Jachut

I cant figure the logic between saying you'd lost too much weight too fast and then not connecting that to fill levels.

High weight low reps - and go really heavy, as heavy as you can possibly manage. Better yet, do it circuit style, dont have breaks and sets in the same way that you do with regular lifting - and focus on whole body movements, dont waste your time standing round doing bicep curls. It will get your heart rate skyrocketing and torch calories.

No. I can count on my hands the number of times I've puked in four years. But eeeew little froggy. that'll learn ya to clean the rubbish out of your car when you get home! Just as an aside, how on EARTH could you get it into a soda can. When I do puke, its loud, violent and although not copious, there's no way I could do it into a can or bottle.

Google circuit training, there is loads and loads you can do at home with virtually no equipment to get really fit. Walking is great, it shoudl be something everyone does often and at the start of your journey, when you're heavier and havent been active, then its perfect to get your weight loss going. It will build some muscle and fitness. But the human body is designed to walk long distances and unless you're a dedicated power walker, it will be really difficult to build impressive fitness and lose 100% of your excess weight, gaining the type of body muscle tone most of us want, with walking alone. It will simply get too easy and wont continue to benefit you in the same ways. You can progress your walking into running when you're ready by adding intervals of jogging, gradually expanding them etc, just as when you can jog long distances, you build in periods of real running. There are so many body weight exercises that will benefit you too - pushups, dips on a chair, planks, squats, lunges - try lunge walking around even your backyard and see how much THAT hurts, lol. You can build circuits by say, doing 20 squat jumps and running a short course (or using a skipping rope for 2 minutes), do 3 sets of that, then change to push ups and skipping, then change to say sit ups and skipping, use playground equipment to attempt things like pullups as you get stronger, the ONLY limit is your imagination. personally, I made myself a sandbag out of a bag of garden mulch and I love hoiking that around rather than using weights. Twenty squats with a 15kg bag will get your heart rate up pretty well! I find this sort of thing easy to make up because I have a fair degree of anatomical knowledge and knoweldge about health and fitness, but you can research it and find all sorts of free programs and demos on the web and especially youtube. The only limit is your imagination. But do take it slowly, obviously I'm using things I like to do as examples and I'm pretty fit and no longer carrying excess weight. But you definitely dont need a gym to get really fit. At the moment, if you committed yourself to say 2 circuits a week where you mentally prepare yourself to work REALLY hard - feeling a bit ill and man am I going to be sore tomorrow type of hard - and then walk the other days at a more pleasant intensity, that would be a fantastic start for you. The duration of walking is great for fat burning, but you will really rocket your results if you can push yourself for two really intense sessions every week. With driving to the gym such a bit committment, dont feel pressured to have to do it. But if you can visit twice a week for a short period to do a circuit class or a personal training session or similar, explaining what you want to achieve, you will pick up knowledge about how to do these types of exercises so that you can design your own program at home.

I completely understand where you're coming from and I think you'll be very successful. Anyway you look at it, prevention is better than cure. I really think our bodies have a memory for our weight, and the heavier you get, the higher the weight your body will strive to get back to after you've lost it. I was a BMI of 27 once upon a time, at age 15 or 16. I was desperate about how disgustingly fat I was, because to a 16 year old, to not be petite and skinny IS a huge issue. I dieted my way over the next 15 years up to a BMI of 30, by which time i really WAS becoming obese. Throw in a couple of babies over the next few years and my BMI was 36. And at no time had I ever stopped trying to "lose" it. This cycle is so typical for women, dieting not only doesnt work, it actually makes many of us fatter. With your issues, you cant afford to get heavier and heavier and it seems once you're on the slippery slope, it is inevitable. I think you're very smart to be doing something about it now. No doubt you'll encounter negativity along the way, be prepared to just ignore it and remain committed.

Truly, 31 lb in four weeks is HUGE weight loss and there's going to be a very large percentage of Water and Fluid in that loss. Your body has no more of that to give up. Fat loss is a lot slower and your body eventually does rebalance itself, retain a bit more fluid etc. A two week plateau, honestly, its nothing. I'm banded, not sleeved, but I plateaued out for months at a time. You just keep on doing the right things and eventually it moves again. You've no doubt still got a lot of great, satisfying and regular weight loss ahead of you once this current plateau breaks, but wait until you're down to the last 30 or 40lb, that can take three times as long as the first 70! It gets very unpredictable and quite frustrating. But if you stay true, it will pay off in th end.

