Jachut

Lol, yeah join all us hairless muscleless wonders downunder! Apparently if you eat carbs, you'll never lose weight! Someone forgot to tell my body! I'm off to do some pathetic waste of time muscle wasting running now... Bottom line is calories in, calories out. What is healthy and what is not is entirely debatable, differs for different people and is supported by a mix of scientific theory and credible evidence and some complete bullshit too. On both sides.

It sounds to me like your band is way too loose right now but that when it was tighter and you were having trouble with getting things stuck, it wasnt too tight but you were eating too fast/not chewing enough. Is this possible? Have you really learned to slow down and chew really well? There is no easy way around it, for the band to work you MUST learn to modify your eating habits. There are also no *shoulds* about what you may or may not be able to eat, I can eat bread with good restriction and at goal! And I always have done. If you're tighter, you need tiny bites, lots of chewing and take your time over your meal, or it will get stuck and come back up. Too tight, where you cant swallow liquids is another thing entirely. If you're doing those things then I agree, you need to see the doc to check out whether a slip has occurred.

In my freezer at the moment is some chilli, tons of bolognaise sauce, 2 lasagnes, several containers of lamb curry, moroccan lamb shanks, 2 shepherd's pies, a thai green curry (chicken) as well as the general assortment of chicken and meat (I think I have 2 types of beef roasts, a rolled lamb roast, scotch fillet steaks, marinated chicken breasts, 3 lots of bratwurst sausages and some chicken rissoles). I keep the freezer well stocked with both cooked meals and plenty of raw materials. Its pretty easy to cook a steak, mash some potato and steam some vegies.

Yesterday: Breakfast: scrambled eggs, 1/2 piece toast Lunch: 3 smoked oysters, 3 pieces of brie, 6 crackers Afternoon - 1/2 cup fruit salad with a dollop of greek yogurt Dinner: small piece marinated barbecued chicken breast, garden salad, glass red wine. Today: Breakfast: oatmeal with milk and sugar Mid morning: 1/2 mango and some walnuts: Lunch: a small popcorn and a black coffee at the movies Dinner: will be chicken rissoles, mashed potato and steamed broccoli and carrots, probably a glass of red. Doubt I'll have an afternoon snack, its 3 pm and I'm still feeling VERY unhungry after a very intense run this morning.

I've gotten lazy with my exercise. By lazy I dont mean that I've stopped doing it or cut back. I mean I've not gotten out of my comfort zone. i love running so have been doing lots of long slow runs. Running 10k in 75 minutes is easy stuff for me, like walking would be to someone else. Its pleasant. But I cant expect to continue to improve without putting in effort, so I've gone back to interval training. Cover the same distance but with bursts of hugely intense sprints etc. Burns tons more calories, way more afterburn and a much better runner's high. And my body is showing its appreciation, inches slipping away again, even though I was already at goal.

I'm not a big juice drinker, I'm a believer in eating the fruit. I dont buy juice because its no better for the kids than soda, full of sugar, high calories, and they tend to guzzle it. so I'm raising them the same way i was raised - skim milk or Water to drink. I've also got ingrained in me the habit of not drinking calories. I would no more ingest a couple of glasses of juice a day than eat a family block of chocolate daily. Fast track to weight gain. I drink water. Its one of those healthy habits lots of fat people have. Calorie wise, you might as well be drinking Coke. Although if you truly dont eat any other fruit, then a glass of juice in the morning is probably a good idea. In case I sound too virtuous and perfect, I wake up and head straight for the coffee, before i can do ANYTHING else.

Well by and large, with the exception of the sleeve one day taking off, banding is really the only surgery available here these days. So surgeons do many more of them. The stats are similar in both countries, but Australia has a WAY smaller population, I wonder if that's relevant? Less slippages because less people overall. it would be interesting to compare numbers, not percentages. Like I said, I also think the slippage rate is to do with the fact that Australians generally continue to eat their grain foods - Pasta, rice, bread and cereals. those foods fill you a lot very quickly and most people still want to eat them becuase they dont have the stigma attached to them here, nobody believes that moderate carbs makes you fat. So on the whole, people dont need to be as tight - because for the same calories, a bread roll of a piece of chicken are VERY different in size and to be full on 200 calories of a Protein like chicken you need to be TIGHT.

I'm here, I was just too weak to type for a while there, having done Cardio Coach Vol. 6 OUTSIDE. Holy cow that was hard. I must have looked ridiculous, I had to walk during the low intensity phases, then I'd mouth the countdown ten to one, and suddenly take off like I was being chased by demons, lol. Scarlet faced and dripping with sweat and gasping like I was about to die. Why do i love doing that to myself? Am I insane? The closer I come to vomiting, the better I like it, lol.

