Jachut

I think intensity too if time is short. Just add some intervals of high intensity stuff. I did a spin class today, just felt like it. It was GREAT fun. I love doing these things that I only do very rarely (like spinning or swimming laps). My memory of doing them is of hard work and then I go and it was as easy as. I mean, not easy because I pushed myself but I remember spinning as vomit inducing, face beet red pulsating stuff and it wasnt that hard and I did over 30kms on the bike in the class. And I could do the stand up/sit down really fast routine, where I just simply couldnt do that 2 years ago.

I would freak out if I could only eat 1/4 of a sandwich. I just dont understand why it is necessary to eat that little to lose weight. There has GOT to be long term health consequences to that. I'd have to eat 20 times a day to remain upright. I dont even agree with the half cup for bandsters. Is there a reason for making the new stomach so small (like do they have to to get the ghrelin producing part)? And does it stretch out over time at ALL? How do you halt weight loss if you become underweight?

Hmmmmm, could be a combination. High cholesterol levels are definitely genetic to some degree, some people struggle and need to be medicated even though their lifestyles are perfect. What do you eat? Its more than just red meat. Now, I know I'm the resident anti low carb high protein diets are unhealthy spoilsport on this board and I definitely believe that when people go on things like Atkins and their lipid profiles improve its more from weight loss than it is from something magic about the diet. Any animal fat has traditionally been thought to be a factor so you have to look at butter, eggs, processed deli meats, cheese, and ANY processed foods - lean cuisines, other boxed meals, snack foods, processed carbs - they can all contribute to high cholesterol levels. There are some good foods that you can include more off that can help to improve lipid profiles. Fibre is your friend, a diet high in fruits and vegetables can help a lot - oats contain a special fibre that can help too - but REAL oats (I think you call them steel cut? we call them rolled oats) not processed quick ones. There's also various margarines and stuff on the market, not sure how effective they are though. Good fats like nuts, avocado and fish oils need to be part of your diet - this is where you should be getting your fat from, not from animal sources and if you do this, then you dont have to do a particularly low fat diet. Exercise is also an effective weapon in improving your blood profile. So, if you have a good diet made up in large part of fruit and vegetables, you limit animal fat but eat freely of good fats, you avoid processed foods and exercise regularly you are doing the most you can reasonably do, and if your cholesterol stays high then I guess you know that you will also need to take additional medical steps to control it.

My BMI was 36, and I took almost 2 years to lose 100lb, but I'd lost 80 of that by the end of the first year. I too found I lost weight just about automatically although I built up over time and now work really hard - it was a lot of work to lose the last 20 lb or so, and I'd still like to shed another 10 to 15 but it hasnt happened in 18 months of trying! I run, do circuit training, do stuff like spin classes on top fo that just for fun and am really active in my every day life. There's lots of thinking in Australia that the band works BETTER for lower BMI patients, and we were discussing this in another thread, its almost as if your body doesnt get as sick or as determined to stay fat, better to nip it in the bud now! Who wants fast weight loss anyway if its just weight that you didnt need to put on in the first place?

When you start exercising, you can retain a bit of Water in your muscles which can account for weight gain. Muscle doesnt weigh more than fat, its just that a pound of muscle takes up less space than a pound of fat. People say it flippantly and its misleading, what it simply means is that if you have more muscle you'll weigh more. But its fantasy to think anyone can gain few pounds of muscle from doing a couple of weeks of cardio - most women wont gain that much after a year of weight training. The real truth is that when people first start exercising, its hard work, takes lots of effort and dedication but its not really that intense in terms of what exercise can be for someone who is fit and athletic and a seasoned exerciser. It is possible to burn 1000 calories in an hour running, but you sure as eggs cant do that when you start. A couple of hundred calories a day is not that huge an amount of calories to be burning, its not going to make THAT much difference. Also there's the tiredness you feel as a result of your efforts until you're more conditioned, you kind of slow down for the rest of the day and burn less calories overall which kind of nets out the exercise. Not to worry, if you keep at it, you get fitter and you will get to the stage where you can say go out for a run, come home and continue with your day without even feeling tired. You'll get there. You really have to watch what you eat too, its not uncommon to eat more as a result of exercising - it may make you hungrier or you may subconsciously think you can afford to because you've exercised. Weight loss still comes down mainly to diet. All those are factors why exercise may not give you the weight loss result you may expect - at first. Keep at it and it will pay off and at first cardio everyday is GREAT, its the best fat burner and that's what you want for the present time, to get rid of fat. Dont be discouraged by gain, it wont go far and it will reverse quickly.

