Jachut

I'm sorry for you but I think you had a particularly bad experience, with a doc who's not experienced at finding the port and giving fills. It shouldnt be like that. In normal circumstances it honestly doesnt hurt at all, not a bit. You feel a slight prick as the needle goes in of course, but that hurts less than giving blood does and unlike ordinary injections, the Fluid is injected into your port, not into your flesh, so you dont get that horrible pain that you might have with a penicillin injection or similar.

I havent had a problem with any fruit or vegetable except for the fact that I have to peel apples now before I eat them. But apple skins always set my teeth on edge anyway, so I tend to do that anyway. Citrus, asparagus, I dont have any problems. Fruit and veg are gauranteed can eat items for me.

Cliff Young! You know I do sort of run like him, well I did at the start - a weird, low impact shuffle. Now my run looks "normal" but still feels low impact, you dont go out and bound around at full steam, its hard to explain, but there's a full on run and there's jogging? Its not the full on pounding you experience when you do it when a) you're not experienced at it and you're heavy.

When I had truly great restriction for the six weeks post surgery I also had absolutely no head hunger, no real appetite at all really. That was awesome, if only it could be like that all the time. But I also ate an extremely restricted diet and could not live like that forever. Nowadays, for me its like Chickie says, reasonable meal, stay full for reasonable time. For me, headhuger returned full force, in between meals I'm like I always was - I could eat just becuase its something to do, for some reason, I have more control over it these days, although I still do it. I'm now settled down for a lifelong effort to stay on top of it, although knowing I have my band, its like an insurance that I can always go back and have another fill if I find my weight creeping up.

I dont really know how to vote - I have 2.5 cc in mine and I can still eat bread and quite a lot for a bandster yet I am below my goal weight, so who knows? I suspect I'd need to be over 3cc though. I dont really want to get to any "sweet spot" since I tend to think that what other people describe as just right is way too tight. I like living a "normal" lifetyle and have made up t he difference with exercise.

Yes, a pound is a pound. But its a bit like the starvation mode thing - some truth to it but its been taken into common parlance and overexaggerated. It seems whenever somebody starts exercising and a week later they've gained a pound or two they say "oh, but I've put on muscle". Ahem. Normal people with normal person capacities for exercise do NOT gain a pound of muscle in only a week. It takes months and months and months to build enough muscle to make a significant difference to your weight - and most women cant really do it, certainly not in a week. No matter how many Protein shakes they drink.

Yay you! Very well done! For those of us that think in metric, we tend to pass into onederland and not even realise it, lol. I was 180 something before I figured it out.

Your body adapts very well to running and strengthens up for it over time, IF you take it slowly and build up sensibly. Injury happens when you overdo things. I do the circuits precisely to rest the running muscles and do something different without being inactive - yes there's running involved but its on the treadmill and I'd probably only run 2kms total in an hour long circuit, hardly anything. I run outside on concrete only twice a week or so, unless I'm gearing up for a fun run. Running may be hard on the body I guess, but being fat is WAY harder, I know that simply by how I feel and I figure if I run and it keeps me lighter, then they kind of cancel each other out, kwim? Anyway, I do have some weak spots like my ankle and a bit of a sciatic problem that may one day mean I have to give it up but until then, I love it! I really dont see why I cant still be running when I'm 70 - its inactivity that makes you old, stiff and and sore.

I said five times a week - really i do something every day. A fast hour long walk is a day where I "dont exercise" now, at the momenht I run 10kms twice a week and do a harcore circuit involving running on the treadmill, heavy weights and pushups, tricep dips etc for about 75 minutes the other 3 days. I agree with Chickie though - it takes a while to build up to it, but THAT's the type of exercise it takes to shift all your weight and keep it off, a walk and giggle with a friend or a yoga DVD is active leisure, not effective weight reducing exercise. Of course though, I'm 18 months down the track. I couldnt have kept up that schedule at first. But I'd prefer to move like that than live on a couple of teaspoons of food at a time or become super obsessed with Protein.

