Jachut

You've probably brought on a bit of exercise induced asthma and irritated your airways. I also find any sudden increase in exercise, even now, when I'm very fit, and I will, almost without exception, come down with a bad head cold, sore throat etc. When I started doing bootcamp back in October, i knew this would happen. So two weeks before, i did three very hard interval runs in a week of six runs. Really hard ones. Sure enough, I had a bad cold the next week, but I got it over and done with BEFORE i started the boot camp sessions which I pay good money for and didnt want to miss!

I wouldnt worry unless you are trying to lose more weight and not managing to do so, or were at goal and are now gaining. I've found gradually over time I can eat more, but that was necessary or I'd be 80lb by now, lol. I can eat a roll, its filling and I would only do it some days but I can eat most of one. I can eat about a cup of Pasta and sauce too. Cant do the pizza but can barely eat pizza and hate it anyway. I dont find it a problem because I'm at goal and staying there without effort. I burn off what i eat and need to eat reasonable amounts. So if it didnt come on suddenly, I wouldnt give it a thought. If you need to lose more, get a fill, if not, dont worry about it.

I would work out five or six days a week. It really takes a good 45 minutes a day, or even an hour. If you dont want to run those days, do something interval based, like circuit training or if you want to swim or do something steady like that, mix round two of your runs to be interval style runs where you mix fast, slow and all out sprints. The circuit training can be good as its a great way to get body weight exercises in to meet your strength training needs whilst also including lots of cardio. I think that's the key, lasting healthy weight loss requires strength training to protect and increase lean body mass, but weight loss overall requires tons of cardio. Three days a week is fantastic, but its more the required level for general health, your weight loss will benefit from five or six days a week.

Quite honestly, some of us are very very lucky. For me, it really WAS a breeze. I was a fairly healthy eater before banding, and had more of a problem with quantity, not with the quality of what I was eating. I also retained some fitness and have a general passion for sports and fitness, so I have never struggled with the exercise of the equation. I found a real love of working my body hard to keep it fit, I honestly enjoy it. So really, when you took the quantity issue out of the picture, as a band forces you to do, for me, the weight loss was then automatic. Lucky lucky lucky. BUT - that being said, I'm not one to make things hard on myself. Did I plateau out for weeks/months? You bet I did. But did I worry about it? Not at all. I honestly expected it, and saw it as part of the process and didnt worry over what I could change. I just knew that if I was lighter three years down the track than I was when I started, my banding was a success. I had a goal yes, but I also had a "lets just see where this takes me" attitude and I certainly didnt waste my time worrying about whether I was losing 2lb a week or 1 or 4. Some weeks I lost 4, some I lost nothing, didnt bother me at all. for someone else, they might lose just as much weight as I did in the end, but worry over every minor detail and consider it a challenge. Some people are just like that. Some people hate exercise and consider it a chore. I dont. I did it willingly and consistently. I'd say my feeling that it was a breeze was as much due to my attitude (which is how I am with everything really) as to the actual weight loss. I've got a good example of this - I'm a graduate teacher, an old one, yes, lol, but I've just started my first teaching position, teaching grade six. At my school, there's another graduate too. I'm finding challenges with behaviour management, I just dont seem to have the authority or command the respect yet to have a whole grade workign quietly and not testing the boundaries. But the way I see it, we're getting through the work, I havent had any REALLY bad behaviour or real disrespect issues, and I believe it'll come with time. So I come home and laugh a bit with husband about what vexing creatures 11 year old boys are. The other grad teacher is a complete mess, its really wearing her down, she's stressed out and worried about it and getting herself in a state. She's only young, 22, so there's that to consider, but I really think your internal resilience is very important in how you experience life's challenges, and that for many people facing big weight loss journeys a little reflection on how your strengths are in that area can be very valuable.

BetsyB I agree, and that's why I made the point that "eating what you want" means different things to different people - like you I am by nature a fairly clean eater who had more of a problem with quantity than quality. My body doesnt direct me very often to eat vast amounts of crap food - I've never eaten a lot of McDonalds, pizza, other fast foods, never been a chocoholic, etc. So I can "eat what I want" and stay reasonably within the general requirements that you must follow to lose weight. At the end of the day we all require a calorie deficit to lose and for some people, what you do to achieve that feels more like "diet" than it does to others.

