Jachut

I love spinning, I just find it awfully hard to work into my schedule.

I've always found exercise a better preventer of weight gain than it is a cause of weight loss. I can run 10km in an hour and burn 1000 calories - now that is quite effective exercise which will contribute to weight loss. But if you can only walk slowly for half an hour and burn 250 calories, hmmm, not so much. Your loss is going to be more dependent on what you eat. But the two go hand in hand. What exercise does for your body in terms of its composition and condition cant be underestimated and almost without exception successful bandsters are dedicated exercises. It makes the difference between being a 50% statistic and losing 100% of your weight, it provides a focus and goals that are helpful in the journey, it shapes your body and makes it healthier, honestly, you're mad not to work exercise into your schedule. And when it comes to being able to indulge a little and not gain weight, exercise is your best friend.

Actually, there's entire countries in the rest of the world that dont do the whole low carb Protein first thing. It is not the ONLY way to eat post band and it is not the only RIGHT way to eat post band. In Australia, we're encouraged to eat a healthy diet from ALL food groups - and that includes wholegrain breads and cereals (not white nutritionless products). Donuts, cakes and pancakes dont really come into it though. I eat a carb based diet because I dont believe low carb diets are all that healthy. I believe they're way too high in saturated fat, animal products and the associated preservatives and chemicals that come with such foods as cheese, processed meats etc. I've lost weight perfectly well, and am perfectly healthy. So if someone wants to eat bread, they're not necessarily not dedicated to their band or eating in an unhealthy manner, they may be just following a different dietary program to yours - one that can be equally effective. My focus is fruits and veges, heatlhy carbs and only THEN protein and that's what my doctor recommends. And I have muscles and hair too.

I've got the Australian version but I'm assuming the US one will similar - the Biggest Loser Boot Camp DVD. Holy cow, I'm very fit and I can bring myself to the point of vomiting by putting 100% into this DVD. Its REALLY hard if you go at it hard. And extremely effective. I knocked a whole 5minutes of my 10K time last year by doing this circuit style workout 3 x per week in conjuction with outside running. Other than that my favourite workouts are MP3 ones - I love running to Cardio Coach or Treadmill Trainer.

The only way I can tolerate any sort of Protein shake is vanilla flavoured in a smoothie with fruit or with low calorie chocolate topping and Peanut Butter. They are all disgusting to me. And I just figure, for the same calories (actually a bit less) you could combine 200 mls of skim milk, an egg, some vanilla essence and then some fruit and make a smoothie and have almost 20 grams of protein there ANYWAY, without having to pay a fortune for crappy tasting shakes.

I've got an almost 14 year old who is getting alarmingly big - more proof to me that this is such a heridary thing - I mean I've been banded for four years, I provide a healthy family diet, a GREAT example of healthy living and I do not let my kids eat loads of rubbish and yet he's still become overweight. My husband is banded too. My son is also way bigger than either I or his father was at his age. We've thought about a band for him in the future. The thing is with him, and this is where you appear more mature - he doesnt care yet. His weight doesnt bother him. He hasnt really hit puberty, he's not into girls, and he's not sporty, so he just doesnt care. He doesnt get teased for his weight either. When he DOES care and has motivation to do something about it, then we will look at banding if he has gotten even heavier. At the moment he's at the stage where if he can steady his weight and grow a bit he'd be fine. So I think if as a teen you want to do this, and you've got a realistic picture of what it will be like when your friends are eating and drinking in ways you cant, then I'd far rather see someone of your age avoid all the problems BEFORE they occur.

Good girl! Its the key to a quick and more comfortable recovery and its a dedicated start to your new life.

They say that it can make your scars permanently red and raised. Really, how can UV light, which damages your skin, help? And if you want to avoid loose skin, how can destroying your skin structure help that? Tanning beds make your skin look really nice in the short term, I understand that and have used them myself - but in the long term, they age your skin and make it sag. I think living where I do in Australia, we have the highest rate of skin cancer in the world, and tanning salons do not do big business. Most people are desperately trying to undo sun damage just from every day living, our sun is so strong. So we tend to be tanning bed negative, where I get that you guys dont feel quite the same way.

