Jachut

Oh - yes, I edited because I rethought even introducing that word, this forum is playing up so terribly today because as you'll see the word is no longer there. It just took about 10 minutes for my edit to process. But I certainly wasnt calling anyone a bigot!

Isnt that the same as what I said? That you should stick up for your beliefs and not be bullied into doing the PC thing if you dont believe in it? Everyone is entitled to opinions, whatever they may be. Really, it comes down to your definition of marriage I guess. What you just described is what I think of marriage as, except it comes with a nice social ceremony and a big party. I put my 2c in more because I just find the whole issue mildly amusing in that as a society we abuse the whole marriage concept terribly, divorce rates are high, we commit adultery, we physically abuse marriage partners, it all turns bitter and nasty for some as they fight over material assets and children, we have children out of wedlock, the whole works. We hardly honor it as a creation of God, societally speaking. But we somehow draw the line and become all pious when it involves homosexual couples? That's just, well, weird to me. But I'm not overly bothered that others think of it differently to me, especially since i guess I conform - I am married, I am in a heterosexual relationship, it is happy and committed and we have three children. So I dont have to wear any of the criticism. I would never disagree that people dont have the right to have a say via vote if they dont feel the same.

Oh, I was banded over 3 years ago, and in Australia, so I can only feel sympathy that I dont have this issue to worry about. Its a bit scary isnt it?

Well I guess if you dont believe that God instituted marriage but that it is a man conceived legal arrangement which affords both partners certain rights and is also a socially respected, very traditional way to publically declare love and commitment between two people then you wouldnt see a reason in the world why gay couples dont have the same rights to this as heterosexual couples. I really believe anyone who cant see that or wont accept that is splitting hairs over the marriage issue to hide the fact that they really dont believe a relationship between two people of the same sex can be as loving and committed as a relationship betwee two people of opposite sex. Your post was not really about Miss California, it was more a chance to make your statement on what you think about gay marriage (an opinion to which you are entitled of course), correct? So you want people's views on this and not on Ms California? Nevertheless, I believe she is courageous and has integrity for sticking by her belief however warped they may be. Good on her, the whole gay marriage cause does not need a bunch of homophobic hypocrite who do not really believe in the issue but want to say/do the socially acceptable thing.

Yep, I can feel it and see it - it sticks out.

I would be watching whatever credible source of information I could - probably best not to get too panicked by the media. If I went, it would be straight from surgery to airport, no sightseeing, no shopping and as little contact with the general public as I could manage. You should be OK inside a hospital. Wash your hands regularly too. But I would be poised to call it all off at a moment's notice too. What a dilemma, I really feel sorry for you.

Oh yes, you'll know when its time to say goodbye to some things for ever. For me, its weird, I can eat a slice of wholegrain bread, but not a donut. Donuts OUCH. Not that that's a problem. I can eat rice and pasta easily enough and do so. Forget about ice cream - painful spasm-y belly ache. Bananas - oh my goodness they are IMPOSSIBLE. Apple skin. Not that I ever liked apples with the skin on much. Stone fruit, no way, no how.

Well, I do eat rice and bread and I do not believe that they stop all people from losing weight. Many people can handle carbs fine. They are not poison for everyone. But you MAY do better on a lower carb diet. personally, i find my band works best when I make a conscious effort to avoid eating too many "easy" foods. Easy foods are not necessarily unhealthy foods, what I mean is that I naturally choose stuff like yogurt for Breakfast followed by Soup for lunch simply because they are easy, dont cause problems and over the years my appetite has developed a preference. However, if I eat this way, I will be picking between meals because these foods dont give satiety for very long. Now, if I eat an egg on a slice of wholegrain toast for breakfast and some grilled chicken in a tossed salad for lunch, I might think meh, cant be bothered, too hard, just dont feel like it but they are the things that fill me up and keep me satisfied. I really struggle with this, not due to lack of willpower but just because my appetite now tends to drive me towards softer easier foods and I do it unconsciously. I can guarantee even a few days of watching this habit results in pounds gone for me. I find I need bread, rice, Pasta and potato for the bulk that it provides, its what makes my band work really well. I always eat FAR less overall when I include these foods and they most definitely do not affect my weight loss. I probably burn them off as I run so much.

I was lucky - right away. Didnt have to do a pre op diet so the weight fell off me right from day 1.

I can eat popcorn without a problem.

And you know yourself Wasa about the people who come on and say they've eaten a steak 3 days out from surgery. Some people really DO screw up their bands, and you're usually amongst the first to say so. People often ask what have you done, did you do something wrong etc because sometimes too, band problems ARE fixable. Many people think they're eating small enough bites and chewing enough when they're not. Or they are simply too tight and dont realise it. Examining your habits is the first sensible action to take. I know it must be frustrating to have people assume that you did something wrong when you didnt, but the truth is in some cases, people or their doctors are doing something wrong and it can be rectified. The band doesnt totally fail in every person who has less than successful results, sometimes it IS behaviour issues causing the problem.