We've had this debate before, and "eating what you want" means different things to different people. To me, it means choosing healthy, appealing foods and the occasional treat, but not obsessing over calories, carbs, fat or whatever. My personal opinion of that is that living that way is just as dysfunctional in its own way as living on the sort of diet with the sort of food relationships most of us had before. It may be "healthy" and it may make you "thin" but are you really listening to your body, getting rid of your positve/negative and punishment/reward attitudes to food. For me, I cant do that if I "diet". THen again, some people can live that way without my hang ups. Many people balk at my exercise schedule and say its obsessive. To me its just great fun and makes me feel good. So the easy answer is really, do your own thing. Nobody can say one way is right and one way is wrong but what we CAN say is that no one way is the only way. Strict strict dieting is not the only way to lose weight, its that simple. It may be a fast way and it may be people's preferred method, but nobody can say you MUST cut carbs or you MUST eat 800 calories a day becuase from a carb eating 1500 calorie a day person like me, I can say that's complete rubbish. It certainly didnt apply to me. Find your own groove, recognise your own body's calorie and nutrition needs and you'll be fine. So I ate what I wanted, lost all of my weight and then some and exercised a lot and have kept the weight off for a few years now.

I dont know, it may have an official name and all but all that pouch test is is another silly fad diet. So yes, you peel away a couple of pounds of Water weight in a few short days and like anyone who loses weight that way, you put it right back on again the minute you eat properly. Its not healthy for you, its lacking in balance, its just basically silly. Just eat right, all of the time with moderate treats and breaks from your routine and get fills when the amount that satisfies you no longer causes you to lose steadily (even if fairly slow). There's no need to "test" your pouch. When you stop losing evaluate honestly what you are doing. Have you started sneaking in more foods or more specifically, more bad foods? Could you ramp up your exercise? You know the honest answers to those sorts of questions. If you're doing the right thing most of the time and have stopped losing then its fill time.

I didnt have what you describe, but I did have weird mouth pain and every now and again still get it. After surgery, quite often, my esophagus and the roof of my mouth would begin to ache and my cheeks would hurt also. Really badly. Over time, this morphed into a sign that I was about to get a stomach ache, a horrid clenching pain that I cant relieve. I have had bouts of it at times, not long lasting and it always goes away again for months, often bought on by ice cream or cold drinks. But the roof of my mouth would really really hurt. When I'm eating something that's not going down well, sometimes the roof of my mouth burns and prickles. I suspect its just referred pain from your stomach doing weird things. From my very old memories of physiology and anatomy, the vagus nerve is one of the cranial nerves and is probably the path of these weird face symtoms. it supplies your stomach and is the reason why, for exammple, you get a really bad headache you may feel nauseous and throw up.

Dont count them, dont restrict them and dont base my diet on Protein. I eat whatever I want of fruit, vegies, wholegrains (such as wholegrain bread, crackers, cereals) and I do limit white carbs like white bread, white rice and Pasta, Cookies, cakes etc. Those arent good for anyone. Through having a lapband i've naturally gone from eating things like bread daily to only having a slice or two a week (if that) and not eating pasta and rice that often either, because once I've eaten my protein and vegies, there's no room. I am a bit fanatical about fresh fruit and vegies and make sure I get enough of those every single day and to be honest, after say an apple and Peanut Butter for Breakfast, a salad and chicken for lunch, where is there ROOM for more than a cookie or something? So I eat way less carbs than I did, which I think is important for everyone. But I dont think you have to cut them out to lose weight, well, not everyone anyway. I need them, I cant run well or exercise well without some. i havent found it at all necessary to count them and limit them consciously. But I sure dont need the recommended 4 slices of bread, plus all the carbs in other foods every day either. I dont consciously limit fat really, but I do watch what sorts of fat I eat. The danger in upping protein is taking in a lot of saturated fat and whilst strangely high fat diets can work for weight loss, that doesnt mean you're not clogging your arteries up with horrible stuff. So my fat tends to come from olive oil, avocadoes, and fish, less so than red meat. I tend to totally avoid deli meats, the very thought of what's in them makes me want to hurl, but i'm quite partial to nice cheeses and have to limit myself.

I may not lose easily, but honestly, its absolutely effortless to maintain this weight. I will be honest and say that i exercise a LOT and I work out very HARD. I'm very athletic, its stuff like you see on Biggest Loser, and actually, at Boot Camp the other day, a newbie did puke their guts out. That's how hard I work out and i do it almost every day, either bootcamp or a run of between 6 and 10kms. But I absolutely love it, so I dont call it effort. On the food side, I eat absolutely whatever I want, whenever I want. I never ever gain, its like a miracle.

I run four times a week (about 8kms at a time) and go to bootcamp twice. I continue to build on my fitness and aspire to very athletic goals. Why not? I may not need to lose weight but it still makes me feel good about myself, accomplished, dedicated etc. I love it, its great stress relief, I love feeling healthy and in control of my body, I love knowing I have great odds for a supremely healthy old age. Weight loss is about the least of the reasons why I exercise.

