Jachut

Totally, and I wouldnt change a thing.

I did one today that looked a bit like ET....

Yeah, let me rephrase perhaps. Its not weird to notice and appreciate Kate's natural squishiness, lol. Its rather weird to go on about it on national television.

me too. Its sooo tempting to think you're going to lose tons and tons of weight, but it rarely happens that way. If you get the unfill, let things settle, you will more than likely be able to handle this level of fill again soon. 2.7 in my band is GREAT for me now, six months ago it was really uncomfortably tight so I had .2 removed. I got REALLY hungry, lol and got two .1 fills after about four or five months, a month apart and 2.7 is now a great level. Totally different. There is rarely anythng to be gained by remaining too tight.

Thanks Lucy and good luck!

had about 9 to 100lb to lose and I think I'd lost about 35 before anyone really noticed. It took a lot longer than I thought it would. It also took about that much to even go down a dress size. Hang in there, sooner or later you'll really begin to see it.

What's your regular diet like? do you eat plenty of fruit and vegetables and a good source of fibre like oatmeal on a regular basis? Ideally, you really should eat two different fruits and about five different veg in a day. Try a few prunes, or some prune juice. And then make sure you get those foods you need in daily, plenty of Water and exercise, should keep you regular.

Lol, interesting. DH and I were given a whole set of Midsomer Murders on DVD, which is a British detective series, we're a bit hooked on those and have about 200 Taggart DVD's, so we're onto something new. We've always giggled at the people on the shows. Made jokes about how unattractive the English are. Why? Because we're so exposed to the Hollywood view of beauty, that to see completely normal looking people on TV, people without blinding white teeth, enormous plastic tits, bits of fat sucked from every slightly curvy part of their body, huge hair and incredible makeup, looks really WEIRD. Yet people still look pretty much normal in Australia and older women with obvious face lifts and work done are really seen as a bit tragic, definitely stereotyped as bored, rich and unfulfilled. You dont see fake boobs all over the place and IRL I dont know anyone who's had a face lift. Yet its so pervasive isnt it? That for a star to have real breasts is quite comment-worthy. Has anyone seen that cartoon about what Hollywood would do to the Mona Lisa? Its freaking hilarious because its so tragically true. I dont think it was weird for her to comment either. In my view Kate Winslet is SO much more gorgeous than so many other fake looking starlets and her naturalness is quite refreshing.

As you get fitter, its not hard. I'd easily burn 700 to 800 calories quite a few days of the week with a 6 mile (10km) run that takes about an hour. Other days, a good hard circuit for an hour would burn 400 easily. Your weights, rather than being done standing there with standard sets of 12 reps, can be done as a circuit, fast and hard, with no rest between exercises. Do 40 squats with a barbell for example and immediately drop to 40 pushups (giving the leg muscles a rest while you work another group), then jump up and lunge walk aroudn the room, followed by something else, and intersperse it all with running on a treadmill or gettingo n an elliptical for a few minutes at a time, keep your heart rate high and you will burn MEGA calories.

My mum behaved as I'd expected - with shock, alarm and negativity. It annoyed me to be honest, she's my mum and I love her but boy she can be dumb at times. Like how many freaking times do I have to diet to prove that it doesnt work. And she'd say something like "go to Weight Watchers, it always works for me". To which I simply couldnt resist saying "mum, if it worked, you'd have only been once". She didnt speak to me for a week after that, lol. Not that my mother has a weight problem, she's only ever had to tackled 10lb or so. In the end, what made it clear for her was when I said that I was doing it to fix my ankle problem (true). And that if I were having surgery on my ANKLE then nobody would be panicking over a general anaesthetic, would they? Why everyone things a general is dangerous for lapband surgery but not for ankle surgery is beyond me, but that's how everyone around me thought. It would have been the same for cosmetic surgery "oh, but you could DIE under anaesthetic" but nobody ever questioned my decision to have my wisdom teeth out, my heel spurs removed, even my caesarean and THAT involved not only my life but my daughter's too. I explained I was having surgery to FIX something and that was all there was to it. After that I had everyone's support, despite their misgivings. However, now my mum cant understand why I dont have it removed, you know, after I've learned all new habits. Oh boy. Lol.

