Jachut

Ah, yes, fitting it into a lunch break! I dont work, so normally can take all the time I want and if I'm rushed, I just dont eat, knowing I can eat a bit later. But when I'm on teachign rounds, its torture, especially when we have yard duty and have to eat in 15 minutes.

I'm paranoid when eating out too, I'm always extra careful. And as a rule, I have had the easiest time with my band, hardly EVER PB, but its so embarrassing when it does happen that I'd do almost anything to avoid it.

I agree, and also want to say taht being banded is about being good to yourself, not about punishing yourself for being fat or disgusting or whatever your own internal dialogue tells you you are. It is reasonable to eat! But losing weight banded is super weird, you always feel every week "I wont have lost this week, I ate too much" becuase you're not hungry and deprived.

I'm missing the shoe gene I"m afraid. I will wear a heel when its appropriate and will find a pair of shoes in the shops and think Oooh, I like those. But I am just not into shoes much. I dont dream about the next pair I will buy, I woudlnt have a freaking clue if yours were Jimmy Choos or from Target, I wouldnt bloody care whether mine were. The less I can spend the better, and if I can spend my life in birkenstocks I will die happy. I like Alexandra's boots the best! I never go past about a 2 inch heel or I cant walk, lol. I also have really wide feet that would bulge unattractively out of any strappy sandle.

My worst problem food was sweet carbs and it is still what I will pick to pig out on. But I eat bread and other wholegrain carbs regularly and they absolutely do not set me off on craving anymore carbs. The only thing that makes me crave carbs insanely is cutting them out. So I dont. I eat a wholegrain carb at nearly every meal. Muesli at Breakfast, a sandwich at lunch, usually potato or something with dinner. But sometimes dinner is just protein/veges.

If you use it as a meal replacement, it wont cause weight gain, but its a pretty hefty snack, as is a Protein bar. Well the ones you can get in Australia anyway are. The atkins prepacked ones are a couple of hundred calories each and many Protein Bars are over 300 calories, which by my way of thinking is way too much for a snack. That would cause weight loss to slow down. But as a meal replacement, if it satisfies you (it wouldnt me), sure. Personally, I think they're lacking in green stuff, I'd prefer to include fruit and veg but each to their own.

Think about it honestly - you eat past satisfied, but do you eat past REALLY full? To the point of feeling ill? Most people dont, its just that that REALLY full feeling came way too late after way too many calories. And it was followed by discomfort maybe but never (for me anyway) did I eat til the point of puking. When I felt uncomfortable I stopped. In fact I realise, I responded to hunger and fullness quite normally, its just that I was hungry too much and not full soon enough for the energy balance in my body to be right. With the lapband, the hunger comes less, the fullness comes quicker and the energy balance was tipped the other way. I havent had to learn to behave any differently on that score, except that I do avoid uncomfortably full becuase it really hurts, much more than it used to. So I've learned to recognise satisfied, but pretty much by default, not because I'm some perfect bandster. It will work, dont panic.

Sooner or later you will be able to eat meals with your family again, probably within a few weeks. There may be some foods you cant tolerate, but by and large, most bandsters can eat fairly normally. There's ALWAYS some foods you cant tolerate, banded or not, lol. If someone served me up liver I'd vomit on the spot! That's got nothing to do with my band.

How can he say the band didnt slip if you've not been given fluorscopy? How can he have SEEN it to know that? I'd be insisting on both a complete unfill and further investigation into whether the band is still in place. And if he wont do it, I'd go to another doctor.

I feel two ways about it, firstly that it would be a wonderful thing to be able to at least save some of a young person's years to be young, carefree and happy, but that also not every teen would be psychologically mature enough to really understand what they were getting into. But I guess overall I do feel about the age of banding the same way as I feel about qualifying BMI - why on EARTH should you have to wait till you have a really serious problem before you have to do anything about it? So I guess I'd want to see it treated on a case by case basis. I think of myself as a teen, I didnt have that sort of a problem back then, but I was always dieting and exercising, and I looked after myself pretty well becuase I knew I had a tendency to get fat. I think I could have handled a band.

