Jachut

I can honestly say, without exaggeration, that if I wanted to gain weight I could easily do so. I've lost weight with the band ONLY because I've undertaken the correct behaviours for weight loss, I choose healthy foods, I stick to 3 meals a day and ignore hunger between meals and I exercise like mad. I've got some restriction so the band has helped me enormously. But I dont have restriction anythign like what others describe, I can still eat any food I choose to (some harder than others) and I'm limited to maybe a cup and a half, 2 cups, not the *ideal* of 1/2 a cup. I only have to choose slightly more calorific foods (lots of cheese, for example) and my calories are easily up to 2500 in a day. Fine for maintaining my body weight, way too much to lose. I can still eat limitless amounts of Cookies, a bad habit I used ot have. I've indulged every now and then since being banded, but I no longer eat an entire bag of cookes 3 or 4 times a week - not because my band stops me but because I choose not to. If I'd chosen to sit back and let the band just do the work and not been proactive in it, I wouldnt have lost weight, I can safely say that. It hasnt been effortless, but it hasnt been that difficult because of the band. But I can easily see that I could have not lost over the last year. I'm not suggesting for a minute that's what this poor lady has done, but the band only works when the user makes it work. But of course there ARE many health issues that could be the underlying cause too. It must be extremely hard to undertake such a drastic step as WLS and not see the results for it.

Those bands can be great and will work just fine if you're consistent. Also think about using body weight exercises like tricep dips and push ups as well. With those bands, you can loop them round things and work your upper back as well or your chest just buy turning around. I sometimes use them outside, loop them round the pergola post and I also loop one over the pergola's overhead beam and pull down for triceps. There's loads of ways to use them and I actually prefer them to free weights you have a kind of stabilising you have to do through all planes of movement, which can give you faster results. I've even found that just running regularly has toned my arms quite considerably from the arm motion.

I pretty much eat everything I ate before surgery. So many people were quick to say "you'll be changing that attitude quick smart" but well, pffffft to them. I'm now not even overweight and I eat chocolate and I sometimes eat donuts, and I drink coffee and wine, and eat carbs and dont buy low fat products either. That said, I was always a relatively healthy eater, plenty of fresh fruit, veg and wholegrains, just too much quantity wise overall and a few too many sugary carbs. Of course you can have a taste of whatever you want to! But you will find that there's foods you just cant eat and my previous danger foods - muffins, cakes, donuts etc are just not that attractive to me now because they're so hard and uncomfortable to eat. But I dont miss them becuase I just dont want them. When I do have a taste I cant even remember what I was so crazy about.

Yes, it would be interesting to compare body fat/lean mass ratios, blood chemistry etc. And I think the biggest telling factor is whether they keep the weight off. People who dont exercise are way more likely to regain. Exercise is a huge preventative factor in preventing weight gain and regain.

The mother's day classic is a great run, it has a terrific atmosphere. Doug wants to do it but could only pehaps make 4kms, I want to do the 8. Am I a bitch for telling him he's on his own, lol?

I dont know. I dont think I believe in starvation mode, if it exists, your body obviously gets over it since people do continue to lose weight and become emaciated if they dont eat. Perhaps *very* low calories is not the healthiest way to lose weight is more the way I'd put it - and for many people they can lose perfectly well on more food. But as to being "too tired" - I most definitely CANNOT function on under 1000 calories a day. I simply burn too many calories in the course of daily life, after a couple of days I'm light headed, poor concentration, fatigued and feeling unwell. And both pre op and immediately post op, I had big trouble with fainting. Remedied by ditching the optifast and blending up real food to liquid form (and thereby taking in about 1200 a day) instead of juice, water, jelly etc.

Oh, yes, you MUST look the part, lol. I've developed quite an obsession with cool workout clothes. Years of having to wear a baggy old Tshirt and tracksuit pants have seen to that! Good luck, you'll get the bug. Having a new distance booked in gives you GREAT motivation to keep training.