I think for me it helped. I had problematic sciatic pain and a chronic heel issue, the combination of which was enough for me to say enough is enough, I have to lose weight for once and all. I was taking a few too many NSAID's for my liking and i had to have a cortisone injection into my heel, which gave me relief for 12 months, enough time to get into running. After banding, I took up running and i have to say the pain got much more problematic for a while. My sciatic symptoms were occasional sharp shooting down the buttock and back of the leg pain but that had resolved a lot several years after my last pregnancy. However my right leg was just dead. It felt heavy, numb and sometimes hot. I'd get sharp bolts of pain but more often it was diffuse, achey and just made me feel plain unwell. I spent literally thousands of dollars on physio and nobody could figure out what the hell was wrong. There was no disc problem, nothing identifiable except that upon deep palpation the final physio I saw was baffled that the leg just felt "different" to the other one. I finally went and saw an acupuncturist - I'm not a big believer in natural therapies, but I was desperate. It took 9 months of dedicated and expensive treatment, but he encouraged me to keep losing and running, and he worked with me. Eventually he thought he'd done all he could and told me just to start coming bimonthly for a "tune up". Anyway, I woke up about six weeks later and realised I felt GREAT. The pain just gradually had gone away and I've never had a problem since. I dont think the band and weight loss cured my back, but I think I couldnt have gotten the results I did without it. And I put hours and hours and hours into core strengthening exercise and that REALLY helped - I mean I can now jump on a trampoline whilst laughing uncontrollably and not leave a puddle - and I'm almost 42 and have had three big babies - that alone is an indication about how strong my core muscles are! Core strenghtening really is KEY in helping back problems, the issues weak hip muscles and such can cause are extensive. Truth is, I believe it was getting really fit rather than actual weight loss which has helped me. Hope you find some relief, its a huge downer, really depressing to have constant pain.

I dont know, being obese doesnt help asthma, and you reduce the load and work of moving your body about, plus if you exercise you'll get fitter. That will improve things somewhat. But my son is severely asthmatic, and I know that if you're asthmatic, you're asthmatic. It is not going to go away. Its not really to do with your weight at all.

Yep, I lost my pants in the supermarket one day. I caught them about half way down, but I did drop Eliza, lol. I was lucky I wasnt working, I've been at uni for the past few years. All I needed to get by was a couple of pairs of jeans at each size, tops could last longer. And DH pointed out, I spend $40 getting my nails done without blinking so why was I being so stingy about jeans that fit. I wasnt going to wear them long, they didnt have to be the best jeans, just ones from Jeans West would do. So evertime they had a 2 for $99 sale (which is often) I'd go out and buy the next size down!

I cant believe any doctor would tell someone to do that, the advice is ALWAYS to eat lightly and stop eating about 12 hours before surgery - for ANY surgery. It is life threatening to have food in your stomach when you have an anaesthetic. Then again, when someone of normal weight tells a disordered eater to have a "last meal" they may be waaaay underestimating what someone will eat. I know someone who ate an entire BUCKET of KFC and had to reschedule their surgery too - her surgeon hit the roof.

I can eat bread, but its much more unusual to be able to eat it than to not be able to eat it. Its one of those foods you just have to say goodbye to.

My daughter was about four months shy of three when I got banded, I didnt have undue problems. DH went back to work on the monday (I got done on a Friday) and by then I was pretty right. I didnt lift her for a few weeks and she had a couple of spaz attacks at that, typical tantrum stuff, but basically she knew I had a sore tummy and wasnt going to lift her up. She just had a shower with me in the morning, she wasnt quite toilet trained but we took care of nappies on the floor - and I switched to disposables at that time, having been a dedicated cloth user, lol, and she was in a bed, not a cot, so she got in and out by herself. For cuddles she just got on my lap on the couch, she did hurt me a time or two by squirming but nothing too bad. The boys were 8 and 10, so they were able to help me out a bit. The only thing was I didnt get to have any real rest or a sleep in the afternoon or anything during that week of recovery, but, sigh, how is that different to motherhood at any other time? I've had the flu all week and have had to soldier on, DH is now coming down with it and you'd think you'd have to dial 911 MAN COLD. I just had to watch about 1500000 dora the explorer DVD's for some peace.