Seriously, I'll probably get flamed for this but my view is that Protein bars and Protein shakes are really just a "healthy" way of eating around the band. I dont consider them healthy foods, they're manufactured, pften sugar laden (and if not, artificially sweetened) and the risks of eating too much soy based foods are quite real also if you're choosing soy protein isolates. People sometimes seem to use these foods much as I tend to fall off the wagon and eat crap like biscuits and chocolate - because eating real food can be hard work and I cant always be bothered. OK, so maybe eating a Protein Bar is a better choice than eating cookes, well, it definitely IS but its not a better choice than eating proper food. Its entirely possible to meet your protein needs without eating Protein Bars.

I'm going in for a fill Monday, my first in a year. Once you get to goal weight, you probably wont need fills all the time, as you have found. personally, I dont swell so I can eat as normal after a fill. But if you do swell, then take it easy, have liquids for a day, mushies for a day or two and then try solids cautiously. You'll know if you're really too tight but generally fills will settle and perhaps loosen off a little. I'm going in becuase although I'm maintaining well, I'm finding it harder. I can eat a WHOLE sandwich, and I get hungry a lot and have a lot of mindless appetite where I just want to eat but am not really hungry. I exercise about an hour a day too which is why I havent gained any weight. You should be able to drink without real restriction apart from when your tummy is full - if I drink when I've just eaten these days it can sometimes make me PB. But you may have more restriction for the first week or two after a fill, as long as you CAN drink, you can probably afford to wait and see how it settles. Fills are important for long term maintenance, so if you find you're hungry its a good idea to go and get a top up, just a teeny tiny one.

Have you tried using antiperspirant there? Also, we have this cream called NEAT here in Australia, perhaps its available there, it is pretty much an anti perspirant cream, and it really used to work between my fat thighs.

Banded or not, I would be worried about taking ibuprofen or any NSAIDs regularly - erode the band or not, they do damage the stomach and intestines. Have you tried Glucosamine and Fish Oil in combination?

I am in exactly the same position - I look really slender clothed, but naked I have lots of places that still look fat and to be honest, I'm finally realising that it is just loose skin and will never change. I expected loose skin in places like my stomach and arms, I didnt get that, instead I feel like my bum has fallen onto the backs of my knees, lol. Its a legacy of being fat and if you dont want to be cut in half and sewn up again (which I definitely dont, as the scarring would be as depressing to me, no more depressing to me than the saggy excuse for a backside I now have) then the best thing you can do is learn to accept it. Fact is, nobody looks that great naked except for a few genetic freaks. How many people do you actually SEE naked? How many people see YOU naked? If you look good clothed then changes are people are going to assume you look good naked!

Sad to say you will never end up as tight as if you hadnt gotten fat in the first place. There will be looseness and jiggliness there that being fat has caused. But there's no certainty that it will require surgery or even be anything anyone else would ever notice. It may be allright. But lose the weight first, then worry.

I think the point is not so much to suck you in to change your size as to smooth you out? I have one or two garments like Spanx that are invaluable under a few things I have, one very light pair of dress pants that show terrible VPL, highlight cellulite etc. They fit me, I dont need to be sucked in to wear them but the fabric is light and flimsy - also a jersey dress. You cant wear regular underwear becuase of VPL. And the only think that looks tackier than VPL is VPL from a g-string, ergh, so that's not the answer.

That's annoying. I dont know what it is with casual jobs these days, I'm looking for one, but it seems they all want casual - ie. they can terminate you, change your hours etc any time they want. Every single FREAKING thing I've been interviewed for has been yes, its six hours a week BUT you have to be available at the drop of a hat to fill in, work full time etc. Or better yet, its six hours a week but FIRST you'll have to work full time for six weeks to be trained. I applied for a swim teachign position only to be told that it required 60, yes 60 hours of voluntary time over a period of a two weeks before I would *maybe* get the shift a week i wanted. They didnt actually have any available at the moment! WTF is that? I have 3 kids and am a full time student, I am applying for six hours a week because i want six hours a week. if I could be available for full time hours then I'd be lookign for a full time job wouldnt I? It really is annoying, the casual employee is very exploited these days.