I think odds are you will be able to live a normal, if more moderate, lifestyle after the surgery. You're right that your 12 pack days are over though - my husband, though never a big drinker, will nurse a beer for about 2 hours now, it takes him that long as its filling becuase of the bubbles. The other thing with alcohol is that you have to be careful after you've had a few, you're attention to the way you eat lapses and its prime time for a huge vomiting episode if you shove something down your throat without chewing. Even though you've got a band, after four or five drinks a hot dog or kebab at 2 am still sounds mighty good. But you just cant do it. But I think at your age, you'll be able to fit in still wihilst being mature enough to know your limits.

OK, first I think you need to sort out which band you actually have. There isnt a band that is 10cc but only holds 5cc. You may mean a 10cm band that holds 5cc (although that should be 4cc)? You need to know this for starters. Then, I think your fills might be too big, so that you're ot able to sneak up on good restriction without incident. If you have a 4cc band, then this is definitely the case, my first fill was 1cc, then .5cc, and since then they have all been 0.2 or 0.1cc - and let me tell you, in this band 0.1cc makes a very big difference. Even with a larger capacity band, my husband has the 10cc band, he has fills of 0.2 cc and he's only up to about 4 in total. He had a 0.5cc fill and had to go back to be unfilled, now he has actually passed that fill level but has been able to do it due to having tiny fills. I think fluoro is a bit of a problem actually - just because you can see on a screen that you have not blocked off the band does NOT mean that you wont swell badly from it within hours and not be able to hold anything down. It most certainly does not ensure you reach optimal fill in one fell swoop as you can tell from about a gazillion posts on this forum. I tend to believe that fluoro encourages overly aggressive filling. Its a pity that fills cost you guys so much becuase that doesnt encourage conservative behaviour, but slow and steady pays off when it comes to reaching good restriction. Better to go back biweekly for six fills of .1cc than to have one fill of .6cc in many cases. But I think for many people it would solve the frustrating fill/unfill cycle. As to why they only pulled out .5cc, well are you sure they put the 2.75 INTO the port? It wouldnt be the first time a doctor has missed the target and injected into someone's flesh rather than into their band. A leak would show on the screen. The other thing is that at my surgery, they have found the whole pulling out the fill to check thing as a routine matter irritates some patients' stomachs to a large degree, causes more swelling etc, so there is a policy of not doing it unless there is a reason to.

PB's can be pretty violent! And if you're prone to nosebleeds, I would say that its easy to imagine you'd have one after a bad pb. What a pain though!

Warm is much easier for me. Cold yogurt straight from the fridge first thing in the morning - whoa, forget about it. Instant blockage. Dangerous at other times of the day too - which is what makes yogurt a good snack for me, I have to eat it slowly and carefully. Things that are REALLY cold like ice cream or a quickly gulped cold drink can set off agonising bellyaches for me. Its not blockage, its a colicky muscle spasm thing aches all the way up my esophagus and into the roof of my mouth, and its one of those horrible pains that you cant curl up into a ball to relieve, its just unrelenting. And if it happens, I really cant function, its obvious to all around that I'm in pain.

That is a hard fact to face! You never want to think that you'll be one of the unlucky ones. However, some people DO mismanage their bands terribly and some people's doctors dont seem to have a clue what they're doing either. That doesnt help! But yes, there's definitely a contingent of people who truly just dont tolerate a band for no fault of their own and it makes me mad that I dont recall this EVER being explained by my surgeon either in my consultations or at any information sessions. I've been to several as a speaker and its never ever mentioned. People think the worse that can happen is that you'll overeat and throw up.

There are a few threads on this. Some people have a slight unfill, however I found my weight loss just petered out and eventually stopped and I began to maintain instead. I didnt change my food intake or exercise habits, its just kind of evened out. Thankfully that happened at a reasonable weight and not at 20lb overweight still! I went way past my original goal of 79kg (about 180lb) but that didnt worry me, at 5ft 10, I was still pretty fat at that weight and knew I didnt want to stop there. I always wanted to be about 150lb and its pure coincidence that that's where I stopped.

Also, I try to do a few really vigorous sessions a week and a few easier ones. If I'm just doing a nice steady pace run, I can go in the morning before I start my day and get it out of the way - it wakes me up, energises me and puts me on a high. However, if I'm going to do an interval session which usually results in a pounding beet red face, a heart rate of about 190 and real exhaustion, I plan that for late afternoon. I simply dont make it through my day very well if I've worked that hard, so I do it when I can relax after! I get the true runners high from this, a real feeling of euphoria but by about 3 pm I feel like I'm walking through waist deep Water I'm so tired.

