Jachut

Seriously though - could you have a week off and actually get to eat something? That's really cruel.

Well your liver's probably shrunk now anyway. Maybe 2 meals a day and one optifast would be OK?

Hic, I'm having wine for dinner tonight, lol. Good bandster than I am. Protein first and all that, pooh. Have several extra children, who are at present playing volleyball in my family room, which I have vacuumed 4 times today so far. Had to have pizza for dinner as a result, which I just absolutely dont want so I've had nothing but wine. I went for a 10km run last night (the biggest run I've been on in ages) and have felt nauseous all day. I absolutely cannot eat, had a piece of cheese on a cracker for Breakfast, tried a toasted sandwich for lunch, ate about 1/4. Got an orange down at 4pm and have had wine for dinner. Does anyone else find really vigorous exercise tightens them up considerably? Its great because I was 77.7kg this mornign (lightest ever, woohoo) and will be again tomorrow. Normally when I see a really low weight I take it as licence to have a few treats!

You wont believe how much fitter you get! It builds fitness very quickly. I started out on the elliptical with cardio coach (Cardio Power Fitness Music | Music for Fitness | Cardio Music Workouts | Cardio MP3 Downloads for iPods), this is awesome for making time on cardio machines fly but I have done it running outdoors before too.

I havent for ages, I really should. I do circuit training 3x per week though and that is very "interval" style - bursts of very high heart rate with lifting heavy weights - the running on the treadmill is the easy bit!

Yes, that makes sense. I'd need the vertical incision, lol. The only stretchmarks I have on my body is on my breasts - and that's from puberty, not from pregnancy. I went to bed flat chested one night and I swear I woke up with DD's. It was that fast, my skin had no hope.

I have the same thing, that deflated, 6 years of breastfeeding look, lol. But I'm already a DD. I cannot imagine needing implants but cant see how a simple lift would fill out that skin, kwim?

Sounds like you were a bit ambitious on the egg mcmuffin - a VERY difficult thing to eat when you're well filled. You may have caused some irritation. Can you keep liquids down yet? If you can, a few days on liquids may calm everything down and you may be fine to get going (carefully) on solids. If you're even having trouble with liquids, I'd be back to your doc straight away to have some fill removed. I've never had this happen to me but I wouldnt muck around, you can get dehydrated very quickly and all the vomiting is not good for your band. Hope you feel better very soon.

I agree with what's been said above. Most of us never get that lightbulb moment where we think AHA, I use food for ...... and realise just where it is that our bad habits come from. But the thought of losing that coping mechanism, even when you dont know what you're trying to cope with, is very scary. Its the first time in my life I actually realised I did that. I felt the same. Plus there's that "how did I get here" self loathing. If only you could KNOW what the other side is like, its WAY better I promise.

I have just dropped to 77.5kg this morning, after probably five months at 78 to 79 kg. I mean to MAINTAIN this loss now, not let it bounce back to 78. And if possible, I want to be in the 76's by the end of July. Not really an easy task when you're at a healthy weight already and your body seems to not want to lose anymore, but that CAN be controlled by my behaviour.

I just made a pretty interesting discovery about the effect of weight loss on your calorie needs. I foudn a great site, mapmyrun.com when I was lookign for new routes to run (as per your advice Julie) so that I can train for a half marathon. I tracked out my longest run, which turned out to only be 9.15kms (and I'd measured it in the car as 11) and when I plugged in my states and did the analyse your workout big it was only 567calories burned! I was shocked, I'd thought for sure I'd burn closer to 1000 running that far. Just goes to show that you really do have to remember your calorie needs drop substantially with less body weight, if you want to keep losing right down to goal. Its really little wonder I've stuck at the high end of my healthy range for so many months. But I did hit 77kg this morning!! That's less than I weighed when I conceived my first bub at 28. Not bad for a crusty old 40 year old!

It is hard to remember to eat foods that help the restriction but it is a good way to go. I think we're all guilty of eating soft foods becuase there's a fine balance between stretching your pouch, pbing and having discomfort and getting good and satisfied for several hours. Ironically the best food for me is bread. Eat a sandwich for lunch everyday (which I dont really like much, never have liked sandwiches) and I lose weight reliably. EAt things like salads with Protein and I'm picking by 3pm. I'm not one to avoid bread, its not a no no here in australia generally, so I guess that's lucky. My band defnitely works best when I eat "difficult" foods. Oh, and I've just been on a 10km run before dinner and can barely eat a mouthfull - exercise right before eating works well for me too!

Crikey, I couldnt hack the Optifast for even 2 days. If I'd been told to stay on it another month, I would have had a tantrum.

It probably took me about 12 weeks - well into solid foods.

Australian houses dont have basements unfortunately - nor do they have attics in general either. I'm not sure why. And it'll be years before my lot are moving out of home, lol. My home gym does us OK, I'd really like cross trainer or spin bike for some non impact alternatives.

I prefer a tankini too - I usually wear the top with board shorts. Even after the weight loss, and I dont have a lot of sagging skin, my body is not bikini worthy, lol. It just looks better with a little more camouflage round the hips and thighs, I have (and always had) saddlebags and cellulite there - people dont need to see it. Plus I"m tall and one pieces always give me not only rear wedgies but FRONT wedgies too, lol, not a good look. They're never long enough for me.

