Jachut

In Australia, its not a focus, they just prescribe an ordinary balanced diet. I occasionally tote it up, just out of interest and its usually in the 60 to 70 gram area, which seems to be fine for me, I lost weight, I have a good fast metabolism now, I have the energy I need and my hair didnt fall out or anything. I run 45 minutes a day and i focus more on getting in good carbs for energy - my Protein intake seems to be similar to many but I eat a lot more calories (1500 to 1800 a day) so its a smaller proportion of my overall intake than many people's diets. I dont ever do shakes, I eat my protein and dont seem to have any trouble getting enough in.

This is an old thread now, but I'm reporting in to say we did get a new mat and springs for our trampoline and I did jump on it. its a great cardiovascular workout. but unfortunately, I made myself rather sick - motion sickness would you believe! I felt REALLY ill for about an hour. Since being banded, I get seasick, car sick, I cant go on rides, swings make me feel ill (always did) and now I cant jump on the trampoline either. But as I just reported in another thread, I am VERY impressed by what running has done for my pelvic floor! Pre weight loss, i coudlnt jump on a trampoline without bladder issues, the only time I suffered them. Now its no problem.

I'm quite amazed by how running has changed my body! I dont do much in the way of strength training, I do a few pushups and dips and planks a few times a week and that's it. I dont have the time, and I like a good hard circuit training session but in the time I have, I have to choose between running of strength training and my body tells me that its running that does the most for my weight. I know all the theory on strenght training, I just dont find I need to go past running to get the body I want. My core is very strong, I can do very hard stomach tricks, like holding a plank (you know, where you get in pushup position only on your elbows) for a good 5 minutes. I have also noticed that i can do things like sneeze 15 times and not wet myself, lol, AND i can jump on a trampoline and not make a puddle. I'm 42 and have had 3 big babies, so this is a really good sign that my core and pelvic floor are in good shape, and again, running is what I do and I was *not* in that kind of shape pre weight loss, so you do the math.

Well, see I'd look at that and think, no trans fat, no salt to speak of, low saturated fat, dairy based, so high in Protein and calcium, there's worse things you could have. Personally, I dont care about carbs, and dont do low carb, so I wouldnt even pay attention to that. IF its a meal replacement, no real problem on the calories either. I dont really care for drinks like that, I like black coffee and plain cappucino's and lattes that are just espresso and steamed milk. Someting like that is often breakfast for me. If its a snack, even then, as long as the calories fit into a reasonable total, if its what you want to ingest, then why not? But I find that with high calorie liquids, I have something, think that's got to be lunch, and then I'm looking for food anyway because they dont satisfy for long.

It depends what I do. Early on, I lost weight steadily, but I would attribute it more to being banded and eating less, because in reality I was running 3kms every second day which is hardly an amount of exercise that will cause weight to fall from your body like magic! So I saw weight loss right away, I'm sure it helped, but how long before I looked at my body and saw a fit, toned body? At least a year, and a good 2 before I really had changed, and looked really fit. The reason being, you just dont see your muscles till you lose all the fat! You'll never see a sixpack stomach with a body fat percentage of 25 and above. You'll probably first see it on your arms, and many apple shaped women have GREAT legs. Not me, sadly, lol, although my legs are nice and toned now, I am pear shaped and always will be. Oh well, I have great arms and shoulders! Nowadays - I've been running 3 and a half years, I do have a good, muscular tone and visible stomach muscles - not a sixpack but visible tone to it. For me, daily long, steady runs of 8kms or so work well. I can trim down and get rid of a pound or two quite quickly with intense interval training, but it never stays away as I dont tend to keep up the really intense stuff.

That's a good way of putting it Mac. If the band failed, I'd not hesitate to have another, if something about my body and the band together caused the problem, then I'd think very hard about another type of surgery.

A month? To be honest, no, not really. It took about 4 months. I mean, i'd certainly lost weight after a month but I had been banded, after all. After four months, I could run further and run continously, and after six months, I'd really gotten the bug and was hugely enjoying it, settign ever more ambitious goals (further runs, faster times). The first couple of months are hard going, but its so worth perservering. Find a cardio you like better than others and stick with it, for me there's something immensely satisfying about running. I was pretty lucky with my skin, but I do have a small amount of looseness that will never go away without surgery. I can get by without a tummy tuck, but I'll never have the really great body I imagined without some help. But that's more luck than anything, truly no exercise will prevent loose skin, if your'e going to get it, you're going to get it.

