Jachut

that's a bit alarming. YOu do realise that by trying to live on liquids at a time when your body needs up to 600 calories a day extra you may be jeaopardising your ability to feed yoru baby? You also realise that if you force your body to shed weight very fast by doing a liquid regime, you may even go into ketosis and that can affect your baby too ? The ketones come through in breastmilk, not to mention all the rest of the toxins stored in your fat and the hormonal upheaval weight loss can cause. As well, you'll probably be darned exhausted. Its perfectly possible to lose weight whilst breastfeeding in a healthy way - just do it moderately. There is no need to be so harsh at this time, you've probably got an advantage just now metabolically speaking. Then again I piled ON weight whilst breastfeeding, it never had that weight loss effect for me.

I know my calorie level in general because like most women my age, I grew up dieting and calorie counting! But I try not to actually count! for me, I wanted to leave that behind forevever. However, I know I eat about 1500 a day. I dont do high Protein partly because of the fat that comes with it - I'm not necessarily afraid of fat or believe I have to avoid it alltogether but I try to get the right kinds and i keep my overall fat content lower by eating a diet based more on complex carbs than protein. Works for me. I think its impossible to pigeonhole everyone, your calorie level and your nutritional balance depends on YOUR needs and that's really why whatever your doc tells you has to be taken with a grain of salt

I hate to shoot a hole in your theory but I wore a bra at all times during pregnancy and breastfeeding and my boobs are shot. I think you simply have great genetics and great luck. Then again, my belly is fine after weight loss so who knows. Its not going to hurt though!

I think you can tell when you're sick - you get a fever and aches and pains etc. Are you JUST nauseous and have the runs? If so, that torturous pre op diet can easily cause that. If you are sick, you still have a week to go and should be OK for surgery by then. Gastro bugs dont tend to last that long. But you're right, its probably diet induced. I'd ring your doctor and see what he suggests. You've done well, I abandoned the pre op diet (didnt have to do one but thought I'd try) after I'd fainted about three times. Its awful.

Not at all really - long term relationship, 25 years together, 18 married. I guess though, one thing I worried about was we had friends who divorced after he got really fit and got sick of being with a fat, lazy wife (his words, not mine). I've gotten really fit, and DH though banded now, is still pretty darn lazy (my words!). He talks a lot about running with me but I wont hold my breath. But he has no resentment towards it, thankfully and I have no problem with him not wanting to be involved in my exercise - because its MY time. So it doesnt cause any problems.

Wow, that would piss me off a LOT. Its no easier for you than it is for anyone else. Perhaps your body might light go of the weight easier, but the actual work you have to do, well its not easier for you. I'd say so, loud and clear, lol. But that's me.

I dont mind chewing raw fish up but I had some mussels the other day and that WAS gross. i threw the container out, lol. sushi I can do but not a lot of rice. So what I tend to do is choose the packs that different kids and pull what I can off the rice and eat it. I can eat a california roll or two but the rest of my meal has to be just fish.

Really good wholegrain toast - not supermarket bread, but health food shop organic stone ground stuff. That sits for AGES. I eat carbs like this over Protein because I find that those foods are what make my band work the right way. They fill me up and sit. If I just ate two eggs, I'd be looking for food in half an hour. But a slice of toast and an apple and I'm good for five hours.

Oh that sucks! I would think a Water or coffee early would be OK that will be well through your system. DH was banded in the arvo and his rules were no food or drink after 7 am that day. Whenever I've needed fasting blood tests I keep putting it off and off because I just cant wait for my morning coffee!

I always wear lower rise jeans and when they werent what was mainly available, I bought guys jeans for the lower rise. I always found a high rise uncomfortable and I've always thought it looks pretty hideous too - it is SO unflattering. Buy yourself some lower rise pants! They dont ahve to be but crack baring, just dont buy anything with a fly a foot long.

I dont even try, there's no way I can eat for a good two or three hours after a run.

Realistically, there will be signs on your body that you have lost weight. I've lost 100 lb though and I wouldnt say I need plastic surgery. Parts of me do look a bit like Jack says - a balloon that has been blown up and let down. Part of that is weight loss, part of it is age and part of it is my shape. No hanging pannus, batwings or thighs that blow in the breeze, but I do have cellulite, a saggy bum and very deflated boobs. I *could* have PS. But personally, when i look around me, I look the same as everyone else, no in fact I look better! Most women in my daily life are out of shape, unfit, and looking a bit the worse for wear by age 40 so why should I even care about a little flab? I really dont. I dont see what's wrong with being a 41 year old mother of 3 who's lost 100lb and looking like it! I know we're all *worth it* and all that but sometimes I think people are trying to absolutely obliterate their former selves, not simply upgrade and refine it! Depends where you fit on that scale as to whether you will *need* PS - it most likely wont be in quite the same way as someone who loses 200lb. I'm not anti PS either by the way, I'm actually considering a breat lift. But I think need v want are two different things.

