Jachut

The befores and afters comparisons are one thing but you look so HEALTHY!!!! You look like you could burst out of your skin with energy - and yes, you can see that in a photo.

Biscuits, puddings, cakes, muffins - but i hate bread, weird huh? Its that cakey combo of sugar and fat mmmmmmm. I obce had a 4 litre tub of ic cream in the freezer for three whole years until we moved - obviously Im not an ice cream fiend. Nuts though, salty or sweet (omg honey roasted cashews). I keep u salted nuts around, i can eat those in moderation.

Overall, yes i would. But thats not an emphatic yes. My tummy tuck was reconstructive, done to fix hernias and damage from bowel surgery and to rvise a keloid scar. My stomach was already flat, so i dont really have that WOW factor, it looks pretty great mow, but you know, with the 45 year old hips, thighs and breasts its actually a little TOO good, lol. My taut front doesnt match the saggy back. I gained a bit of weight after, from not exercising, and i definitely have even more of a thigh problem thn i did, becase the weight doesnt go to my stomach any more. And twelve weeks later i still have some pain and swelling, lthough i ran 13kms the other day, so its not debilitating. But it is a BIG surgery and an expensive one. I think it hives you an awesome result, but it doesnt fix your body image issues or change your life - my sneaking thoughts about lipo and breastwork have evaporated now that i have a realistic view of wht good results look like and that no matter what i will always be too much of a perfectionist to be satisfied with my body. I think its fantastic if youre not expecting miracles!

I airpop popcorn, spray w ith olive oil and salt it, with a light spray of oil the salt sticks, rather than falling to the bottom of the bowl. Its healthy - fibre, nutrients and good fat and i dont feel toooo guilty about the salt in the absence if chemical flavouring. Low calorie too.

I have to say it, although i know i shouldnt, obesity is not "curves" . That is not what a norml, healthy woman is meant to be. Curves and healthy weight are not mutually exclusive. So...i get tat a man might b physically drawn to women with more breast and hip than a tall, thin woman might have, but being so drawn to large amounts of flab to the point where a relationship is affected by its lost, thats not being attracted to curves, thats fulfilling other selfish needs. I mean, jeez, my hubby stuck by me, never wavered whilst i spent nine months with an ileostomy. We got jiggy regularly with a bag of poo hanging off my belly. If i were brned or disfigured or lost a breast, he would still love me and i can say the same for myself were it him. What he or i look like and whether we are each others ideal type ceased to matter within weeks of the relationsip. So yo say that something as superficial as excess flab could matter that much, well if he loves you, youre probably selling him short and just letting your (very natural) fear and insecurity over the big changes youre facing take over, and if it ould truly make a difference, well, theres problems there. Thats not To say that men cant be childish, petulant, jealous of your success or insecure about your confidence. But only to a point is that tolerable.

Congratulations! its great to be cancer free. I'm a rectal cancer survivor, been clear 2 years now, since my surgery. Yeah, life doesnt get much lower than looking in the mirror at your ravaged cancer body, does it? For me, diagnosis came long after I'd reached a BMI of 23, so I was staring back at a scrawny, hollow eyed desperate person with a bag of poo hanging off her belly, ribs showing all through my back etc. Chemoradiation was tough. Having an ileostomy was tough. But a year after finishing chemo, I'm getting there. I've learned that nutrition and being gentle on your body is very important - I learned the hard way. I breezed through surgery and chemo and kept running every day, kept positive, only to crash when it all finished - exhaused, malnourished etc and with very irritible bowls once the ileostomy was reversed. Now I've just found out that I have extensive intestinal damage - hello gluten free, lactose free, low fodmap diet! Sigh, guess I wont have much trouble keeping the weight off. But we're alive! With regard to the band - mine was OK during the experience but had to be unfilled. I think you're coming to this at a good time with your health stabilised and treatment behind you. Its time to do something for yourself and affirm your commitment to living a long and healthy life!

If you leave chia seeds in Water, they expand and form a gel. But its not a huge expansion. I certainly wouldnt worry about that - if you do the same with metamucil or psyllium, that expands a lot more. Besides you dont eat spoonsfulls at a time. They're very tiny.

