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Certainly not arrogant! Everyone deserves to be the best they can be and you are really doing that! You look fantastic so enjoy it!

You look about 10 years younger! Totally unrecognisable from your first 'before' picture!

All the best for your op Aussiegirl. I knew it was coming up! You will be taking it up another level after this and I am sure you will be so happy with the results. One of the sleevers on one of the veterans threads has posted her op pictures - they are graphic but the results are truly amazing - even only a few days after the op! Once you have recovered, lets organise another Sydneysiders get together. Hopefully the weather will be warming up and we can sit in the sun somewhere - All welcome!

Hey Misty - I got on the veterans thread the other day - I have to admit that it was a bit of a downer actually. Just reading how hard everyone has to work to keep their weight off after 2 years onwards - even one lady had put back on 50% of her weight loss - she had her op 5 years ago! Being over a year out and still being careful about eating enough to keep my weight stable, I find it hard to get my head around - I can still only eat a max of a cup of food in 15 minutes on a good eating day in one sitting so can't imagine how I would put half the weight I have lost back on! I am hoping that I am not deluding myself thinking that this will be the way it will always be - but I guess I must be! Here's hoping that my surgeon gave me the extra small model so I can never eat the quantities to put all my weight or even 50 % back on - inner fears coming out now!

Very sad news - sending all my love and best wishes to her family and friends.

Hi All - I have been reading and not posting too. I guess it is because I am at the stage of trying to maintain and I need some more company on this bench! As I have confessed before, I have developed a terrible sweet tooth and also have never embraced exercise - I have never counted calories and apart from the early weeks, have not been vigilant with my Water consumption - so you could say I have not stuck to the rules! In spite of all this I have reached goal and I am managing to stay around 60kg (BMI around 21) - my challenges are that I can lose weight very easily if I cut out the crapy foods so I was quite concerned that I was developing some bad habits (or going back to old habits) of eating at night and on top of that eating sweet things to maintain weight.. So my dietician recommend a visit to the psychologist to see what type of 'hunger' I was experiencing at night to try and break the bad habit. Her rational behind that is that you don't want to reestablish the bad habits that cause your weight gain. So I go to the psychologist and she says why are you punishing yourself about these so called 'bad foods' when you are not putting on weight... good point but I am so confused. You kind of get mixed messages from different professions as they are coming at if from different directions ..has anyone else experienced this? Anyway, my conclusion is back at where I started. Keep doing what I am doing and don't worry about it!

Hope all is ok with your knee Kelli - I like your new photos Kelli an Mysty

Just add up 2kg every 10 days and then think of the end of year! It all adds up! My best weight loss was only 2kg in 7 days and I have lost 43kg all up and I am 5kg below the goal that my surgeon set me so don't worry you are doing great!

I am always cold but I think I am getting a bit better - I think mine was to do with low iron but I am cold to touch too a lot of the time - my husband puts it down to less insulation now!! :-)

I have been thinking about this '3 week stall' - I think it is tied in with the bodies ability to only go with out food for 3 weeks! Maybe it is the bodies last ditch effort to hold on to that last bit of weight before you truly go into starvation mode - lets face it, the amount of calories we are consuming around this time truly is at starvation levels! Just one of my thoughts but hey, I am no doctor!

See you on the others side :-) ! All the best!

Lissa - so many things on my list too and crossing my legs like you too Kelli! The other thing is actually realising that I actually have ribs! I knew they were in there somewhere! Being able to move quicker and the feeling of lightness. Very little joint pain these days - I found it difficult walking down hill let alone down stairs - now I don't even think about it being difficult! People serve me in clothes shops! People I don't know well take me more seriously - maybe this is just I radiate more confidence - I don't know really but it has changed People now say things like "it is alright for people who are a tall and slim like you!" - I am still looking over my shoulder to see who they are talking to! Finding myself browsing the self help diet book section in the book shop and then realising "I don't need these anymore!!!!" Noticing how much television centres around weight! Ads, features, diets, food.... and on it goes. I never really noticed what a huge industry it is and many companies are peddling their latest drink, bar, detox, exercise machine, super food etc ect.

Hi Sara - I haven't heard of a revision to make it smaller but I guess it's feasible. I know that when my surgeon first started doing this procedure he didn't take as much stomach - my dietician said he used to make the capacity about 250 ml but now makes them 175ml as the weight loss results were not as good with the larger capacity. I can't speak for everyone else, but I am 12 months out on the 18th of July and I would still say that eating a cup of food in one sitting is about all I can do. I can go back in half an hour or so and have a little bit more but not much. I know that my stomach is now the same width as my osophagas which the surgeon said is about what you want it to be. I have had great success reaching my goal and going 5kg lower now sitting at 60kg with a BMI of about 23. I need that buffer as I have menopause coming up and I know I will have a weight gain with that! I am defiantly not the model sleever as My exercise has been zero ( most will know that I have promising forever to do something!), I always forget my Water and prefer gallons of tea and. coffee and have eaten my fair share of crap! I just tell people I am eating the 'French Way' - lost of nummy food but very little of it! I am curious to know why your surgeon called not removing as much of your stomach 'the safe option' - did you have some complications with the band that he was worried about so couldn't take as much of your stomach?

Good luck Di and we will see you on the other side!

I was on a brand called kickstart - but from what I have heard most of these Meal Replacement shakes are just horrible - I never liked milkshakes so even though I wasn't vomiting there were times I was just about holding my nose to get them down. I found very cold Water and lots of ice made it not quite as bad too. I only tried the Soups once and that was enough - the chocolate Optifast bars were about the only thing I got used to. I could probably eat one of those now but I wouldn't touch a shake for the rest of my life! However, I did get through it and lost 9kg pre op and did the pre-op for 1 day short of 4 weeks - just shows what you can do when you are working towards the prize! I hope you get it sorted. Maybe talk to Aussiegirl as I know she did the pre-op without doing any shakes.