For me, vomiting it up is the only solution I've ever found. And I'm quite chunder resistant, it doesnt happen quickly or easily for me. I bend over at the waist, hang upside down and keep trying to burp and eventually that will produce a result. But there's nothing I can swallow or do to unstick food, unless its only a bit stuck and then walking is my best remedy.

I agree - your health is priceless. Spin classes are awesome fun arent they? Exercising at home isnt cheap either for the most part. It can be at first but look out when you get hooked. I took up running and was fine running in baggy old clothes for a while - but I had to buy good shoes. The running shoes that suit my feet are about $150 a pair - every six months! I also needed custom orthotics - $550 thank you very much. I wear out a sports bra as often as I wear out shoes. There's another $50 every six monmths. Then there's the Endura hydration formula at $25 a tub. Add to that the fact that once you start running races and regular long distances, lycra leggings from Target and a Tshirt no longer cut it, particularly in the summer. And once you start looking at branded, properly designed running tights with a little gel pocket etc, you're talking $70 to $80 a pair, and of course evyrthing needs to be Clima Cool or similar fabric, and you cant wear your ordinary sunnies to run becuase they're too heavy and they chafe and you need a fuel belt or camelback so you dont have to hold a bottle, and decent socks and an ipod ....... You get the picture. Three years of running has easily cost me $1000 or more. And on top of that I bought a treadmill for bad weather! Oh, every race I enter costs between $40 AND $80 as well! A gym seems like a cheap option, lol.

I think the thing to remember too is that small losses of weight can make big changes to health. We all want to lose all our excess weight but remember that as far as your problem with your spine goes, you wont have to lose ALL of your excess weight to improve your health. So there's no need to jump into a bypass if it worries you simply for that reason. there's every likelihood that even if you were one who didnt lose all your excess weight, you can still improve your health and quality of life with the 50% loss and not jeoapardise nutrition in the process. But you CAN lose it all. It just takes reasonable - not ridiculous - work and commitment.

It makes you want to bash your head against a brick wall doesnt it? My mother particularly still just doesnt get it. She thinks she's done Weight Watchers about 100 times and always lost weight therefore it works and then she gets the shits with me when I point out that if it worked she would only have done it ONCE! Mind you, she's never had to lose more than about 20lb. She likes to say to me now "well, surely you ge the Fluid out becuase you've learned all new habits, why are you still getting fills?". Being a basically thin person she just plain cannot understand that the urge to eat, the excessive appetite will NEVER go away. Something is broken in me and I needed a band to fix it. She seemed to almost grasp it when she was worrying about me having the op when I said that nobody would question me if I had surgery to fix my ankle, nobody would even question me if I had a boob job! What was so different about this - ALL I was doing was having surgery to fix something wrong with my body, somethign that could be deadly and certainly affected my quality of life. She understood that but she cant seem to follow through that for a lot of people obesity is not a choice. They just dont realise that yes, you can diet and withold food too just like they can but that its harder for you than it is for the next person, or that you just cant do it for the rest of your life without help. I've given up trying to explain why I"m not now "fixed' now that I'm thin. I just know what I did was right for me and I'm happy with my choices and nobody is actually giving me a hard time, they just dont truly understand. This if for you, its you that has to be comfortable and really, what others think isnt that important.

I had a small unfill back in June and it took three or four weeks for me to feel it, I stayed over restricted for that time. Then it kind of let go and over the following weeks, I started to get really hungry! So minimum time for me to really see where I was at was about five or six weeks. It took me 17 weeks to get the fill in the end, I really wanted to see how I went without it but my weight began to swing more and more and I wanted to get refilled before I gained permament weight.

Well done! Great pics.

Congrats! But i've got to say, our society is really in trouble if that's "too thin". I'm about the same size - 5ft 10 and 154lb give or take and I'm perfectly normal, healthy curvy, nowhere NEAR model thin or 16 year old teenager thin! Its smack bang in the middle of my healthy weight range and it drives me NUTS on here that people think its really thin. I think we've come to view normal as something that is in actual fact quite overweight and people who actually are a healthy weight as skinny or even too skinny. These days, its normal to have love handles and a fat belly. Its normal for our bones not to show and our muscles not to be defined. In actual fact, on a body that is a healthy weight, collar bones, hips, knees and elbows should show and certain muscles such as biceps and quadriceps should be somewhat visible. If they arent, you really need some toning or you have a bit too much fat! So dont let anyone tell you you're too skinny when you're a perfectly healthy weight for your height. NOT that you need a BMI of less than 25 to be attractive or beautiful of course!

