Jachut

I agree, its up to YOU and you alone, but if you want a female opinin you look really great right now. I dont think you need to be smaller, but if you want to continue working on your body - you probably want to continue to decrease body fat and gain muscle. Losing more "weight" per se isnt going to do it, you may just get gaunt and it may not come off where you want it to. Your face looks nice and healthy, you still look manly, you dont look to me like you need to be smaller. Everyone says the same thing to me and I know they're right, I'm just not happy with the jiggly bits. But I know that losing more actual WEIGHT isnt what I need to do, I need to work on that body composition. Its entirely possible to completely reshape your body without really losing any actual weight on the scale.

I could have done that the next day. I went for a 4km walk less than 24 hours after surgery. I did get very tired at odd times, like suddenly I'd just collapse, for about a week, but the actual surgical recovery is rather minor.

Mine shows a bit but you have to be really looking for it. If I do lose anymore weight, I think it may start to look rather weird!

Hi Jude, I'm a neighbour, live in Narre South. We've met up before for coffee at Costello's - perhaps we could do something similar as a group. My DH is getting banded too on June 6.

Well that's good news, I suffer from a really weird rare eye disorder that causes painful corneal rips and tears. Its nothing to do with weight and laser surgery seems to have fixed it, but I know how it feels to think that you could lose your eyesight or similar.

Cold yogurt! Bleurgh.

I'm staying on plan today because when I tried on a pencil skirt this morning (not something I wear a lot of as a SAHM/student) it STILL looks as if I"m smuggling to bags of groceries on my thighs, boohoo!

Wow, you must be happy with those results Nina! You've managed to perfect the art of having curves in only the right places!.

I've basically learned to live a different lifestyle MOST of the time. Bad habits still creep in now and then. But at this point in time, I need to go out and buy some new clothes for teaching rounds and a new job I'm starting. I'm annoyingly stuck right between an Australian 14 and 12. 14's are loose, baggy and look untidy, 12's give me a muffin top and are uncomfortable when washed. I need to lose 4kg I think. To do that when you're already at a healthy weight - that means DIET. Sigh. It really does, you need strict calorie control at this point in the game. But did I diet to get to goal? Nup. Dont believe in it for the most part.

At a bit over 2 years, I feel a lot of my worse eating habits are still hanging around there, they have to be constantly monitored and controlled. But just keeping on top of them, rather than eradicating them completely seems to be good enough - I still eat out of boredom and stress and I still tend to eat way too many carb foods at times. I can vary weightwise by a pound or two but I tend not to really gain. However, its 10 months since my last fill and over the past month, I've begun to feel I can eat quite a lot - I do think I need another fill to keep me maintaining. Exercise as always plays a major role in how easy it is to maintain!

My last fill took me to goal and has lasted me 9 months, but has most definitely loosened off again. As long as I maintain, I will just simply eat a bit more to satisfy my appetite, but if I start to gain I'll get another fill. Its going to be a lifetime juggling act, the band does lose Fluid and when you lose weight, you do loosen. I noticed major loosenign with even 10lb, you've done remarkably to lose so much and not need another fill.

It turns into more than carbon dioxide and Water, your body converts fat into energy, that's what its for. I may be wrong, so somebody correct me please, I'm thinking back to 20 years ago here, when I studied some of this but I *think* fat is used to produce more of the chemical ATP which powers your muscles. So you do literally burn it up and as we all know, energy doesnt simply disappear, its converted from one form to another, so your fat basically becomes energy and is dissipated as heat. And then of course, there are the waste products of metabolism - carbon dioxide and water.