Look, I think people panic over this but the fact is the band DOES do some of the work for you or it wouldnt work for anyone at all. If any of us could do all of this ourselves, we wouldnt be here. The band doesnt work as well for some people as it does for others and many people need more help than the band can give. But it does give help and only you can know whether that is enough for you. For me it works this way - I have to choose good foods, but my portion control is done by the band. I dont have to choose to stop eating, I feel exactly like I did before only I'm full much sooner. That's automatic, its my conscious choice. I could overeat by eating chocolate, ice cream, milk shakes but i dont. I never really ate that way anyway, I overate solid foods in high volume, so that choice is not a huge stretch for me. So that's the first two steps - food choices (done by me, good 75% of the time), portion control (done by the band, obeyed by me). The next step - exercise - that's down to you. To me, I cant believe anyone would be sick enough of themselves to turn to weight loss surgery and then not be able to pull their finger out of their ass and get on with the exercise part of the equation. Its a given. With ANY surgery. If you dont want to subsist on 500 calories a day and be malnourished then you have to burn up some of what you eat by exercising. Just do it, it really isnt that hard. Hard is having cheesecake in the fridge for 2 days and not touching it, hard isnt going out on a glorious, cool evening at dusk for a run to clear your head and loosen up your joints! There are other surgeries that restrict your intake and portion control even better and more reliably than the band does, but NOTHING will negate your responsibility to make good food choices and ignore those pesky voices that tell to eat when you're not even hungry. You can outeat any surgery if you wait for it to do the work for you.

Lol, I dont call 90 degrees, hot, it gets much hotter here in Melbourne. I've got a floor fan that I get out in summer, so if its over about 35 (95 Fahrenheit) I will run on the treadmill instead and have the fan blowing on me. We're lucky becuase it rarely gets cold enough to stop you running outdoors in winter, certainly doesnt snow or anything here and there's been a freaking drought for 12 years, so hardly any chance of it raining either. But summer is regularly over 100 degrees. I have learned to deal with it, its hot, you drink a lot but you still go out for your run. I go either early in the morning or later at night than I would on a milder day. I only go on the treadmill becuase I *DO* have aircon, it would be cooler to run outside than in if I didnt. Try going for a walk or going to a class at an airconditioned gym or something instead perhaps? Working indoors on a hot day with bo aircon is about as hot as it gets.

Completely normal, and it does appear to go away after about a year. I had that, and DH did too but neither of us have that problem anymore.

About 45 minutes five or six days a week. I do only minimal strength training, I just dont find that at moderate levels I get much from it. My body likes cardio, when I strength train I have a harder time controlling my appetite, and weight. I have muscle tone and strength that's quite good anyway, so I focus on running. I love it. I find for me, when I'm busy 25-30 minutes is maintenance level, I can get away with that little, but to lose I needed that 45 to an hour and I still prefer to do that now. 30 minutes maintains my base fitness, but my speed and ability to run longer distances drops. Which is only a worry if you care about that, lol.

I certainly didnt invest in expensive clothing, but it was really hard. I was perhaps luckier in that I had a more modest amount to lose, going from an Australian 20 to a 12. I always bought jeans that fit, but jeans are fairly cheap, and I was able to make tops last a bit longer. I've got lots of clothes that now I would perhaps buy the next size down but I can wear them OK. I'm VERY lucky in that I dont work at the moment, so I didnt have to worry about a work wardrobe, and my feet didnt change sizes. What I'm lamenting now is needing new bra's. Everytime I try something on to buy, I notice that my bra is at least a cup size too big. I was struck too by how much cheaper smaller clothes are. Here in Australia a 20 (your 16-18) is definitely plus size territory, out of regular stores and you're paying an arm and a leg. Once I got down to a 16 and under, I could buy clothes so much cheaper it didnt hurt as much.

This would be a hard decision, I think I'd probably be quite emotional about it rather than logical and feel about that band that if it failed me once, it would again. Not necessarily so, but then who is to say it wasnt something about your surgeon and his methods or even about your body that caused it. On the plus side of the sleeve, there's none of that. And the negative, i dont believe included staples, more things like its non reversible, non adjustable, you may have problems down the track due to factors like being on acid reflux medication long term, nutrition issues from such a small food intake long term etc etc. And I dont even know the facts on those things, its just that were I to be sleeved, that's what I'd be researching. But some titanium staples v an entire band and port - less to go wrong with that in my opinion.

