Fanny Adams

Hehehe - mate, that was my home territory . I spent so much time up before the Head Mistress that we became quite good friends by the end of high school and had quite the "Bart and Principal Skinner" relationship going :thumbup:.

My sewing teacher in high school would be shocked! I spent almost all of the year outside on the "naughty bench" :thumbup:. Same for cooking classes too . My mother is exceptionally crafty though, so I know the lingo - can't sew buttons on but I can tell you all about it, HA!

I've posted in The Mens Room occasionally - I try not to, because it feels like "invading their territory" but sometimes I'll respond to a post from the New Posts list and not realise where it was placed...and other times I do it just to be contrary! LOL! I figure what's good for the goose...

Just look at the weave of the cloth and how it falls. If the cloth runs like this, when the garment is held up straight: ++++++++ ++++++++ then it was cut normally. If it runs like this: xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx then it was cut on the bias. Selvedges are "self-edges" - the natural left and right edges of the cloth, which doesn't need hemming.

I have heard several people in here say that oestragen is stored in fat cells, so with rapid weight loss, you get a flood of hormones in your system that can play havock with your periods for a while. Mine seem a little bit heavier but they've always been heavy and nastily painful and my weightloss has been fairly slow and steady.

Cloth is woven with vertical threads (warp) and a horizon thread that goes over/under it (woof or weft). Normally when you cut fabric to make clothes, you align the pieces so that the warp runs top to bottom on the piece. "Cut on the bias" means that you align the pieces diagonally on the cloth, so that the warp and woof make a cross and the top/bottom line runs through diagonally through it. Usually only skirts or the bottom sections of dresses will use this cut, and it makes the skirt flare out more and twirl better. It is sometimes used on a tartan top to give that diamond crosshatching look. How wow - I am SO not girly and I flunked sewing in Home Ec in Year 8 and never took it up again, but I must have learned SOMETHING in the few classes where I wasn't sent outside to sit on the bench! My mother would be so proud! *edits* Oh pooh! I was so excited at knowing the answer to a girly question, that I didn't read down and see that someone had already answered it :Dancing_wub:

My "rules" have been much the same as yours. I do count calories occasionally and did so much more in the beginning. In spite of what I thought I knew, I had a very distorted idea of what a portion was and how many calories were in each item. Now, I keep a rough track in my head and only use the online programs if I think I'm getting out of control. I have a pretty good idea now of what I can and can't get away with and I don't stress over little ups and downs, as long as I don't get carried away with the indulgences. Mostly, I just try to eat "healthy", choose low fat/low cal options and don't get ultra strict with myself, because that leads to rebellion and self-sabotage from me. I just want to live a normal life and eat and drink like a normal person and be a NORMAL SIZE.

It's different for everyone but I am one of those who has had no problem with bread, rice, Pasta, steak, etc. I avoid carbonated drinks as the few times I've tried it, the fizz gave me terrible heartburn, even when left to go flat. If you take your time eating, chew well and don't try to have restriction tighter than a mouse's ear, you probably won't have many issues. I have small, well balanced meals of meat, veges and good carbs and almost always have a tiny dessert to satisfy the sweet tooth. The difference is all in portion size, e.g. a piece of cheesecake 2" x 1" instead of a whole wedge, but I haven't had to give anything up. My weightloss isn't as fast as some, but it is steady at around 8lb a month and I am exactly where I planned on being at 6 months out. Good luck in your journey!

To me that sounds like you are too tight, especially since it has been happening since your last fill. When you get close to the spot, even a little fill can make a big difference. I'd see your doctor and ask to have half of the last fill taken out (i.e. if you last fill was 0.5ml, take out 0.25ml), then see how that goes. You are not supposed to be so tight that you can't eat at all or can only manage liquids! When you are having problems with liquids, it's time to see the doc.

I'm going to wait till my bandiversary - I'm hoping to pass the 50lb mark by then! This last month has been a good one for me - the scale is finally really starting to move! :thumbup:

Wow Connie! That's GREAT!! Congratulations!

ROFLMAO!! I don't know whether to confiscate all your kitchen knives or offer to help bury the body! :thumbup::frown:

