Can You Guess What Happened at My Lap Band Support Group Meeting?

First of all, there is no weigh-in today because I am HERE.

Now, let's talk about my recent support group meeting this past week. 

I think it's pretty funny that for the last three months of meetings, there has been a food gauntlet to get to our meeting room.  Yep, to get to our room, we have to pass by this amazing-smelling hot food buffet (macaroni and cheese, hot bread rolls, etc).   It seems that whatever group meets in the room next door to ours always enjoys a yummy buffet before their meeting.  Sounds like my kind of meeting. Here's what it looked like last week:

Anyways, to me, exercising is a lot like going to my surgeon's support group meeting. I don't always want to, but once I do go, I am so glad that I did.

I have to make going to the meetings a priority for me.  I have to put them on the calendar months in advance or I will come up with a really convincing excuses reasons why I can't go.

But going to group meetings is a non-negotiable for me.  I tell myself  "If you were a newbie, wouldn't you want to have a chance to talk with a veteran bandster who's at goal?"  Yeah, I would.  So I go.  My chance to give back and provide support.

This past week's group meeting was pretty small, just three bandsters all together, a support person (a husband), and our group leader.  I like the smaller attended meetings as we all seem to talk more.  And this time there was no disappointing! We even talked about constipation and PB'ing.  Good times.

I usually get one really good take away from each meeting.  This time was no different.  I learned that I am doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing to maintain my weight.

Now you may be thinking, "Duh! of course your are rocking maintenance."

But nobody ever told me how to maintain my weight.  I've just sort of figured it out in the past year.  I still don't know all the answers.  It's a lot of trial and error.

Our group leader said that his past experience with medically supervised weight loss patients, the most successful weight loss patients follow this process:

1. During the weight loss phase: Very structured, organized, planning of food choices and exercise. Everything gets written down and discussed.
2. During maintenance: Some (not all) of the structured-ness is slowly phased out and the patient learns the "give and take" of balancing exercise and food choices.

I told our leader that he should put those nuggets of wisdom in the informational binder that they give out to all their pre-ops. It would have saved me a lot of headaches on trying to figure out this beast that is called "maintenance" this past year.

But would I have learned as much if someone had just provided me with an easy to follow list of what to do in maintenance?  Probably not.