Jachut

Wow, what an incredible goal. I really believe you have discovered the secret to successful and lasting weight loss - having a goal that is weight related but not ABOUT your weight. You will do this, I know you will.

I believe you caught hell for some exceedingly nasty comments on there, and for being the one that started it all by intimating that Chickie was too scrawny and that you felt you'd look truly awful at her weight. I also believe you accused her of being obsessed with herself and of attention seeking by continuing to draw attention to her photos, seeking comments about how beautiful she is. Ironic eh? I also believe that debate was about "excuses" for remaining obese and insisting that it was healthy, about assuming that people that get to goal and below are obsessive or exercise too much, not about fine tuning 5lb or 10lb. You were the one that initially made Chickie out to be silly for going below YOUR weight, not the other way around. And you're either thick or deliberately choosing not to see that fact. But for what it's worth, on the outside you're beautiful, seriously, you're a stunner, I'd kill for your skin and your hair. I would never look at you and think oh, you need to lose a few pounds.

I really really hate that because I am white, middle class with a private education behind me, and a nice comfy 6 figure family income, people assume I am a snob. OK, so I do have the hallmark characteristics of the type of person I am. I speak the way you'd expect me to speak, dress the way you'd expect me to dress, I drive the requisit Toorak Tractor (four wheel drive) as I deposit at their school in their natty little private school uniforms. But I also have a social conscience, am passionate about teaching in the public system when I graduate becuase I believe in everyone's right to an education and do not in any way consider myself better than anyone else. I absolutely loathe people assuming I will think a certain way because of how I grew up.

I seem to be unusual in that I didnt, despite being a lower BMI patient. I lost steadily and fast for about 6 months after surgery - well not fast compared to some much heavier people but a good 2lb every single week. Then after that it slowed right down and I've lost about 35lb over the entire last 12 months.

The act of eating them isnt even important, truly. Its what you do afterwards that counts. Moving on is the important thing. This will happen to you many times, obviously your first defence is to avoid doing it in the first place but you dont suddenly switch from a fat person to a thin one overnight, it takes a long time to learn those skills. As long as you move right on, and dont fall in a heap, it will not matter. As long as its not happening every day, lol.

Enjoy it now, lol, because ever since my first was born 12 years ago, I'd rather have a coffee and read my book (takes longer too, roflmao!).

The drinking think, doesnt really make a difference to me, so I dont really get pedantic about it, I drink when I want to. But overtime, with increasing fill I've found myself not drinking with meals or immediately after because it does make me feel stuck or blocked up. Normally I let my food go down a bit first before I drink.

Oh, they have. Last time I was this weight, no way was I in a size 14 Australian, bordering on a 12. I was a good 16. of course, I run lots now and am smaller at the same weight because of that, but I still think sizes are bigger now than they were. All I care about is that I never have to go into a plus size store again.

I've got bra problems at the moment. 14E waaaaay too big so time for new bras. 14DD too big. 12E too big in the cup, perfect in the back, 12 DD slightly too small for my bigger boob, lol.

I would feel like I"d lost a limb without my scales, lol. I have to KNOW if I've gained even an ounce and get right onto it. OK, so for years I KNEW every single blasted week that I'd gained weight, lol. But compared to the anxiety of *thinking* I'd gained weight and not actually knowing, sheesh, that would have driven me to drink. For me, I weigh first thing in the morning. I have 3 possible reactions: 1. scale stays the same - quiet satisfaction 2. Scale down (even 100g) - yay, increased motivation for the day 3. Scale up slightly - sigh, oh well, work harder. So it doesnt send me off on a bender or make me feel down or anything. I like weighing daily, I dont think its particularly dysfunctional if you dont react inappopropriately. But if you think you will get down if you dont like what you see or slack off if you know you're lighter than usual, then yes, I'd avoid it.

I can handle the vanilla, just, lol. Its fine as a smoothie with fresh fruit and a weetbix thrown in, but that's not for the preop phase. You wont make it less "effective" by watering it down becuase it doesnt DO anything. Its not some magic potion, its just a Meal Replacement, and you need lots and lots of Water whilst dieting that strictly so if you add extra water over and above the instructions, it doesnt matter.