And you know what, sometimes the beautiful people have been right where you are and are more empathetic than you think! They're not judging you. I know how you feel, I bawled my eyes out finishing a 7.5km fun run once.

I think the band requires quite a lot of user effort to be really successful and based on that, the amount of people that lose 100% of their excess weight is fewer. Bypass is more likely to give you automatic weight loss for less effort. However, the effort you put in with a band pays off - particularly if you're good about getting your exercise. You learn new habits and that keeps the weight OFF. You can stretch out your pouch, but basically, barring slippage and erosion, things like that are relatively easily fixed and you can readjust your restriction when you need to unlike if you stretch out your bypass stomach, you're pretty much up sh&t creek without a paddle. The band can cause some unpleasant side effects such as vomiting, inability to eat a lot of foods, heartburn and reflux and it just plain gives some people too much bother to be a viable option long term. But do a bit of research on the sleeve, and you can see the issues starting to emerge now, reflux, heartburn, lactose intolerance, unpleasant gas and vomiting. Yet like a lot of bandsters most sleevers would say that its minor and a price well worth paying for health and anyway, like with the band, the majority have few issues and are very happy. Nothing is perfect, its more of a matter of whether you want to permanently reroute your organs - which is sensible if you really have eating disorders to the point where you wouldnt be able to work with a band. At 100lb overweight, you could probably go either way. personally I find the band a very liveable device which has never caused any problems, I lost 100lb relatively easily and keep it off fairly easily too. I am a dedicated exerciser though.

Hardly ever, I dont really like it and never did. but I dont really stop to think about it on the occasions I might have something like champagne or a gin and tonic, which again, is hardly ever anyway.

Lol, I have a cat in one hand right now Cleo's Mom! We've got a new little kitten named Lily. She's driving me nuts, she keeps running up the leg of my jeans (my legs are covered in scratches) and jumping on the keyboard. And she's chasing the other two cats' tails, lol. Maybe if I ate some chips, I could give her the crunchy bag to keep her occupied?

I've come to decide that programs such as this are really valuable when you're banded. If there's one downside to being banded, its that it does not always lead to the healthiest diet. I find my biggest challenge is remaining on a good meal plan and good routine, I tend to fall into the picking on crap all day and never really eating trap. I'm doing Lite n Easy at the moment, which is a home delivered program we have in Australia. I'm not a logger or counter, so I've always struggled a bit with WW but if you are good at doing that sort of thing, I think having a plan to follow is really really good for keeping you on the straight and narrow and making sure you eat enough of the right things instead of living on yogurt, biscuits, chips and Soup. I know I would NEVER peel and eat an apple unless its delivered to me for my morning snack!

You know, it doesnt sound that unusual a situation, it sounds like yet another case of the way the band has been made out to be some sort of miracle for effortless weight loss. Sharing stories like yours is really helpful in helping people to accept the reality of living with a band. You werent a huge volume eater to begin with, so that perhaps made in not the best choice for you personally. Your band was obviously overfilled, but you didnt have enough weight to lose to get the automatic weight loss many heavier people get when they get banded, so you had to go tighter and tighter to eat less and less. As for the changes you eventually made to lose weight (well done!) that's EXACTLY what most successful bandsters have had to do. We still have to make those changes, the band with some restriction just helps us to make them more comfortably. Its just that the effort that it takes is not really well advertised. I could have done what I did without the band becuase it holds me back when I do go off the rails and I never regain weight. But what I lost, I lost with HELP from the band and with a LOT of effort on my part. I still have to choose not to eat junk, I have to keep my band loose enough to eat fibrous, healthy foods which means that I deal with the appetite that could be controlled by going much tighter, and I work out really really hard, a couple of 10km runs, two bootcamp sessions and two tough circuit classes a week at present. I avoid fatty foods and processed carbs, I stick to a 3 meal a day schedule and I use other tactics to control the head hunger and appetite that creeps in between meals. I will have to do this for the rest of my life to control my weight. If my band were tighter I could eat less than I do with no problem but then I woudl be dealing with blockages, vomiting and heartburn. Like you, my port is pretty darn visible (but only vaguely, not golf ball sized) as I have a BMI of 21 now, ironically the only loose skin I got from a 100lb weight loss is on my upper belly (more from pregnancy as I never carried weight in my stomach), but I dont mind. I'm happy to wear a bikini with a lump showing, its a million times better than rolls of fat hanging there.

