Jachut

You know, you're right. The band has some serious downsides although touch wood, mine functions perfectly. Some people simply cant cope with the sensations it causes whilst eating either. But one thing it DOES do is make you listen to your body. Even eating when you're not particularly hungry is not pleasurable, even if its not painful, so head hunger can indeed be controlled.

I'm cooking for a husband and 3 kids, 2 of whom are teenage boys. I just eat whatever I cook for the family - healthy food is healthy food and appropriate for everyone. I hate cooking, lol, but I'm glad I have to do it. I think it always kept me somewhat in check. I would never feed my kids crap, would never let them eat take out regularly, or feed them 2 minute noodles, packet macaroni cheese, white bread and rubbish like that, so my base diet was always healthy, it was just all the crap I fed myself on top of it. Cooking for one would be really hard, I even make too much salad for lunch!

I dont personally think regular amounts of artificial sweeteners is a good idea - OK i'm phobic about them in particular - but really, anything like that in quantity is risky in my book. It is just so much easier to train yourself not to need it. Why do you need to sweeten tea or coffee? Its so easy to give it up, you get used to it in 2 weeks, max, its a much easier task than dieting in general. And I also believe artificially sweetening things keeps you with that pesky sweet tooth and makes you overeat sweet foods - things like soft drinks, popsicles, sweets, puddings, cordials, etc are just not foods you need or should be eating daily anyway - eat something natural and healthy instead. When you want something sweet, then have it with the sugar. When you're mindful of the calories/carbs then you're much more likely to eat appropriate amounts of it. That's my major beef with Protein shakes and bars. They are sources of protein yes, but they come with a whole lot of rubbish in them that you dont need and that some people believe are actually dangerous and every one I have ever tried is appallingly sweet. They are not (in my opinion anyway), everyday foods because they are usually artificially sweetened. Maybe a risk/benefit thing given the small stomachs of WLS patients though. Unflavoured protein sounds like a much better deal to me. But after that rather sanctimonious lecture, something's got to kill you anyway and if that's your cup of tea, why not? I can just thing of far more pleasant ways to kill myself, real sugar being one of them, lol. I swear every time I ingest diet coke I can feel a brain tumour growing, I'm really phobic about it, but I'll eat somethign like a hot dog (lord knows what's in THOSE) without a qualm.

I just typed a long post on this very topic, but in brief, I really consider dieting dysfunctional behaviour that hinders your progress towards being 'cured' of obesity. As long as you impose rules on your body and dont listen to it - as in, I really want a sandwich but rules say no bread, so I'll eat chicken instead - I dont think you will ever gain full control of your appetite and hunger. If you want the sandwich, have it! When you give yourself permission to eat anything, and you get rid of the ridiculous notion of good food v bad food, you will probably find that your body directs you to eat in pretty good balance. I've had success with this in the past, there are any number of books on the topic, but I still always ate too much. With a band to control portions, this approach has worked really well for me. Did I always get my recommended Protein in (not that we have "recommended protein" approach in Australia)? No. Did I sometimes eat too much saturated fat? Yep. Did I occasionally binge on white carbs? You betcha, old habits and addictions die hard. But over the years, that sense of panic my body seemed to feel in having foods denied it has reduced. I have mentally accepted I can eat whatever, whenever if I'm reasonable and not gain weight. And these days, I really feel totally free of the hold food had over me. It really is just food. There's certain foods I like and I really do have to say no to them often, because i would overeat them. But I've gotten over the notion of having to eat chicken and broccoli because its 'good' and forego the mashed potato coz its bad. And guess what, sometimes I dont fancy mashed potato and I really DO fancy broccoli. so no, I dont diet, I dont look up how much protein or calories I need in a day, I dont log, I try not to think about it too much (because after a lifetime of dieting I do know the calorie count of everything) and I figure if I dont get enough, say, Omega 3's in my diet, well, so be it, I dont smoke and I dont use sunbeds, so all the risks even out in the end.