I wouldnt drop calories. Your body will naturally go through plateaus over time and also when you do a lot of weight work or change something about your exercise you can retain a bit of Water until you adjust. Stick at it, its consistency that counts. You are doing ALL the right things, and it WILL pay off. Weight means little, its your size changing that really matters and I bet that will continue.

I've never been one for mini goals - they make sense to me, but for me, I could never take my eyes off the bigger picture. I always look at a whole job, not at tasks. Cant help it.

Its totally up to you. There's no magic cut off line where your body shuts down and it becomes impossible or exceedingly difficult to lose more. I'd harbour a guess that its more to do with a lot of attitudes. People become fat for many reasons and as a response to many problems in their lives and those dont magically go away just because you lose weight. So it stands to reason that whlst the band will cause spontaneous and automatic weight loss in a lot of people that that will only take them so far and many simply do not have the personal resources to get the rest off. And of course, there's people who have medical problems that predispose them to obesity, things such as polycystic ovaries and thyroid problems, there's people who unfortunately lose their bands due to slippage and erosion, people who just for some unknown reason cannot tolerate the band and have all sorts of trouble getting good restriction without becoming over restricted etc etc. All you can really do is pray that you dont fall into one of those categories. And if you dont, well then its up to you. Work hard enough, physically, emotionally AND mentally, you'll lose 100% of your weight.

I'm 40 and basically my skin is OK. Ive hit the healthy weight range and my original goal of 75kg and passed it, but I think any more loss now needs to be carefully considered. My body seems to be changing more now than with the original fast and huge weight loss. Every pound makes a visible difference. And just the last 6 or 7lb have seen me go from having no loose skin to a pretty typical 40 year old post 3 babies stomach. I now have a bit of crepy wrinkled skin. I'm vain enough that when finances allow I very well may do something about that becuase my poor old post 6 years of breastfeeding boobs are pretty heinous as well. So exactly like Paulax, its none too bad and my face and neck, arms, thighs etc are fine. But an apron of skin or something that's problematic to dress, no, I've been exceedingly lucky, I mean I can go out in a bikini in public and not make people sick - its no worse than anyone else's stomach and much flatter and thinner than half the people on the beach these days. Because all the running I do and being so tall that I didnt get huge with babies has meant that my muscles underneath are in fabulous condition so I don thave that pot belly look. Unfortunately when you've been very big either through pregnancy or obesity you can separate the muscles and really cause problems. I was lucky that I didnt get too fat before I acted and I carried the weight on my bum anyway.

What has your routine been? How long ago were you banded and how much fill do you have? These things do affect how the band works. Get them right and what follows is much much easier. And what follows is a hard truth - diet and exercise. You still have to do the work that you would normally do to lose weight, the band just makes that easier. And my apologies if you've been working like a trojan to get that weight off and gettign nowhere, you dont say so its the obvious thing to mention first. But basically, yes its taken running an hour five days a week and keeping food intake much lower than it was before AS WELL as choosing healthier foods - I've cut out fast food, packaged crap, convenience foods and cook from scratch most of the time now (I'm not a machine, I have a glass of wine now and then and eat bad foods too but I did it much less whilst actively losing). Its been hard work but I could never do it before the band. Good luck, you need to firstly make sure you have optimum restriction for you in the band.

Sweetpea I think that's different for everyone. Science will tell you one thing, that based on your height, weight and activity level you should eat X calories - that's easy info to find, google it, you'll come up with a million sites to work that out, and your doc will no doubt use the same type of formula. For me personally, that's close enough, all the formulae tell me I should be able to lose on 1500 a day and I do. But one thing that's very obvious from hanging round here for 3 years is that some people's bodies defy science. They eat what they are told they should and they dont lose and have to eat much less. Hopefully you wont fall into that category!. YOu have to fine tune these things for yourself. And many people find dieting life lots easier on lower carbs, they seem to have fewer cravings that way and cutting out a food group is a pretty sure fire way of decreasing calories too. It doesnt seem to make much difference to me, I can eat plenty of carbs and lose, but again, that's something you have to figure out for yourself.

