Jachut

I've lost weight perfectly successfully eating Pasta, rice and bread as part of my daily diet. I try to choose the wholegrain varieties when possible, and avoid carbs that are too processed but on occasion I'll eat fresh fluffy white bread. I know that the high protein/low carb method has its merits and its followers but it is not the only way to lose weight. For most people it still just comes down to calories in v calories out.

How much exercise do you do? I'd kick it up a notch if possible, an hour six days a week of fairly hard cardio ought to do it - you're probably not up to running at this stage of your workout but a few 30 second jogging intervals will really kick up your heartrate and keep it up.

From day 1. I lost very quickly at first, didnt experience any regain when I went onto solids and it kept literally falling off till I"d hit about 20kg. That took me about 5 months. Then it came off more slowly and since the 12 month mark I havent really lost anything more than a couple of kilograms. I'm in my healthy weight range now, so it doesnt really matter anymore.

I'm not a teacher YET, I'm still studying, but I've just done 3 weeks of teaching rounds at a nearby primary school and the eating/banded thing was quite a concern for me. Me, who never PB's or has any real trouble! I was so paranoid about eating with a group of people I didnt know in the staffroom. I do occasionally get blockages and when I do, it takes a while to resolve, you cant really just disappear into the toilet for 20 minutes spitting and burping without people noticing. I took soup for lunch every day I was there, and I even had trouble getting that down, lol. Well, it was thick vege and lentil soup. I was too afraid to try a sandwich (which I normally eat OK) or anything else. I had great difficulty eating what I did take, I must have been stressed about it. No incidents but one fellow did remark, gee, you're not one of those girls always on a diet are you?, ovviously because it took me 30 minutes to eat a small bowl of soup. I didnt particularly want to share the fact that I was banded with complete strangers. I also renewed my determination to begin a morning exercise routine. Of course, i run regularly and do a LOT of exercise but I found with returning to a work routine, it went out the window, I was too tired and had too many chores to do at night when I'd been out all day. So I got up at 6 am this morning and went for my run. May as well make it habit NOW! On a good note, teaching is a fantastic environment for healthy eating. In Australian primary schools there is nothing resembling a vending machine anywhere, you dont generally leave the school premises once there (so its a bagged lunch arrangement), you're busy and not free to eat and drink between regular mealtimes, and there's not huge staff barrels of Cookies and crap food available all of the time (although of course people bring cakes for birthdays and the like). Its not like working in an office environment where I just used to go and make MORE coffee and eat MORE biscuits becuase I was just so darn bored.

I'm just freaking determined when I set my mind to something. I used to run a bit as an older teenager/young adult and loved it, I like that kind of thing. Its solitary which I love (head space) and I love the endorphin rush. It makes me feel so good. So a few months after banding I just went out and did it, I ran probably 3kms (maybe a bit less). Man did it hurt. I've always had fairly good aerobic capacity and I've always had a knack for long, slow endurance type exercise, but the strength in my legs to carry my weight was sadly lacking, I staggered the last kilometre! I just kept at it. I wanted to do a fun run in the May (began running in March) and so had a 4km goal. We bought our treadmill and I just bloody did 4kms day in, day out. Once I passed that milestone, I really had caught the bug and it was a habit and I've been at it ever since. I truly am not a natural runner, though. I'm not built for it, even at a healthy weight, not naturally skinny as runners tend to be, and I dont really have a graceful, natural style, I'm a plodder. And I have never had anything resembling speed at all, I cannot run fast if my life depended on it. If I can do it, seriously, ANYONE can.

Oh, too hard to edit these days. I just wanted to add that I was a volume eater too in that just out of habit, I routinely ate bigger servings than I needed. But the band helped me easily overcome that. It took about 9 months before I found I was truly serving myself far less and getting used to how much I eat in my mind.