Aldi started out here in Australia about five, six years ago ans seriously I think we coudlnt afford to eat without them!! I find I have to be careful though because they're big on processed food and not huge on fresh healthy food and the fruit is TERRIBLE! But I do Aldi first for some meat, milk, yogurt, snack foods for the kids, cat food, cleaning and bathroom products (for everyone except me, lol, I wouldnt wash my hair with that crap!), washing powder etc etc. Then I will head to a fruit and vegetable wholesaler nearby and we have a meat wholesaler too, we're very lucky where I am and the 4 Aldi's nearby bring down the prices in big chain supermarkets - we really couldnt afford to move out of this area or our groceries would double. Nonetheless these are the things I do to keep the price down. I stick with basic fruit and veg - apples, bananas, oranges in the fruit bowl, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, basic salad ingredients and some frozen vegetables, I stick with boring plain lunches like sandwiches and crispbreads with things like cheese and tomato, tuna etc. I clean EVERYTHING in the house with cheap shampoo - truly it works better than almost anything (especially on the shower doors) - and vinegar (straight hot vinegar to clean the boys toilet, cuts that lingering pee smell dead), we eat basic meat and 3 veg meals, a chicken breast, mashed potato and pumpkin and steamed veg, we dont eat a lot of fish except for what Doug catches becuase its so expensive, we eat a lot of things like roast lamb becuase whilst a leg of lamb may be $26 here, we get 3 entire meals out of it - a roast dinner, a shepherd's pie and something like lamb souvlakis. Same with a roast chicken - the rest goes in the freezer for sandwich meat for the boys lunches or I eat it in salads for lunch. I never ever buy things like lean cuisines, we dont eat any packaged food like that, we dont do dessert so no ice creams etc, Breakfast remains Cereal, toast, eggs, those basic choices, and deli items are kept for entertaining, not everyday eating. I dont buy orange juice or any other drinks, we have Water, water or water in this house, or milk but none of us are milk drinkers. I also make a lot of things for the kids like cakes and Cookies. And takeaway is a rare treat, I'd sooner make baked Beans on toast than spend $25 on fish and chips. Doug takes leftovers to work and my kids take lunchboxes to school (as does everyone here anyway, schools dont have big lunch programs, you can get a lunch order but there's no eat in cafeterias) We still manage to eat quite interestingly and well, probably one meal out of the seven in the week I'd put more effort into something special. I do quite a few vegetarian things with lentils, I make a lot of Soup with heaps of veges, whenever I buy a jar of spaghetti sauce, I'll add a can of tomatoes and some tomato paste, heaps of grated zucchini and carrot, a can of kidney beans and just 500g of mince beef and turn what would have been ONE meal with the mince beef and jar of sauce into something healthier, full of beans and vegetables the kids cant even taste into about three full meals on spaghetti (I sometimes have stir fried zucchini strips instead of pasta). Lentil patties, lentil dahl, a chick pea and apple curry, lentils and pulses are really cheap! And delicious. Even so, our grocery bill still comes in at around $250 to $300 per week for five of us.

Wow is right - even the before looks pretty good!

March 6 - hmmm, well, you're not going to NEED your next fill so if you can move the appointment forward and get fixed up sooner rather than later, I would. And I'd stay on mushies till then and try to avoid PBing.

I'd rather eat real sugar than artificial sweeteners any day. I just keep sugary foods to a minimum, they're treats not every day foods.

You will get a great result with the band if you work with it - and exercise is particularly important with that. THe band even works well for most people who dont for whatever reason (and its not always laziness) put in the exercise and dietary work that ensures really great results. You may not lose ALL your excess weight if you cant change your lifestyle enough, but you will still lose a lot most likely. as to sagging skin, if you're going to get it, you're going to get it. Nothing you can do will really prevent it, its a fact of life. Its fixable though.

I was fine, I had my surgery on a Friday, DH dropped me off and went to work, came in Saturday morning with the kids to collect me. He took care of the kids for the weekend, but I was fine, we went for a walk Saturday and Sunday and I was pottering round the house, just having a few breaks on the couch - which I never usually do, lol, we got new leather couches on Monday and I think I've spent 5 minutes on them! On Monday he went to work as usual, I drove the kids to school and had the days to relax. Eliza went with Doug, dropped off at Nanny and Pa's for a few days. The following week, Doug took off fishing for 10 days and I coped fine. Its really not a huge operation, the recovery for most people is very quick.

I've NEVER drunk a protein shake since being banded (I hate them) and I"m still here to tell the tale. With hair. And muscles.