And I think its precisely becuase of a lot of attitudes and outlooks that people dont lose 100%. Many of those in the 50% statistic are there becuase of the way they view things. Denise, you can do it! Get your head right and you'll do it, there is absolutely NO reason why you will be one of those stuck at 50% loss. YOu have three choices. You can stop somewhere before 100% loss because you choose to, and your reasons may be very valid to you and nobody's business but your own, you've made a choice, weighed the consequences and decided that you're happy to make it to that place. You can stop somehwere before 100% lost because you tell yourself you choose to when in actual fact you're too scared or unable to face the real reasons keeping you there (and if that's your case you can deal with that by taking out your anger and frustration on those who have lost all their weight). Or you can put yourself through the wringer, fall on the wagon a million times, get back on, keep on going and one day you too will be lucky enough to be the target of nasty people resentful of you having been such a scorching success. But you can bear that because you'll be so freaking happy with yourself! There's only one of those options I'd find totally unpalatable personally.

Exercise is hard to love at first, but as you do more, many people WANT to keep going and do more. I've jsut had about 10 days off running because I have an injury. To get out last night and go for a run was an awesome feeling. Truly you can get to love it.

I think the thing people fail to realise is someone's motivation for sharing these details abou themselves. its become fairly obvious in the past few days that some people just dont want to hear about it or see it. But I ask them to consider this. Isnt it *just* possible that people who have been through the experience, lost all their weight actually have some wisdom to share about it? Its been a long and sometimes painful one for all of us, but those who have gotten to goal have often had that epiphany, faced some real truths about themselves and really learned the attitudes they need to succeed. I can understand that people who get nasty when presented with those attitudes are often defensive and may not even realise they just arent ready to face those things for themselves. But I also believe there truly exists a fat mentality, that some people are very much excuse driven and whilst they can go through the motions, even so far as to have surgery, they truly dont want to make the real effort deep down inside. So that comes out as resentment, anger, jealousy and plain bitchiness. Its DEFINITELY not true of all overweight people. There are people on here, part way through their own journey, that you can just see they will be great successes no matter WHAT their size or goal weight is at the end. And there's others that may hit a number on the scale but have not truly changed and will continue to battle probably for the rest of their lives.

I believe in calories in/calories out too. And avoid too many bad carbs - but you could eat nothing but donuts and lose weight. Its just not the healthiest way to do it. And make a big part of your calorie deficit as a result of exercise because that also turns you into a fat burning machine.

The thing is, I find I can exercise consistenly now, week in week out. Holidays, I still run. Injury, OK, I have a week off, then I run again, I dont throw in the towel. No lap band surgery has helped me to do that. I found that strength within myself - BUT (very very big but) I couldnt do that until I'd had some weight loss success. I needed the validation that having actually lost weigth gave to the exercise, so there was some point to it. That kept me going to the point where a love for running took over. As to the weight side of things, this is how it has worked for me. Early on I lost weight automatically. I could eat very little and I was full of the new zeal and vigour that we all are at the start of a very big life change. It was enough to probably get a good 1/2 of my weight off. Gradually my body adjusted to the band to the point where that inital lack of appetite and disinterest in food was replaced a bit by my old feelings - I am always ready to eat, never say no to a cookie, etc. But once you've lost a lot of weight and you're a regular exercise, I dont know, you're able to look at habits like that a lot more objectively and can actually decide they're destructive so you wont do them anymore. Of course, you can do that for weeks at a time and then most of us fall off the wagon, begin to let old habits creep back in. That's where a lap band really helps you. I can fall off the wagon and start to not cook or shop properly, eat convenience foods, graze all day etc but I cannot physically eat enough to gain weight. I have to work hard to lose it now, but I cannot gain it easily. So you have time to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and decide to keep going. And its really the keeping going bit that's the key to your success, not the falling off the wagon bit. Its no perfect solution for sure. For lots of people it does NOT solve your mental attitudes and problems with food but it does give you a very good weapon with which to fight and one which, when wielded properly, truly works. If someone could just flip the switch and I'd never be interested in food again, I'd take that but for now, this is a very manageable, easy to live with tool that has really really worked for me.

I can eat them both and so can many people. Its totally individual what you can and cant eat so I think you have to go into this mentally prepared to give up anything. But it often wont be straight away, it'll be much further down the track as you've had more fills. So it comes naturally, it isnt as hard as you imagine.

All I can say Mariposa Bella is MIAOW!

I think you're human. I can guarantee if I'd had to do a liquid diet I would have cheated. I am not strong like that. Try not to, of course, but a couple of indiscretions is not going to be life and death.