Jachut

I base my diet on fruit, vegetables and wholegrain carbs rather than Protein and that keeps me very regular. Obviously with less food going in, there'll be less coming out. I noticed that, for sure. But with plenty of fibre rich foods, enough fluids and daily exercise, I never have a problem with constipation.

Definitely an unfill, what you are doing is counterproductive in that it doesnt set you up for healthy chocies. I find that like most bandsters, I really dont feel like eating in the morning and can easily go to lunchtime without Breakfast. But to eat a good breakfast really makes a difference to how well and how much I eat the rest of the day. It prevents the afternoon munchies. Personally, my appetite has ALWAYS shut down at about 5 pm band or no band. I've never ever had a night time eating issue, I know its very common, and I have a son who does this - literally doesnt eat ALL day at school and then eats solidly from 4pm to bed. You know, I personally believe its crap that you'll get fatter if you eat those calories at night v in the morning, your body uses and stores continuously throughout a 24 hour period so when you store it up as fat at night, you'll burn it up when you dont eat the following day. But you'd FEEL so much better, eat so much more senisbly and have so much more energy if you ate regularly, so I'd unfill.

If you dont have any fever or otherwise feel unwell, I'd say 3 glasses of wine on your tender stomach, into a digestive system that's not been fed solid food for weeks would be enough to give you diarrhoea, and vomiting too if you tend towards that.

For me, the band worked JUST like you are imagining.

I can eat everything, but some things are more likely to cause me problems than others. Fruit doesnt cause me indigestion, but its hard to eat. Bread in small quantities is OK.

I agree, my daughter was nearly 3 and at 6 and a bit she is sitting on me right this minute. It wasnt that bad, it honestly isnt a bad or painful surgery. Its not like she cant even lean on you or you couldnt hold a child on your lap as long as the elbows and knees are kept in control

I'm following your thought process keithf. That's what I'd do too. All the tricks I used to get fruit and veg into my kids, I use on myself. I mash potato, pumpkin and several other vegies together. I blend fruit into things. I'd never ever make chilli or bolognaise without zucchinim carrot, mushrooms finely chopped and processed in the food processer and used to replace some of the meat. The kids never even notice! Now, as to the logic behind pureeing things. I struggle with fruit. I thought no problem, I'll eat tinned fruit instead, that's cooked and soft. Still doesnt work. One of the hardest things to eat of all is the little tubs of pureeed fruit - I used to feed that to my babies. I often get stuck on yogurt too. As it happens, I have no trouble with asparagus (or grape skins). But it simply does not follow that if you DO have trouble with it, that you can puree it. It probably still wont work. I drink a glass of juice in the mornings, that gets a serve of fruit in for me with no problems. Most people CAN eat steamed vegies though, they just dont.

My sister is hypothyroid and I shared a whole lot of the same symptoms - the dry fragile hair, dry skin, and at times of my life, extreme tiredness. The thing is her condition killed her appetite and she never ate a thing, she was skinny as skinny all her life and since being diagnosed and treated, she's normal weight. Me thinking it was the answer to 30 extra kilos was wishful thinking. As my paternal grandmother and HER grandmother and daughter were/are hypothyroid too, I was tested, ever so slightly high TSH levels and I've also done that temperature test and my basal temperature was always low enough to be a concern. Its never been considered necessary that I be treated though. But the answer for me was a lapband, diet and exercise. I had not the slightest difficulty losing weight. I might do the temperature thing again to check. These days my hair is lustrous and thick like it has NEVER been in my life before, I have strong fingernails and am never ever tired. I dont have any menstrual irregularities either, whereas my sister was severely afflicted by endometriosis. I doubt I'd be at all abnormal these days.

Makes heaps of sense! I find the term "emotional eating" a very annoying overused excuse for people not taking responsibility for their own behaviours - which as you rightly point out means identifying learned eating patterns that are not helpful. Tying it up neatly to "I saw my dog get run over wehn I was 10 so I cant help but eat to squash my anger and misery" is just too easy. Admitting "this is a behaviour that I can control" is not so easy. But people dont seem to realise that controlling it by degree is an achievement too! We dont have to totally obliterate every bad eating behaviour, we just have to try to make enough difference to our intake and enough difference to our output to reach a new balance. Its not an all or nothing thing. How disappointing about the newborn analogy though. A bottle? Tsk tsk. What's wrong with a breast? Sorry, lifelong member of the milk mafia here.

