Jachut

A fool and his money are easily parted, that's all I have to say on this topic.

Lol, I had one like that once. Back in my youth when I used to get through litres of diet coke a week, I dreamed that diet coke had calories. It was a really scary dream. I'll eat ten cream cakes, but I dont drink calories. That's a fat person's warped logic. Order big mac, large fries AND a sundae but draw the line at regular coke!

Rollerskates and spirograph barbie dolls and new outfits and waking up at the crack of dawn, and the wonderful fun we had with our extended family.

I can. They're hard foods, take a bit of effort but I can eat them

I can and do eat in the morning, but what I tend to do is carry my Cereal bowl around with me for an hour, have a bite now and then sort of thing. I have no appetite in the morning, but for me, it makes a big difference to how well I eat for the rest of the day if I eat a decent Breakfast. If I skip it, I tend to look for sugary carbs all day long. If I couldnt eat or drink till late afternoon, I'd have an unfill in an instant. No way would I be able to tolerate that.

Reesh, you should not be suffering through that, go and have an unfill. That is too tight, you wont be properly nourished and you may be putting your band at risk. Vomiting is not good for the band and if you do it with any regularity you are at increased risk for slippage.

I reckon 80% of it is running. About a year after I took up running, I decided it was time to do some basic strength training as well and I was, quite literally, ASTOUNDED by the strength I had in my stomach. I have to weight my crunches etc with a big 10kg weight plate to get a real workout now. I was lucky though - being tall and having quite moderate babies who were all 7 or 8lb, I didnt get any abdominal muscle separation or over stretching from pregnancy. Many women, no matter what they do are never ever going to get a flat stomach without surgery becuase their muscles are separated and over stretched. I was one of those people who didnt get out the maternity clothes till after 30 weeks.

This is the sweetest victory of all, I think. I will never enter My Size or 1626 again (the main 2 plus size stores here in Australia). Looking objectively, they have lovely clothes in larger sizes but all they represent to me is exclusion and I am glad to never ever need them again.

I've lost about 90lb, and I dont need one. Well...... I dont have some washboard 6 pack stomach, I have a poochey bit in the middle - 3 pregnancies will do that for you. I was also one who people said "oh, I cant believe you weigh that much, you carry it well". I never had a bit stomach, my backside and thighs were my issue, so yes, its possible to have a large weight loss and not need a tummy tuck. My stomach is rock hard though - I've worked hard on it. Its flat as a board and the muscles are very strong. So clothed, it is absolutely flat, its just the skin on top doesnt look like it once did. But no hanging bits, no really disgusting skin, just a bit "oh.... wish I was young again" if that makes sense.

I can sympathise with all your concerns. My DH doesnt often get home till about 7, 7.30 so many nights, I do feed the kids first so my need to eat slowly isnt a big deal. I do sometimes lack motivation to cook, but that's just the general chore of cooking for a family, nothing really to do with my band. I cook from scratch like you do and stick with meals we'll all eat, cooking something fancy I do on the weekends where the kids might get some baked Beans on toast or something easy for them and Doug and I enjoy a nice meal. We eat Pasta, barbecues (chops, steak, chicken, whatever), home made pizzas, soups, casseroles, roast dinners, lots of variety really. I always include plenty of vegetables and I just take as long as I need to eat, the kids are allowed to go off and do their own thing and leave me sitting there. I did find back when I was first banded, the crap that tends to go on when you first sit down - the sudden needing the toilet, the need for a drink, spilling drinks, the "I hate this" etc would stress me out and have me so tight I couldnt eat but my kids have kind of passed this stage now 2 years down the track. I just suffered through it, like I have most of parenthood, lol.

You'll find differing views, some people are real purists when it comes to not eating and drinking together to the point where they wont eat Cereal with milk or have soup. I dont care personally, vege soup is hearty, filling and very healthy (especially if you make it yourself) and I eat a lot of soup. Due to the liquid/solid combo of soup I do have to eat it carefully sometimes, it can block me up a bit. And I cant eat crackers or bread with it, I just have the soup. I may get hungrier a bit sooner coz its very liquidy, what I might do is have soup for lunch and then half an hour later (when in my imagination the liquid has drained through and mushy stuff remains in my pouch) I might top up with a bit of low fat cheese on a few crackers or a snack pack of fruit etc etc. Gumbo we just dont really eat here.

I tend to agree. Not being an American, I dont share the Oprah love. She gives me the royal sh%ts to be honest. I saw bits of it and thought it was all very staged.