I started off with gentle walking the day after surgery followed by the elliptical for 40 minutes 3 or 4 times a week. Then at about 3 months out I tried running and was hooked. I gradually built up distances but basically my routine was to run between 6 and 10kms about five times a week while I was in the main phase of weight loss. Sporadically I would replace some of the running with some pretty tough circuit training, but that was mainly towards the end, when I was trying to really shock my body into losing that last 10 lb. Nowadays I'm running, doing circuit classes at the gym and boot camp twice a week. Its a lot of very tough exercises but it has given me that really fit look I was after, I didnt want to be just thin, or have really big muscles, I wanted that toned look and I got it. I've definitely lost fat (although not weight) recently since I started the boot camp. There's a lot of debate over the value of cardio like running versus strength training - I think both is ideal. I do mix my running up with a lot of interval training, I dont just run at one pace every time. But I notice in boot camp, I have easily ten times the muscular endurance and strenght in my lower body than the other participants and am workign with the two men, rather than the other women, I personally think the theory that cardio wastes away your muscle is rubbish, I have visible and very strong lower body muscles and a very strong core. Unless your aiming for big muscle growth as in body building, I think a lot of cardio is valuable in a weight loss sense, supplemented by good circuit or strenght training. I probably would have had quicker results if I'd done both all the way through but I love running so much, I didnt want to take time away from it.

Ugh, chips. They REALLY hurt. I dont have a particular problem with them, but do fancy them when I get in a certain mood. The main ones we have here in our house is salt and vinegar - everyone's favourite, but I particularly like lime and black pepper. I can get blocked on the more kettle style chips, but the main problem they cause me is horrendous heartburn.

I'm 4 years out and I still feel it everyday. Pain - no. I dont feel pain except rarely when I'm about to pb due to eating too fast, too big of a bite, not chewing enough etc. That happens to me very rarely. Momentary blocked discomfort feelings, every single meal really. But its just a bodily sensation that is now normal to me, it really doenst bother me except for occasionally when I might look at someone eating something without thought and think how much I would love to just eat with abandon occasionally. I can eat ANYTHING I choose to, but I cant do it without care. I also would like not to feel a momentary pang of anxiety that something embarrassing will happen every time I eat with others. It actually never has in four years, but the possibility always exists. Eating never goes back to "normal". But who would truly want that? I also never wake up without feeling joy to be thin and fit and no longer obese. The daily joys way outnumber the daily discomforts to me.

Also, when you've lost all your weight, you have really done it by quite severe calorie restriction. That's why you need a band forever - whatever way its achieved, calorie restriction like that slows your metabolism - even when you exercise. I now maintain on about 1800 calories a day which is what all the charts say I should eat to LOSE 2lb a week. Its inevitable. So for us former fatties, it takes less than it would for the average person to gain a little. Exercise is, of course, your main weapon here. The more active you are, the less you will find your weight varies.

Lol, for me its a sure sign of pregnancy!

This really angers me (not what you're saying, what your friend said). What exactly is WRONG with wanting to be a size 7, or more generally what is wrong with wanting to lose weight to look better?.Would you say to someone having breast implants "oh, you just want big tits"? Well, DER, that's the whole point. As it is with weightloss, of COURSE for many people one goal is to look great. I had no real health issues - they were starting to develop - but for me, this was very much a cosmetic decision too. I think I was more concerned with what my future held Healthwise and how fast old age was going to catch me at the rate I was going but damn I wanted to look good too. I am also five foot ten and I would be a size seven to eight in your sizes. I do not look sickly, scrawny, I am not obsessed with food and exercise (although I do love love love to exercise) and I maintain it very easily. I wake up every day feeling so darn good becuase I am in control, I am steering my life towards what I want. It has given me confidence in so many areas and just knowing I look good and feel really really good about myself makes me really happy. Its not everything of course, but mental and emotional wellbeing is an important part of your health and if you're a person who just wants to get healthy at whatever size then that's fantastic, and if you're a person who wants to be fashionably thin and dress a certain way etc, then that's ALSO fantastic. We can choose our own goals and I think people like your friend who suggest it like its some sort of shameful vanity are quite ignorant and oftentimes very jealous.