OK, so this is a bit off topic, and you've got to just get through the post op phase and follow your instructions, its difficult but the long term outlook can be yes, you can eat very very normally, in ways you'd never imagined. I've worked very very hard to eat like a normal person. That meant strictly banning myself from calorie counting, Protein obsessing, fat avoiding, good food/bad food, logging, following programs - any of what I consider dysfunctional dieting behaviour that in the long run does more harm than good. Instead, I ate what I wanted, practiced asking myself each and every time what did I want and was there a good choice or healthier version or did I *really* want that just now or could I have it later if I still wanted it and eat something healthy instead now. Most of the times I chose better, sometimes I didnt. When I didnt, I didnt care, I enjoyed it and moved on. I eat whatever the heck I want to basically, and my appetite does direct me towards fairly healthy foods most of the time. What I've noticed about myself is that I need to include some fat and protein in my meal. I didnt REALLY want crap like muffins for lunch, but I chose that because I felt like I ought to eat some boring, unsatisfying salad. There's a happy medium, and you need the protein and fat (good fats of course) to satiate you, when you achieve that, the stupid head hunger stays down a lot longer. the only thing I am strict on myself is white carbs like biscuits, cakes, muffins, donuts. Those are my real problem foods and best just avoided. And I like a glass of wine, but try not to drink daily. More like a glass 2 or 3 times a week. I added in exercise, didnt have to obsess there, I absolutely love hard hard exercise, so that helped enormously. Nowadays, I eat like a normal person. I skip Breakfast if i'm not hungry and dont then obsess about how that will slow my metabolism, nor do I give myself permission to make up the calories later that day. I eat 3 meals, I'm not really naturally a snacker. I eat all foods, I count nothing. I dont fuss about holidays like Christmas, everyone eats a bit more than and if you gain a pound you can lose it again. I can eat whatever anytime I like so why do I need to go crazy on Christmas day? I feel completely free of my former food shackles and totally normal. I'm not afraid of any food, my weight stays steady and because food no longer has such an important part of my life, I dont want it inappropriately as I dont feel deprived. For me personally, getting banded and then following a diet or unreasonable rules (I mean, there are some band rules that must be followed) would never have worked. Oh, I would have lost but I wouldnt have been "cured". I didnt want to diet ever again.

Oh, we're definitely tough on ourselves. I think if I could really see how small I am - at five foot 10, I'm an 8 in American sizes, I'd be thrilled. Instead I think I cant wear this or that becuase my muffin top is showing. On other women, I find tiny little love handles, or a little bit of a roll on the lower tummy not at all unattractive - it's real! It makes them look like normal but attractive women. But I cant tolerate it on myself. Women far bigger than me go around in tight clothes and I am completely pedantic about never showing bra straps, vpl etc. I always always always check my outfits for bulges, visible underwear etc. Cant stand VPL!!

I just have to chime on on this muscle gain thing. You just dont gain 10lb of muscle from what is a couple of weeks of pretty mild exercise - and only cardio at that. By the way, its a FANTASTIC effort to get started in this way, its goign to have great fat loss benefits and its what you need to be doing. But to gain 10lb in a short period of time, you'd have to be doing some pretty heavy duty lifting and as a woman, you probably STILL couldnt gain that much. 10lb in an entire YEAR would be good going! When we start working out, our damaged muscles can hold onto Water, leading to small weight gains. But cardio will only build muscular endurance, and tone you up, you will not gain a lot of muscle, although it will help to protect your muscle during weight loss. So it has to be a combo of other reasons - not realising what you're eating, carrying some extra Fluid, rehydrating, hormonal fluctuations. Hopefully it was just a blip and you've lost it again by now.

Most likely what will happen if you're really stuck is that you take a swallow of something, throw up whatever you swallowed and what is sticking remains there. so you'll probably throw up vinegar which wouldnt be very pleasant. Worth a try though. I've only drunk once to try to bring on a pb and I'll never do it again. I thought I was going to choke, I literally couldnt breath.

I'm vomit phobic too, I'm such a baby about it and the couple of times the kids have had tummy bugs since I've been banded, i've been panicking. I'm so bad I convince myself I'm sick. I'm not like that with anything else, I'm not squeamish, nothing, so I dont know why I'm so childish about vomiting. I hate it hate it hate it. But pbing when you've banded is NOTHING like vomiting. I cope with it matter of factly although its hardly ever happened to me, maybe 10 times in 4 years. I get the stuck feeling, which often as not passes on its own, but I get some little warning feelings in my stomach, them it will cramp tightly and I know I'm goign to pb, so I go and do it, its a cough and a bit of strong wretching and up ti comes, a small amount, instant relief. Its NOTHIGN like that awful nausea, pain, panic and them copius hot acidic vomit coming out your mouth and nose. But of course, you're not going to really know that till after you've been banded. But I promise, its nothing like real vomiting.

I was at boot camp last night and the trainer has combined the 6pm and 7pm groups as we didnt have enough in the earlier session. So I trained with a new bunch, its at my son's school so mum's, dad's and other local people. Probably aged between 30 and 45. I'm 42 I was easily the fittest person in a group of 20. My pals from the 6pm are all pretty good, but I'm fitter, however it didnt really strike me so much in a group of six, but to do 4 sets of everything (including 4 200 metre runs) to everyone else's 3 made me realise how much I've achieved. Most of them have never been majorly overweight, most could lose between 20 and 40lb perhaps. So for me to ahve been 100lb heavier and to rum rings round them, also after 3 babies, made me feel good. I value my fitness more than the actual weight loss, for sure. It gives you such great esteem and respect for your body. I love what I can do.