Its weird that I got fat because those thoughts are totally alien to me as well. I have never thought like this and I also cannot identify in any way with always being ravenously hungry before banding. I wasnt. Yet the band has helped me just as much, and I know for sure I couldnt have lost this weight without the band. For me personally, its because the band has allowed me to "trust" my body implicitly, to know that I can eat what I want to eat and that I wont overeat. Its why I refuse point blank to count Protein grams, fat grams, calories, follow ANY sort of diet. The very minute I decided I needed to lose weight and go on a diet I would feel a compulsion to start tomorrow and just have one last taste of everything that day. And of course tomorrow never came. So to me the lapband worked instantly, like magic. I was never going to "go on a diet tomorrow" so the compulsion to eat loads of bad foods just disappeared. It was entirely mental, not physical, without a doubt. At times when I've plateaued out and lately when I seem to have stopped losing for good, thankfully within my healthy weight range, I've resolved to go back to counting Weight Watchers points and what happens? I start pigging out on the wrong foods. I just refuse to do it ever again, but its a hard habit to break. So I find it very hard to not say negative things when people talk about high protein diets etc and especially the "rules" you guys get given on how to eat after WLS. To the very core of my being I think its the wrong approach. Its nothing more than another diet, another set of rules doomed to fail, albeit assisted by the band. Yet I know (before you all go nuts at me, lol) that's just personality dependent. It would fail for ME, it wont necessarily fail for you. But I'm sure there's some of you that get what I'm saying. The other thing that I do is use food to relieve stress, I've been eating like a pig the last 2 weeks and not exercising due to the massive stress we've had over decisions on secondary schooling for my oldest son and whether we will have to move etc. Right back into the old habits. I dont tihnk I'll ever break that one, but the band contains it. it does reduce my appetite somewhat too, I'm sure of it, but I dont have and never have had really good restriction so I'm pretty sure its probably been 75% a mental thing to me. So my issues are/were probably totally different to yours, but the band will no doubt provide both of us with equal, if different assistance. Good luck, and a bit of self analysis is a very important thing in this journey. You'll probably have a few of those AHA moments along the way.

I believe YES you burn more calories jogging than you do on an elliptical. Ellipticals are notoriously inaccurate in their calorie measuring because they *assume* that you are moving your body a distance when in fact you have no weightbearing/moving forward element to the exercise at all. Similarly jogging outside will burn more calories than jogging on a treadmill. But they all burn lots of calories and are all very worthwhile activities. There's quite a bit of debate about what I just said too however. Its not necessarily right, just what I believe. I dont know that its actually been proven one way or the other.

Oh, that's good because I am a total dag when it comes to workout music. I'm not really into dance, hip hop style stuff although I always always enjoy the more modern music at a Spin class or similar. But on my MP3 is about 30 Cold Chisel songs - an Aussie band huge in the 80's, stick kicking around here and there, but basically just Aussie pub rock with a strong blues feel to it. What else is on there, ah, oh gosh, this is very embarrassing. Little River Band - Hang on, another song from the 70's, some Greenday, that's not too embarrassing, and at least from this century, a bit of Hunters and Collectors, another great Aussie band and some John Cougar Mellencamp, THAT's the really embarrassing bit.

Oh, its a shame your knees are bad becuase I cant recommend running highly enough, it has totally reshaped me and my legs and but are as hard as steel. It's really created lean muscle, not a bulky look for me. My back squeaks when I walk up stairs or uphill. Its totally bizarre. Perhaps you could jog on a slight incline on a treadmill, it took me a while before I was strong enough to withstand much road running without injury.

Green says it pretty well I think. I think the American culture is a fascinating one, I love the glimpse of it that I get through here. We're so much the same yet so different. I think its funny too that your country is SO enormous, with SO many people that your own news naturally is about all you'd get through on a daily basis. I mentioned the other day that one of my favourite songs is our quasi national anthem, Khe Sanh, which is about how hard and confusing life often was for Australian men returning from Vietnam. And someone actually PM'd me and told me they did not know Australia was involved in Vietnam, lol! It is as huge and tragic part of our recent history as it is yours.

My wedding and engagement rings are diamond - a solitaire with channel set diamonds either side and the wedding ring is a made to fit band with channel set diamonds. I wouldnt have a problem in the world with cubic zirconias - in fact you can get really good CZ's which are not cheap at all and they're beautiful, as beautiful as diamonds. But only diamonds are hard enough to withstand being worn day in day out for 50 years or more. Even other stones such as sapphires and emeralds will wear more than a diamond. I'm not a huge fan of coloured stones, they're OK for occasional jewellery but I wouldnt choose them for my wedding or engagement rings. That's just personal taste though. I guess I'd do rubies or topaz, not fond of emeralds and sapphires. What does my conscience allow me to buy? Nothing at the moment. We're in the middle of raising children, there's just no way known I would buy myself an expensive piece of jewellery. I'm not overly into it anyway, I dont like that dripping in gold look and one of my pet hates is rings on every finger, I really dont like it. Rings go on ring fingers! One pair of earrings is all I'd wear, dont like multiple earrings in each ear. I'm a less is more kind of girl and tend to follow that look in the mirror and take one thing off kind of rule. I really dislike neck jewellery. I never ever wear necklaces. I dont own a lot. I wear a wedding and engagement ring, on my other hand I have my grandmother's engagement ring with is a beautiful platinum and diamond solitaire about a carat in size and earrings - I have lots of cheap beady earrings, but also own a pair of gold ball earrings, and a really lovely pair of diamond studs. That's it. I dont particularly lust after more at the moment, too many important things to spend my money on.