I'd classify it several ways. Most often it means serving yourself a smallish portion of a meal, eating half of it and thinking "wow, I've had enough". Not painful, not uncomfortable, just that ordinary "full" feeling I've always had when I've had enough, only much sooner. I *can* keep eating. Sometimes my head isnt quite there with it, and I dont feel done despite what my stomach is telling me. Then restriction becomes "stuffed". Maybe 3 or 4 times in a year I've STILL kept eating and then its like "oooooow, why did I do that, I think I'm going to throw up" and involves sitting bolt upright and not moving much unless I overflow, lol. Then there's I shouldnt eat this becuase its not the right type of food but I want it restriction. I have that right now. I ate a donut, dont ask me why. I just wanted it, everyone else was eating them. Half way through I'm so stuffed its coming out my ears. Same with bread, pizza and other foods like that. Its not that I cant eat them, its that they really do sit above the stoma and I can literally only eat a mouthful or so of them before I'm quite legitimately full. But when you're trying to eat a sandwich for lunch you kind of need to eat a good bit of it for energy and nutrition and its hard, labourious uncomfortable work which is why I rarely choose something like that now. Then there's that bite of something that gets stuck restriction. That hurts. It's not sharp pain like a broken bone, its major discomfort, something is NOT right in there, I want to pretend I'm OK but I cant hide it, walk around, bend over, slime, bend over the toilet hoping it will come up (it never ever does for me) then it may start to wax and wane and I keep thinking I"m better, take a sip of my coffee and start sliming again and then suddenly I feel it go through and I'm fine. Only once has it resulted in a productive burp and that was loud, public and not discreet at all. Thank goodness I was in a rest room, but I'm pretty sure everyone in the entire pub could not have missed me running back and forth and assumed I'm bulimic! Especially people in the rest room who could not have failed to hear the expulsion. Once in 16 months is not bad though. I rarely get stuck either - maybe once or twice a month.

Lol, sorry but it doesnt quite work that way. As you lose, no matter what you eat, what exercise you do, how you do it, you WILL also lose lean body weight. Nobody loses purely fat. When you finish your journey, you wont have 200lb of lean body mass. Partly because despite exercising, your body will no longer need to work so hard to support your weight and you lose mass as a result. But its not all about the scale either. Where you stop is where you find you have a healthy percentage of fat, whatever that weight may be. Your challenge is to lose as little lean body mass as possible (by exercising to build and maintain lean muscle), but you will lose some. You have 200lb in lean mass now because you have to carry your body weight. When your body weight is less, so will your lean mass be.

That's a perfectly respectable speed, there's no need to feel that its not. You'll finish probably halfway through the pack at that sort of speed, there's not a reaon in the world to worry about it. There's always walkers and people that jog/walk in a fun run and I find there's always people who are competive, dont want to let you pass them but do that run too fast, have to stop and walk thing and I *always* end up beating them with my slow and steady. I run at a similar sort of speed. I'd get a few funruns and longer distances under your belt, do as many as you can before you worry about speed.

I think its the same thing - little bubbles of rice that go snap crackle pop?

I dont really eat deli meat anyway, I dont like it. I dont like the thought of what's been done to it and I particularly loathe ham. But I cant eat it either, it causes me discomfort too. And I can eat bread! One of the other really weird things I cant eat is any processed Breakfast Cereal like Cornflakes or Rice Bubbles. It just will not go down. Yet you'd think they'd almost be a mushy wouldnt you? Heavy muesli or oatmeal, no problem but rice bubbles, no way. Not good for me anyway, just processed sugary carbs.

The one and only PB I've had took about 45 minutes to make a reappearance. I was in plenty of discomfort in the meantime though, sliming and such, not just a "feeling in the back of my throat". I'm not sure that you're safe until that feeling has gone, though. If something's stuck, its stuck and until it comes up, its going to stay stuck.