I think you make a good point Judy, that when you're *lighter* (only relatively speaking) than other WLS patients, people seem to think they have a right to tell you you dont need surgery. I had a BMI of 36 when I was banded and I dont care what anyone thinks, I was not losing that weight on my own. I would have a BMI of over 40 now if I'd continued on as I was going. I needed that surgery as much as someone who weights 400 lb needs help. I was just lucky enough to get that help at an earlier stage. I also bristle when people insinuate that you shouldnt have WLS for cosmetic reasons. Well, I wasnt sick, in fact I was still pretty fit, which is why I've been able to build to such levels of athleticism post band. But I looked terrible - fat, sloppy, out of control, I was behaving that way, I was getting lazy and my fitness was beginning to decline. I wanted to look a certain way, dress a certain way, start my new career looking great, have the energy to stay young and not become another fat frumpy 40 something. What on earth is wrong with that and why shouldnt I have surgery to achieve it, particularly when said surgery will protect my health and quality of life for decades to come? Why is it OK to fill your face with toxins, stuff silicone in your chest, go through major surgery and pain to slice off bits of your body but I'm unforgiveably vain for having WLS (and no other cosmetic procedures I might add)? Give me a break, that's a ridiculous argument! Keeping it to yourself avoids all those judgements. Unfortunately, i dint come across them in real life, I came across those opinions on lapbandtalk! Astounding.

Conceivably weight gain could make your band tighter as weight loss certainly loosens it. But it wouldnt be an overnight thing like you mentioned. Somethiing has more likely irritated your stomach and caused swelling.

I dont have that much control over my body, lol. Either I'm going to slime painfully and it goes away or I'm going to pb and I cant stop that happening either. I dont have the choice to "let it come up". It either will or wont. But I have gotten better at it, I think I instinctively fought it early on and i have never in my life made myself vomit to "feel better" and probably couldnt do it even if I tried. But I can relax and let a pb happen and it happens more quickly with less resistance these days. Oh golly, that sounds suspiciously disordered doesnt it? Only another bandster would understand.

I eat about the same things as I did before, just way less of them. However, I do choose healthier more often. But if I want something not so healthy, I have it. I have tried very hard to rid myself the good food/bad food diet mentality forever. I dont want to count calories and/or Protein for the rest of my life. I agree, that's not what normal weight people do. I also exercise like a fiend with running, bootcamp and circuit training. You dont really need to count calories so carefully when you burn so many.

I know people cant help being anxious over this issue, but there's really no point. If you're losing more than 1-2lb a week, then you probably dont NEED a fill. So why worry about not having one? You dont get a band to never feel hungry again, you get one to feel normal levels of appetite and hunger. I didnt have my first fill until 12 weeks out becuase I just didnt need it. Yes, I started to get hungry and my weight loss slowed from a pound a day to 1 to 2 per week over that time, and yes, I did start to eat more but I was still losing, so why worry? If your doc doesnt give you a fill this time and you are beginning to get hungrier, then you will probably eat a bit more and then your weight loss will slow and you'll get one next time, but hopefully, he'll be reasonable. I simply said to my doc, yep, weight loss is good but I am beginning to feel hungry, so perhaps just a tiny fill? And that's what we did, I had lots of teeny fills, not three huge ones. But its much easier the way it works in Australia becuase my doc is a few suburbs away and fills cost me nothing. I think setting weight loss goals is absolutely pointless. You have no control over what your body will do and you have no real way to truly control your rate of loss. You WILL plateau out at times too. People hardly ever lose regularly every week -my pattern was more like 2lb a week for a few weeks after a fill, then nothing for three or four weeks, the suddenly four lbs would be gone overnight, then nothing in a month, then six pounds etc. In other words, totally random. It AVERAGED 1-2lb per week in that I lost about 75lb the first year, but it was i no way steady or predictable. And there was nothing I could do about that so i didnt worry about it. I also appreciated that my doc was realistic too - I dont think I ever went in with no loss at all, but sometimes it was only 2 or 3 lb and we woudl discuss fill levels and such - but no accusations, or directions to do better.