Hmmm, good point.

The energy doesnt come till later, when you're fit. At first it does exhaust you. Its hard to get through. I dont really know what to tell you except stick at it. It took me six months of solid work to really begin to like it and now I really and truly love to exercise.

Well, like I said it was very much a cosmetic procedure to me too. And like most cosmetic procedures it has improved my life enormously, made great impact on my self esteem and mental health, given me an optimistic and enthusiastic outlook AND improved my physical health and quality of life for years to come!

Almost four years out here and I'm LOVING mine still. I've never had a moment's trouble with it, it works as it should. There's a few factors. I have excellent medical support. I attend Prof. O'Brien's clinic so I do believe I see doctors who truly know what they are doing. I do think there's loads of doctors out there that are still learning themselves. Also, the band requires quite a bit of behaviour modification. This is no moral judgement but many people for whom the band doesnt work simply arent able to adjust to banded life, even in very subtle ways and they cause themselves problems. Like I said, that is not a moral judgement, those are people sicker than I was, who perhaps would have benefitted from a different surgery. Then there's people for whom it just doesnt work, they have horrible problems, find the pain, reflux and inability to eat impossible to live with. That I see as twofold - people have physiological problems which mean a band is not that good for them - their stomachs or their esophagus or whatever, they just get awful symptoms, they're too sensitive to fills so they go from being over to under filled etc. And also sometimes I think their doctors do stuff like overagressive filling, thinking that fluouro means that you can take a fill right to the perfect point immediately which I think is rubbish - small and steady works better. But some people just will never tolerate a band. Bands work really well when they work but they're more problematic than I think we're lead to believe. Nonetheless, I got a dream ride and wouldnt change my decision for anything. I dont eat "normally" in the sense that I dont eat like I used to but it certainly doenst hinder a normal lifestyle - family, friends, eating out etc. Not for me anyway.

I've never been 70kg as an adult, I always hovered around 78-79kg before I got really fat. My healthy weight range is 63-79kgs, you can find healthy weight charts in a million places, in every calorie counter you buy for example. I knew that at 79kg I never felt thin. I was chunky, definitely not able to wear what I wanted and at that weight (which is about 180lb or so) and 5ft 10, I was definitely sized out of regular clothing at an Australian 16 (American 14 or so), I had to buy fat old nanna clothes and I loathed it. And I just knew, going by the covering of fat I had, that it was still overweight for me. So I set 70kg as a goal. My surgeon never asked but the nutritionist I saw for one visit did. She told me it was overambitious and not likely to happen. I ignored her, her nutrition advice was pretty generic and crap too. Having gotten to this weight, i can see I am not "a big girl" or "big boned" like people always used to say about me as a child and teen. I was never obese but always hefty. I am actually quite fine boned and lightly muscled and I am not meant to be at the heavy end of my weight range. My weight at the moment is just fine, but I could easily be 10lb lighter and not be too thin. Yet 5ft 10 and 145lb or so on here seems to cause screams of "you'll be scrawny, it'll look horrible". Its a moot point anyway since I dont seem to be able to move from 154.

Lol, I hate to say it but I've stuck with budget jeans that I know fit me. No matter how expensive a pair of jeans is, if they dont fit well, they wont look good. I'm pear shaped and at 5ft 10 and an Aussie size 12 (us 8-10), I guess even though thin, I'm still quite large. I have a few brands of jeans that fit me really well and miracles of miracles have enough leg length to allow heels, so i dont stray from what I know fits well. And to be honest, I just am not that interested in spending over $100 for a pair of jeans when I believe I can get the same thing for $60 or under. But I am intrigued, some of the ones Oprah has plugged for example, I'd certainly like to try.......

Hmmmmm, I waver between saying great and horrible! I've had 3 pregnancies, one of which was a caesarean. I have no overhang at all, I've been incredibly lucky - pregnancy didnt leave me with stretch marks, my caesar didnt destroy my stomach and I never got over a BMI of 36, nor did I have a big stomach when I was fat. So its survived. However, my stomach still does bother me. Its loose. Its better than so many women's stomachs, I know, but its still not the perfect stomach I would want yet its kind of not bad enough to justify the risks and expenses of a tummy tuck. I almost wish it WERE worse just so I'd feel justified in doing something about it. As it is I would feel as if I were misappropriating my family's money for pure vanity. So, meh, my skin is OK. I still have cellulite and a saggy bum, and my stomach is loose. I will never have the perfect body I desire. But I have problems that can be hidden (and who ever feels GREAT and looks truly GREAT in a swimsuit anyway?).