Hmmm, sort of. I dont really like ice cream much for instance. I dont dislike it but it has never ever been a problem or temptation food for me. Since banding, I do eat it more than I ever did (which is still not often). Because its easy. I have always had a sweet tooth. I dont think its increased but sometimes I indulge it more simply, I think, for the experience of eating unrestricted - since sweet things like Cookies are so darn easy to eat. Sometimes I just plain want to eat without having to chew, without having to wait for it to clear etc. And I find I have to e very careful careful with post exercise nutrition, I must have some protein/carbs mixed (like skim millk and some nuts) within the hour as I might burn 1000 calories in a long run and if I dont restore the glycogen and energy, I will have WICKED carb cravings all day long and will jsut graze without stopping. That's what I'd suggest. Really stop and look at your diet. Are you perhaps hungry, lacking and that's giving you the cravings? Do you eat five small meals a day or three. Can you rejig the balance, cut some carbs, include some carbs, whatever in your meals, never let yourself get hungry etc etc to try to quell those cravings.

I think you DONT respond in your previous pre band dysfunctonal dieter fashion by throwing yourself into a fad diet. That will most likely send you into a spiral of panicky dieting, followed by binging. Deep breath. You've gained 12 lb. Why? What behaviours led to it? Decide, and then change them. Cut them out. Get back to your steady, sensible plan, pick up the exercise and carry on. 12lb will take a little while to come off but you know you can do it. And you KNOW that if you go on a strict liquid diet you will probably lose 12lb of muscle, Water and a little bit of fat. Not 12lb of fat. Get another fill if you think you're ready for one. You have the tools to fight this with, use them, dont let your mind take over and think you must punish yourself with silly diets or that it must come off within a week. You've already lost a lot of weight, you know you can do it. So just stay calm, and get back with what you know you should be doing. And good luck!

A very good article! Its truly a hard thing to do and being at goal does not make it any easier than it ever was to really accept yourself. Personally, i think the advice to wait 2 years after you hit goal for plastic surgery is very good advice. I know how I felt and i was fretting about not having the money for PS becuase I *still* wanted to change a million details about myself. I wanted face work, I wanted boobs, I wanted a thigh lift and i wanted a tummy tuck, most of which I dont even need. I just didnt know how to stop wanting to change. I dont think PS is wrong, not by a long shot (and I am still getting the boobs done), but I think you need to be sure about your reasons because eventually, you need to learn to just be happy with what you are and shift your focus away from changing yourself. Its a very difficult process, but it does come with time.

I'm usually up a pound or two at that time of the month. But although the steady weight loss is fantastic for a few months it cannot go on like that forever. Most people bounce around up and down a bit. You do not see a real trend over a few days. If you're lighter and the end of the month than you were at the beginning, then you're doing great. 2lb is nothign to worry about, I bet its gone in a few days.

Lol, that's funny. I've been told how come I dont look all wrinkled and sick before too. I think that's one of the best things about the band to be honest - the slower weight loss and absorption of what you're eating prevents that.

My doc didnt need me to do it because i had a BMI of 35 and i had by chance had a liver ultrasound (my GP sent me for every test imaginable when he wrote my referral) and there was test results showing that I didnt have an enlarged or fatty liver. DH had a BMI of 35 but knew he had a fatty liver (from previous testing) so he DID have to do it. I was just lucky. If I hadnt had the liver ultrasound and liver enzyme tests, I would have had to do it.

A "good" time is what you can do, dont be so hard on yourself. You dont *really* burn a lot more by running faster, and going slowly and being able to breath actually trains your body's aerobic systems so that you will slowly gain stamina. You want more mitochondria in your cells to process the oxygen to give you energy and working too hard (to go fast) in the anaerobic heart range doesnt lend itself to that. Slow steady exercise is necessary for good aerobic fitness. So if a 14 minute mile is challenging enough to have you breathing hard and sweating, it is doing your body good. And whilst it may be discouraging to only burn 170 calories for your efforts, over time you become fitter and one day you will be running 10ksm in an hour and buring 700 calories doing it. But you have to get from now to then and you're doing exactly what you need to to achieve that. Here's how I would approach it. To lose weight, we have to burn calories, so 170 is a bit frustrating. I would map out the 5kms. I would go out and just run as much of it as I could to get a base from which to start, you have 1.2 miles. I would say right, for the next 2 weeks, I run 1.2 miles, walk the rest. Then I would run 1.5 miles, walk the rest. Then maybe 2 miles if you can make that big a jump. And so on. If after I had cooled down with a bit of walking and i felt like running a bit more, I would, but that's a bonus. Over time, you will find you can run the 5K. Take it slowly but surely. At least this way, you're covering 5K, you're pushing yourself to run as much as you can and then the rest can be easy walking, and you will have the distance nailed in your head. this is how I'm approaching a half marathon. DH and I currently walk 15kms. I *can* run that far, but it is very very tiring. It really is helping me to visualise 15km, to be familiar with it, rather than it being the occasional thing I manage to do. We are going to run/walk our first half together becuase for some reason, I've always been a bit afraid to just go for the half, the distance scares me and whilst I love running, running for 3 hours on my lonesome is not that much fun and it feels absolutely awful to boot (think utter utter crying exhaustion). I need to do it this way to get there. I'm not even thinking about bridging kilometres 15 to 21.1 until I have 15 well and truly mastered. I hope it will work, I think it will. I remember my first 7.5k race and I thougth the end would never come, it was horrendous. Now 10K feels like nothing to me, nothing at all. Its easily visualised and anticipated. I woudl suggest not worrying about your pace. You will see all shapes, sizes and abilities in any race and you wont be as slow as you think. As a beginning runnner, you will have HUGE gains in speed and fitness that I could only dream about now. You will get faster without having to do anything. Does that make any sense? Keep up the good work!