Being from Australia, I have an opinion about why the band works so well here - and that's all it is, an opinion. I think its the diet. The emphasis is on a normal diet here, not Protein first. Protein first has several disadvantages to my way of thinking. Firstly, we dont all get 80 to 100 grams of protein a day and we're not all losing our hair and failing to lose weight and ending up all fat no muscle, so that debunks that theory completely. Secondly, I dont believe protein DOES fill the stomach like the doctors say it does. I have had this discussion on Australian boards and there's general consensus that its the fibrous foods that fill the band and make you very satisfied - fruit, vegetables and grain foods (not WHITE carbs mind you). Eat a meal of mainly protein and you ingest a LOT more calories than a meal spaced out with plenty of salad and some bread!). Also it will be a much higher fat meal. Now mind you, I am not saying that the old traditional food pyramid is the way to go. I think reducing carbs from a ridiculously carb overload diet is a sensible thing for weight loss and I agree our bodies need protein. But cutting out carbs and fruit and veg to the extent that many Americans do is also detrimental - you only need read the What Did You Eat today threads to realise that people are woefully falling short of healthy levels of fresh food, and living on protein foods. To keep your calories low enough to be happy with 800 to 1000 calories of mainly protein foods a day (something no Australian doctor would recommend) you need a TIGHT band. Which in turn often leads to ingestion of slider foods not the healthy foods it was intended to encourage. And of course it leads to far more problems with the band. In addition, Australians in general simply do not eat the amount of processed foods that Americans do. Protein shakes and bars are not food, they are processed, full of artificial sweetener and more designed to supplement athletes trying to build muscle, not the average person trying to lose weight. I cant for the life of me understand why you would have surgery to improve your health and then live on stuff like that. And of course, like a previous poster mentioned, eating normally like that (well its normal to Australians) blows that whole diet mentality away. I dont know ANYONE here who thinks so much about what they eat, weighs, counts and measures it like Americans do. It really is just eat normally but less and to my mind, that works. Our surgeons dont give us rules and regulations, and we dont fear going back for fills and having to present food diaries or report that we've eaten bread once or any of that. That's why the band is the gold standard WLS here. When you approach it from that perspective, its actually a very easy, non problematic surgery to live with, of COURSE people have problems here too, I met a lady the other day who's had since her surgery a flipped port, an infection at the port, port replacement of course, and no fill for 12 weeks while all that is worked out, and I know people who've slipped etc. The PRIME reason for the success with the band here though is our medical system. Medical care is much more easily accessed, unless you live in a very isolated place, the idea of having to fly in for your fills is patently ridiculous here, as is leaving the country for surgery. You drive a few suburbs to your surgeon, that's all. Most people pay a once off fee of a few thousand prior to surgery and all their aftercare is bulk billed so no out of pocket expenses for your fills etc. Putting off a fill or an unfill because its going to cost several hundred dollars just doesnt really happen here. I dont think the follow up with the band is disadvantage, I think its one of the keys to why it works well! Interestingly they're doing more sleeves in Perth now, for the simple reason that Western Australia is much more rural, and people are coming from isolated areas for WLS and the sleeve doesnt have the follow ups. Now, those are all just opinions. I'm not stating them as fact. That's how I've worked my band, and its been hugely successful for me and that's the only authority I feel I have to say what I just did. I'm not suggesting I'm 100% right or that everyone should do it my way, and I'm not wanting to start a fight about it as everyone defends their high protein diet so vehemently. Those are the culture differences beween the US and Australia and how I interpret them, that's all.

I think its completely normal. Losing weight makes you happier and you can deal with things better but it doesnt necessarily change your life. Somehow in my imagination, when I lost weight I would be rich, lol. Not sure how that was going to happen, I mean, did I think I was going to save it all from what I spent on food? Not likely, I spend more now to buy better food!

Definitely! You just need more fill, keep at it and it will soon get easier. I look better than I did in my 20's and feel it too. And I wasnt even obese in my 20's, that's the miracle of it.