Personally I think you're better off eating the most calories a day you can whilst still losing weight from a nutritional point of view. I'd try 1000 first - well I'd try way more actually, I've lost all of my weight on 1500 or more a day. How can any doctor or nutritionist truly KNOW what you personally need in a day without extensive testing? They cant. That's trial and error on your part. Its hard to be adequately nourished on 800 a day unless you eat perfectly and I'd see no reason to go that low if you can lose on more. You wont necessarily lose weight faster. I didnt get ANY of those guidelines, all I got was an outline of how to eat for the healing phase, after that I was on my own. Given I'd probably argue with anyone who tried to tell me what I should eat, lol, that's probably just as well.

I agree - you can take in a lot of calories if you eat the easier foods. Also, how much do you exercise?. 71lb is great, I mean I've only lost 80 or so since December 05 but that's all I needed to lose, so I consider that fantastic, its all in the way you look at it. 71lb is a LOT of weight. YOur band is there, its working, its ready to work with YOU when you decide you're ready. You may have been making poor choices but you can stop doing that at any time. Exercise success long term takes a lot of hard exercise, sorry to say. I've run my butt off quite literally. I haul heavy weights. You just have to do that - an hour of sweat inducing cardio five or six days a week and strength training. Yes, its work but you dont get the reward without the effort. You do indeed lose just by eating less and not thinking about much else, but well obviously that stage has run out for you and its time to think about preparing for the next stage. Good luck - you can do this, you just have to decide to.

I really want one, or something similar but sadly we have absolutely no room. The treadmill, barbell, mat, ab-roller and associated dumbells take up half of our family room so we no longer have a casual eating area. We have an outdoor pergola area that we could enclose with clear patio blinds but I'm not sure that I'd entrust valuable equipment to the outdoors even with protection and I'm not sure we'd use it if it were outside - given that its probably 7 or 8 degrees celcius out there at night in winter (athough we throw the sliding door open when working out anyway) - and its probably that I'm still with the family in front of the telly that I actually do workout so often. Next house we will be lookign for something with a designated room for a home gym

I think lots of people still like to be on a program - I dont personally. Today I ate: breakfast - a bowl of muesli and then half an hour later I ate a piece of toast (veeerry slowly) while I was drying my hair. I eat less the entire day with a good carb filled breaki inside me, but I cant just sit down and eat it all at once. That lot took me an hour. lunch - 3 pieces of sushi - I discovered sushi and me are no longer friends since my last fill, it just was very difficult to eat. Once it went down I had a yogurt. Late afternoon - a snack sized Cherry Ripe. Dinner: a chicken shaslick and a tiny bit of mixed rice/peas. A glass of wine.

Oh, and I"m not good on less than 7 hours a night. My nights still tend to be broken too, Eliza's young enough that she wonders in to go to the toilet in the ensuite and then proceeds to lie on top of me, and gets up at the crack of dawn too, grrrr.

No, I mean more the opposite. I always was the kind of person who'd say "oh, I ate cake today, might as well eat the rest of the cake and blow off the run and start again tomorrow". Nowadays I'll say "well, I ate cake today, so what?" and I"ll go for my run anyway because I dont just run to burn off cake, I run for all those wonderful benefits we've been discussing above, the headspace and the reflection time and the sheer joy of it. So I run (or I do my circuit) day in and day out, regardless of whether I've been "good" or "bad" with my eating and THAT's what makes weight maintenance effortless. A bad day here or there means nothing when you're very active, or that's what I've found anyway - my body no longer packs on a couple of kilograms from one meal out - it stays rock solid no matter what I eat these days. Which is a pity as I still want it to go down, lol.

I didnt say you didnt need to train - I just meant that most people can ride a bike and given basic training and good fitness could cycle a fair distance - I mean we borrowed Mum and Dad's bikes a few weekends ago and rode 40km in a day, hadnt been on bike for about 10 years before that apart from the odd spin class. Swimming on the other hand, is much harder to simply pick up as the breathing technique is everything, many people simply cannot swim continuously becuase they cant get their breathing right. For sore you'd want to get on your bike and find your rhythm, same as with running, but its an activity most people can already do. You wouldnt necessarily WIN of course, lol!

I wouldnt imagine it would hurt you to go onto a (nutritious) liquid diet after surgery when you're inactive, if you find you're tighter and cant eat normally. I reckon only take out fill if the need becomes apparent.

You look incredible, I'm five foot ten and about 175lb - WHY cant I see myself as thin as you look? Those boobs are awesome, lol. I'd love a pair of those. Mine are a bit sad after feeding 3 babies. If I had money for PS I'd probably elect the exact same procedures, I"m a little loose around the buttocks and thighs, but my stomach has flattened out nicely. I'd love a breast lift, probably dont need the size boost of an implant but could really use the filling out of the skin, mine have that post pregnancy and b/feeding emptiness. Glad you're so pleased with the results, it looks awesome!