Why is it so hard to make the choice to be healthy (weight wise?). Without going into too much detail, following rectal cancer, radiation, chemo and two surgeries, I have found out that due to extensive intestinal damage from treatment I am now gluten intolerant, lactose intolerant, and sensitive to fodmaps (various short chain carbs such as lactose, fructose, fructans, oligosaccharides). I have to do a very strict eight week elimination diet. Yet it is not daunting at all. I am soooo looking forward to being freed from my gut woes (or at least having it reduced). I am a slave to the bathroom, constantly anxious about being near one, it really affects my quality of life. My body embarrasses me on a regular basis, I am completely laxative dependent, yet cant trust a fart, and unable to really live my life the way I want to. Not to mention anxiety, depression and brain fog. So this diet does not phase me at all. Giving up wheat forever - no problem. Living low lactose (not dairy free), easy peasy. Steering clear of certain fruits and vegies with more fructose than glucose- whatever. Avoiding onions and garlic -eeek, not so easy, how to cook or eat out without those? But overall, I am just looking forward to a reduction in my IBS symptoms. Weight loss has SO many more benefits even than that! So many far reaching psychological, physical and social benefits, such a huge increase to your quality of life - so why is it so damned hard to walk away from the donuts? How can anyone want a donut more than that? I wish I knew the answer, I'd be very wealthy. I'm going to try to think this way next time I feel the desire to overeat or eat inappropriately. Even within my limitations. (edited to add, these changes are so much easier for me now, post lapband than they would have been seven years ago. I mean, I dont eat bread as it is. And there's gluten and dairy free alternatives for all the naughty stuff. I'm not fond of fruit either, so restricting it to bananas, pineapple and rhubarb is no biggie).

Oh, I cant not pipe up on this one! This forum is FULL of victims. You read it time and time again. I'm thinking of a recen one "I want to lose weight but I'm not, can you look at my diet". She proceeds to list a horrible, high fat, processed diet that meets the lapband requirements only in portion size, nothing else. I gently suggest that she replace this with that, do a few cookups and freeze, stop eating a lean cuisine every single day for lunch and that perhaps a Protein bar snack in the afternoon (those things are mammoth in calories and aritificial ingredients) might be replaced by a piece of fruit and a few nuts. I get a very hostile reply about how she SAID she didnt have time to cook and she SAID she cant afford healthy food! Uh, OK, so lean cuisines and Protein Bars ($3 or $4 each here!) are cheaper than a chicken breast, fresh salad ingredients and fruit. O - kaaaaaaay. I dont know what comes first, the victim mentality and excuse making or the obesity - but they are most definitely intertwined. The people who are successful in this weight loss game are the ones that wise up and face the fact that its THEIR choice to remain fat and unhealth. Or not. It really is that simple. But there's no telling some people.

I dont think this one ever goes away. I had to see a dietician yesterday (other issues non lapband related) and she looked over my food diary and clucked at the low calories and described me as "slight" (sheesh, I'm five ten, a giant, lol). I'm thinking "are you kidding, look at these love handles". I had a tummy tuck three months ago and now have washboard abs, but I see the love handles, the thighs, the old lady buttocks. I have barely looked at my new stomach. It wasnt bad in the first place, I had the TT for reconstructive purposes following other surgeries. My BMI is 20. However, it was 19 this time last year. I was very sick. And I hate hate hate that I've put on weight again. I feel like a fat piggie. It really is totally stupid. But its just part of being female I think. I can look at my body and feel satisfied sometimes. But I dont think there's a woman alive that really feels this way consistently. And there's always someone who I think looks better, is more petite, slimmer than me and I feel like an ox again.....

I now have an official diagnosis of ibs and have the dubious honor of being gluten intolerant, lactose intolerant and fodmap intolerant with fructose malabsorption, all thanks to chemo and radiation. I m new a this but it is often the fodmaps - short chain carbohydrates - which can be the remaining culprit when gluten and dairy are cut without full resolution of symptoms. Along with a c omplicated elimination diet i have been given a stern talking to about including a soluble fibre source at each meal - non wheat contaminated oats, rice, gluten free bread, quinoa etc. This bulks your stool to reduce diarrhoea. The dietician i see is an expert with post colorectal issues, but not with lapbands, and she nearly pitched a fit when she saw my food diary - at how little i eat overall and the lack of grain foods, she has convinced me that for some of us, the health of our guts needs to override fast weight loss and the typical bandster diet can cause real problems for some people. Those healthy green smoothies i thought would heal my post cancer woes - not so much for me. Protein powders, not that i ever use them, another minefield. Will keep you posted as to how my gut ( and its output) improves.

