Jachut

If you try to explain it, it sounds really depressing, lol. Like, eating is always slightly uncomfortable. There's always the risk of something getting stuck, every meal involves multiple sensations of not pain, but warning or discomfort. Some end badly, lol. You never know what's going to go down well and what wont. For me, Breakfast every day involves forcing something down I really dont want and tricking my body by eating it in small amounts whilst walking around doing my morning stuff. lunch means having an appetite and being hungry, but not wanting anything, standing around trying to decide what to eat. The real pleasure has gone out of eating, but i still enjoy it if that makes sense. No, you cant explain it, can you? Because its not as bad as it sounds and every little inconvenience is worth it 1000 times over.

I have restriction and I cant drink when I eat as it causes great discomfort. But I can eat ANYTHING. Some things are harder than others - apples and other fresh fruit are hard for me, but I still eat them, just carefully. I had a very strong craving for a Bic Mac a while ago - not a food I have a problem with overeating and not somethign I'd crave often, in fact its the only time in 4 years, so what the heck, I'm a healthy weight, I had one. I ate 3/4 of it, I took it slow but I had no particular trouble. that's from someone who's 4 years out, well and truly at goal (and past it) and maintaining with no trouble. I do a lot of exercise, so I dont need to have my band very tight and this way, I find there's absolutely no restriction on normal eating. I've had to learn of course to handle the "sometimes" foods, but that's a GOOD thing. I dont really desire to have those things off my menu simply because they're impossible to eat because then I dont think you're really learning to manage your own eating.

My doc does recommend keeping a can of coke around for this purpose. A big gulp will probably make you vomit - be warned though, i've drunk on top of major stuck and I thought I was going to suffocate, its an awful feeling but the vomiting does bring relief.

Well, no guys appear to be answering so i'll pipe up, lol. As a man, you have more muscle than a woman and are probably generally bigger, so you need to eat more. You really probably dont need to go below 1500 but exactly like a woman, its trial and error. There's a million sources on the internet that will give you a ball park figure, but you need to go by your weight loss and how you feel an adjust accordingly. Even as a female, but a very active one, I lost all my weight easily on 1500 a day or so, and I maintain on 1800 to 2000, so you probably would be able to do at least the same, if not eating more.

I've never had this happen, so I dont know what to suggest. if you're getting liquids down, you can afford to wait a bit, but you'd want it cleared relatively soon - you might be in for an unfill to let it pass. I'd ring your doc.

Oooh good luck Fanny. Surgeon's are so silly about this weight thing, as if 72kg exactly is the ONLY weight at which you will be healthy. Do they not realise that those are STATISTICS - which means you absolutely cannot apply an absolute to any one person. You could be a 72kg smoker and drinker or a 64 kg runner who lives on freaking mung Beans - who is going to live longer? Or you could be a 60kg pot head or a 72kg yoga and lentil enthusiast. the best weight for you is one you like, one that looks good on you, one that you can maintain with healthy measures. Dont let someone else, even a doctor, tell you what that is. Perhaps you could ask him if he's heard the latest research saying men with small appendages live on averate 6.72310 years longer than the ones hung like donkeys? It's about as sensible.

Truly, you can do yourself real damage by doing what your'e doing. You wont even know it until sometime down the track, your band slips. There are good reasons for the liquid to mushie to solid diet and you really really need to stick with it now, even if you're hungry. Its not fair, some people like me find this stage really easy and some dont, but we all need to do it. Your stomach needs to heal, and making it work to churn up solid food will prevent the scar tissue building up and adhering the band solidly to the stomach wall.

For the post op diet - I'd definitely rely on the surgeon's advice. for all else, the nutritionist. But even then, I'd make my own decisions based on my own beliefs becuase being a nutritionist is a lot like being a personal trainer - you work according to your own beliefs and those are based only really on current trends, not absolute medical proof that what they advise is best. Ten years from now, their advice will probaby be outdated. Anything works if you do it consistently - low carb, low fat, low calorie, etc.

That's a good way of putting it. Yesterday I put down $8,000 on a family holiday to Thailand and today I'm paying the tiler $5,000 to retile both of our bathrooms. So could I afford plastic surgery? Yes. Could I look better with a bit of plastic surgery? Yes. Do I value it above and beyond other things? No. Because I look fine, much like most other people. Good place to be. Maybe one day I might get a nice pair of bouncy boobs, but then again, I might get a really expensive leather couch!

I dont have issues with flying. The most I could say is that I am "unhungry" for a day or two after, which is, to me, not a problem at all!

I got banded at 38, am now 42, I lost 100lb and only have tiny amounts of excess skin and residual flabby bits where I always was flabby anyway (saddlebags anyone?) I was never very fat in my 20's, always maintained a BMI of about 27, but its 21 now and I can tell you after four years of running and circuit training, there's no part of me I really have to hide and I'd have been WAY happier in my 20's with the body I have now, versus the body I had then. The only thing I'd consider is a bit of boob work, but that's as much due to 3 pregnancies and 6 years of breastfeeding and they're not that bad anyway.