I think you handled it extremely well. I never leave margin for error in a restaurant, I'd rather be starving an hour later than overeat and deal with the consequences. I've gotten over the embarrassment it can sometimes cause - I was craving a good old fashioned burger a while ago - not McDonalds crap, but a good toasted bun, a proper home made pattie etc. I ate literally a tenth of the thing, I was tight that weekend anyway (had been on a plane) and the waitress wouldnt believe me that it was fine, i just couldnt eat more. Other days I do find I'm tight after literally 3 bites, and I too wait and then tackle some more. Its a fine line, doing this. For me, I find I dont want to eat at breakfast time, and I fill up quickly on things like salads, but if I dont eat well, I pick on crap in the afternoon. So I carry breakfast round with me nibbling on it for an hour in the mornings and I work on my lunch over time too when I can. The 20 minutes and then stop thing, I'd be constantly eating because I wouldnt get enough down to keep me going.

That sounds a bit tight - eating should feel OK unless you eat too fast or dont chew enough, it shouldnt feel awful going down every single mouthful. BUT - there's a few things. Youv'e only just had the fill, it may loosen, and it probably will anyway with further weight loss. If you're not severely restricted on what you can eat (no going back to a liquid or mushie diet!) then you may want to ride it out. But dont allow yourself to pb all the time either, if you cant manage the restriction, have some out. You do need to relearn how to eat with a fill a lot of the time too, each little bit more restriction enforces a few more of those rules. I could drink with meals for the longest time, now it causes me a lot of discomfort. But if you're really struggling to eat properly or are vomiting often, getting anxious about eating in front of others etc, then an unfill is a good idea.

You're kidding about just living with it, right? Of course you have to get this seen to, you're having symptoms of infection! It could be eroding through your stomach. You're also not eating well and will become malnourished over time. This is no way to live the healthier lifestyle you were aiming for, you really do have to get that band seen to.

As a bandster, I have thought about it many times, just havent gotten around to it. I dont buy fruit juice like orange juice becuase the kids just guzzle it. But I have difficulty getting 2 fruit, five veg every single day. Not needing to lose anymore, i could easily afford the calories, sugar and carbs in fruit juice.

Definitely. I went to the Emirates Stakes Day at the races on saturday, all dressed up. I met a girl there who was our host (IBM corporate enclosure) who was as tall as me (I was wearing 4 inch stilletos and felt like a giant on the train, lol). She was model thin though, but looking at her, you know, her body was just totally different to mine. Yes, I could lose another 8kg to be "as thin" as her, but I wouldnt look the same. I am already verging on skeletal around the neck, shoulders and chest, so much so that I took back a dress with spaghetti straps becuase I felt it made me look gaunt. I would just get even worse up top and I would STILL have hips and thighs. She wasnt anywhere near as bony as me up top, but she was probably a size 10 to my 12 (Australian sizes here). Just different all over. It did make me think, we just have to learn to accept, and even love, what we are.

I'm so glad you liked it! I have all the volumes now, you'll find some suit your mood certain days. And other days I just feel like taking it easy and having a nice slow jog listening to music. Its good to have the variety.

I wouldnt have even said I had fat feet or hands, but I was amazed by how much weight I lost there. I was always a size 10, and I still am, but now I can shove my feet into all sorts of glamorous, terrible for your feet and back shoes, whereas before, I just found things like that way too uncomfortable. And one one foot, I have to put heel grips in everythign or else they slip on the heel. So my feet defintely did shrink. I have really really wide feet though which still makes them quite difficult.