97%

Diets have a long term weight loss success rate of 3%. Any professional who uses the word is smoking crack. Thank god my surgeon told me I should be eating anything I want (protein first, don't drink with meals) in tiny portions (never more than a cup). That's it. That's what the band does. Oh, and it conservatively increases the success rate of weight loss to over 50%.

What did this non-dieting bandster eat over the weekend? sausage biscuit (haven't had one in years, and it lasted as two meals), stuffed calzone (just a few bites, but oh so satisfying), sausilito chicken (grilled chicken breast in a garlic cream sauce with artichoke hearts, onion, pine nuts, and fresh basil... orgasmic), chips and salsa (mostly salsa by the spoonful), warm cookie bar w/ ice cream and chocolate sauce, tequila lime chicken, strawberry daiquri snowball, and you get the idea. No diet. Nothing off limits. Just a few bites of the dessert. The most I ever eat of a restaurant dish is 1/3. That means IF I get back to the leftovers, a restaurant meal lasts me for three meals.

BEST NSV EVER? I went to lunch with my daughter on Sunday. She ate two or three bites of her entree, and boxed the rest because she wasn't hungry. We had a healthy appetizer and she was honestly not hungry. In the past, I have really worried about what my bad eating habits have taught my children. In the past, I would have cleaned my plate at a restaurant. It is unbelievable to see the influence I've had in a little over a year of being banded. Now when my daughter is full, she takes the extra food home. She feels no obligation to eat it all. We didn't discuss this act, but it made me really happy to know that as I've changed for the better, I'm undoing bad eating examples I may have set for my children.

Thanks for obliging me in beating a dead horse about the no dieting issue.