I eat a carb based diet, I dont count how many grams a day it would be but it would be over 150. I eat wholegrain bread, cereals, brown rice and pasta, fresh fruit and vegetables, and then of course there is carbs in stuff like milk, yogurt, etc.

Well, I suspect like here, things like that are mainly made with lips and assholes! You just drown it all in sauce anyway (tomato sauce = ketchup). A sausage roll is made from sausage mince and onion and vegies (if you make them at home) all mixed into a pasty sort of mess, and you make it into big sausages and roll it in savoury pastry and bake. I'm partial to party pies and sausage rolls - mini versions. I find anything like a pie which is normally about 3/4 of the size of a saucer (you dont take a slice out of it like for a family size pie, you eat the whole thing) is difficult becuase if you eat it out of a paper bag like you do if you buy one for lunch at the football or the kids' basketball or wherever, it tends to fall apart, so its the kind of thing you eat very fast in huge gulps before all the hot filling falls on your hands. Instant PB there! I struggle with sushi and rice paper rolls and stuff for the same reason. If I can buy them, take them home and eat with a knife and fork, fine, but to try to eat them out of the bag with my hands, ouch.

I agree entirely! I dont think it was all a huge con when they told us to eat high carb, low fat back in the 80's and 90's. I think its what all evidence pointed to as being correct at the time. I also think it went off the rails becuase people tend to eat HIGH carb, HIGH sugar and HIGH fat, they dont follow the healthy food pyramid AT ALL. Now there's lots of evidence that a Protein based diet is it and a bit and so we're leaning that way. I think in time we'll see the flaws in that as well. I personally feel most comfortable eating everything in moderation and eating what makes me feel good and function well. But there's a different focus in controlling diabetes and indeed, I can see the sense in eating the same things becuase you know that they help you control the condition.

Genetics, age, exercise and not losing weight really fast seem to all be factors. However, your shape is a huge factor, I think. If you are apple shaped, the likelihood of tummy skin is just really high. But that's not necessarily a bad thing, lol. I got out of it relatively lightly but I'm left with enough sag to really dsappoint me, a backside that looks like a bag full of cottage cheese, but nothing bad enough to justify the enormous cost of plastic surgery (its more expensive in Australia and I have kids to educate and we desperately need a larger house. Apart from my boobs. And I really could tell before I lost a gram that that woudl be the case.

Why on earth cant you just say you've had a hernia surgery or gall bladder surgery or similar and that you are on a liquid diet? Who is going to argue with that? Personally, I told everyone I was having this surgery, and I would have had no problem going to a wedding and saying I couldnt eat becuase I'd just had it and was still on the liquid diet. What's to hide?

Yes, try taking out say .2. The teeniest fills can make a difference.

You're not on blood pressure meds are you? DH was suffering from this and has come off his medication. His bp was WAY low.

I cannot BELIEVE your doctor would ignore your symptoms! There is obviously something wrong and from the sounds of the restrictions to your eating, your band is not functioning properly - it may be slipped for example. I would strongly urge you to find another doctor, one who will listen to you and not ignore dangerous symptoms. How dare he be upset at you wanting to remove fill? From what you say its the most obvious and easiest thing to try. Surely your other doctors and specialists will support you in finding a lapband doctor who can help you?

Well.... it DIDNT happen to me and I eat a more carb based diet. I dont count protein, I dont do protein first and I probably eat 50 grams a day or so. I think its more a mix of generalised reduction in nutrition (as opposed to malnutrition, i think your body recovers and readjusts) and hormonal disturbance. I dont think protein has very much to do with hair loss in most cases - it could just as easily be zinc or iron for example.

Well, personally I think there's nutritional problems that can arise too - since what I see people eating (and this is not a high protein/high carb comparison or argument at all) is absolutely terrible. The biggest problem with the band outside of damage to your actual body (which is rare) is that banding, and the way people tend to want to use it - leads to the inability to consume entire food groups - and it CERTAINLY leads to the underconsumption (by a long shot) of fresh fruit and vegetables. I agree entirely that the risks of obesity far outweigh the risks of eating too little fresh produce, but I dont personally believe a diet of Protein Shakes, cheese, the occasional cracker and maybe a bean or two now and then is doing anyone ANY favours in terms of living a long, healthy cancer and disease free life. I have what I consider a loose band and I have to work extremely hard to fit these foods in, since they are more difficult foods, I find myself gravitating to the easier foods - often healthy foods, but not fibrous ones, and indeed to bad foods - for some insane reason, I find pastry easy, so I am always craving a meat pie or sausage roll for lunch (I'm an Aussie, lol). And the problem is, with a bandsters little stomach, 3 slices of raw carrot is NOT an entire serve of vegies. That woudl be my main concern.