I also think gauntness is a fact of life for some people. Take my DH - he's a very tall, very thin build. Currently he weights about 210lb - should be a great weight for a 6ft 3 male. But for him, its overweight. His face looks great, no fat neck, no double chins, etc, and he's in fairly good health but he has a belly and man boobs and is no bronzed beach aussie. His "ideal" weight, when he last had no excess fat, a flat belly etc was about 180lb. He was very skinny with a bony face and a prominent adams apple. He DID look gaunt, but he had the right amount of fat on his body, the right waist size for low risk etc. Its just his body type. People are all different, but I just simply dont understand how people can say "no, that goal is too skinny for you". How the frig would they know? Its a stupid thing to say. And the right amount of fat to muscle ratio for you is just what it is, whether that makes you look "gaunt" or not. There's no point looking pleasingly plump in the cheeks if you're still a major heart attack risk, is there? Anyway, I think in this obese world, many people define normal weight as gaunt.

My previous lowest adult weight was about 155lb, something I only held for a few months two or three times, typically I was always about 180. At 5ft 10, that's not terribly overweight, just a bit pudgy. By pure coincidence my weight loss petered out at about 155, and stayed there effortlessly. Not a problem because that's a BMI of about 23. But over time, I've dropped a little more, I was 147 this morning. I tended to stall at all previously held weights and it was just coincidence that I ended up where I did, AT my original goal weight and also at my lowest adult weight. I dont lose easily now, not at all. I havent worked for these last few pounds though, they're more a result of returning to full time work in a new career and just plain not eating. I dont have time, I'm stressed etc. But I dont lose easily because I dont really have any to lose, not necessarily anything to do with weights being held before.

Save your money. Anything you sweat out and any weight you lose will be replaced with one glass of water! The only way to lose fat is to burn more energy than you take in, end of story. You dont burn more calories wearing a sauna suit.

OOh, that sounds like an easy work lunch!

OMG, you are the first person I've ever read to describe exactly my problem. Everyone has these aprons, I have a perfectly flat lower belly, but a pooch above the belly button. When i grab my skin and pull down as in a traditional tummy tuck, it barely imnproves the upper belly. I am afraid they would have to do that T incision and then you cant wear a bikini anyway. Or they'd have to put the hip to hip incision high. When they say you can wear a bikini, they often mean an awful 80's version where the bottoms come up to your navel. when I grab my upper belly skin and pull up, voila! Perfect, flat stomach WITH visible six pack. There is such a thing as an upside down tummy tuck where they put the incision under the breasts, but I cant see that anyone in Australia does it, its a very rare procedure and lord only knows what the scarring would be like. Normally what they'd do is a traditional tummy tuck with a vertical incision also (the upside down T) to pull you into the middle, to get at that upper belly skin. I wasnt even fat there! But it must be from pregnancy, I always did carry very high. I'm 42, I've had 3 babies and lost a frick of a lot of weight and I'm super super fit. I've decided to just wear my body with pride and focus more on how great I look for a 42 year old mother of 3 rather than focus on how I dont look like a 20 year old. At the end of the day, I figure I can wear a lycra dress and look good in it, all I need is some spanx for the saddlebags, lol. I can look great in fitted tops, tight Tshirts, anything I want to wear. So the choice is to just wear that bikini with pride or to simply wear a tankini instead. Personally, I dont think I'll seek out any sort of surgery. You look insanely good in your pic. But you're probably young and I can understand the bikini thing and wanting to fix it. Its a bit different when you're old like me, lol.

OK, I'm the first to admit I have many food vices, and I will even admit, I just took a huge spoonful of condensed milk out of the can (sheesh). But fast food, I have grown to loathe. Muffins, cakes, biscuits, sugar and fat combined in any form, I love, but greasy food like Mcdonalds, or pizza ugh. when offered a fast food dinner, I usually decline to eat at all. It honestly nauseates me. Many's the time I've stood in the food court at lunch time and given up and gone without. I just cant stomach pizza, for example, its awful and Mcdonalds I would never eat, apart from one or two bizarre cravings that have hit from time to time. We dont have mexican or anytging like that easily available, thats more a going out for dinner type food, and only very rarely can I tackle fish and chips, and only then if its down at the beach and fresh fish. Its one vice I'm very glad to not even have to struggle with. I just open a can of Soup if the rest of the family is having that sort of thing.

I am the first to admit that I really DO focus on the scale. One single lb can make for a fat or thin day for me. But then again, I really DO feel a million percent better at a BMI of 22 than i do at one of 26. My really ambitious ultimate goal that i'll probably never get to would put me at 20. I think people should stop where they want to but I dont find a lower BMI at all difficult to maintain (being an avid exerciser) and I really do feel and look a lot better with those extra pounds gone. I think its such a shame to not see just where this can take you and achieve a truly normal body weight, but to stop at a higher one. Its like there's this fear of actually arriving and having nothing else to pine over, strive for or dare I say it, berate ourselves or hate ourselves over. Once you cant focus on the extra weight, what do you do with your negative self feelings then? I'm really into hating my hair now, lol. Then again, obesity is a disease with many facets and some of us are worse afflicted in some areas than others. I guess looking "socially acceptable" rather than just being healthy is very important to me. More power to anyone who doesnt care so much about that and stops at a healthy, easily maintainable weight that might give them a BMI of 26-30.