I have personal feelings on this - I totally believe its the American approach to banded life and the American culture surrounding what is healthy and what is not, which is SO different to the Australian viewpoint, that is at the root of the high levels of band problem and failure. I think that the way its approached there, leads to levels of restriction that our approach here just doesnt require and hence the problems. I too know many banded people, some have had problems such as slippage and revision, and not surprisingly some of those people have been rather disordered eaters/dieters who've tried to rely on very tight restriction. But I know plenty of people who've had bands in the 3 to 8 year range, lost all their weight, kept it off, never had a problem. I'd choose it 1000 times over here, rather than removing half of an organ. However, if I were moving to the US for the rest of my life, I'd be sleeved in a heartbeat. Totally situational, totally personal. The arguments with this start, I believe, because people who are sleeved are trying valiantly to encourage people to make an informed decision. They're not rubbishing the band, but the ADVERTISING of the band. It is pushed as an easy, trouble free surgery and its just not. Bands work best for people who are not too ill, who can control their food intake, their exercise habits etc and will work with a tool that's 90% about user choices. It is not advertised that way and many many people are misled into believing its easy weight loss. Its just the way it comes across is very anti band and is equally as misleading in suggesting the band's totally useless and obsolete. Stats dont change my opinion either, nor do peer mediated reviews or any of it. Its all just flavour of the month stuff, here today, disproved or debunked tomorrow. I couldnt choose a sleeve when I got banded, there wasnt the option, it wasnt done then. So what's the point worrying about THAT? If I ever have to have my band removed, then I've got more options to consider. Its the same as the whole low carb/high carb debate. People push all these studies "proving" that high protein's better, and that high carb was all a conspiracy. Idiots. Werent there a million "peer mediated" studies PROVING the low fat, high carb lifestyle was best back in the 80's. Of course there were. Just as there were supporting a high protein approach back in the 60's and 70's. Its been dubunked once, replaced with another lifestyle and its back again. Are people honestly stupid enough to swallow it all hook line and sinker again? Do they really think something newer and better wont be on the scene in a few years? That's what I think of studies and stats and scientific proof. I make my own choice based on my gut feel (pardon the pun) and I try to do things in a moderate way, not swinging towards any extreme, rather sitting on the fence or taking the middle path. That's why I ahve no particular feeling about having an "obsolete" surgery (hey, I'm thin, who the f-ck cares anyway?) or thinking that the sleeve will be absolutely problem free.

for me, my meals need to include carbs. I cant get that full for hours feeling on Protein foods, if I eat enough of them to have that effect, I get an upset stomach and then some hours later, some really offensive gas problems, lol. If I had a Protein shake for Breakfast, a Protein Bar for morning tea and tuna for lunch, you wouldnt want to stand downwind of me. I do much better, feel better and lose weight better on foods like oatmeal, wholegrain cereals, wholegrain bread, rice and Pasta and fruit and vegetables as an equal part of my diet to the protein foods. I go heavier on the fruit and veg than I do on bread products but for me, all those carb foods have the "bulk" because of the Water and air they contain to really fill my stomach on much fewer calories than protein foods.

Ugh, I suspect I'm having rumblings from my gall bladder too. My whole weight loss journey (banded) has been so utterly trouble free and smooth, so four years down the track, I'm not suprised *something* would happen. I've had this pain a couple of times since about a year out - it starts as a hint and steadily intensifies, its right in the centre of my ribs, so the first few times I thought it was my stomach - it always happened after I ate ice cream so I thought the cold caused me spasms or cramps or something - it will get steadily more painful, feels like a kind of squeezing, gripping pain, and it radiates - up my throat, into the roof of my mouth and the other night it was my neck and ears! Nothing you do relieves it - you know how most abdominal pain, like period pain or wind pain, you can curl up and around it and that helps, well I cant do anything for this. It often strikes me during the night. For me, its never gotten more than about a 6 on the pain scale, certainly not frightening or call the ambulance stuff but mightily uncomfortable. Then it suddenly just goes away. I've been maybe 7 months without a hint of it then suddenly int he last few weeks, its happened twice and felt like its about to happen about 3 or 4 more times. It makes me nervous becuase I'm anxious one day I'll have a really BAD episode somewhere embarrassing like at work. And I dont want another stomach surgery - lol, I'm SO vain I know but more scars - take another 2 years to heal up like my band scars did and there goes my bikini stomach, lol. By the time I'm 44 or 45 I think I'm officially too old for a bikini.