I wasnt planning on saying anything about my band either. I just know that they'll tell me I need mega points and I know I dont, so I'll adjust accordingly if I go.

If you're like me, you hate counting and measuring - calories, Protein, carbs, fat, whatever. You dont want to "diet" every again and you dont want to be obsessed with every morsel that you ingest. Is it the right thing, does it contain the right nutrition etc. I mean, I figure why swap a life obsessed with being fat for a life obsessed with being thin? Lookie what I found :5-4-3-2-1 Diet Plan How easy is that? It fits the protein first model but it suits me as I believe wholegrain carbs are part of a healthy diet. It allows a little room for treats, which are a given on any diet that you can live with for life. If you make your mixed together meals (casseroles, stews, even lunchtime sandwiches) sensible ones containing protein and vegies, then there should be no problem. Fatty Pasta dishes probably best avoided! I'm going to practice this this month. I want to lose those last 4 kgs. I wonder if I *can* eat 14 bites in a meal, I've never counted. anyway, hopefully that's helpful to some of you other non dieters.

No, I totally get that plain. This has been very hard work and I feel a great sense of pride in the fact that most of that hard work came from ME, not the band. It doesnt make me run, it doesnt make me train. It just gave me the confidence that this time it would work which gave me the confidence and faith to actually DO it this time. Its easy to underestimate the affect on your appetite and remember how hard it was to stick to a healthy diet before though. I too am underfilled by the standards expressed on here. Things that make you go hmmmm...

I really like the WW program and have been thinking about going just to get the last 5kg off, even though I'm at a healthy weight now. I am more than 3kg from the bottom of my healthyweight range, so they will allow me to join. I like the points program - its calorie counting made simple. I nearly went Tuesday night but something came up, but I think I will next Tuesday. Its only at the bottom of my street.

Do you want an honest answer? its horrid, but you will survive and I didnt find it anywhere NEAR as bad post surgery.

I didnt go swimming today becuase I just got my hair cut this morning and didnt want to ruin a good blow dry. Hmmmm, chipped nails, faded fake tan, ruined blow dry. Am I a bit of a prima donna? Maybe I like running becuase I can stick my boobs out and prance a little?. I even get to run past about 50 workmen working on the main road here at the moment. Sigh, I better get butch and do a circuit tonight. DH wants to too, so we can do it together. The circuit that is.

Since I've turned this into a thread about what actors I hate, does anyone else share my Anne Hathaway phobia? Boy, that chick looks like Mr Ed eating an apple through a chain link fence. Gloucester, Eliza is almost 6 and I dont know how she makes enough pee to use all the bathrooms she does. Its her favourite pasttime.

You need your fills to change that, what you are feeling is entirely normal and known as bandster hell - the period of time before your first fill where you have to white knuckle it. and weight loss slowing or stopping is entirely normal too - you lose a TON of Water weight in those first weeks, eventually when you start eating your fluids start rebalancing, your weight stabilises, might even go up a bit. Dont worry as you've also lost quite a bit of fat and it will likely stay lost. Just hang in there.