Actually, there's a lot of theory saying swimming is the least effective fat burner. Dont let that get you down though. The best exercise is the one that you will do, the one that you enjoy, and the one that you are capable of doing reasonably well. There's also lots of theory that long slow cardio like the running I love so much wastes away your muscle and doesnt burn as much fat - well, my body tells a different story, I love it, I know I will do it, so I dont CARE what the theories say. The reasons for the downers on swimming and Water exercise is a) you dont get as hot and that decreases fat burn and b)people just cant swim well enough to get a decent workout. You cant do much about the heat factor and I dont think its probably that significant anyway. But everyone has to start somewhere - when I started running, i could only stagger 3kms, not a great workout in the whole scheme of things - maybe 300 calories! But NOW I can run 10kms in about 55 minutes, THAT's burning quite a lot of calories! You would get there with swimming too. When I've fancied going for a swim, I do interval style training - I swim maybe 10 laps of the 50 metre pool nice and easy, then i do 20 laps of swiming one way REALLY fast, as if a shark were after me and doing a recovery lap of breaststroke, then a few cool down easy freestyle laps. You could adapt a routine like that to whatever your abilities and distances that you swim. The important thing is not to cruise, but to work hard, and this will definitely help you to break your pleateau.

Public care is still excellent in terms of standard - its just that being cared for in a private hospital is a little more luxurious. However, bigger public hospitals are better equipped, for example, whilst I was in hospital after having my second baby, the lady in the room next to mine had her twins at 30 weeks. Those twins went by ambulance straight to Monash, only a big public hospital would have the neonatal care facilities to cope with something like that. There's no way they'd stay in the nursery at a private hospital! With private, you choose your doctor, you choose when you'll have your procedure etc. With public, you go on a waiting list and get who you get. It depends what you're waiting for, of course, anything life threatening gets priority, if you're waiting for something elective, it could be a very long time! Ewan is having an adenoidectomy and tonsillectomy in a few weeks, and I wouldnt dream of putting him on a public waiting list to wait maybe a year! Here, you can go private in a public hospital too - because private hospitals are smaller, less well equipped, if you were having major, life saving surgery, it'd be probably done in a public hospital anyway, you just have a private surgeon. You'd go to a private hospital to have a boob job, or your wisdom teeth out, or to have gynaecological surgery or bariatric surgery etc. Smaller things.

I would do the WLS first. Its not like you wont be able to exercise forever, and many people have surgery BECAUSE of chronic injuries - I certainly got banded because of a chronic heel/ankle problem that was preventing me from exercising. However, I was lucky, I had one cortisone shot that gave me real relief for a good 12 months. By the time that was up, I was 70lb down, fit and running regularly. You could jsut as easily have surgery and THEN have an accident and be able to exercise, its really not reasonable to refuse you a lapband because of this. And you will recover better weighing less.

The weirdest thing i notice with anaesthesia is that a few days later I'll get really miserable and cry all day. Every single time. That and the sore throat from the tube. I also smell like a hospital for a few days. sleeping can be a problem simply because you spend an entire day sleeping it off, then you're not doing much while you're recovering, so you're just plain not that tired.

I would go in for a check up, you may have stretched out your pouch? If you dont feel increased restriction after a fill, that's what I'd suspect.

Exactly. What happens here is that our system really is very good in that if you have private health insurance, it covers ANYTHING bar cosmetic surgery. I think you should be able to pay a higher premium to cover cosmetic procedrues the same way you do for top hospital cover vs basic cover with an excess. Our public system works this way - everyone is covered, its not means tested (except that if you earn over a certain amount and dont have private insurance, you pay extra tax). You get 85% of the scheduled fee for EVERYTHING back from medicare. So, a privately insured patient goes for surgery. The cost of the specialist visits, the surgery, all the presurgery testing and procedures is all billed through Medicare. The patient pays up front and then claims a refund. Then the private insurance covers all the costs of the hospital stay. And for the priveledge of being insured, you get to choose your surgeon and your hospital and get it done when you like and you get better food too. So... what most surgeons do is charge well OVER the scheduled fee. so you dont get 85% of the service back, it equates to more like 50%. Its ridiculous how much some of them charge. And then most bariatric surgeons will charge a once off service fee (I paid $3,000 for my band) and then bulk bill all your aftercare which means they only charge the scheduled fee and bill it direct to medicare, no out of pockets ever after for the patient. If you're a public patient without insurance, you can get almost anything done but for stuff like bariatric surgery, you'd wait an awfully awfully long time - but it would be entirely free It works out kind of stupid - it cost me about $3,000 or $4,000 per baby in the private system and it would have cost NOTHING in the public. However, I saw the doctor of my choosing, no sitting in public waiting rooms in long queues, my ob delivered my babies and i got a nice week in hospital with good food and wine, lol.