Not exactly the same, but i had shocking PMS, cramps, bowel symptoms and really really sore boobs that started up each month about four months after banding and lasted about 9 months before things settled and became more normal again. Hormonal disturbances like this are common when you're losing a lot of weight, but of course, it should still be checked out by a doctor. Dont assume it's just due to weight loss.

Sag sag sag! Lot 100lb, went from a 20 DD to a 12C. They were saggy when I was 16 years old though, I have never had perky breasts, always had downward facing nipples. I went to bed flat chested one night as a 14 year old and woke up with a pair of DD's so I have lots of stretch markes too, very faded now and barely visible, but obviously the skin was shot. I found they really upset me for ages because, yes, you can buy miracle working bras and even those chicken fillets you can wear to give you some oomph, but my breasts just "puddle" in any sort of bra so I have to be careful about how much cleavage I show. yet, the last 20 lb I think all came off my breasts and they shrunk down to a C and are now much more easily contained, they stay in my bikini top etc and actually look WAY better again. But they're little more than empty skin. Bear in mind I've got six years of breastfeeding 3 children behind me too. I've looked into a lift, the advice I've had is that I need implants too to restore volume otherwise they'll look a bit like ski jumps and flat on top. Not sure about it, dont want bigger breasts than I have, I like my C's and dont really like the whole fake boob look either. Have to buy a new house first anyway. But long story short, they were terrible for a while there but are now small enough that its not noticeable to anyone but me and I look completely fine dressed.

I know intellectually we all understand the band is a tool but i cant believe how quickly people give up on it and how they expect fast steady loss every single week. Your body is not going to behave so predictably. You've changed your food intake all around, going from virtually nothing during your liquid phase to re-introducing food. You lose a stack of Water when you're virtually fasting and you tend to rehydrate when you start eating again, yet people think their bodies wont show that on the scales? A big attitude adjustement and setting into this for the LONG HAUL would be beneficial to a lot of people. They can save themselves a lot of heartache that way and their bodies will do what they will do regardless. Same with plateaus. They happen. Your body breaks them eventually. See where you are in a year the THEN decide the band's useless. Truly, calm down. You're worrying about absolutely nothing and if you cant take the fluctuations you're better off not getting on the scale. There will also be many times when you need to go by how you feel rather than what the scales say.

Whilst our bodies need Protein and whilst higher levels does have definite advantages with weight loss, if you suddenly start eating more red meat, cheese, eggs, dairy and other cholesterol laden foods, it is entirely possible to be skinnier with worse blood chemistry. It doesnt happen for everyone and lots of people swear that a high protein low carb diet had quite the opposite effect for them. But you wouldnt think that after VSG surgery you'd be eating very large amounts of animal foods, so I agree, its very puzzling. But (and this is just a layman's guess) its probably more due to a reduction in the good, cholesterol lowering elements of your diet. You should maybe think about getting more of your protein from plant sources, including appropriate amounts of good fats like fish oil and avocadoes, getting plenty of fibre (which reduces cholesterol), including foods like oats (real oats, not packaged processed rubbish). shakes of course give you protein without a lot of the nasties. You also need lots of fresh fruit and vegies. None of this is easy to achieve with such small stomach space of course. what happens of course is that everone is told "protein first" (and this is a curiously US phenomenon, we're not told that in Australia) and focus on it, as they're told to do and with our tiny stomachs, out go the grains, the fruits, the vegies. The diet suddenly becomes very low calorie but very much animal based with very high proportion of saturated fat. Vigorous exercise like running will also have great effects on your cholesterol, particularly increasing the good levels of HDL in your blood.

You can get either cacium based stones or uric acid based kidney stones, but its not the calcium in the drinks that cause it. High Protein diets CAN affect your kidneys, but it generally takes a lot more than what most people can ingest, unless you already have underlying problems. High protein intakes are dangerous from some people. High protein diets can do things like increase the uric acid levels in your body which can lead to kidney stones - AND also high protein low carb always causes that amazing weight loss becuase your body stores carbs with Water, and as you burn all that glycogen up in the first few days/weeks, you lose lots and lots of water, hence the weight loss. That can actually lead to dehydration to a lot of people, which again, can lead to kidney stones in the susceptible. Its about balance - we need protein, yes and higher levels can have weight loss/lean body tissue advantages, so good for WLS patients, but if you're at all susceptible to kidney problems, you need to know about it. Despite the fact that shakes come packaged with a lot of crap such as artificial sweeteners, its probably healthier to supplement protein intake with them than to eat loads of cheese, eggs and red meat.