Ah, breakfast was Crunchy Nut Cornflakes - yes, beat me, terrible, white processed carbs. Boy it was yummy though. Lunch was salad - I had lettuce, parsley, coriander, cucumber all grown from our garden, tomatoes, capsicum, beetroot and slivered almonds, and some cheese in it too - dressing was a small amount of sesame oil, soy sauce and white wine vinegar. snacks, lets see.... a small skim latte, a packet of sultanas and a couple of DS's salt and vinegar chips. I'm about to pour myself a glass of red. Dinner is home made tomato soup.

You've said it perfectly Mac, that' exactly what I was trying to work out. I wasnt hungry but my appetite was definitely out of control - and if I'm honest, with a band I had great appetite control for the first year, year and a half and I have much more of my old appetite now 3 years out. But it hasnt been problematic to me a) because I burn off the calories and :eek: because I have learned to some degree how to work with it - some of this things the switch flipping achieved for you HAVE stuck for me - I prefer healthy food and I love to exercise. But it is definitely the reason why I havent lost that 5 extra kilos I'm always talkiing about. I quite simply dont have the willpower to stick to a diet. I'd need more fill and since I believe tight fills are a reason for lots of problems, I think I'm better off being happy at what is afterall a healthy weight.

Yeah, that's kind of what I'm wondering. I mean its not as if there's not other reasons for why society is getting fatter and fatter. We're surely not suddenly breeding new generations of excess ghrelin making super sized people? We're can wishfully attribute getting fatter to something being wrong with our bodies, to eating the wrong balance of Protein and carbs, we can blame sugar, we can blame fat, but the bald truth is people stuff their faces and sit on their bums. Our lifestyles are making us fat. Obesity is a disease for sure but we havent "caught" it in the same way that you catch chicken pox. Its because of the way we live. Does it flip some sort of switch in our bodies that hormonally predisoposes us to remaining fat once we have got that way. Can you get better? Will the sleeve be a super surgery precisely because it addresses those ghrelin levels more effectively than the band does?

Lol, I've nearly pbd about 600 times week because I cant help trying to make my bites "count". It doesnt really work for bandster sized bites. So... ah, maybe this wasnt such a great idea afterall. I'm just off to have 14 bites of chocolate - becuase that's OK isnt it?

Definitely, I could absolutely never have the commitment to exercise that I do with a gym. Doing it at home is my main reason for success. Having a treadmill enabled me to make it a daily habit, and not an expensive one. Half an hour is all it takes if that's all you have, not the whole mornign it used to take me to go to the gym, do the tedious program, spend 30 minutes on a bike or treadmill, drive home to get showered and changed and do my hair. I can get up, get on the treadmill and run and its over and done with in ahlf an hour, 40 minutes. Of course, more often than not these days i would chose to run outside, but its been VERY hot lately and I'd have been cactus without the treadmill, I wouldnt have done anything.

Hehehe, that could happen in our household. DH's wimpish lazy attitude to exercise infuriates me. Poor baby starts to puff a bit and feels hot so he has to stop. Needless to say he's a complete hypochondriac regarding everything else too so I dont buy it. And he regularly asks me to "hurt him" becuase he does WANT to get fit. But his natural pathetic weakness wins out every time, lol. If I made him do what I do it'd kill him for sure.

Lol, I eat the salad becuase the vegies are healthy. I will order whatever is on the menu that I fancy and if that's creamy Pasta, then that's what I order. I dont eat out more than once or twice a month, I enjoy it when I do. I just eat WAY less and that makes me enjoy it more. there's certain foods I'd avoid though becuase they are more likely to result in a pb - I would never order a burger or fries for example.

Treadmills are VERY versatile. I'd like a spin bike too, but if I have to choose, it'll be the treadie. I can use it so many ways. I can do hard interval training on it - usually with cardio coach or similar. I can hop on it for a half hour easy run if the weather's not conducive to going outside. I can run backwards and sideways on it - yes, I'm mad - to develop other muscles. If I dont feel like running I can up the incline and walk with a very similar intensity to a jog, but it feels different and like I"m taking it easy. I can use it for circuit training where i might only hop on it three or four times for five minutes between sets of exercises. I can walk slowly on it whilst I watch something I wanted to watch on television, simply to avoid sitting on my lardy arse for the hour. I also use it LOTS when I have reading to do for uni, I might set it to just 3 miles an hour and amble along while I read - again its better than sitting on my bum.

