Fanny Adams

SMS, let me add my voice to Kat's and Beth's - that manner of undermining your self-confidence and emotional abuse is a very strong sign of worse to come. Once they destroy your self-esteem, it's a short step to getting you to think that their abuse is your own fault for failing to live up to their standards in some way. Don't go down that path - it gets harder and harder to get out as your inner strength is eroded. To Kat and Beth: Thank you for sharing your story. I agree with you both in that we need to share our experiences when we recognise those telltale symptoms in others around us.

I'm gonna be really pissed off if there were coz Plain knows I'VE GOT DIBS ON THOSE!!

I've been getting lots of cramps too lately, mostly in the arch of my foot or calves at night. I've looked it up on the internet and it seems the most common cause is dehydration (not drinking my water - oops) and a magnesium or calcium deficiency. I eat a lot of cheese, so I don't think it is calcium, so I'm going to step up my magnesium-rich foods and see if that helps. Food Sources of Magnesium Oddly enough, almonds are high on this list and I eat almonds almost every day, so maybe it's just the dehydration for me . This is a constant problem where I work because of the heat - it's really hard to drink enough water every day!

Thanks Donna. The pics don't do justice to those butterflies either - they moved too quickly to get a good shot! Most of them were around 4-6 inches wing span, and just gorgeous. I think my favourite photo of all those shown, though, is the one of the tiny baby crocodile perched on a branch (in the Daintree River set). He is just soooooo cute!! PS: Am I boring people to tears yet?

ERK!! Yesterday's storm was lots of fun but today I'm flying home and all of a sudden it doesn't seem like such fun afterall :thumbup:. Lots more thunder and lightening today too

I have Dr Watson too, so I guess he would have given me the same dietary advice. This is what I ate in the post-op stages: Days 1 to 3 - Clear liquids juice and/or diet jelly in the mornings, clear chicken, beef or vegetable broth/consomme for lunch & dinner, more jelly for dessert Days 4 to 10 - Full Liquids All of the above plus custards, yogurts, various creamed Soups. I also got a lot of chunky style soups and blended them to get the chunks out. Another fav was banana smoothies made with 0% skim milk and a teaspoon of honey. Skim milk is gross on its own but was fine in the smoothies. Days 11 to 21 - Mushies: All of the above plus porridges for Breakfast (all the nummy fruit ones from Uncle Toby's), stewed fruits (eg apples, plums), various chunky style soups, cottage/ricotta cheeses, scrambled eggs & omelettes, tuna mixed with fat free mayo, tuna morney, mashed potatoes, sweet potato, pumpkin and other soft mashed veges. Days 21 to 28 - Soft foods: All of the above plus various slow-cooked casseroles, bolognaise sauce, steamed veges, basically any "wet" dish". Day 29+ - Normal food!

In case anyone's bored and wants to take a vicarious holiday, these pics are from my trip to Cairns, in far northern Queensland, last year. It was at the beginning of the Wet Season, so the weather is a bit grey but the scenery was spectacular! Skyrail (12km long!) up the Atherton tablelands to Kuranda (a grey and misty day): http://w2.photobucket.com/pbwidget.swf?pbwurl=http://w2.photobucket.com/albums/y40/FannyAdams/Cairns/Day%202%20-%20Skyrail%20and%20Kuranda/489a9df3.pbw Day Trip to the Barrier Reef off Cairns (unfortunately I lost my underwater camera, so lost all the great pics I took of the fish underwater *cries*) http://w2.photobucket.com/pbwidget.swf?pbwurl=http://w2.photobucket.com/albums/y40/FannyAdams/Cairns/Day%203%20-%20Barrier%20Reef/e95f0f70.pbw Mossman Gorge (another grey day): http://w2.photobucket.com/pbwidget.swf?pbwurl=http://w2.photobucket.com/albums/y40/FannyAdams/Cairns/Day%205%20-%20Mossman%20Gorge%20and%20Daintree/9e834f62.pbw Boat tour on the Daintree River (a brighter day): http://w2.photobucket.com/pbwidget.swf?pbwurl=http://w2.photobucket.com/albums/y40/FannyAdams/Cairns/Day%206%20-%20Daintree/375a65c2.pbw

NOOO!! Tuesdays are great! I go home on Tuesdays!! LOL! Does that mean my addiction to LBT is now official? Do I get a badge??

