Jachut

Ugh, its probably what we've got to look forward to here in six months. Even the cheese crust pizza adds make me want to barf. I never would have eaten food like that even if I was starving. The very idea of pizza hut's revolting sloppy pizza base, filled with fake cheese, ugh. Lean Cuisines, microwave meals, stuff in cans, I think its all yuck. I got fat eating real food, lol. I really do think all this processed muck has to go out of our diets for our health and I refuse to feed my kids crap like that - but even for a die hard carb eater like me, Pasta covered in bread is just a little hard to take! I defend my (wholegrain) carb eating but the truth is I eat WAY less than I did and my body is better for it. I just need a little for running fuel, but not meals like this!

I just dont get why they act like that. The WHOLE point of the band is fills. What right has anyone to judge for you whether you need it or not. And a lot of the time, when you make poor lifestyle choices its because you need a fill. I would only agree that if someone were doing no exercise, then perhaps they ought to do that first before they try going tighter, but even THEN its a personal decision and if someone wants to be really tight and barely eat, well they've paid for their surgery, the band is in THEIR body,they're paying for the fill so no doctor or nurse really has a right to deny it to them.

Oh come on! That's a bit like me saying that I know a cousin's friend's aunt who had a sleeve done by a visiting Tanzanian witch doctor and died, so the sleeve is rubbish and nobody should have it done. Sounds like the doctor's a dickhead and probably didnt even put the thing in properly in the first place. Either that or told the patient he'd be right to go straight back to KFC.

I've been banded almost 4 years now. Like you, I've never really assumed this will be a lifetime thing, I really hope to get 10 years out of it, if nothing better's out there and my band wears out, I wouldnt hesitate to get another. I'm intrigued by the sleeve and I do believe for a lot of people its a better surgery but I dont think I'd swap over, I think I'd get another band. If I were so lucky as to get 20 years out of it, I dont know what I'd do then, whether I'd have any other WLS at all. I really think the longer this goes on, my habits are becoming more and more consolidated. I dont want to be so arrogant as to say that I could have done this without the band, but I am now maintaining my weight on about 1800 to 2000 calories a day which is quite a reasonable amount of food (I have to work REALLY hard to get it all in, but I need it) and I will never give up running, I love it. So I lost 120% of my excess weight and whilst I'm sure I'd have rebound weight gain if I lost my band in even 10 years, I dont think I'd really shoot up to my previous high, which was heavily influenced by being a stay at home mother of young children, something which no longer applies to me. Not sure there. But I do think somewhere in the future they'll work out how to control our appetites, not restrict our stomachs! i dont need an emergency fund, in Australia, if my band slips, wears out, or I just want it out, its pretty much free. Our health insurance covers it, no arguments, no pissfarting around. Its paid for. I paid a once only $3000 fee and I will never pay for any service from my surgeon out of my own pocket again. He bulk bulls everything, so its billed straight to our public health system and my private health will always pay for ANY hospital stay costs.

Everyone is different - 1200 is often enough to nourish most women and allow them to exercise. However, i just cant run well if I dont eat carbs. Protein doesnt do it for me. I dont need 10 slices of bread a day or anything but I *REALLY* need oatmeal or something for Breakfast, just a moderate serve of good carbs a day seems to be enough. But I do also struggle with this with a band and I find that without hunger to guide me, I undereat chronically. My idea of what makes a meal these days has changed a lot and I'll eat a yogurt and call it breakfast. I dont get hungry because of the band but the CRAVINGS!! Oh boy. i really find I have to concentrate very hard to eat the right balance of protein and carbs and add healthy Snacks even though I'm not hungry or I get to early afternoon and I'm obviously running on empty and I start to just pig out on carb foods. Obviously that's how my body tells me it needs food now, rather than actual physical hunger. Are you noticing anythng like this? but like you're trying to do, I'd suggest working to eat MORE. I never needed to drop below 1500 to lose all my weight and I didnt need a tight band to do that, so I was able to eat that much. And I need about 1800 to 2000 a day now to maintain it. Hard to do with a lapband but when I make the effort, my weight stays low and steady becuase obviously I can et MORE calories than that if I'm slipping in Cookies, chocolate etc.

Walking after surgery is important for blood clot prevention - like Mac says. And also, if you do have aches and niggles like minor back pain, staying active and limber will minimise it. Its good for your outlook and state of mind and if you suffer badly from gas it will help greatly. They probably will have made you walk a bit in the hospital, at home, just go out short distances several times a day. I found the day after surgery I was fine to amble 3kms or so. Just dont push hard for a week or two.

With my cast Iron gut I can eat my dinner and head straight out the door to run. The only things that give me trouble when I do this is if I've had a lot of Fluid - or Soup. It sloshes and that's revolting.

Hmmmmm - maybe pressure on the port and tubing (which runs fairly superficially for an inch or two in some people - I can feel my tubing - till it disappears deeper) squeezes saline into the baloon round the band and makes it tighter THAT way? Because some of the saline does remain in the tubing rather than the band.

Lol, buy yourself the smallest bra possible and see the pounds fall away.

How? You have a rib cage between your bra and your stomach!

I eat about 2000 a day to maintain my 148lb - I'm 5ft 10 and run for 40 minutes to an hour most days. I eat carbs too! Bread, Pasta, rice.

I get my eyebrows waxed and I dont think it hurts. I want to punch the woman when she plucks though, I HATE that bit. My upper lip - cant stand it. Hurts too much. Have a red moustache mark for days. Dont have much hair there anyway, only if I wear dark make up and I barely ever wear make up, so I dont care. Brazillian - no thanks.

