Lifestyle changes

I went to my nutrition appointment today and I have a lot of work ahead of me. I found out right away that my insurance is requiring me to have 6 months of nutritional counseling, as apposed to the minimum of 3 months. So, it looks like the earliest I will be having the surgery is over the summer in late July or August. I am a little disappointed that it will take that long but it gives me time to adjust my habits.

I also have to cut our soda because of the carbonation and caffeine. I am also going to have to get used to not drinking with meals. I like water so it will not be a problem getting the fluids but I am accustomed to sitting down to a meal with a drink. I also have to keep a food journal and lose at least 5 % of my current weight. I know I can do that because I have done it before while on Weight Watchers.

There are a lot of little changes that they want me to start getting accustomed to, like chewing my food completely, take at least 30 minutes to eat, 3 meals around 400 calories and 3 snacks around 100 calories. I will also need to go low-fat and sugar free on almost everything. I also have to limit eating out because many fast-food choices are high in fat and calories. She also recommend that we look up Mindful Eating on Google.

I actually knew a lot of the things she was saying from other attempts at losing weight. As we all know there is no magic way to lose weight. It is all about eating less, eating good foods, and exercise more. I guess I am looking at this journey and the Lap Band as a way to help me make the changes that are hard for me to do on my own. I think that because it will restrict the stomach to a size of the walnut you have no choice but to make some initial changes and then the person has to do the rest for themselves.

Both the doctor and the nutritionist said that 1 in 5 people are still not successful even with the surgery at keeping the weight off. The only reason for this is human error, not a malfunction or a stretching stomach. It is physically impossible to stretch it and they have x-rays to back it up. The only way for a person to then gain it back is by eating high calorie foods all the time. Interesting!