It kind of depends why they are big. Some people will always have big breasts even when they're tiny everywhere else and others are only a DD because they're carrying way too much fat there, just like everywhere else on their body. I shrunk to a 12D from an 18E or so, but I guess I like smaller breasts. At 5ft 10, a D on me is quite "small", my bustline is not something you'd really notice about me. I like that clothes hang well, I like that I fit in bikini tops and I like that a lot of the awful sag I had is actually gone. My boobs have been through six years of feeding babies and a large weight loss, so they're not exactly pert, but my nipples now actually face forward and not down. I like the thin, small breasted look so for me, shrinking was a change to Celebrate.

I vowed I would never diet again. But I was very very lucky. I didnt have to wait for my band to work, it worked from day one. I didnt have to get several fills to get restriction, every fill gave me the right restriction for me at the time. Over time, obviously I needed to eat less and be tighter to keep losing but what I mean is that fron day one, I ate what I wanted, in the quantities that satisfied and my restriction was such that that quantity caused me to lose weight. I never ever limited or cut out any foods at all, I always had moderate treats and occasionally had a donut or something and i never ever ate "diet foods" like shakes, artificial sweeteners or bars. So my eating habits changed only in that I chose healthy more often and had treats less, and my band took care of portion size. That said, my eating habits pre band were not entirely bad, just too many treats on top of good food and too large quantity. For someone else, what I eat daily would be the torture diet from hell. I have NEVER in my life gone through a drive through for Breakfast, for example. The only time I would ever enter a Mcdonalds for breakfast is once a year on holidays when we leave home at 4 am. I just didnt and dont eat rubbish like that, or have those sorts of habits. I dont do liquid calories and never did - no milkshakes, confectionary coffees or soft drinks. So I didnt have vices like that to give up and suffer for int he first place.

Oh, well yes. I dont get the view that everyone has a right to a gun. That's a major cultural difference, I simply dont think that way, not in terms of self defence, or safety or hunting. I dont know ANYONE who owns a gun in my life and that's the way I like it. So personally, I would view anyone who owned a gun and knew how to shoot it (outside of their occupation) as a little strange. But like I said, its a cultural difference.

I never needed to change much, my weight loss got slower and slower till I reached goal, it just happened to stop about there. Then very occasionally, I'd drop another pound or two. My exercise has I guess come down a little from my peak, but I still exercise four or five days a week and pretty hard. I guess the difference is, I wouldnt be worried to see the very very bottom of my healthy weight range, currently I hover in the middle. My preferred body type is skinny and as I'm tall, I really dont do curvy well, I just look big and blockish. So when a pound or two falls away, I'm happy about it! If I ever did hit that bottom level of 135 or so at 5ft 10 (cant see it happening), then I would unfill a bit to make sure I didnt go any lower. And I think I might before then as I think I'd have no boobs left! But in short, the answer for me is I didnt need to do anything, my body decided where it wanted to be and it just so happened to be at around the weight I'd set as my goal.

Interestingly, I look the same now in my head as I did then and I still get a shock when I see photos because I expect the nasty feeling and I'm actually THINNER than I imagine!

I know you're joking - I'm glad you're joking. But on a serious note that soooooo illustrates the one negative I've always felt about this community. I never felt discriminated against becuase I was fat, but I sure as hell have felt so because I'm thin (sad to say that's often been here on this forum). Why do people assume all thin people are vain, shallow and self obsessed and waste their precious time hating or even thinking about fat people and how they can make them feel bad?. I think many obese people are just so down on themselves that they EXPECT others to treat them that way and then the way they behave brings it on. who said all thin people had huge egos? who has the right to assume that a thin person is that way by luck and can eat whatever they like, never exercise and stay thin? How would you know if they've ever been fat. I often find that the people that think this way are the first to scream discrimination when someone doesnt want to sit next to their fat ass on a bus.

I would shoot for "normal", but that's just me. I'm a bit of a perfectionist and I unashamedly say that I think thin looks good, particularly for taller women like me who tend to just look "big" even if not fat ('ve always envied shorter women that can look cute and curvy, for me, I feel I need to be slender to look feminine, otherwise I'm as big as many men). I'm 5ft 10 and 150 lb, so I would imagine that at 5ft 5, about 140 would be pretty good and then fine tune it from there. But that said, sometimes that sort of goal can be overwhelming and if you feel that you should maybe aim for say, 180 and fine tune it, or even 200 and fine tune it, its your choice and yours alone, its what makes you feel good and happy that counts.