You're right Paula, what I've found is that moving from the high end to the lower end of your healthy weight range can really make the difference between simply being "not fat" to having a really stunning figure! I am prepared to accept what flaws my body has but the lumps and bumps and the muffin top etc that I have at the top end of my weight range does not have to be there. I dont really think there's anything hypercritical about that. Its good enough or really good. Some people are good enough type people, I'm not.

LJM, do you remember Funnyduddies from here? Prolly about six, nine months ago now, she went for a pannus removal despite being only part way to her goal weight as well. She felt it just held her back sooooo much from losing the rest of the weight, due to how it restricted exercise. The result was amazing, she looked like an entirely different person. She disappeared very soon after, but I did see the before and afters, and wow, even on someone who still needs to lose more weight, its a great change and it must make so much difference to your mobility. She was fully expecting to have some fine tuning done at goal but she was so happy to be rid of it when she was.

food! I dont take any Protein "supplement" in the form of shakes or bars etc. These days I'm really loving vegetarian sources like chickpeas and lentils, but I do eat red meat. I love lamb, we eat lamb in some form twice a week or so. I struggle with fish, I only eat it because I know its good for me.

Unfortunately, I'm a bit like a reformed smoker. I see morbid obesity and I want to feel sympathetic but in truth, I find it very confronting. I also feel (quite unjustifiably) that I got too fat and I got off my ass and did something about it. Why cant they? Why should they get my sympathy if they cant help themselves? I can be like that here. I moved more and ate less, I have very little patience with other people's struggles. I found it pretty straightforward, I did what I knew I should and it worked. That's because I dont understand the disease that is morbid obesity. I just dont get it, I've never suffered it, I was a person whose lifestyle got a little crazy and out of control and whose weight got away from her a bit. I really had it very very easy compared to a lot of people here. But I've got enough sensitivity to not be totally ignorant, to treat people badly, to discriminate or to think they'd actually like to be told by my skinny ass that they should do this to lose weight. I would have snotted someone who said that to me.

Being an almost teacher myself, I can honestly say I've never had a real gripe about any of my kids teachers. Its hard work and its doubly hard to treat with respect and fairness kids who push your buttons when you have no emotional connection to them in the way you do your own kids. But I admire teachers who realise that their expected or desired outcomes are not everybody's desired outcomes. When I first began studying to be a teacher, I was 36, so old enough to have some life experience. Yet I still focussed on my own upbringing, priveledged white middle class, privately educated, now stay at home mother with a six figure family income. I was motivated to teach when I left school but the employment marked in 1985 in Victoria was abysmal, so I didnt do it - and lucky because I would have sucked at it as a 19 year old. What I've learned over the last few years is that education is a chance, an opportunity but its not my business to try to teach kids that professional employment is the only respectable outcome, or that academic achievement is the only worthwhile achievement. I'm there to facilitate not direct to one end only. So whilst I may one day come up against teachers who are not technically wonderful, our education system in Victoria is pretty darn good and provides a great framework that makes most teachers able to teach adequately. I care a lot more about the moral influence and guidance teachers have on my children - I want them to be accessible and helpful but entirely neutral. I do not want my kids growing up thinking that to be successful you must fit a certain set of attributes - which is definitely what my snobby girls school taught me. Its taken me 22 years of my life to reach a level of comfort with my life and how its turned out, and to undo the damage that my schooling caused me. In all fairness, that was a lot to do with the school and the hidden curriculum led by other students, not only the teachers. I would have a big problem that expressed religious or political views or similar, but one who wasnt great at teaching maths, I might take action but it wouldnt be in a hostile or aggressive manner, I'd want to find a way to work with the teacher and my child. Wonderful teachers, well we've been lucky enough to have one or two and some people just have it, dont they? Some people are born to be fantastic teachers, and its more to do with their rapport with the kids than with technical competence.

I'm big on school uniforms. In Australia nearly all schools have uniforms anyway and I really think they're a good thing. But public school uniforms are often a pretty loose interpretation, short dresses, odd socks, shocking hairstyles, make up etc. The girls from our local secondary college look like tarts. I would never allow my daughter to go to school looking like that. But I'm totally behind a proper uniform - shirt, tie, blazer, proper school skirts (not short!), tidy hair, no weirdly dyed hair, no facial piercings worn to school, school shoes, sports uniforms etc. I think kids have a right to their individuality but they need to learn there's times and places to express it and times and places to conform. And if they're totally the type of kid that's artistic or creative or whatever and are NEVER going to end up working in the corporate world or similar, then the chances are they wont be at the type of school that has uniform requirements like that anyway. Ack, I'm such a middle class conservative white person, lol. I just assume my kids will be doctors, lawyers, accountants, etc like most of my family and Doug's family, so I tend to believe in the type of education that takes kids there. As a teacher myself, I have to be very mindful of the fact that there's no right or wrong, no one way to success, no one way to bring kids up. But I still dont think a little old fashioned discipline, rules and respect hurt any kid.