If you're getting that stuck feeling on other foods, then yes, you're either overeating (and truly, if you're getting full to stuck on 1/2 a boiled egg and 1/4 of a tomato, then you most certainly do not need any more fills at the moment, you're probably bordering on too tight) or you need to chew better, eat more slowly. Perhaps try a hot drink before you eat to open your band up a little? You *should* be able to eat a wide variety of healthy Proteins, vegetables (maybe not raw, not everyone can tolerate raw veges), cereals such as oatmeal etc. But common problem foods that give many bandsters issues are lettuce, raw vegetables with skins, bread, eggs, anything doughy or cakey, red meat and sometimes chicken. Also after a fill, you're often a bit irritated and swollen and many doctors recommend a regime of liquids then mushies and THEN solids after a fill, taking a few days to transition back to a normal diet. Trying to eat a sandwich when you know that pre fill it gave you problems is really only asking for issues. I hope you get this sorted, your doctor doesnt appear to be very supportive.

Protein isnt the be all and end all of healthy hair - it takes a good balanced diet all round. You can supplement protein all you like, if the rest of your diet is deficient, then its not going to help your hair at all. Good hair and good skin requires fat in your diet too - good fats. Oftentimes when people diet they inadvertantly go really low fat, and that can lead to dry hair and dry skin. Sometimes lack of Iron can make your hair brittle and break off. I didnt lose hair as in falling out from the root but I did have a period of months too where my hair was simply awful, breaking off and it got really really frizzy and thin as rats tails at the ends because it was all broken off up near ear level. I had to cut it all off from shoulder blade level to a groovy inverted bob and it took 12 months of good cutting and just my body getting over the fast and dramatic weight loss and my hair is probably the best its ever been now. And I like it shorter anyway!

I think it can be hard to tell - you have to be eating the right foods to feel the perfect fill - you may get nice and full on a small amount of Protein and vegetables (and perhaps a small serve of a carb) and stay full for ages, perfect! But you could still, if you chose eat 6 Cookies for dinner instead! I think its a mistake to try to find a fill level where you cant eat those 6 cookies personally because you'll then probably be way too tight to be eating a good variety of healthy solid foods. As to the actual amount, well there's plenty of advocates of a half cup serving, but there's a gazillion of us around also who have and always HAVE eaten significantly more than that. The amount of food is right if you're losing nice and steadily 1lb or 2lb a week - averaged out. You will still reach plateaus and hold your weight steady for ages and that's when you have to really examine things to see if you need more fill.

I'd give up on the bread, honestly. Its obviously something you just cannot tolerate. Try some crispbreads instead, I find them a good substitute for a sandwich which, even for me with my cast Iron stomach, is hard work. What on earth is your surgeon on? Everyone knows bread can be impossible to tolerate for many bandsters. Its refreshing to hear of a surgeon that doesnt tell you to give up carbs completely, but sheesh, why on earth would he encourage you to keep eating something that causes such a problem? How do you go with other foods, all you've mentioned is sandwiches?

At the moment, I'd pay someone just to run with me, lol. I want to do a half marathon but the training is so flipping boring I almost fall asleep on my feet! An hour is my limit for running before it just gets boring boring boring. I need company. I broke my husband, I broke my oldest son and I've even taking to getting my 10 year old to run five or six kms with me, but I cannot get past about 14 (and hour and a half). But I'm such a slowpoke that I dont really want to join a running group. I just want someone to talk to while I do it, lol!

I think its true for nearly every bandster. Its good and bad. Bad because you still need willpower and I regularly still have days where all I eat is chocolate and Cookies. Good because at least there are SOME things you can still enjoy. What helps me, and what I have to keep recommitting to is to tell myself I can have those things AFTER I've eaten properly and you know, when I've eaten a curried egg sandwhich on wholegrain bread, funnily enough, I then dont want the chocolate, dont want it for a good 3 hours. Then I start feeling I'd like a little something with my afternoon cuppa so the deal is I eat a peeled apple first. And strangely, the craving goes away. It really does work to eat properly, but its very very easy to slip into the habit of not bothering to do the work required to eat the good foods and just eat the easy ones instead.