Oh boy, wait till you experience the world as a THIN person! I never got dirty looks, snide remarks or just plain had people dislike me when I was heavier, it happens all the time now. They see thin they automatically think shallow, life served up on a silver platter, has it easy, doesnt have to work for anything etc. I'm darn glad I'm not model gorgeous as well!

I dont think the long term stats of ANY weight loss surgery are ideally what you'd want to see. You can eat around any surgery, and they all have their own peculiar complications - but liquid calories are pretty easy to do! The thing with the band is you can ALSO adjust it, so you can fail to get fills that you need or you can do stupid things like unfill to go on a vacation etc. That doesnt help towards long term success. And the fact is that any statistics take into account people who are ill, mentally unwell, physically disabled, non compliant as well as those that just dont have success. Chances are with any surgery if you are able bodied, and dedicated enough to eat well 90% of the time and exercise quite hard very regularly, then you WILL be a long term success. That sounds so easy but its probably a minority of people who actuall do this. You can decide that you will and instantly wipe out about half the reasons for failure from your personal outlook.

I think you're probably imagining it to a degree, you will lose muscle with weight loss but if you eat appropriately and exercise, it will only be muscle loss commensurate with the lesser amount you need to support your lighter body. Everyone experiences this, no weight loss is every 100% fat. But what you do and how you lose can affect how much fat v muscle you do lose and you want to MINIMISE the muscle loss which will usually entail some pretty serious exercise to keep as much as you can on your body. It is exceedingly hard to build significant muscle on a weight loss diet, you need loads of calories and Protein to build muscle, well beyond what bandsters (especially women) can usually manage. Some people on here have managed it, men have a natural advantage of course. But you dont lose enough muscle off your body in a week to significantly affect the way you look. In the week since banding, probably what you have lost is a load of Water, a little bit of muscle and a little bit of fat. But I doubt you've lost 13lb of muscle!

I eat a carb based diet and always have. If I drop the carbs I have very little energy to exercise. I'm a runner and I run moderate distances, so I dont need to absolutely carbo load, but my typical day will be Cereal for Breakfast and a sandwich for lunch or Soup loaded with lentils or Beans, fresh fruit and vegetables and only moderate Protein - like 60 or 70g a day. You know how they say that exercise gives you energy - well I foudn that for six months, I really had to force it, I didnt start experiencing that energy boost until I was really quite fit. In fact none of the benefits of exercise were all that noticeable to me until I'd really gotten fit - I think its not the exercise, its the fit body that makes you feel good, so you have to kind of hang on for that. Now its a positive cycle, in running an hour a day or so I can easily afford to eat about 1800 to 2000 calories to maintain my 148lb. So my band is loose and I eat plenty.

I was about 245lb at 5ft 10 and about 145 now, and I think height helps too. I didnt end up with a lot of excess skin BUT my body does show signs of 3 pregnancies and a large weight loss. I would say, probably, that I have the skin of woman a few years older than myself. I am in the kind of shape not many 42 year olds are which makes people think I'm younger, but I have older skin, if that makes sense. I could have younger skin and be fat. However, my boobs are utterly wrecked, there's major reconstruction needed there. I think that's more to do with breastfeeding and pregnancy and what mother nature originally gave me as much as it is to do with weight loss. I'm a bit sad about how much older I look in my face. I dont have wrinkles but I've had a dramatic reduction in volume in the cheeks, eyes etc and I do look gaunt and hollow and tired. I look at all those befores and afters for facial fillers, its exactly what I need but I cant see the point of embarking on 20 years of injecting crap into my face on a six monthly basis. I guess overall I look way better than I did and my overall persona is not 40 something, so I am content with that.