Aww thanks folks, but you shouldn't get me started! I just snapped the storm ones on my phone camera, so they came out not bad for that. I love taking scenery pics on my digital and have hundreds - I'll flood the forum, given enough encouragement, hehehe! Re the flooding, no, that's not near me. It's way over on the east coast. I've found that not many US folk realise that Australia is very close in size to the mainland USA. If you disregard the north = hot/south = cool opposite, I live in the equivalent of New Mexico but work in Washington state. The flooding is roughly upstate New York. This might help to give you an idea - this is my state of West Aus only (flipped left/right), superimposed on the US, and drawn to scale:

The storms up here are pretty impressive. I just hope it doesn't look like that when I fly home tomorrow night!

Check out this storm coming in right now! It's going to be a beauty!! The thunder is pretty awesome too - I can feel the rumble coming through the floor of the office!

59F is15C - I'd have the heater on too!! BRRR! Probably don't break out the gloves until it gets to 5C (40F) though, which is only ever in the wee small hours of the night, never in daylight.

The downside of course, is the heat... I just got today's Health Warning on my office email: From: SSUWA Sent: Friday, November 21, 2008 4:43:09 PM To: Health Coordinator (AD) Subject: Heat Stress [sEC=UNCLASSIFIED] Auto forwarded by a Rule For Argyle: Following data is peak value predictions for: Saturday 22 November 2008: Max Environmental Temp: 43°C. (109.4F) Forecast: Risk of an afternoon storm. Relative Humidity: 40%. Apparent Temperature: 57°C. (134.6F) Heat Stress Index: Extreme. *Note: Last Wet Season, I saw warnings come through that said the Apparent Temperature was 63C!! That's 145.4F!!!

That's one thing that I really love about my job - I get to see some awesome scenery in some really remote parts of the country. Before I worked at Argyle, I was up in Nhulunbuy/Gove on the coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria in the Northern Territory. Not many people get to see that, as it is 700km into Arnhem Land and they don't give out tourist visas. I've seen most part of Aus now, from the incredible tropical rainforests around the Daintree River in Qld, to the central deserts of NT, SA and WA, to the forests and mountains in Victoria and Tasmania, and of course coastlines and beaches around the entire perimeter of the country. I never get tired of all the wonderful sights there are around Aus...

That's what we've been wanting to hear! Great news, Damo, and it will only get better from hereon out!

Thats part of the Argyle Diamonds mine site, in the far northern remote reaches of Western Australia. The open pit mine has been running for about 25 years but is going to be shut down in the next year or two, as the underground mine comes on line. Basically, they've been digging down into the mouth of an ancient volcano and have got to the point where taking away the "overburden" (all the rock on the sides of the mine) is more expensive than the diamonds they are getting out of the core in the middle, so we are now digging tunnels down to the bottom of the core and are going to mine our way up it. As mines in Western Australia go, it's not a bad size but not a patch on the open pit Iron ore mines in the Pilbara region - now those are ENORMOUS!! Several kilometres across usually. To give you an idea of scale, if you look at the mine picture, in the middle of the road at the bottom, there is a tiny white blob. That is one of the huge dump trucks that they use, which is almost as tall as a 5 story building!!

I'm bored at work, so I thought I'd post some more The view from my office, looking east: The view from my office looking west: The open pit mine: Some general scenery pics from around here:

PJTP: Driving from the airport back to the mine site, last week, I spotted these and thought you guys might be interested: The mine site is on a lease inside a private cattle station (Lissadell Station) - that's the mine tailings dam in the background. There are a lot of wild horses around, but I think these are too good looking and in too good a condition to be brumbies. More likely they are the station's stock, turned loose while Mum raises her baby... Aren't they beautiful??