Honestly, I'd wait. You've still got a lot of weight to lose and the next 90 will make much more difference than the first 57 did. I found that I was in despair over my saggy boobs, and that awful bra cup lip for most of my weight loss, I was a 40DD before and am a 32C now. But the last 30 lb REALLY shrank my boobs and at a C they sag less and are much more manageable and although they are just skin (I've also breastfed for six years) I can wear push up bras and such again without spilling over. But the difference in my breasts with the last 30lb was major and would most definitely have affected any plastic surgery I'd had quite markedly. Just 40 lb ago I was thinking about a breast REDUCTION as I was still a DD and hated it. I'm not a fan of big boobs, lol. And suddenly, they shrank to a nice C. Also, go and get fitted. If your bra is riding up your back, you are wearing too big a back size. I always assumed it was my large breasts that caused this to happen, the back would ride up to my shoulder blades, straps would fall off my shoulders and I'd look as dumpy as if I were braless. In one fitting I went from the 40DD to a 36E. It made SUCH a difference. The support them came from the back strap, not the shoulder straps and I looked much better, and was more comfortable, and my bra strap stayed mid back, it didnt ride up.

portion control only. For me, part of recovering from being overweight was giving up dieting and the dieting mentality forever. I'd had success with this in the past (but its very hard to ditch a lifetime of dieting habits) but I still ate too much to lose significant weight. To me, no food is good or bad. I dont believe in beating yourself up because you ate white bread and i dont believe in fooling yourself that becuase you get 100 grams of Protein in your day you can forget about the other crap that comes in packaged food like protein shakes and lean cuisines. I believe you should eat white bread if you want to and you should drink protein shakes if you want to, or you can do BOTH but neither makes for a good or bad diet overall. Moderation, common sense and proper portion control are what's important. Worked for me anyway, along with lots of tough exercise.

I didnt think they could becuase that will paralyse your lumgs. I thought they could only do a surgery that required a spinal below the waist. So to have lapband surgery it wouldnt be a spinal where you feel absolutely nothing? Its more sedation. Eeeeek. I'd far rather be out cold. But then again, lapband surgery is not particularly complicated, it doesnt involve cutting up your organs, only entering your abdomen, so it probably wouldnt be as freaky as the though of having a caesar and being awake was to me.

I struggle with fruit and nothing I do - cook it, mash it, puree it, makes it easier. An orange or a crisp apple (peeled and cut) works and banana would be OK only its like oysters to me, if I really chew it and taste it, I'll gag and vomit. Its a 2 chew max food. But stone fruit, grapes, melons like rockmelon and canteloupe, or worse, fruit salad, ugh.

Oh yeah, the smaller my boobs got, the happier I was. I woudlnt want to be flat chested, but a C is great and I cant figure for the life of me why women actually want D+ sized breasts. When I had them, I hated them, they made me look and feel matronly and heavy.

It is scary isnt it? I think that realisation was my defining moment in losing weight, I always read the stories and wished I could have a light bulb moment, but it never happened. Then one day, I was feeling really scared about the surgery, trying to decide whether I wanted to do it or not. In a moment of complete self honestly, I realised that what I was scared of was not being able to stuff a packet of chocolate biscuits down my cake hole. Did I really want to give up that guilty pleasure? I suddenly realised that I *did* use food to cope with stress. I realised that I did get something out of eating like that, it was enjoyable and comforting and I chose to do it for that reason. It became clear to me that the reason why i was having trouble deciding to have the surgery was becuase i wanted to leave myself an out, I wanted to choose not to eat that way but still be able to! And of course, following on from that was the knowledge that if I ever wanted to lose weight and keep it off, that behaviour had to disappear forever, lapband or not. After that, it was easy to make the decision and not feel scared.

I think the recommended 2 year waiting time after surgery for PS is a good idea too. I found I was obsessed with this stuff right when I hit goal, which was 2 years ago now. But since then, my body has settled, I've gotten used to the new me, and I just dont really care about having perfect boobs, or whatever, anymore. I think you need to let your head catch up a little or before you know it, you've nipped and tucked every part of your body. In the last 2 days I've put down $8,000 on a holiday to Thailand and $5,000 to the tiler who's redoing both of our bathrooms. We're going couch shopping for a gorgeous cream leather wraparound on Saturday. So we've probablys pent $16,000 in a week. Not something we do often, lol. But obviously, if I really CARED about the PS I could have priorised that. But truth is I dont. PS is great, of course, if you want it. But you might find over time, all these little niggles and worries cease to bother you.

Great feeling isnt it? I bought some pants the other day, I tried on the (Australian sizes) 12 and they were just a little firm around the waist, so I bought the 14. Well, of course, an hour of wear and they'd relaxed a little and now I have these enormous size 14 cargo pants! Cant take them back as I wore them, but I dont even care.

Sizes seem so small when you wear a large one. But your size 14 is our 16 to 18 and even though I'm 5ft 10, for me, that's still rather LARGE. I'm straining the high end of my healthy weight range to wear a 16 and 18 is overweight, I was last an 18 at about 185lb. Way too heavy for my 5ft 10. At a healthy 150lb for my 5ft 10, I'm wearing an 8 in US sizes. So like Vegas says, its PROBABLE, not just possible that you'll be even smaller than a size 14 at a healthy weight. Most women are smaller than me and have healthy weights under 150lb and that would place a good percentage of them at less than a 14.