You've done pretty well considering. Dig in your heels and really try to keep on top of the weight gain and hopefully this will be fixed for you in no time. I've got everythign crossed for you that its your port rather than the band so that it can be easily accessed and fixed.

Yes, it does come off slower if you have more to lose. That's *almost* 1 lb a week you know (17lb lost in 6 months), its not as little as it tends to sound. I guess you have to do everything you can to get your metabolism - eat little and often, do some strength training to build up some muscle, try interval style cardio (where you work really HARD for brief spells, like seeing stars hard) all of which will increase your metabolism markedly. Stay away from the soft foods, try eating little and often - five or six small meals a day, and on top of daily exercise, try to never sit down, be as active as you possibly can, stairs instead of the lift, park further away, all that stuff. It all adds up in the end. You sound a lot like my DH, he wasnt even that big an eater but got to a BMI of 35 because he simply has the metabolism of a slug. Add a desk job to that and you have a weight problem that is going to increase over time. He needs a lapband simply to avoid getting really fat, but to lose he has to WORK hard.

I didnt track but I can tell you it averaged one pound a week or less and that most usually, I wouldnt lose for like 3 weeks, then 2 or 3 pounds would disappear overnight. It took me two and a bit years to lose 100lb, I have very little loose skin, it was a lifestyle change rather than a diet and i never needed to drop below 1500 calories a day and I exercises hard and consistently. Once I hit goal, I changed nothing. My weight loss just petered out, I didnt declare goal and 'stop dieting'. I do exactly the same to maintain as I did to lose.

It is for me. These days, if I'm unrestricted enough to get in enough calories with 3 bigger meals, I've also got too much appetite. When I was a bit TOO tight, I couldnt have eaten five or six times a day. I simply wasnt ready to eat after 3 hours and it would be miserable, painful and unsuccessful obviously because my pouch was still too full. Now I can eat enough at a meal to get me through to the next meal but I *CAN* eat in between, which is what I try to do because it keeps me from eating rubbish if I'm always satisfied on good healthy food. I'm not necessarily hungry in between meals but I eat anyway. But if I could seriously *only* get in 500 or 600 in a day then I'd say I was too tight.

Sinkers. In fact I have ghost ones sometimes, they're gone before I can even flush. I usually cant even get the magazine open before its all over. I eat lots of fibre and good carbs. I never have any trouble producing poop. Daily. In quite impressive quantity.

I think you have to eat well, exercise lots, do some strength training and hope for the best. You WILL lose some lean body mass during a large weight loss, it is inevitable. But that doesnt mean your fat to muscle ratio will actually alter. You wont need as much muscle to support your weight and you will have less fat so it will remain at a healthy ratio if you do it right. Fast weight loss is generally not all fat loss. You just dont lose 4lb of fat per week, sorry to say. Very low calories tend to encourage lean tissue loss as well. Slow, steady and with plenty of exercise is the way to go.

I hate to state the obvious but if you cant eat enough calories in a day you dont have good restriction. You have too tight restriction. However, I think good restriction *can* mean that you need to eat five or six times a day, that's a good way for bandsters to go.

I never realised how pear shaped I really was. I'm a healthy weight now, but I still have plenty on my bottom half, I desire to lose about another 20lb really, and even THEN I would have thighs. however, the top half, sheesh. I never expected that you would be able to see all my ribs in my chest, or the joint at the tip of my shoulder. YOu could cut yourself on my collarbones, I can make my son just about vomit by tautening all the cords in my neck and my hands and feet show every single tendon as good as any anatomic diagram. yet, overall, I'm not that "skinny". I'm not skeletal. My hip bones dont stick out much, you cant see all the ribs in my back, etc. I find i have trouble sleeping on my side though. My knees are too bony to rest on top of one another comfortably.