Gosh you guys are put throught the wringer over there with your health system! That sounds very scary, I dont really fear erosion or slippage but I feel extremely vulnerable to this type of thing happening. Thank goodness I tend to be quite immune to stomach viruses or if I pick them up, I get diarrhoea but often no vomiting. Yet, I'm terrified of it. I dread finishing my degree and being exposed to everythign when I begin teaching kids. I'm sure I'll be getting every cough and cold going round for a while, I can deal with that but not the gastro. I keep medication to hand just in case.

Yes, if there's a delay I hang up. They've jsut bought out a covers all Do Not Call register in Australia but there's loopholes everywhere and they cant prevent all those calls from India. Its not too bad in our house, Eliza is 4 and just loves talking on the telephone. She needs lots of practice. I just hand it over to her, she can talk to them for as long as she likes.

Sadly Susannah, we need four bedrooms and a study. We should get another hobby, lol, we have too many kids. So for us, for now, despite a healthy six figure income, we have to choose between 2 cars or an $800,000 mortgage which we just couldnt service. Melbourne has become SO expensive. But you're right, although the inner burbs are expensive to buy into, once you're there, life is cheaper. We spend about $2000 a month on cars. That's 2 leased cars at $600 or so each, $100 per week each car on petrol, servicing, rego etc. We desperately want to get closer in to at least somewhere where we could just have one car, cars are just bad debt. But we just cant manage it. Ack, dont get me started. Tears of frustration this week, our gorgeous 11 year old has to go to the horrid, awful local secondary college due to our inability to get into an area where the schools are good. Its actually easier to afford to send him to Haileybury than it is to find a house that we could actually live in outside of the outer suburbs. He's in for year 9, lets just hope we have some bloody luck between now and then. I've been away for a few weeks from here becuase I'm just so stressed about it all, havent had the spare mental energy. Sorry for the sob story, lol.

Unfortunately not. We cannot live without 2 cars, its just where we live. I need my car to get to uni, to get the kids to school, to do anything really, way out in the burbs, you have to have a car in Melbourne. Doug currently has to drive to work even though its an utter nightmare traffic wise becuase the car is leased and that means it must be driven 25,000 kms a year or we will cop fringe benefits tax. As soon as we can get out of the current lease (we'd drop too much money on the car right now) he is going to just buy it out (as we will always need two cars - like he likes to go golfing on a Saturday but then I wouldnt be able to get the kids to basketball and to all their parties/activities), but he will be getting the train to work. Of course he'll need to drive to the station, lol. Too far to walk, its about 6kms.

When I woke up I had quite a horrible pain in my stomach, very concise, right at the point of surgery, not like an allover stomach ache. Strong pain, I did require morphine and it was also greatly relieved by placing a pillow under my knees just to alter my position a bit. Morphine controlled it easily. Later that day (I slept most of it away) once I was awake, it was really really hard getting comfortable, I had a terrible night, not with pain but just being not tired because I'd slept all day but unable to change position, I was stuck on my back and turning over was very difficult and I could only remain comfortable on my side propped up with pillows for about five minutes. I could get out of bed without too serious effort and I spent most of the night pacing. But the next day I was in no pain at all unless I moved suddenly or fast. Having a caesarean was far worse and I dont even rate that as bad pain. Bad pain is the transition stage of labour drug free, lol! Or the bit where the head is crowning. Lapband surgery was nothing compared to that.

I never think about water. I just drink if I'm thirsty and I'm a bit of a coffee addict too - regardless of what they say, coffee IS fluid - I dont drink strong brewed coffee, I drink decaf instant coffee most of the time.