I can certainly identify with it. It gets much harder after this long to lose weight, that's for sure. I dont really talk about this that often because I get caned on here for being obsessed, unhealthy, anorexic, whatever, for wanting to lose more weight. I have a BMI of 22, I am healthy and thin. But I am a perfectionist, in my head I always wanted to be about 65kg and I just want to get there. I want the little muffin top gone, I dont want to be as between sizes as I am, I need to either go up a bra cup size or down, all that sort of stuff. However, I cant budge it. I have remained this weight for a year now. I have upped my exercise intensity and had a small fill, made no difference. My body has well and truly decided here is where its going to stay. I find also that the hunger control effect of the band has decreased markedly, I get hungrier now than I did and I tend to eat more often and I dont have quite the motivation that I did to always avoid more fattening foods. I just am not as driven as I was and its hard to care as much as I did when I felt desperately fat. But most of all I just think my body has adapted to the lower calorie intake, the exercise and it would take more than just a bit of calorie reduction to make it lose weight! I've decided to just accept it, I can hardly complain about a loss of 120% of my excess weight and perhaps being the world's next supermodel is not in my future :tongue2: But IF I were to decide I was really going for it, I've lost all my weight on a generous calorie level and with lots of running. NOW would be the time to really change stuff, perhaps that high Protein diet I've never done would be the go, a complete change of exercise (which I dont want to do coz I love my running) etc. What can you change up, to shake things up and move them along?

I would think any medical professional could spell anaesthesia!

Its not that bad - its more that I did have a small unfill about five months ago (hormones, ugh) and with just .2ml out of my band, my appetite skyrocketed! I have the fill back now. With my band I find that the small meals I am able to eat dont sustain me for more than about 3 hours, I eat five small meals a day these days rather than 3 larger ones, that's all. I really do exercise very hard though. Its not like I'm starving all the time, but I do get "normal hungry" meaning if I havent eaten for a couple of hours, my tummy starts to rumble and I feel hungry. So I eat! Many people are luckier than me and just dont feel hunger after being banded - I never had really out of control hunger pre banding but I certainly cant identify with having to remind myself to eat! In a normal day I might have a small bowl of Cereal for Breakfast (somethign wholegrain), a piece of fruit and a couple of nuts mid morning, a tuna sandwich or some dinner leftovers or similar for lunch (cant eat a WHOLE sandwich!, about 1/2 to 2/3), maybe something a little naughty mid afternoon like a cookie or two but more often somethign healthy like a hardboiled egg and a piece of fruit and then just a small amount of whatever my family is eating for dinner - I try to include lots of veges here. I can enjoy a glass of wine and perhaps a nice coffee most days too and keep my weight steady. Going out for dinner, going on holidays or big days like Christmas dont make me gain weight like I used to since I cant overindulge on those days although I can certainly enjoy them! I find it easy to live a completely normal lifestyle. There is always sometihng on any menu that I can eat, I do lots of exercise, but it doesnt take over my life - generally an hour a day and i stay thin and fit. Best thing I ever did.

It does seem crazy, but all you can do is stick with what your surgeon tells YOU to do. Its like the long term post op diet too - its all Protein first there in America but we dont do that in Australia. Yet its extremely unlikely that one of us is entirely right and the other entirely wrong. The only think I can think of that's good is that if you've been given Clear Liquids for three weeks and you cheat (and gosh, nearly anyone would die trying to do this) then at least you can feel OK becuase I only had to do clear liquids for one day!

If you had diarrhoea as well as vomiting are you sure you werent actually sick with a bug? I've not really heard of the band causing lower intestinal symptoms. I hope you feel a lot better soon.

In general, nothing. Your body adapts to the calories you feed it. Meaning if you lose all your weight on 800 calories a day and you limit yourself to that for several YEARS as you do with a band, you're never going to be able to eat a lot more than that without gaining weight. Ever again. That's why we need our bands in there working for us. Some people have to unfill a bit, occasinally someone has to totally unfil. I'm just glad I lost all my weight on a high calorie level - about 1500 since I can get away with eating about that now, up to about 1800 without gaining weight. but I need a band to keep me restricted to that amount - I'm tall, I'm VERY active (run an hour a day, do weights etc and am just all round busy) and naturally, my appetite directs me to eat over 2000 calories a day. For some reason, although the charts say I should be eating 2300 to 2500 a day and my appetite tells me that's what it wants, my body cant handle it and I have to stay well under 2000. so I need my band and I dont plan on unfilling or removing it. I need a band AND a good mix of hard cardio and strength training to maintain this weight. Its just the way it is. Its probably why I got fat in the first place since i never considered I ate much differently from other people. Its not as bad as it sounds because that's exactly the way dieting works. You eat that little, if by some miracle you stick to it for a year or more, you arent ever going to be able to go back to anything like your previous calorie intake. That's why diets dont work. The hunger would have worn me down by now. But with my band 1800 calories a day feels like a LOT. Certainly not deprivation.

I agree, if you've got no more Fluid in there to take any more pressure off, you need medical attention. I would be very very cautious about filling a band before breastfeeding is established, certainly before six weeks or so. Your hormones are all over the place, you need energy to make milk and extreme tightness is not the least bit surprising. I hope all is OK.