I'm sorry to hear that your doctor didn't prepare you well with the expectations of how the band works, but hang in there - it will happen for you! There are many reasons why they don't just fill it up tightly and start off with a huge restriction. I think the most important of these is the long term results on what is healthiest for your body. You need time to heal and time to learn to adjust your eating habits. Too much restriction at the beginning, when you haven't learned how to eat bandster style properly, can result in a lot of PBing episodes and that is one of the most common causes of slippage. At six months out, I don't have a lot of long term experience to draw on, but I can offer this advice: * In the first few weeks of the healing stages, follow your doctor's advice about liquids, mushies, etc. This is important for the long term health of your band. Your stomach needs time to heal and for the band to settle into place. Eating solid foods too early causes the stomach to work in digestion and interferes with the healing. Don't worry about quantities so much though - if it takes 2 cups of soup at a time to satisfy you, eat it! If you are careful with your choices, 2 cups each meal will still see you well under 1200 cal a day and that is going to give you some good losses. * In the bandster hell stage, when you can eat solid foods but haven't had the first fill, concentrate on changing your food choices. If you can eat a full meal of good healthy food, go for it. You don't need to be existing on only half a cup at a meal to lose weight. Make healthy choices and watch the calorie content. Eat 2 cups (or equivalent) if that's what it takes to stop you being hungry. It will still be FAR less than you were eating pre-band, and the losses will come slowly. * After your first fill, don't expect miracles. You probably won't notice all that much of a difference, but if you eat solid foods you should find that you aren't hungry between meals and even though it still takes willpower to choose the right things, it IS easier to make those choices because you aren't QUITE as controlled by the hunger daemon as pre-banding. Make sure you don't let yourself get too hungry, because that's when our willpower deserts us and we make bad choices. Yes, you are on a "diet" at this stage - don't expect not to be! But if you eat good quality food, you should find that it is possible to stick to it, whereas in the past it wasn't. * After the 2nd, 3rd and 4th fills: Each one will give just a tiny bit more restriction and unless you are really listening for it, you may not notice the difference but it will be there. Practice eating "bandster style" in tiny bites and chew every bit till it is liquid in your mouth. If you don't have a PB or a stuck episode - congratulations!! You are learning the rules well! It is most commonly the 3rd or 4th fill that really kicks things into gear and you can really tell that it is working, but if not, don't despair. Some people take 5, 6, 7 or more. Overall, don't expect that the band will mean that you are never hungry. It is normal to be hungry at meal times. Eat! You can expect, however, that you won't be hungry between meals and that the quantities gradually drop until you hit that sweet spot where a half to a full cup of food each meal is all you really need to not feel hungry. Train your body into not expecting to feel FULL and STUFFED after a meal - that's what got us fat in the first place. Learn to listen for the "not hungry any more" feeling rather than "I'm so full, I CAN'T eat any more." Good luck on your journey!

It's a great feeling, isn't it? Congrats!

Have you combed through the hundreds of recipes already posted in the recipe section in this forum (and nicely categorised into liquids, mushies, etc)? If not, it's definitely worth a look and you can always PM the people who made the post to ask their permission to reproduce the recipe. Here's the link, in case you've had difficulty finding it: http://www.lapbandtalk.com/f82/

I thought I'd open this up to a wider audience but don't want to redo the poll as it would lose the existing votes. Click the link and record your vote! Poll: Does your doctor recommend an Atkins-like high protein/low carb diet? I have noticed that this seems to be a uniquely US phenomena, and one that is not recommended by any Australian doctors (as far as I know at this stage).

I couldn't watch it all but all I could think was those poor poor kids. Somebody needs to get that woman some psychiatric help, because that is not the behaviour of a mentally healthy person.

If you advertise at all on dating sites, it's best to be honest about yourself and believe me, ticking BBW feels a lot better than ticking FAT! Sure, people should love you for who you are on the inside, but the outsides have a lot (not all but a lot) to do with who is attracted to you. On those sites, you have two choices - truth or lies...guess which one works best? LOL - ironically, the banner ad as I am posting this is for the BBW Romance site :sad:

*cues Beaches music and sings to Jachut* Have I ever told you, you're my heeeeerooooooooooooo... :sad:

