Jachut

Actually my DH is joking but it pisses me off. He's always making remarks about how I can get my boobs done or get some lipo on my hips. As if! Bloody accountant - he complains if I buy milk for crying out loud, yet my tits are important to warrant 10 grands worth of surgery? Stupid, shallow, superficial. Has he looked at his own boobs lately? They're bigger than mine! Why is it important to him that I look perfect? Actually if I had cosmetic surgery all I'd want is a chin implant, I have a weak chin that's changed a little with age and I'll probably get that chinless look when I'm older and get jowly. I wont be accepting that I'll definitely be getting some work done on it, probably in a year or two when I start working again, it costs quite little. He laughs at that, like its unimportant, apparently big fake bouncy boobs are way more of an attraction. Men!

I'm so embarrassed to admit that I do on occasion tan because in Australia, only an idiot would add to the sun load on their skin in an artificial environment and we all know that it may look good today but we're going to pay a HUGE price for it years down the track. Leather handbag anyone? Nonetheless I do it for special occasions such as a wedding, it gives a way nice result than a spray tan and it lasts for a couple of weeks after you stop. I find I must ALWAYS cover my hair with a thick showercap, tanning beds absolutely ruin my hair within one or two sessions, they wreck the colour and make it really dry and strawlike. And acrylic nails yellow too, I have to cut the ends off rubber gloves and put them on my fingers. And never ever ever ever tan without a proper tanning lotion. They are hellishly expensive but absolutely vital, they prevent a lot of the superficial damage, allow you to tan faster, make your tan look better and moisturise your skin. Dont use babyoil or a cheap alternative. Start out very gradually, never tan every day as your skin needs time to recover in between and actually tans best if you space it out, no more than 3 times a week. And NEVER fail to wear your goggles.

Whether you would want to do it or not is irrelevant, and I dont think you're selfish for not wanting to do it either, practically its impossible. You just cant squeeze that many people into a one bedroom apartment, its not a reasonable thing to ask.

I dont exercise to DVD's very often but I exercise at home, far more consistenly and successfully than I ever did at a gym. I thought it would be too easy to blow off but I realised early on that I'd never stuck to my gym routines before becuase I just dont have the flipping time. It would take my whole morning to go to the gym, drive home, shower and dress to be ready for the day, it would be 11.30, midday by the time I'd done it. I cant go at night becuase DH doesnt walk in the door till 7.30, 8pm and we have the whole kids' routine, bedtime etc to do and I cant get up early to go to the gym because he's left for work by 6.30 am and the gyms round here dont open till 6 am. So I realised much as I hated it and found it boring, it would have to be walking for me. That didnt last long, I was jogging within 2 weeks and have kept it up at least 3 times a week, usually five or six, for the past 18 months. I've been much slacker with strength training, that I always felt I needed gym machines for but its not true. Lately we've been doing a fabulous hour and a half long circuit together that involves treadmill, push ups, tricep dips, squats and lunges with the barbell, shoulders and biceps with hand weights, boxing with gloves and focus pads and abdominal work, we're both dripping with sweat and work really HARD and it's fun and not boring at all. I do it on my own as well, I love it, it beats just running in place, I prefer to run outside these days. I find DVD's hard becuase someone always wants to watch the telly, and I dont have a basement (houses dont generally have basements or attics in Australia) or any dedicated exercise area and I get in people's ways. But DVD's I've looked at buying are really hard core ones, the walk away the pounds type of thing would be nowhere near a challenge for me and the music annoys me too, lol. Jari Love's ripped series for example, I'd consider buying that, or some Cathe ones with weights. I think the secret is ones that are appropriate for your level of fitness and a good variety. You need a little willpower to do them, but its a lot easier than the willpower you need not to eat the chocolate that's in the fridge.

No, I honestly didnt need to. I wasnt hungry at all for months after the surgery.

I'm not much help with brand names in another country but have you looked into the new memory foam stuff? It goes by the brandname Tempur here, and its that weird foam that feels and looks hard and thin and you lie on it and think "ooh, yuck, its like lying on a plank of wood" and suddenly you're body just s-i-n-k-s into it, its utterly divine. We bought pillows and they're fantastic, $200 each they ought to be. Its expensive, but its fabulous becuase its just literally a block of foam - there's no springs or anything in it and it moulds itself around you, when you move, the mattress recovers and remoulds itself. You either need to buy a base with it that's designed for it, or its good for sitting on any slat bed. We bought a very expensive posturepedic bed five years ago and hated it, buying a bed is such a hard thing to do unless you can sleep a night in the store. But since my weight is gone, one of the most unexpected side effects is how well and how comfortably I sleep - I was having trouble turning and staying comfortable at my heaviest, and that was only at a BMI of 35.