I would do it ithout hesitation

I said Americanisms can drive nuts - like eating off OF a plate, you dont need the of. But to be fair, so do some of our on Australianisms. Also known as boganspeak. Here, the very uncultured use the word "yous" instead of you. As in "see yous later" or rather "see yuz layda". Ick. We dont all speak like Kath n Kim here, lol.

im seven years into this caper nd really, i have no idea how much i eat volume wise, at a sitting. I just serve myself small portions and stop when ive had enough

Well i was happy with a rate of only 2 or 3 lbs a month and i coasted all the way yo. Bmi of 21, it just took me a year to lose the last 10 lbs. I did/do exercise though, regular running and spinning. Sure, if you want faster youll have to work harder. I know for me, eatimg what i want in smaller amounts is the only thing that works. I like and eat plenty of healthy foods and i do mot follow every single whim, but sometimes, i do eat cake for lunch!

Ugh, i hate fish, cooked on a plate in front of me. When Dh brings his hardwon fish home i give it to the cats. Skin and bones *shudder* However, i lov sashimi and gave it regularly, i slso like canned tuna and eat plenty of that. I do also eat salmon, often put it in a laksa or red curry

Because it on the outside of your abdominal wll, just under the skin, it needs to be easily accessed with a needle. If they put it inside your abdomen they wouldnt be able to get to it.

Having never carried an awful lot of my weight on my stomach mine was visible from very early on. I started at a bmi of 36. By the time Id hit 30 it was a very obvious lump and at 20 it looked like a walnut under my skin. I had it moved and as there is no low profile port for my seven year old band, the doc yook the bavk of it to lower its profile. Now its right by my bellybutton in that natural pad of fat instead of in the hollow below my ribs. Its still visible as a slight mound that just throws my bellybutton a little off centre but it waaaay better than the big knobbly lump it was, i could even see and feel tubing. You will probably see and feel it permanently to some degree, you cant have something tht size and shape on your abdomen just under the skin if you are of normal weight and not see/ feel it! But placement and profile make a difference.

I cant stick to 1000 as a female with a band! I need more. Im 5 ft 10 and run for an hour or more almost daily and about 1500 saw me lose right down to a bmi of 20 and i now maintain an the same intake. I dont think really low calories necessarily hurts in the short tem but even when i ferl like ive barely had more than a nibble that day, by the time i add in milk for coffee and the odd extra mouthful of this and that I always find it hard to stick to 1000. And truth is, i dont need to. I find it hard to believe that many adult men ould truly need to drop tht low.

You probably need a little more of everything if youre working out really hard

I had a tummy tuck to Fix scarring and hernias from cncer surgery and the tightening and removal of a couple of inches of skin were welcome but i didnt need it for loose skin and nobody has noticed i had anything done. I lost 120 lb, but Im five foot ten and evenly proportioned

I've been in the same boat - I had cancer in 2010 and got down to 130 and was really skinny, but I confess, I loved it. Had treatment, got better, and managed to keep the weight down. But I kind of let it go - I'm sure some of it just has to do with being healthy and completely better again, but truth is, I did stop being so strict. And hello 12 lb. I'm still only a BMI of 21. But I feel absolutely horrible and it has thrown me into obsession with food. Which leads to overeating for me. The stricter I try to be, the worse I get. I'm sooooo tempted to do something like this, but I fear the backlash if I don't stick to it! In truth, I know for me, if I say to mysql "ok, I'm a healthy weight, I'm not going to try to lose" then I will probably stop eating crap and lose weight. I just need to accept that the super hot jeans that fit me at 130 just aren't my regular size and trying to stay in them sans muffin top is unrealistic! Perhaps I'll go jeans shopping tonight after work. Or perhaps I'll buy the 17 day diet book, lol. Hmmmm....

Sometimes you realky need an anti inflammatory - my surgeon said just take it with a nexium or zantac to protect your tummy and short term should be fine. He said the same about aspirin which is a known bowel cancer preventative, my oncologist wants me on ut. He said I could take aspirin if I Also went onto nexium.

A cold always gives me heartburn and it does my hubby too. Id assess when the cold is gone.

If they compare it yo what the average american eats (high fat high salt high carb high Protein high calorie) it'll look pretty good! If they compare it to a high wholegrain low saturated fat diet itll look pretty bad.!