Oh yeah, Kirstey Alley with a weight loss centre. What's next? The Lindsay Lohan Alcohol treatment centre? The Britney Spears Mental Health Centre? The Mary Kate Olsen Fashion Advice Service? Honestly, these people are in the public eye, their successes and failures are there for all to see. How can you help forming a judgement about it?

I'd like to look thin, stylish and fit - and still be running - when I'm 80. I fear that awful middle aged descent into fat unstylish invisibility and sensible haircuts more than anything. And I never want my old age entertainment to be a week full of specialist appointments. I plan to be on the golf course, travelling, running and too busy to babysit my grandchildren while my daughters in law are at work!

ANZAC day is all about Vietnam Vets too though Fanny! In fact that's what the song is about - how those coming back from Vietnam never got the support and recognition of their country the way WW1 and WW2 vets did and how it affected their lives. It was a hard war because it wasnt our war and the Australian people were not behind them. We went to the dawn Service in Melbourne yesterday and they spent a bit of time talking about Vietnam. ANZAC day is about all our war heroes - WW1, WW2, Korea, Vietnam, the Middle East.

I think I have great shoulders, back and upper arms and a nice long neck. I'm quite happy to bare a lot of my upper body. I'm thin through the waist too, so am more than happy to wear stretchy fitted things, or a bikini. I like my hands too, they're elegant, long fingered and slender.

Its one of those things I would have to see a LOT more evidence about before I believed it. Its a saturated fat and I jsut couldnt bring myself to consciously eat MORE saturated fat believing it will be good for my health. And Fat is Fat is Fat, its high calorie and I think there's way more evidence to keep me sticking to fats from avocadoes, fish, nuts and olive oil than to try something that could have adverse effects on my health.

Really,by the same token Ready Steady Go if you wouldnt be so presumptuos as to tell someone they NEEDED a band (which I agree would be rather rude), you're being just as presumptous by stating your opinion about what isnt big arent you? By US standards, I would have been a US 16 at 5ft 10 when I was banded as I was about an Australian size 20. Its BIG and its overweight for anyone under about 6ft 3!. I had a BMI of 35 to fill out that size! Thats FAT!. In Australia where people arent generally as obese as they are in the US, my weight was high enough (at 245lb) for me to be admonished every time I went to the doctors, I couldnt buy decent clothes anywhere, had to shop in plus size shops, I looked terrible, I wouldnt have even THOUGHT about going onto the beach in a bikini, couldnt wear anything sleeveless. So if you think its rude to gossip about celebs have you consiered how rude it is to state your opinion about who DOESNT deserve a Lap Band? I suspect your views on what's big and what isnt are skewed by the fact that you live in a country where obesity is a real problem and has a much larger incidence of very severe morbid obesity. Being "normal" and looking like everyone else is no insurance for your health when almost everyone is too big! And like you said, with all due respect, having had a much more severe weight problem than I did, 16 may really seem OK to you. It certainly didnt for me, it represented a low point in my life where I was disgusted in what I had become.

Yesterday my band pissed me off. We went to the dawn service as it was Anzac Day in Australia (where we remember our war heroes) so we went out for Breakfast afterwards in St Kilda. St Kilda is a vibrant, hip inner city suburb with great eateries - its a real treat, but did I want breakfast? Not on your life. I paid $16.50 for a simply enormous plate of bacon, eggs, spinach, mushrooms, tomatoes and toast, ate one egg and a piece of bacon, lol. I cannot wait until Doug is banded too and we woudl share, but as it was he wanted his WHOLE plateful, didnt want to share with me, lol. Then I took about an hour to eat a yogurt six hours later, then PB'd a handful of cashews and couldnt eat any dinner. Right as rain today, but my period arrived. Someitmes I jsut want to go out and really enjoy eating out. I dont mind hardly eating anything, its the anxiety about getting stuck that I hate. I dont want loads of food, I just want to be able to relax and enjoy what I do eat without the fear of public embarrassment. I hardly EVER PB but when I do get stuck, its always when I'm eating socially.