I'm about to turn 40, 3 kids aged 12, 10 and 4 and am at university completing my Bachelor of Primary Education (grade school teaching to you). I felt the same, like I'd disappeared under the burden of kids, responsibility and fat and that middle age was staring me in the face and I was going to walk into it, fat, frumpy and not 1/4 of the person I deserve to be. So I did something about it. I feel so excited about the new career thats on my horizon, and the way I look and feel, ready to face it. But the me that's emerged from spending my 30's buried under 80 extra pounds of fat is not the person who went into it. Sigh. I look older, for starters. But I'm going to be the very best 40 I can be and that's all anybody can do.

I dont follow one. I really believe that to follow a "food plan" call it whatever, its still a diet is to simply prolong the dysfunctional eating behaviours we all exhibit that got us where we are. Rules about what you can and cant eat, weighing, measuring, ignoring hunger, or eating when you're not hungry because you need x grams of Proteins, calling foods good and bad, none of it is healthy, rational or sane. Normal weight people who have never had a weigh problem tend to eat what the hell they want, whenever the hell they want. Most of the time, healthy bodies ask for healthy food, and of course you have to use your judgement if you "feel like" Mcdonalds seven times a week. But overall, that's just what I did/do and it worked for me and now I have broken that awful thinking about food obsession that I had, where it was food or my weight running through my head the whole time. Most days I eat really well, as I like healthy foods and they like my band a lot better than most junk. But some days I eat crap, sometiems for a few days on end if we have a lot on. doesnt matter, over time it all evens out, I get the nutrition I need, and my weight stays relatively stable. I truly believe dieting is the wrong way to approach being banded, but I know its personality dependent to a degree.

I eat them, just not as much as I did. I dont do any special diet, I eat what I always ate, just in smaller quanities. I ate pretty well for a fat person though, not a huge junk food eater, no really BAD habits other than overconsuming to give up.

I really want one of these!

18 months now and no complications, only ever had 2 PB's. Am slightly below goal weight.

We've got a moggie, a tortoishell tabby cat, shes' 7 years old, called Lady (the kids named her, their fave movie as littlies was Lady and the Tramp). We're about to get another cat though, although I'm hopping mad about it. BIL and SIL are moving to Canada for 2 years and had to find homes for all of their pets. There's a strong chance they wont be back after two years. I think you give your pets away free to a good home in that situation, much as it might be hard, its kinder on the animals who are not going to settle only to be relocated. But anyhow, we're getting Tabitha, the 11 year old cat. Its going to be ugly in our household, our cat will not take kindly to her and I'm worried to death about both of them, Tabitha is so old and our puss suffers an immune disease which causes her to get hundreds of mouth ulcers if she gets stressed, she gets very sick. I can see fights and endless trips to the vet for abscesses and other war wounds. Why I'm mad is that MIL and FIL are having the other cat but dont want two. Really, if you've got the responsibility of one cat in terms of having to have them looked after when you go away (SIL is paying for the animals to be fed, kennels, vets everything) why not have the two and keep them together as they are used to each other? Why make our cat and Tabitha have to face such a hard situation?

I'd move on - that sort of crap is not the basis for healthy relationships. He should be supportive of you, not jealous and mean. And if he only likes you heavier, well that's no different in my book to someone who will only date big breasted blondes - appearance focussed and incapable of looking underneath at the real person.