Hi Bubz and welcome! There's quite a few of us Perthites around, always good to see more! You've come to the right place for support and advice - the people in here are really great for that! Feel free to ask any questions and don't be afraid to sing out if you're feeling a little down and need some cheering up. It's a bit of an emotional rollercoaster at times, mostly good, but occasionally we can all do with a bit of support. Good luck and I hope all goes well for you!

I flew back to site on Monday afternoon (it's noon on Wed for me now). Things with the hunk are going swimmingly, wonderfully well! :tongue2: I still wanna see Plain's beefcake pics though! :rolleyes2: No harm in looking, right?

Are you a man or a mouse?? Are you going to let some silly MIRROR tell you what to do? I say you show it who's the boss!!

Hmpf!! For a man who STILL hasn't come across with the beefcake pics, I dunno where you get off asking others for cheesecake shots!! :tt2: *notes the sadly empty state of her Inbox*

Sorry to hear you're feeling crap. Try some peppermint or ginger & honey tea, sipping really really slowly. They really helped me when I was too tight.

This is by far the most common query that newbie bandsters have. I had it and didn't know the answer at the time. I've spent a lot of time thinking about it and asked my doctor about it, and I think this is a sound explanation for what is going on inside of you. Don't let it get to you - it IS temporary! Most of all, don't let it cause you to give up!! ****************************************** It is highly likely that you will hit a plateau or regain a few pounds in in the weeks after the op. My theory on this is: * In the pre-op weeks, we saw big numbers as weight loss because we had switched from a solid to a liquid diet and most of the loss was not fat but simply emptying the digestive system. At any point in time on a normal eating regime, an average person will have 10-15lb of food in various stages of digestion in their alimentary canal. Us fatties probably had 20+! Real fat loss at that stage is probably only 2-5lb, the rest is fluids and undigested food. However, we believe the big numbers and get disappointed when they don't continue. * During the operation, they put you on an IV saline drip, which boosts your Fluid levels and Water weighs MUCH more than fat. This can take several days to a couple of weeks to get out of your system (see next point). * The internal swelling from the operation all contributes to fluid retention, which is boosted by the IV drip. Until the swelling goes down, you're going to hold onto that fluid. * As the swelling goes down, you start to move from liquids to mushies to solids. You will probably notice that you don't poop for quite some time post-op, which is a combination of the constipation-causing painkillers, the fact that you are eating MUCH less in volume, and that you are now re-filling your digestive system from it's previously completely empty state. This means that as you lose fluid weight, you are regaining solid food weight, and all the actual fat loss is disguised by those two. Some people will retain more fluid, especially if they're eating salty canned Soups (I know I did!), so they will see a gain. Others will lose more fluid than they are gaining in food weight, so they will see a slight loss. For others it will be equal or will go up and down day by day. In the meantime, in the background, I believe that if we stick to the diet plans, we are still losing real fat at the steady rate of 2-3lb a week - we just can't see it and judge it accurately because there are too many other influences. Once you get back to solid foods, a "normally full" digestive tract and get rid of the extra fluids, your scales will be much more accurate and should be showing a steady loss of 1-2lb per week.

The Bitter and the Sweet The Sweet: I went for my morning run this morning, at my local park as I'm home from site. Most mornings when I go, there are 3-4 quite elderly people down there with their dogs and we always smile and wave. One old guy (80+) always calls out to me as I puff my way past "That'll do you some good!!" I smile and wave. Today, he was walking with another old lady and as I passed them, I heard her say to him "Have you seen how much weight she's dropped?" and he replied, "Yes, she's doing great, isn't she?" That was sweet. The Bitter: At the end of my run, as I was leaving the park, all of the oldies (4 of them today) had gathered together in the corner where I leave and were chatting. I stopped and chatted for a while and the lady was asking how I was doing. I have no qualms about sharing and was proudly telling her that I had lost 37kg!! They were all suitably impressed, which was lovely, until one of the old guys (different one from earlier), remarked "Wow, you must have looked really horrible before!" I had to laugh, however, and just smile and say "yes, I did, but I'm getting better now."