Yes, I had a honeymoon period, the first three or four months I lost weight like crazy, in fact I lost a third of my excess 100lb and given that I only had a BMI of 35, that's pretty good. But the fact was, i was one of the few very lucky ones who had awesome restriction after surgery, MUCH better restriction than I have ever been able to achieve since. Half a cup 3 x a day was all I needed and I just lost pounds each and every week. I did start exercising right away with my band, but at that stage I was only walking, and only about 2 miles a day. So of course I look back on that as a "honeymoon period". But the truth is, that's just a brief spurt of fast weight loss, great if you get it but not in any way an indicator of failure if you dont. Get good restriction, choose good foods and get plenty of exercise and your excess weight WILL come off. So you might not get a run of really stupendously fast loss, big deal. A pound gone is a pound gone. Hang in there and work your band and you will see the rewards.

For a minor head cold with no fever and nothing much in the way of chest congestion, most of the tnme you'd be able to have surgery, whatever you were having done. If you had a high temp, a hacking cough and could hardly breathe, that's another matter entirely.

Breakfast: muesli with fresh raspberries and greek yogurt Mid morning: half a pear and a couple of walnuts Lunch: mug of tomato soup and a piece of cheese on toast Afternoon - 2 tim tams (chocolate biscuits) Dinner: home made pizza - got through 1/2 slice of ham and pineapple and a glass of red wine.

Look, it does and it doesnt eliminate the willpower factor. If you really cant choose a healthy diet and cut out a lot of the crap, you're not going to be very successful with a lapband. Mind you, you may still lose a fair bit of weight, but you're unlikely to lose all of your excess. But when you're not starving hungry all the time and when a little bit of something satisifies you, that cuts you some leeway. For example: fish and chips is a common take out food here in Australia -battered and deep fried fish, hot chips (thick french fries), potato cakes (battered and fried potato fritters) and fried dim sims, not to mention the great Aussie classic, the chiko roll! I wont even try to explain what that is. I used to easily eat a piece of battered flake (shark) - which was huge, 2 potato cakes, a dim sim and a heaping of chips - easily 1500 calories, if not more and easily about 70 or 80 grams of fat. These days I try to avoid fish and chips. But if I eat them, i can get through about 1/3 of a piece of flake and about five or six chips, maybe 300 calories worth. It simply doesnt do the damage it did. I took my son down to get some Mcdonalds for lunch the other day (special treat) and much as I felt like something, its not worth it. I cant eat it, it wont go down, it makes me feel sick. No willpower required and I walk out of Maccas empty handed. I used to love my wine, but it can burn my stomach and cause reflux. A small glass is about as much as I can tolerate. 100 calories instead of 300 for three glasses. I dont cut out any foods, dont do the high Protein thing, eat entirely normally, mostly good foods, sometimes treats but i cant eat a lot and do a lot of damage. If I fall off the wagon and eat poorly for weeks, I dont gain weight. I feel crap and down on myself, but no weight gain. If I chose, i could fill the between meal hours with Cookies, ice cream and chocolate, all of which are easy to eat and dont fill you. I choose not to. I also choose to run for an hour a day or do circuit training. The band doesnt help with that. You do have to have some internal conviction and motivation. But you wouldnt be considering WLS if you werent ready to dig deep and find that.

Relax. You dont eat yourself into "breaking your band" without some significant discomfort and the side effects of overeating such as vomiting. An unfilled band lets you eat pretty normally, as you probably need to do during pregnancy. Also, slipped or eroded bands cause significant discomfort and problems. You'd probably know. Dont be scared of having a fill, its a (usually) pretty painless procedure that takes a few minutes. Just take it easy after as you'll be learning to eat like a bandster again. Your band is in there and ready to work, good luck with it!

When I was heavy, I didnt go around telling everyone I'd just discovered the secret to permanent weight loss. I dont go around saying that now. I'm not particularly interested in Oprah's weight is all. I'm more interested in my own. I'm not discriminatory. I dislike her becuase I think she's a pain in the bum. It has nothing to do with her size. Why cant you ever say anything negative about anyone's who's overweight without everyone assuming you're anti them because of their size? She does speak for millions though and you have to commend her for handling the religious zeal with which people treat her in a fairly responsible way. Its just that Oprah love is not universal or mandatory. Cant stand Dr Phil either. There's something about the egotism involved in pushing your opinions on the world as if you hold all the answers that just annoys me.

I had yesterday as a much needed break. Today I have a minor head cold. It never ever fails, up the exercise intensity, get sick. Its also teeming rain. But I will endeavour to get out for an easy run this afternoon, if not, I will do something fairly gentle on the treadmill.