I eat a little bit more these days as I'm maintaining and my restriction has waned a bit over about a year without fills. Typically, for breakfast I'd eat a bowl of muesli (standard 1/2 cup size serving) with maybe a little bit of sliced banana on it and some skim milk or one of those gourmet greek yogurts with the pureed fruit. Mid morning I usually try to eat a piece of fruit (not really hungry but try to eat a piece of fresh fruit a day). lunch is things like a salad (about a Cereal bowl full of leafy vegies, and things like carrot, tomato, mushrooms, cucumuber, and a Protein like tuna or egg), maybe cheese and crackers (4 or 5 crackers and small slices of cheese), sometimes a sandwich on wholegrain bread and very occasionally, an Aussie classic junk item - the sausage roll or meat pie (very occasionally!). Mid afternoon I'll usually sneak some sort of crap in, a cookie or two with a cuppa after work. dinner is nearly always healthy, we dont eat much junk for dinner in our house - could be anything, roast chicken, steamed veg, home made bolognaise, chilli, dahl, curries, stews, Soups, last night we had the most delicious lamb cutlets, with salad. I eat about a cup total for dinner. Oh, a couple of nights a week I'll have a glass of wine. Most days it totals up to somewhere between 1500 and 1800 calories. when i was losing, I never had the extras and it usually totalled 1200 to 1500. 1500 would have been a big day.

Mine's visible. I can certainly feel it easily. this pic doesnt really show it clearly, you can sort of see the "unevenenss" in the tone of my stomach to the upper left but in real life you can actually see a slight lump. If I put my arms above my head then it pops out and you can even see the tubing.

Staying under 30 g carbs for me is less mystifying (and I'm a carb eater!) than suriving on 600 to 800 calories. How on EARTH does your metabolism not slow to the pace of a slug's?

I'd have a glass maybe four nights a week. I find to not affect my weight (and more importantly to not affect my food choices) I have to keep it to a reasonable glass (not a fishbowl!) and not drink every single night. But moderate wine consumption has significant health benefits. There's no need to cut it out entirely. I actually like to eat my dinner and THEN sip a glass of wine over the evening.

I have no patience with subsituting for what you really crave. If I want a mars bar, no 25 calorie hot chocolate is going to suffice, I want the mars bar. I find really thinking about whether its a passing thought or if you truly want it, with the view that if you truly want it you can have it works for me. Knowing that I can have what I want if I really want it makes it easier to avoid the impulse pig out which you regret 3 minutes later. Whereas if I really wanted whatever it was, I have it, enjoy it, and move on. You have to eat daily for the rest of your life. That's a vast quantity of food. How on earth can ONE choice if its made with consideration derail your entire diet? This is a lifestyle and there's room for sensible treats.

First and foremost, to me this was a lifestyle change, not another diet. So there's no rules, no plan, no program. I eat what I want to eat every day. I dont give a toss about carbs or Protein, I just eat healthy. Some days are better than others. Its totally killed my food obsession. If I eat Cookies all day it wont kill me for one day. With that in mind, I also didnt give a toss how fast it came off. You cant have it both ways, but I think trying for fast weight loss week in, week out is a sure fire way to be "on a diet" which of course means eventually you'll be "off your diet". When in actual fact its the middle ground that the on/off merrygoround never addresses, that is the important part to get right. I took up exercise and I stuck with it. I run for 45 minutes most days. But most of all, I think for a while there, my lifestyle and routines got out of control due to all the pressures of life, particularly motherhood and that I'm not really meant to be a "fat person" in the sense that many obese people are. I mean, my eating habits were as bad as nearly anyone's mentioned here but I never got to anything like 300lb. I can maintain quite well on up to 2000 calories a day. I'm naturally athletic. So I think I'm really pretty lucky to have a pretty fast metabolism and more of a natural tendency to stay at a heatlhy weight than many do, and I dont have anything like PCOS which tends to lend itself towards those metabolic disorders and difficulty controlling weight. So attitude and a bit of good luck would be my summary.

I had a 0.2cc unfill about a year ago becuase although I wasnt *too* tight, I thought perhaps I'd be better with a little less for maintenance. Wrong! Lol, I didnt gain more than a pound or two, but boy did I notice the increase in appetite! Its amazing how much difference it makes. I ended up with that .2cc back and its perfect.