I find this hard to answer since I dont think I was inappropriately hungry before. I wasnt always ravenous - I was always interested in eating. It was head hunger. The band has helped me eat less becuase I physically have to stop at a way smaller portion than before. I dont get hungrier because of this, the smaller portion is as satisfying as the larger once was. I do still get head hunger though. I had way less for the first 6 months and then it returned to normal. But its more easily satisifed than before. I've lost all my weight, something must be working, but its hard to figure how much has been me, how much the band and how much due to my running.

The email notifications drive me nuts. They clog up our system, I dont need to be notified everytime someone posts. But I cant figure out how to just unsubscribe from ALL my threads at one. Surely I dont have to do it thread by thread ? I'm subsribed to 2,500+, lol.

I worry about this too - primarily because I am a great big baby over vomiting, I'm terrified of it. And I'm worrying about finishing my degree, qualifying as a primary teacher, beginning work and coming down with every disgusting disease known to modern man, constant headlice included. Although I've had 3 children, been through them all starting school and daycare, returned to work after my first child to a doctor's surgery, put the two boys through a large long daycare facility, so I'm really really hoping my immunity is pretty good now. By 40 you've had a fair few bugs, colds and coughs. Just as an aside, I find it really strange how you guys all call stomach bugs "flu". Influenza is a respiratory disease, how do you come to call gastroenteritis viruses flu? I'd love to know the connection.

It's probably ideal but like chickie says, I think you can tell if you're going to get significant improvement in some areas of your body. I definitely thought for a while my tummy *may* end up a little loose but its shrunk quite nicely. I'm about to turn 40 ffs, waiting 2 years is hardly likely to improve things, roflmao! they're heading south at a very fast rate these days.

Wow Alexandra, that really must have been a frightening moment. I think the same could easily have happened to any of us. On a lighter note, not so serious, I do recall thinking I have to do something about this when I chased Ewan down the street with the wooden spoon for something he did. I couldnt catch the little monster!

I dont really do much in the weigh of strenght training, just the very very basics two or three times a week becuase I hate it. But I find 45 minutes to an hour of cardio (running usually) five to six times a week perfect for me. I wouldnt want to do any more - because I dont think its necessary for fitness, it increases the risk of injury too much and I have other things to do. To save time, I combine cardio and strength training. I use my treadmill for this - 2 to 3 times a week instead of going out for my run I do the following: hop on the treadmill, walk one kilometre whilst doing fairly heavy (10lb) biceps and shoulders routine. Then I alternate running 200 metres (quite fast) with hopping off and doing 10 squats, 10 lunges each leg with a 40lb barbell, 3 times, that covers another kilometre on the treadmill, then I alternate running 200 metres with 30 tricep dips 3 times, then running 200metres and 30 pushups 3 times and then 200 metres with 30 crunches, leg raises combo 3 times. It takes about 50 minutes and is a pretty good overall workout. That's plenty I think, anymore is just really not necessary, except if you're doing it under supervision like on The Biggest Loser.

In the very beginning, my diet WAS a lot more restricted than it is now. Of course I had liquids (although I ate real foods during liquids, just liquified, lol), mushies and gradual introduction to solids to get through and I lost about 10 kg through that period (well over 20lb) and I had superb restriction for about four or five months longer on only one fill - little head hunger or appetite, so I do lose quickly for someone with a relatively low BMI. But over time, that restriction waned, its taken 3 or 4 fills to get back to similar restriction quantity wise but the appetite has never disappeared again, I have a "normal" appetite but it can be more easily satisfied if that makes sense. So I continued to lose much more slowly for the second six months until I hit goal. And I can maintain now without too much effort - so I really dont see being able to eat bread or to eat more than the next bandster as a problem, if you know what I mean. Its only a problem if I cant control my weight. So yes, I guess over time, a lot of those foods have been added in, and of course, your initial zeal does wane - there's definitely an early window of opportunity in which you can maximise weight loss. But like any "diet" that cant last, it peters out and you're left with your own relationship with food and a life with no "rules" or "diets" to contemplate and I really think you have to get a handle on that. You cant live on a diet for the rest of your life, eventually you have to stop hiding behind that and trust yourself to make your own decisions. It does kind of come naturally over time, I remember at about 10 months I suddenly stopped and realised that I'd served myself the right sized dinner that night - like it had taken THAT long for my head to catch up to my body and for me to start treating my new way of eating and my new appetite as natural. These things are habits, but you dont break them in 4 or 5 months, it takes quite a long time. I think probably most people would gain if they lost their bands and I'm not exception but I bet my eating habits wouldnt be the same as they were pre band.