If you cant get mystic, you'll definitely be able to get a regular spray tan somewhere. They can go orange, I'd highly recommend having a trial one to be sure you're happy with the colour etc, and dont go too dark if you're fair, the person doing it will advise you of that. You should go in old clothes and come home braless, lol, dont put anything tight on for a while, and if you're not comfortable standing in front of someone on a bathing suit to be tanned, they can just do your arms/shoulders and the bits that will be on display. If you time it right, you should be able to have a shower before you go to bed, I cannot bear the feel of that stuff on me while I sleep, and it does rub off on the sheets because it has an instant bronzer that is not what actually tans your skin. The next day is when the tan is best and then it will fade over 4 or 5 days. It really is a better option for your skin and a month isnt long to develop a tan, you cant go everyday and think you'll get browner, your skin needs the days off in between. If I had a month, I'd do both - I find spray tans look way better when your skin has some base colour to it.

It goes both ways too of course, I'd love to see Doug shape up a little, but more becuase I'm worried about his health, he's 40, slightly obese, but he's getting much fitter, he's tried to keep up with me over the past year. Lately I've been training him, lol. He's a lazy git, he'll get on the treadmill but then he just does an easy walk, doesnt push himself, says he wants to run and comes out with me but then stops and walks within a kilometre when I know he has the fitness to do more, he just doesnt like the sensations associated with exercise. And he's gotten fitter but is no longer making fitness gains. So I've devised a killer circuit and making him sweat his butt off, lol. I'm a bitch, I'm like Jillian, yelling at him, pushing him, I get through it easily and poor bugger he's scarlet and dripping with sweat. But he's OK, not totally overdoing it, but he wants me to force him to work hard. So I guess I cant complain that he pushes me along to where he'd like to see me as I must admit I do harbour a few fantasies that dont involve man boobs and pot bellies.

FFS, what medical condition warranting sending her home could have made itself known after 3 days that they werent aware of before? Cocaine withdrawal? I wanted to see her get nice and cosy with Big Mamma for 45 days, lol.

35 and I wasnt on any medication and didnt have any real comorbidities. I was just sick the death of being fat and could see problems beginning to develop as I approached the age of 40. But in australia its much easier to get almost any health problem solved without having to fight with insurance companies. If your doc says yep he'll do it, insurance pays, no questions. Except for cosmetic surgery.

I may eat a lean cuisine or similar if its takeaway for dinner, but that's not often. My kids arent so little anymore (11, 9 and 4) but honestly, I was always too lazy to make different meals so they learned to eat what we ate from a really early age - and I take the view that if I oughtnt to be eating what they are - if its full of fat, sugar or salt - then they shouldnt be eating it either. We just have healthy meals that the whole family can eat. Not that I'm at all critical of a lean cuisine, but really, you have to learn to blend this in with your family and make your family diet healthy, you cant live a lifestyle of eating differently to them.

The only reason I wouldnt have been able to bungy jump is becuase I was incapable of telling anyone what I weighed without knocking off a couple of kilos, lol.

I wish I hadnt wasted my 20's thinking I was fat and being desperate about it when I wasnt - in fact I'm back to what I was in my 20's now and I know I"m NOT fat. Point being, you do regret those years you could have had just being happy in yourself, so the sooner the better I think. It took me until 37 to get fat enough to be banded but I worried about my weight my entire life before that.

I would imagine you're close enough, in fact the surgery will probably take you half way there anyway and the rest is not a big fluctuation in weight, not something that would affect the result. Good luck!

This is a hard one, one I"ve given some consideration to, but my son is like I was, he will be heavier than average but wont become clinically obese until adulthood. Still, much as I try, I see it as an inevitable process, its just genetically programmed into us somehow and although all it takes to prevent it is a change in attitude and behaviours, that just does not come to you at 16 years old, no matter how miserable about your weight you are. I would so love for kids like your daughter to be banded and never go through the agony of becoming morbidly obese, missing the best parts of their young lives and starting adulthood in bad shape physically and emotionally, but I'm really not convinced that a 16 year old is ready to handle the changes a band forces on you. It would be a hard road for them, but if my child were morbidly obese I think its one I'd choose, but be there for massive support and encouragement becuase I think its going to be much harder than it is for us as adults who are truly ready to take responsibility for ourselves.