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I just bought the fancy new one from Ninja. Works great for less than half the price of the vitamix or blendtec

Wow Christina.. I'm so sorry to hear that this happened to you. I have to agree with everyone above. The band is just a tool, it's not going to do all of the work. The same way a diet pill is just a tool. There was someone on here who got the band and *never* got a fill. She got down to her goal weight!! She knew it was just a tool. I didn't have much success until I started keeping a log of my calories.. Through keeping a log I noticed I needed more fruits and veggies and less processed food. The weight hasn't flown off of me in my eyes, it's been slow, but that's the way I want it. I only have about 35 more pounds to go, but it's taken me 2 years to get to where I'm at.. And with school and work I haven't been able to exercise as much as I should. That's about to change and I can't wait. Good luck with whatever you plan on doing next Christina. I really wish you the best of luck. I wish that you would have contacted the OCC and talked to Dr. Ortiz before you decided to have the band removed. That was a lot of money to drop on the band, and if it indeed wasn't placed properly, or in a position that worked for you, I'm sure Dr. Ortiz would have done whatever it took to make it right.

I think that log is great. I use an app on my phone called myfitnesspal and it helps me so much! I know I would forget to fill out the papers.. But if I set reminders on my phone, I will remember to fill out the logs! They have a huge database of foods.

Well, they say if you go under the 1200 calorie minimum, your body goes into starvation mode. I noticed for myself that I struggle when I go under 1200.. With you working out, you definitely need at least 1200!! Sometimes I do better weight loss wise with 1300. Get those calories in! Something that helps me is setting alarms on my phone to remind me to eat. If I'm busy I'm terrible at remembering, because my mind isn't on food. I love doing green smoothies and throwing vegan protein powder in them. It helps me meet my calories. There's a program I use on my iphone for calorie counting called myfitnesspal. It's free, and amazing!

If you can, look up reviews of the fill center you are going to. Not having floro isn't the end of the world. I've had all mine done with floro, but my friend hasn't and shes doing well. Lindsay is right, just be careful not to be too agressive with fills. Good luck!

Thank you for your post! I have been losing a lot of hair lately.. It wouldn't be so bad if my hair was thick, but its very thin, I just happen to have a lot! The funny thing is I had really started to work in more protein, but I wasn't sure how much would be good. So thank you, thank you, thank you!

Ang, Congrats on what you have lost! Good job! My weight has been coming off slowly, and I am just SOOO thankful that it's coming off instead of gaining. If I did not get the band, I know I would have ballooned from where I was at. Check out some recipe sites! It will give you ideas, and you can look at a recipe and figure out what you can substitute. If you dont like plain fruits that much, what about making a smoothie? You can always throw in some protein powder and make it that much healthier! Plain veggies are always boring. Add some spices! Mix it up! Make soups out of veggies! Mmmm! I LOVED PIZZA, but I cut cheese and dairy completely out of my diet. I ended up doing this because my weight loss had stalled for a while. I always thought that cutting cheese out of my diet would be mission impossible. Now that it has been months, I had a bite of piece of pizza a few weeks ago and thought it tasted absolutely disgusting. Crazy huh?

Milk of Magnesia is good, but the thing that works THE BEST for me and everyone I know that has had problems has been Natural Calm by Peter Gilliam. I get the rasberry kind that has calcium plus magnesium. You just throw in a few teaspoons with a small amount of warm water. The cheapest place I have found it has been on vitacost.com. I try to get all my vitamins from there. Hope this helps!

Lindsay, I must say, you look AWESOME! Congrats! As for meal plans, I'm not really following one. What's been working for me is to fluctuate between 900-1200 calories a day. Granted, the weight isn't FLYING off, but it's coming off. I keep a log with my iPhone. I track everything I put in my mouth. The app I use is myfitnesspal, but there is another amazing app out there called foodscanner. Foodscanner is awesome because you can scan the label and it has the nutritional information in its database already! What I like about myfitnesspal is that you can log your workouts on their site, and you can customize it so that friends can log on and make comments on your progress. I feel like it holds me more accountable. I have it set to show everyone everything, and it posts to my Facebook account when I dont log on and track my calories! If you can't make it to the gym go for long walks and make sure you are getting lots of water. I drink at least 3 liters today. Sorry for all the info, I'm just telling you what has been working for me.

That's awesome Trisha! I wish my father would look into the band.. He was diagnosed with Type 2 diabeties about 4 years ago, and he doesn't care. He eats everything in sight!

That sounds awesome, I am going to check it out. Another one I just downloaded that sounds similar is Gym Goal ABC, and it shows you how to properly do each exercise. Pretty neat!

I drink coffee too, but I measure out how much creamer i put in each cup and log it in with all of my other calories for the day.

For the diet diary I found this app for my iPhone called "Lose It"! It works great and you can input your exercise as well! Amazing! It has a ton of major brands in the database already. Another great find for me was the Nutiva Hemp Protein with Fiber! They have the plain in a 3 lb bag from Vitacost.com which saves a lot of money. They also have the flavored in smaller amounts, but well worth it. Low calories! And my last fabulous find that I will post for now is Peter Gilliam's Natural Calm. It helps soo much when you can't seem to have a BM. Sounds gross, but it works! The flavors are great but a little tart. It does fizz up when you add hot water, but if you let it sit for about 2 minutes all the fizzies go away. I actually let mine sit for about 5 minutes just to be safe! I order this from Vitacost as well. They usually beat most prices. Ohh yeah and for anyone out there that likes liquid vitamins, Peter Gilliam has a line of those as well. Linipoo thanks for reminding me about the Juvo, I wanted to order that a while back and forgot all about it!