I was lucky, it was about 12 weeks before hunger returned for me. And it wasnt bad hunger, just normal appetite.

Yesterday Breakfast - 2 poached eggs and about half an hour later I had a snack pack of pears in natural juice. lunch was half a tuna, lettuce, cucumber, tomato and avocado sandwich on wholegrain bread. Later that afternoon, I had 4 crackers with low fat cheese and a bit after that I ate a banana. dinner was crumbed fish, shallow fried, and steamed veges and I had 2 glasses of white wine over the evening.

I dont feel a need to justify but if anyone complements me on weight loss or asks specifically how I did it I tell them. I would HATE To think I made someone go from talking to me to having a miserable binge at McDonalds becuase how come I have all this willpower and self control and they cant do it? I think it sometimes really upsets people who are struggling with their weight to see someone else succeed, not in a nasty way but in a way that makes them feel down on themselves, so I'm up front about having had surgery. If they want to say "oh, she's not all that then, she had surgery, so it was easy for her" well that's their problem and self delusion, not mine.

I dont really count either, I stick with organic, healthy fresh food. I eat carbs but I try to avoid white sugary ones - white bread, rolls, cakes, Cookies, pancakes, white rice and Pasta etc. But I eat plenty of wholegrain pasta, cereals, oatmeal, brown rice, fruit, etc. I guess you'd call my diet low GI - I'm not a fan of high Protein, I really dont believe the research and claims supporting that high protein (as opposed to normal levels of protein, I know protein is important) and I choose not to sacrifice my kidney or bowel health on the off chance that diets like Atkins may actually be proven one day. So yeah, high fibre, low GI, moderate protein and carb levels are pretty much what I eat. Sugar, white flour, you dont need it, and those foods once you start eating them, are hard to stop!

I dont believe in a god out there creating the world and watching over us all. Organised religion makes me nervous, although technically Anglican, I chose not to get married in a church, I chose not to christen my children or do any of those things that western cultures simply take for granted for the large part. I think religion in and of itself is dangerous and problematic and the world would be better without it. I choose to take no part in it myself. Yet I wouldnt call myself an atheist, and I definitely define a good person by Christian values, I do hold a belief that the story of Jesus has some foundation in historical reality and I do really believe in thanksgiving for the wonderful good that exists in the human spirit. If I had to define "God" that's what I would say, that I have seen it, felt it in moving moments where humanity is good. As have I also seen and felt evil or "Satan" if you want to call it that. That's my rationalisation of it. I believe there's "something" worth nurturing and worshipping but I do not believe it takes the form of an omnipresent god, I believe it exists in all of us and our whole lives are a journey to bringing out the best within ourselves and trying to overcome the worst. But push any religion in my face and I find it abhorrent, be it a christian religion like catholocism or a non christian one.

Dibaby - no offence taken, I know what you meant. I was just reiterating the point that to minimise muscle loss it is not strictly necessary to follow some complicated diet. I dont even count Protein, when I've checked out of interest, my intake is 50 to 60 grams a day. And, lol, but I do hardly any strength training, the bare minimum becuase I dont like it. I do basic multi miscle group exercises - squats, lunges, push ups, tricep dips on a chair and abdominal work, that's it. I'm very cardio focussed and running, believe me, builds TONS of muscle in your legs and strengthens your core muscles unbelievably. You might get BETTER results with hard core specific weight training and a very regimented diet. You'd definitely get FASTER results. But eating less and moving more works too.

It must be so hard to have to wait months really to completely see your new body. I spent so long thinking in a self satisifed way, oh that stomach is fine, but if I catch a glimpse of my rear end in a changing room mirror, I do get a shock. That's my first reaction - shock! And then "oh, yuck". Before I think about how I feel about it. Its saggy, lol. Such a massive operation though, not sure Id be up for it. Where is the scarring? Low enough to wear hipster style things (not REALLY butt baring, but moderate). I wouldnt want to be consigned to a life of nana undies. I may be 40 but there's limits!