Well, specifically, firstly I cant empathise when people say they were hungry ALL the time before their surgery. I wasnt, I just ate a lot coz I liked it, I wasnt paying attention, I ate what was put in front of me, I responded to non hunger cues like a chocolate bar put right in front of me at the petrol station. But I wasnt inappropriately hungry and I harbour a secret thought when people say they were that they're really talking about being like me - a conglomerate of truly awful eating habits and lack of awareness of it, eating so often that they honestly didnt have a chance to even experience true physical hunger. Having a band forced me to pay attention and when I paid attention and thought about it, I was able to work on bad habits I never even realised I had one by one. I had to think if I eat that chocolate bar now, I wont be able to eat the dinner I've worked so hard to make. At a restaurant I know Im going to eat only 1/4 of the meal so I think hard about what would be best for me instead of chowing through the Pasta carbonara and a piece of choclate cake as big as a house brick. I sip my wine because I know to drink too much will make me hurt in conjuction with eating. So I drink 2 less glasses than I would have. All little things like that. I'd also say that chewing slowly is the number one reason why the band has worked for me. Its amazing how much aware you are when you dont inhale your food. Am I so very very lucky or different? Do I/did I just produce less ghrelin than other obese people in the first place? I certainly dont appear to be any different at all from Mr Jachut, or any other real life bandsters I know but that doesnt mean much, its only 20 or so people. I guess it doesnt do you any harm not to be hungry though, unless you forget to eat constantly so its a moot point, its just something I wonder about, that's all.

I was never told certain amounts - but measuring out small portions like half a cup is sensible at this stage - but just dont get to the point of feeling really full - stop at comfortable (however much that is) and you will be fine.

Hehehe, having no belly button would probably be one of those things where people look at you and cant figure out what's not quite right - like when a man shaves of a beard or moustache.

I just dont really understand this ghrelin thing. I mean, at first, with the super duper restriction I had after surgery I felt like I'd taken appetite suppressants but since then my hunger has been more or less normal - meaning I wake up hungry because I havent eaten for oh, 14, 15 hours. That's normal, not a problem. I have some Breakfast. Then four hours later or so I might get hungry becuase i've had a busy morning. Normal again. I have a snack. 2 oclockish I might get peckish, feel like a bit of lunch. So? I eat some. And I'm always ready for dinner by 7pm, often with a small snack in between. I just dont understand why I need my band or a sleeve to turn that off. Its normal to get hungry when our bodies need fuel and its normal to eat in response to it. My band helps me becuase that hunger is quickly satisifed with a small portion of food, not becuase I never get hungry. I've never forgotten to eat. And because I dont worry about eating a piece of toast or filling my stomach with vegetables rather than Protein I eat very bulky foods. I'd eat a filling vegie and lentil Soup for lunch not try to exist on 2 tablespoons of cottage cheese. Because I eat bulk, I havent needed to be tight, ever, and I havent ever had that frustrating search for good restriction. I am absolutely positive that people are trying to eat too little and walking around chronically overtight as a result of trying to control their appetitie and that's what leads to a lot of problems. I dont think you need synptoms such as reflux or pb to be too tight. I know, I know, I'm missing sometihng. Everyone else is hungrier than I am. But its the main thing that puts the sleeve into the "that's only for really sick people" category for me, like the bypass - and probably why the band (or any surgery for that matter) tends to work so much better for lower BMI patients - have our bodies not become quite as sick yet? I just truly dont understand the need not to be hungry - I would have thought that learning to respond appropriately to hunger was the most important point,