Four years out here and never had a problem. My weight loss averaged about 1.5 lb a week for the first year, although I tended to not lose for weeks and then suddenly lose 5lb. I started out with a BMI of 36 so I didnt expect the fast weight loss some had and I also refuse to EVER diet again, so no protein or calorie counting for me either. The second year I lost the other 25lb or so very gradually. I exercised very vigorously all the way through and still do so I never needed to be very tight or dip down below 1500 calories a day or so. Consequently, I have pb'd probably 10 times in 4 years and have never been overfilled or had any issues at all. My band simply makes it easy to eat proper portions and i can eat any food. I didnt get fast loss and I worked darn hard for it exercise wise, but I found the eating side of the equation quite simple - I ate less and lost weight.

I was about 210 lb when i started, down from 240 or so when I got banded. I'm 5ft 10 though, so maybe a bit leaner than such a high weight sounds. However, that was just the stage at which I decided to try, I probably could have done it earlier. I started out to do the couch to 5k, and I jogged the first jaunt and just really felt I didnt need to stop just then, so I kept going and i ran 3kms. So I had a very easy start. I was banded at a BMI of 36 and even at that weight, when my daughter was little, I did go out for very vigorous walks (when I was being *good*) with her in the pram, and would do little jogs in there. So I had *some* fitness. I restricted myself to 3 non consecutive days a week and took it really slow and easy, did a shuffle rather tham a run which was as slow as I could reasonably go without walking and was a slow impact as I could make it. I did that for a few months before I allowed myself to run more and start training for distances, and I managed to avoid injury, in fact in four years now i have never ever had a running injury. My advice would be to learn to run slow. Most of us have a natural pace but you need to learn to override it and go even slower - so that you dont tire within a hundred metres. You'll actually find your cardiovascular fitness builds very very fast - thats the easy bit - if you can go slow enough to build the endurance. That might be only 3 miles an hour, but its the jogging motion rather than walking at that speed that's important. Because its building the strength in your body - your bones, muscles and connective tissue that takes longer and that's what's important to allow you to really run. And even if you're only going at 3 miles an hour, if you're jogging that and not walking, you're forcing your body to adapt to the running motion and you will get there. You can combine that concept with the Couch to 5K program - I'd google that, becuase I believe there's now MP3 downloads that you can do it with - and walk/jog, but the imporant thing is to not run flat out so that you can barely run any distance. Good luck, take it slow and give your body lots of rest in between, do something totally different on other days. There's no satisfaction like becoming a "runner". I reckon it was better than losing the weight!

Its a big realisation isnt it? that's what I found most scary about the whole process, how on earth was I going to cope without being able to pig out? But in the end I didnt find it hard. I think I thought my food problems were worse than they actually are. I got the same satisfaction from much less food and never found that I felt deprived or like I couldnt cope at all. Hopefully, it will be as easy over time for you.

You really have no comprehension of just how hard your body has to work to move itself when you're heavy and just how much oxygen that takes. Exercise becomes so much easier when you've lost weight. I was always "fit" and could do 40 minutes on the elliptical right from the start, but I could never ever move like I do now. Running a couple of kilometres is easier than walking them used to be.

Well, that's just grossly incompetent. To not only miss the port - twice - but to put so much in without stopping to wonder why you werent feeling it. A fill is not a complex procedure and there's no reason why nurses shouldnt and couldnt do them, but that one needs a bit of a refresher course!

I've had reason to reflect on this recently, being a teaching graduate. In Australia anyway, we're desperate for males in the teaching profession. Graduate positions are very competitive, the males have a huge advantage. Also, when a school advertises for graduates, its always partly becuase they want to add younger people to their mix of staff, although of course, in something as beaurocratic as the public education system, they could never admit that. So being a 42 year old female graduate could be a bit of a problem, but i have a position for 2010. I'm absolutely sure it doesnt hurt to look young, fit and have a young persona! I'm quite positive that as an older looking, less energetic person I wouldnt have appeared quite so employable.

That looks yummy! I"m going to try that. The other thing that works well is a pita bread and put it in the oven, its SO crisp. I hate thick or chewy pizza crusts, very very fussy with pizza and will generally only touch gourmet woodfired ones. But pita breads in the oven work well.

Yes, its the only part of my body affected to the degree that I would consider surgery. But they were worse at about the 3/4 point, the last 20lb saw them shrink markedly and now they're only a c cup the sags dont worry me so much as they tuck neatly even into a bikini top. Its an easily hidden flaw too. We have 3 kids to pay private school fees for and a big house extension to do before I think about my boobs, but the advice I've had is that a lift alone wouldnt be sufficient to restore volume to the top and give cleavage, I'd need implants too - which I dont necessarily want since I like being a C cup and dont want big boobs again.

You probably wont find any restrictions at all.