I'm going to take this bit by bit... That's a loss of 30lb in only 2 months! That's a fantastic achievement and you should be leaping for joy! Few of us lose quite that quickly. Congratulations!! Exercise will help in more areas than one - it will make you feel better, get fitter and will resculpt your body into a better shape. It may or may not help with weight loss, as you may build up muscle to replace the lost fat, and muscle does weigh more than fat, but it LOOKS a whole heap better. Start slowly and gently and build yourself up to it, but don't beat yourself up if you're not ready yet - you are losing at a great rate without it right now. Try not to think of the band as something that will stop you from eating, but as something that will help to stop you from overeating. If you can eat a whole plate of salad, that's WONDERFUL! Do it! Salad is good for you and will fill you up and stick with you, so that you're not suffering hunger pangs. If you're not eating much of other things, that might be worrisome and to me it is a sign that you don't need another fill. If you've lost 30lb in only 2 months, you can't have been at a "plateau" for very long. I know that as dieters, many of us are hooked on the positive reinforcement of the scale dropping every day and if it doesn't move for several days, we feel cheated and start to think we are failing, especially if we've been "good". This was probably my biggest problem in pre-banding days - if the scale stopped for more than 5 days, I assumed all loss had stopped and gave up in disgust. One of the best things I've learned about my body since getting the band is that loss comes and goes in rhythms that suit IT not our desire to see numbers move. There are so many other factors that influence the number you see on the scale - Water retention, time of month, stress. Personally I lose steadily for about 2 weeks, a fraction of a pound a day adding up to about 1-2 pound each week, then loss stops and my weight will "bounce around" up and down a pound or so for another 2 weeks, till suddenly it drops 2-4lb almost overnight and then gets back to the steady trickle down again. I've been able to tie this pretty closely to my ToM, and now expect that pattern and really look forward to my "drop day" . Take time to learn your personal rhythms. I wouldn't count it as a "plateau" until all loss had stopped for over 4 weeks. THEN it's time to evaluate what you're doing and make changes. I have a suspicion that you are already there but are just not recognising it yet. That's pretty normal - it took me quite a while to figure it out too. To me, the sweet spot is being able to eat just about anything I want if I'm careful and take my time to chew properly, but being satisfied on much smaller meals and not getting hungry between them. It also means that the hunger is under enough control that I can resist the urge to gorge myself or scoff chocolates or chips, not that I don't feel hungry at all. It took me AGES to work out that I wasn't going to get that old belly-stretching ache that I thought meant I was "full". I finally figured out that the pain (which I actually enjoyed) was the pain of being OVERFULL and STUFFED. Try eating your set portions (1/2 to 1 cup of food usually), then stopping and waiting for 15 minutes. Listen to your body. If you are HUNGRY, have a little more, but don't strive to feel FULL, aim for "Wow, I'm not hungry anymore, I can walk away now." THAT's your sweetspot. Boredom is another of my biggest triggers - I still find myself fossicking around for a snack in the mid-afternoon when I'm not hungry at all, just want something to do. Maybe that could be a motivation for you to exercise? Next time you think "Gee, I want something to eat", stop and examine the feeling - if you're not really hungry, just bored, get up and do something, anything. If you can't leave the house (e.g. small kids asleep or something), try just walking around your yard for 5 minutes. If you can get away, talk a 5-10 minute walk around the block. No-one says exercise has to start with a full 30 minutes or hour at the gym. Lastly (and I'm sorry about the novel, but your post really called to me), you are NOT failing!! Your numbers show you are having a wonderful success so far! Focus on your achievement and be proud of what you have done! Good luck on your journey.

I agree Jachut, and I'd also like to add that my question was relating to the ongoing after-healing diet, rather than the pre-op liver-shrinking fast. I did the Optifast option myself in the pre-op phase but, as you pointed out, our Optifast is higher in carbs than the US brand, so even on the minimum of 3 shakes + 2 cups of non-starch veges, it was very difficult to get below 50g carbs (Optifast alone was 45g) and impossible to get to the 30g recommended for Atkins. I don't see much of a problem with the high protein/low carb as a short term solution, but I think it is a dangerous route to pursue long term. I am particularly sensitive to this at the moment, as I have recently discovered that I have a kidney stone, so I will be watching my Protein intake to make sure I don't overdo it.

Good work!! :biggrin2:

I'd check with your doctor fairly quickly on that one. I don't want to alarm you but I've heard that reflux at night when lying down, coupled with no restriction in the day, can be a symptom of a slight slip. If they catch it early, it can be fixed by a simple unfill for a few weeks and then bring the fill level back up, but if it is let go until you have trouble swallowing in the daytime, it can get more serious. I may be way off base, so please don't stress over it, but I think it is worth ringing your doctor and asking him/her about it. More than likely it is just the fill kicking in, but better safe than sorry, eh?

TerriDoodle, the subject of the appropriateness of the rants and raves threads for newbie introductions to the forum has come up in other threads. I think it was you (or another mod) who suggested excluding the R&R threads from the list of new posts on the Home Page. Has this been done? I think it is a VERY sensible idea, as most of the newbies don't need these threads as part of their first introduction to our forum. This is a great place for us to let off steam, but we risk alienating newcomers who don't see the forum warning when accessing this from the Home Page.

I'm fine - doc has said he's happy to let it wait until the insurance kicks in. It doesn't really bother me at all (except when I've spent every night for a week poking at it, wondering what it was and bruising the area - LOL!). I wouldn't be in too much of a hurry to get another fill. With mine, it can take up to 2 weeks to really kick in before I feel the effects. I don't know how that works, but it seems to... might be something to do with daily water retention fluctuations, ToM when I get the fill, etc. Either way, I think you are far better off being underfilled than overfilled. You can always eat some more nice crisp salad veges to fill you up if you are underfilled and hungry, but if you are too filled, the temptation to go for slider food becomes hard to manage. Don't forget to plan in a treat for the end of the day, as part of your daily allowance!