Thank you for a thoughtful, insightful and very relevant post! It really struck a chord with me. I'm halfway through year 2. I do workout regularly, consistenly and hard as I have done from the start. I can hold my head up high there and say I could not have tried any harder and I am proud that others seem to take inspiration from my efforts. But I could do more, I've steadfastly refused to do the strenght training I know is necessary and run my butt off literally. I'm pulling back on my running now and adding in that strength work, I know its the only way to continue to change my body for the better. Weightwise I'm the same. I'm honestly very happy. I like what I can wear. I'm realistic about the fact that I'm 39 and have had 3 babies and never had a "great" figure anyway, I do carry cellulite and lower body fat and I dont see anything other than plastic surgery will ever change that markedly. So I'm complacent. And I've been eating for maintenance. I kind of wimped out on my goal of 70kg as 79 is a perfectly healthy, acceptable and attractive enough weight for me. However I think about it all the time and I swear, I *will* get motivated to get there. I know I wont look perfect but that's not the point. In the last 2 weeks I"ve gone up 1lb. I've not been eating very well, too much chocolate! This is a life long commitment, you never WIN at this and you can never ever give up the struggle. It's mentally exhausting to think of managing your weihgt for the rest of your life but its honestly true, once a fat person, always a fat person. There is more to obesity than we understand at this point in time and physically losing the weight is about 1/1000th of the battle. I know for sure if I didnt have a band I would be in a regaining phase right now.

Hi Susannah, we bought our treadmill at Rebel Sport and they have a guy they use to deliver and install it and he put a sticker on the console so we can call him anytime. Ours was floorstock and did have a blown fuse in the transformer very quickly, he's been out twice, and they recommend a yearly service. Ours was around $3,000 originally, we got it for $1699 as it was superseded floorstock. You *might* find a good one for $1,000 though, its just we were going more by the feel and size of them - it had to feel like a gym treadmill if I was going to use it, I didnt want it to rattle, shake, shudder, like the one we'd hired did. You want a fairly strong motor and the orthopaedic sprung deck is fairly important for I think for the sake of your knees. But I think as far as quality and long lasting-ness (geez, is that a word?) goes, you dont need to spend top dollar necessarily but you may have to to get the speed, incline or program features you may desire. I'm also tall and long legged and so is Doug, he's 6ft 3 so we wanted a WIDE and big running area, the cheaper machines have a smaller deck which may be just fine by you. We wanted a running machine also, many of them are more suitable for walking with top speeds of 10kms, although I still dont run at faster than that, so it may be ample. But you really have to try them out, embarassing as it is you have to run and walk on them in the shop. We paid a bit more too for a machine that could be hooked up to the computer (I need to contact Goanna because her DH was going to make us a cable to run through the house, but she's gone into hiding!) so we have endless programme options. HTH

I would have loved to have been home, I slept of the anaethetic all day (was done at 8.30 in the morning) and then prowled my room all night, couldnt sleep. I was mobile enough to get up and down and walk (slowly) so I could have put on a DVD, been on the computer or filled in those endless nighttime hours some way more pleasant than being stuck in a hospital room.

Whenever you lose weight that fast it is not purely fat. Those contestants on Biggest Loser are NOT losing 15lb of fat per week, they're doing rather dangerous things to their bodies. But not all of it is muscle either, a lot of it is Water, fat people can hold many many pounds of excess Fluid in their bodies. But even slow and steady weight loss invovles some muscle loss. So many times I've read here that people have had their bodies analysed, found out they have for example 160lb of lean body tissue so rationalise that although they're only 5ft tall, 160lb is the right weight for them to aim at. That's incorrect, because as they lose, they will lose lean tissue as well, they wont NEED all that muscle to hold up their heavy bodies any more and they will lose some of it, its part of the weight loss equation that you cant avoid. Many people believe that a high Protein diet preserves this, but our bodies need carbs to be able to digest Proteins for energy and this is a pretty contentious theory and FAR from proven although people believe it passionately. I'd say the best way to lose is slowly and with lots of exercise and a good balanced diet

I can feel mine easily now and I can also see it. Its not something you'd notice if you didnt know it was there kind of sticking out but if you know to look you can see it.

I've got a Nordic Track C2050 which is outdated now, I own it. I dont know what its like over there, but in Australia its very expensive to hire a treadmill, it actually cost us less to finance ours over 12 months than hiring would have cost. I looked for a gym quality machine, big, sturdy and with an orthopaedic deck (its sprung). We paid a few thousand for it, so much more expensive here, but its a great machine. The new Nordic Tracks have little workout chips you can purchase for endless program variety.

I agree with Carlene. And with all due respect, as a non American, the thought of America taking over the entire world scares me a lot more than the Islamic faith does. Stop and think about it from the perspective of other countries in the world. Carlene's right. Who says we all want America to be boss? There's a lot of dissention in Australia because people feel we're only involved in this awful war becuase we cant afford to piss off the almighty Americans. Its a scary culture.

There's even health benefits to (very) moderate wine intake. The biggest problems I find are having a glass too many and losing your caution - forgetting to eat slowly if you're eating and getting stuck or getting the munchies as you tend to do with less than moderate alcholol consumption.

Actually come to think of it, the reason I havent eaten tuna in months is it always sticks for me too. I dont eat much fish at all actually because of the solid proteins, I find meat and chicken WAY easier than fish.