I agree, I think the info is important, but I also agree that sometimes you can know too much. I totally disagree with fluoro as a filling tool for example. It makes the doctor think HE knows best what the right fill is, it makes the doctor thinks HE knows when you're overfilled, it leads to overly agressive fills that 'work' whilst you're there in the office drinking Water but then tighten up way too much over the coming days. Ditto to drawing out fill to check the level before filling - my doctor's surgery has a policy NOT to do this because it leads to way more overfill/swelling/overtightness problems that just adding a tiny bit of fill to the top of it. I personally believe its best just to go slowly and cautiously rather than thinking all this information means its OK to put in a big fill.

I think its pretty much genetically determinend where you store weight. If you have a rounded behind, you probably always will. On the other hand, I have a typical caucasion wide flat butt, which got even flatter. It just kind of dropped to the back of my knees. I just wish I had some different blood than bog standard irish somewhere in my history - a bit of Thai or mediterranean blood perhaps?. I'd like a better butt and I'd really rather fancy being darker skinned with brown eyes, than white, freckly and green eyed.

Fatty livers do contain fat, that needs to go, but the pre op liver shrinking diet is all about depleting the liver of glycogen. You cant lose fat specifically from your liver by going on a special diet, same as you cant choose to lose it off your thighs. In the pre op diet, you will lose a LOT of glycogen (your body's sugar energy source), since you deplete your body entirely of carbs. Since carbs are always stored with a couple of molecules of Water you shed water like crazy, and that's where the large weight loss comes from. You dont lose an awful lot of fat in those two weeks on the diet, you do lose a lot of water, a bit of fat and a bit of lean body tissue and your liver tends to shrink from glycogen depletion.

No, it doesnt hurt. The reason carbs make you hungry if you eat them on their own is that are fairly high up on the glycaemic index, meaning they cause a significant insulin reaction in your body - with white bread, rice etc being even HIGHER than plain sugar! So whilst everyone things that the answer is to cut out carbs many medical experts (particularly in Australia) are more interested in a low GI diet instead - meaning you eat lower GI carbs - wholegrains, fruit and vegetables and that you include a bit more Protein - and that ina meal, you might have white rice and beef curry, well the beef curry being basically protein is very low GI and that balanced out the high GI of the rice and you get a more moderate, slowly digesting meal that doesnt give you the massive insulin rush. So really, there's good evidence that there's no need to low carb it, just low GI it instead, and that way you dont miss out on your banana, which is so good for you, as long as you also eat, say a piece of cheese at the same time.

I decided myself. I saw my GP and told him just that I wanted a referral to a lapband surgeon.

I think even the haters are laughing. That was really VERY funny.

I do. I fade away very quickly without carbs. I dont think a low carb diet suits everyone. But I agree, 60 grams a day of Protein is necessary I get that quite easily. And I stay away from white carbs - I get my energy from fruit and veg and wholegrains. But logically, protein first is not a low carb way of eating, its simply making sure you get enough protein. To really go low on the carbs you have to do Atkins or similar. Most people ARE eating carbs, just not necessarily in grain form - and even those of us that eat a more carb based diet (the whole world doesnt do protein first, its an American thing) are eating less carbs (and certainly less white carbs) than we did. The balance of my diet has certainly changed and I cant say I notice a big difference. My body doesnt miss the rubbish I used to feed it.

Entirely normal. I see sawed up and down the whole time (but never went back up to previous highs). I'd go 207, 209, 207, 208, 206, 208, 207, 206, 207, 205, 207, 206, 204, kind of thing. The low points would get lower and lower. But I never went back up by more than a pound or two. its like you'd see a low weight and think OOH, exciting! But you knew it wouldnt stick - just yet. It would take a few almosts before you really got there. Mentally, the hardest ones (i think in kilograms) were the decades, breaking 100kgs, 90kgs, 80kgs. It'd be gut wrenching to go back up into the next decade.

Well, of course you cant just start out that way! What you are doing sounds like a GREAT plan to ease yourself back into fitness. All you need to do is make sure you're honest with the effort you put into it - it should hurt just a little bit. It shouldnt be easy. You want red faced, sweating and pounding heart but you dont want to be ridiculous about it. If you can get your heart rate consistently around the 140 bpm level without dying - that should be fairly OK for most woment between 30 and 50 going by the standard 220 - age formula, that will be fairly hard, harder than the old fashioned debunked fat burning zone stuff, but not so hard you wont be able to work out for 7 days. First off, work on getting used to that, then increasing your time, just 15 extra minutes to 45 will make a really big difference. Then work on intensity a bit - as you get fit, your heart rate will drop, make sure you keep it up there, and some days do harder sessions, and some days do recovery sessions. It does work over time. A recovery session for me now is a jog rather than a run, i really enjoy going out to jog for 10kms, its not hard and it doesnt tire me out. But it took me probably 2 years to get there. And a day where I do nothing, I might actually walk 8kms, that doesnt even register on my scale as exercise any more lol. Dont let others' achievements intimidate you, everyone has to start somewhere and ALL it takes, honestly, is commitment and consistency.

Maybe I'm just full of sh*t? Lol.

Breakfast: high fibre low fat banana muffin with a little bit of butter, very small glass OJ Lunch: a low fat muesli and berry (fresh ones) yogurt and a latte Dinner: mini spring rolls and home made fried rice - brown rice, vegies, egg and prawns. Glass of wine Snack: 4 squares Cadbury's chocolate with a coffee

Sounds like you need an unfill, it shoudlnt be like that. You're just too tight.

I think its ridiculous to be honst, I've always eaten more than that. I can eat about a cup, and I also eat more often than I used to since I need the energy. I still need up to 2000 calories a day to maintain my weight at 150lb. So half a cup just wouldnt do it for me, and its why I'm thankful for a band, which can be adjusted, rather than a non adjustable surgery. I'd starve to death on such tiny portions.