Breakfast: an apple sliced up, with peanut butter lunch: vietnames rice paper rolls we made : rice paper, vermicelli, bean sprouts, carrot, capsicum, cucumber, prawns and coriander) with plum sauce/sweet chilli/soy to dip. YUMMY. Was sad I could on fit in two. Afternoon: Eliza and I baked banana and almond muffins (low fat recipe, wholemeal flour). Well, I had to eat one didnt I? Dinner: 1/4 cup lamb curry, sliced mango, cucumber in yogurt and a spoonfull of rice. Glass of white wine.

I'm so glad your breastfeeding has continued! I found by 19 months with my third, I wouldnt have even had to nurse her on my sore stomach - I could have thrown her a boob from across the room, lol. She didnt even have to stop playing with her blocks!

Yes, you are putting your band at great risk if you do it often. A PB *does* involve heaving, well for many people it does (for me its a very violent occurrence), unless you've got incredibly slack valves that just let it gurgle back up. The whole action of pb or vomiting is your muscles working in reverse to eject food, and that puts your band at risk. You may be one of the *lucky???* ones who just opens her mouth and out it comes. If it happens more than occasionally, the two most likely reasons are a) you're not eating properly on continuing to eat things that just dont agree with you (chew even slower, take even TINIER bites) or :thumbup: you're just too tight. YOu can be too tight without reflux, heartburn, etc. The band was never actually designed to keep you entirely satisfied on half a cup of Protein only food, its a tool meant for a more balanced diet in smaller quantities, so you are really meant to stay loose enough to eat cereals, vegetables and fruits. If a lot of those foods are off your menu, you're probably too tight. If your band is at a restriction level where you never feel hunger, you're probably too tight. Think about your diet, are you unconsciously choosing slider foods - no not ice cream and Cookies, but have you severely limited your diet, always choosing yogurt for Breakfast, always taking the easy option for lunch? Does fear strike whenever you're eating out and not in complete control of the menu? If so, you're too tight. What the band should do for you is enable you to eat less than you did, but still eat a complete diet. Unfortunately, it never turns out that easy for most people and we nearly all need a little more control than is ideal, I think the band's pioneers were not fat people themselve, lol and took the overly simplistic view that just coz we were full we would stop eating. But by being tight enough to make pbing and sliming a regular event, you do run the risk of causing damage to your band AND to your body, your teeth and esophagus will not thank you either.

Um, maybe I'm insane but I would consider nuts seeds and avocadoes a gazillion times over a better nutritional choice than Protein shakes. Much healthier fats in those than in meat, cheese and dairy foods. I'm not trying to stay thin so that I look good when i die of a heart attack.

You're early on and the belly fat will probably be the last to go, if you're more apple shaped, it will take a long time. Its reducing, but of course, you want it all gone now! Even for those of us more pear shaped, there's some stubborn belly fat that hangs around. Your routine sounds good, it depends on your fitness though. I'd be aiming to jog, then run, rather than walk - although any cardio will work - intensity is what really makes the difference. And its not as hard as it sounds, running 10k for me now is quite an easy, comfortable thing to do. It's .

Not weird at all - this has been the hardest part for me of the whole journey, after a lifetime of always trying to change myself and my body, suddenly I'm here. To be honest, I kept trying to lose weight, it took me a long time to realise I was there. It takes time but 18 months at goal and I'm starting to not be striving to see an ever smaller number on the scale. Sooner or later, we have to look at ourselves and accept what we see, and its funny how you can be so thrilled with your reflection on the one hand and still want to keep working on it on the other. I still have days where I feel I've only got hold of this by a thread, it could all slip away from me. I've got to work on not feeling that panic every time I have a day where I eat something not diet friendly (most days, lol). I've answered your pm by the way, just saw it.