Losing weight, getting healthy and getting plenty of cardiovascular exercise is probably a safer way to prevent heart disease!

The same thing has happened to me, I'm just darned lucky I got to goal weight in that time, I didnt have more than about 80lb to lose in the first place. So I've gotten to a healthy weight but I'd like to be lighter, I'm around the top of my healthy weight range atm, would rather be at the lower end, that's just my build. But I can live with how I am more than happily, so I've just focussed on continuing to live well and healthily and continuing to challenge myself with my running and other exercise.

How do you run and read? I cant manage it, I can only walk pretty slowly and still be able to read - I do read some of my study materials since they tend to be large university produced books that sit easily and I just walk very slowly on an incline if I have an hour's reading to do. I dont consider that exercise, I jsut do it because its more active than sitting on the couch doing it, but I'd probalby cover less than 5kms in an hour. I'd still want my exercise session for that day.

In real terms, it hasnt. I had a good life before and do now, but I still have the same difficulties, how to get ahead, afford that house we want, get through my studies, get back to work, stop my growing teenage boys eating themselves into obesity, what secondary school will we send them to, can we commit to it and afford the fees until I'm working in 2 years, etc etc etc. Life is as hard and frustrating as it ever was and losing weight is not a miracle cure for everything. What's changed - how I cope with all of that. I'm no longer lazy, sluggish and unmotivated. I have energy to spare, I respect myself and want to treat myself better so I dont live in a pig sty anymore, and I sleep better and cope with stress much better. Going out to buy a formal dress, spying one in the window, trying on the size 14 (an American 10 to you!!!!) and buying it in 5 seconds flat, truly loving it instead of buying another darn grandma outfit that I hate but will cover me is something I havent enjoyed for many years and WOW, did that feel good! Having confidence in how I look, although a bit sad that at 39, my youthful good looks are disappearing, lol, but knowing I will look the best I can at any particular age is wonderful. Knowing that you've done your utmost to preserve your health and fitness for many many years ahead is a good feeling too. So overall, my life hasnt really changed, but how much I enjoy it has.

Couldnt agree more with that - you need regular HARD exercise, it really helps with losing weight and its VITAL for maintaining. If you keep up a five or six times per week cardio schedule you wont get fat again unless you really fall off the wagon. If you can also get regular strengthwork in there, even better. Cardio DOES tend to make you just a smaller version of yourself on its own, I'm really finding now I dont need to lose any more weight but I really need to tone and still decrease body fat, its time to face up to the free weights, much as it makes me groan.

Oh - drinking is probably not recommended becuase its empty calories. And I am careful when I drink not to forget to eat VERY carefully. Easily done after a couple.

I drink a glass or two of wine on a regular basis, probably 3 nights out of 7. It doesnt give me heartburn or anything, but I've never remotely suffered from reflux or heartburn issues unless I was pregnant, and then I had to virtually sleep standing up, lol.

Me too, and it entirely depends what it is, half a sandwich I'm full but I just had seconds of the yummy Soup I made for lunch. I guess pretty much though I eat a small to normal sized portion of whatever it is - I tend to eat about the same as my petite sister, who has a notoriously "small" appetite - so not such a small amount that people go "whoa, how do you live on THAT?" but more a nice, ladylike portion.

I can eat a piece of pizza carefully - though at this restriction I'm not sure I'd choose it anymore, I'd probably be more likely to choose Pasta since I know that's an easy food for me. I'm fine with Indian food like curries, meat is no problem, any cafe style dining where you can get a big caesar salad (yes I know how fattening they are, lol, but they are divine) or any other kind of fancy salad, a piece of salmon or similar, I'm fine with all that. I've had to sit through a few Chinese banquets though which is ridiculous, there's no way I can get through them. I probably would not participate again and just order my own dish. I dont believe in obsessing over getting your money's worth when dining out, to me the cost of a meal out is really for the socialising, not the food and I dont give a toss about doggy bags or paying for food I dont eat, within reason. $60 for a banquet you eat 1/8 of is a bit silly.

I didnt eat any of those foods until I was well onto solids, months probably. But until my last fill I would have handled any of them just fine. I could eat the hot dog itself, but a hot dog with a bun - I could eat it, but I'm not sure I could be bothered and it woudl cause me discomfort and I probably couldnt eat the whole thing. Same with pizza - we only ever eat pizza that I've made, base and all and I make the thinnest, crispiest base possible and healthy toppings and it STILL gives me problems, really hard to eat, not work the effort. A toasted bagel, I'd probably eat half of one for breakfast and enjoy it but I'd have to eat it carefully. But probably for the first six months on low restriction levels I could eat those things easily. it kind of comes gradually, I know its hard to imagine but you truly dont miss those foods, once they start to cause you grief, you just naturally dont want them anymore. We had donuts here the other day - REAL donuts, not those revolting Krispy Kreme things, big round jam ball donuts with sugar all over the outside. Donuts are more like sweet bread, less like pastry in Australia and can be huge. I would have eaten 4 of them previously, they literally did not tempt me in the slightest because I knew the pain they'd cause me.