But we could NOT take off any more weight. We were eating right (most of the time), and tried Medifast and Nutrisystem. By the way, we HATED Medifast, but we loved Nutrisystem. I even still buy some of their food - it is excellent, and now that I eat so little, the serving sizes are actually now too big! Anyway, we moved up and down 10 pounds from January 07 - Nov 07. So in Sept or Oct we looked into the surgery options. We found out that our insurance would not cover any part of the surgery. But one of the places we had looked at took a credit called Care Credit. The surgery was $19K each, so we ended up having to get three Care Credit accounts. At that time, the big question became, "How could we afford more monthly payments?" So we took out our bank accounts for the last 12 months and looked at our food costs, including eating out. It turns out that we spent $1400+ each and every month on food! So even though our Care Credit total monthly cost would be about $1100 a month, we felt that most of it would be mitigated by our eating so much less. Just so you know, this turned out to be completely true. We now only spend about $400 a month on food costs, total including eating out!

to be continued.......

Weight Loss Update - 90 pounds!

My plan is to write here at least 3-4 times a week, giving information about my experiences with the lap-band, weight loss issues, and my weight loss progress. Sometimes I will tell some stories from the past 11 months. I am only starting this blog 11 months after I got the lap-band, so a lot of it has to come from my memories. So you will hear both current day-to-day events, as well as my overall feelings and experiences from the very beginning.

I have a total weight loss today of 138 pounds since I started trying to lose weight 2 years ago in August 2006. I have lost 90 pounds exactly since I got the lap-band on November 21. 2007, almost 11 months ago. My goal is to lose 100 pounds by my one year anniversary. I have 5 weeks and my average weight loss is about 2 pounds a week, I think this is an achievable goal.

So the big question is - can the lap-band help you? My goal is to help you determine the answer to this question through my posts. Please feel free to comment or ask questions at any time. I will be glad to help you in any way I can.

Introduction

Hi, My name is Vanessa Siegal and I have had the Lap-Band since the end of November 2007. I am going to chronicle both my thoughts and feelings about the surgery, the pre-surgery and my day-to-day experiences with the band and food. I can tell you right away that I am very happy with my decision to get the lap-band. I have lost about 75 pounds in 9 months. I feel better than I have in YEARS! But I also want to tell you all about why I chose it, why I felt it was necessary, and what problems and issues I have had over the months. I do wish that I had had that type of information before I made the decision. One thing is for sure, none of the weight loss centers tell you all that *I* think you should know before youi make this all-important decision in your life.

You can feel free to get in touch with me at ANY time if you have further questions about your own situation. I state here and now that I am not an expert or a professional. I am only a user, and so what I tell you is only my own opinion. If you feel that could help you, then by all means give me write me! You can reach me at vansie@spiralfx.com.