Debra, I'm in Melbourne, so I cant give you specifics for Brisbane. But in Melbourne, the waiting lists for public banding have been horrendous at times - like 8 years long at the Alfred back in 2005 when I got banded. Alos, many doctors wont touch self pay patients becuase they exhaust their finances with the operation and then have no money for fills and aftercare. My suggestion is this: If the waiting list is at least a year long in Brisbane, why not take out private health insurance, wait the year to qualify and you could be banded literally within weeks after that. If you can afford to pay for it bit by bit then you can afford the premiums. What will then happen is that just prior to your banding, you pay a one off fee of somewhere between $3,000 and $5000 and your aftercare and fills are bulkbilled forever after that as is any revision surgery you may need (though hopefully you wont). Really, its the best and cheapest way to go rather than paying well over $10,000 for your surgery and then having to pay for every visit thereafter.

There's no dicking around with insurance companies in Australia is there? No qualifying, no putting submissions to them etc etc. If the surgeon considers it medically necessary then bob's your uncle? I rang our fund, Defence Health, and they said as long as it was medically necessary, no problem. I'm paranoid about a surgeon saying yes, OK, having the op and then the insurance company saying "we're not paying for that". I have to keep reminding myself our health system is not the same as in the USA!

I agree - yes and no. Because you feel full, and satisfied, not deprived like on a diet, I found myself constantly beating myself up for overeating. I'd feel I was being a pig and wasting my chance. Yet week after week after week the weight fell away - I was eating WAY less, it didnt feel like it is all. Initially you have terrific enthusiasm and once you notice it working, it is so easy to make good food choices and really work that band. For me, the challenges came later. After 18 months or so it wasnt all shiny and new anymore and I had to work a bit harder to stay on track, my appetite normalised a bit around the band and the last bit of weight took absolutely ages to shift. And maintenance is just as hard as losing - you have to constantly adjust, make up for big dinners out or Christmas day, stick with that exercise plan day after day, week after week, month after month and year after year. If you give that up, you regain, simple as that. I'm now an expert on what I can and cant eat, what to go for if I want a bit of a pig out, that will slide down well, I even have some vices I never had before - like instead of coffee and a muffin now, I tend to have coffee and the lemon slice - more calories than the muffins at Muffin Break! You have to REALLY watch yourself on stuff like that and stay on top of the bad habits - you can have a treat but you have to learn for that not to lead to too many treats. Its not easy. But its doable, truly, if I can do it anybody can, I was the world's most pathetic dieter.

Well, I always cooked pretty healthy meals for my family, it was all the extras that caused the problems,not our meals. DH has never been one to complain about what's served up and I wouldnt tolerate it anyway, we dont have crap in the house, because we dont want the kids eating much of that sort of thing, we never buy coke or other sweet drinks, we dont even buy orange juice. So there was never any problem to overcome - especially since I never looked at this at a diet and have therefore never eaten special foods. At most, I leave the potatoes or rice off my plate because I cant fit them in. But we eat the same food we always do. during the liquids and mushies phase, I cooked for them the same as normal and I'd precooked a lot of soups and stuff for myself and once I was on mushies, more often than not I just blended the meal down for me. The things that made DH and I fat were the amount of food we consumed and what we would buy respectively during the day for lunch or Snacks or whatever. I had too many lattes, too many glasses of wine, too much on my dinner plate etc.

Yes, I think some people are looking to never feel hungry again and some want the band to do it all. That's not *necessarily* wrong, its just not the way you or I might do it. I tend to believe that mental health is as important as physical and I dont consider trading dysfunctional OVER eating with dysfunctional UNDER eating a healthy step. Nor particularly do I think that if you lose weight by counting calories strictly and do so for the rest of your life can you truly say you've beaten your obesity - I think you've just traded one form of obsession for another. But that's me and based on my outlook. I cannot in all conscience say it is wrong for someone else. Its an individual juourney for us all. But I agree its fascinating discussion and I like to see debates like that on here. But be prepared, if you bring it up, it might get ugly. Particularly when successful longer time bandsters tune in, people go for the jugular. Its taken as lording it over others, pushing your success in people's faces and being a know it all by some people. Its fun as long as you learn how not to get upset about it! I've always said there's a fat mentality that many obese people suffer from - its the victim thing. This weight isnt my fault, the band doesnt work, my surgeon isnt supportive etc - and those people are the ones to turn rabid when you call them on it. Others struggle but ALWAYS make the best of any situation. Also, you can get into huge fights about what is thin and what isnt, lol. I felt huge and obese enough to have WLS at 250lb, and others find that offensive because they consider themselves healthy and curvy and attractive having gotten down to that weight. Its all individual, like I said but I think the discussions are really interesting and very useful for people.