Hmm, alcohol in moderation shouldnt be a problem, but you can drink too much without being an alcoholic or binge drinker. My parents were always a glass or two of wine per night drinkers. Both my sisters are too. My youngest sister, right in the middle of young kids loves 5 o'clock, lol. She'd have 2 or 3 wines a night. Hardly binge drinking but too much to be healthy for a woman I think. But since she's fallen into this habit, she's gotten really quite fat. Its deadly calorie wise and I find when I've had a drink or two, suddenly I cant be stuffed cooking dinner and will order pizza instead. I love a drink, but I dont drink daily, its too concentrated in empty calories when you're trying to lose weight.

Sunta, that's exactly how I feel about it too. And I'm happy to report that apart from having reached a normal, healthy weight, I am also not deficient in anything, apart from being low in Iron, which I always have been anyway. I think this is personality dependent though. My mother loves to live on Weight Watchers. The routine and discipline suits her, she thrives on it. So counting calories sure doesnt hurt, but for others of us, it just isnt a healthy obsession to have.

I can honestly say I dont have ANY regrets apart from the fact that it was necessary in the first place. By the way anaemia is caused by lack of Iron, not lack of Protein. Of course there's a lot of iron in some protein foods such as red meat, but there's also iron in fruit, vegetables and wholegrains, fortified cereals and such.

Hmmm, there's good arguments for both sides. I do think weight loss is calories in v calories out and nothing more. But nobody will ever convince me you can be healthy long term on less than 1000 calories a day. You'll be bent over and osteoporitic by 50 is what you'll be. Its terrible for you, nobody eats well enough all of the time to get what they need on that few calories. And if you eat that little for long enough, starvation mode aside, your body does slow down and adapt and then you'll always have to eat that little just to maintain. If you cant lose weight on 1000 to 1200 calories (unless you're a very petite person) you need to move a lot more. YOu may be exercising but how active is your everyday lifestyle? Its like when we used to go away on holidays with DH's family, I had to walk hard for 2 hours every day just to compensate for the lack of daily activity that I normally get at home. NOne of the house cleaning, shopping, running the kids everywhere, etc etc. I had to do that 2 hour walk to not gain. Nobody will ever convince me that a low carb diet is healthy either. I think we need carbs for energy so that we CAN move. Also, you may be able to achieve a similar calorie deficit by dieting alone, as with exercising, but if you exercise and eat more to achieve that deficit you are going to be healthier. Exercise builds muscle, makes your metabolism better, gives you more energy and burns more energy thereby allowing you to take in more nutrients without gaining. To say you can lose weight just as well without exercise is talking about the scale only, not about improving your health. I'd tend to side with the nutritionist on this, but then, things are fine in theory, different in reality. You know your own body.

I find it increases restriction right after a vigorous session but it makes me hungrier over all. I'm the opposite, if I exercise in the am. I tend to go way off track during the day to make up the energy deficit. I tend to exercise late afternoon, or in the evening and then it dampens my appetite for dinner.

It wasnt an epiphany or a lightbulb moment or anything dramatic. I'd just spent 2 years or so convincing myself that yes I'd gained but I wasnt *that* fat. One morning after screaming at the kids, leaving the house a pigsty, fighting to get them in the car and then dropping them off at school only to sit in the car and cry becuase I was so stressed, I realised my life was totally out of control. I had no routine, no discipline, no structure and was just lurching from day to day. I realised that my weight was a big part of that and I vowed that day to do someting serious about it. Life runs much more smoothly now. Being in control of my own body has spread to all the other parts of my life AND I'm much more energetic so I can keep up with it.

I can eat all those.

I found not gaining weight during the pregnancies the easy bit. It's afterwards when you're sleep deprived and totally enslaved that its difficult!

YOu sound healthy and well and very happy Julie. I cant wait to see the pics. I dont think 72lbs in a year is unrealistic either. I've managed that and I had a BMI of 35, I have never counted a gram of fat, Protein or carbs, let alone calories!

As much as it is ever ok. I just wish that tanning made your skin healthier and younger looking long term. A lot of people believe that you should cover the scars, taht UV makes them red and raised.

I checked I dont know because I guess if I was stranded on a desert island and couldnt even swallow my spit and happened to have the supplies on hand, maybe. Its kind of an insane thing to muck around with but I guess if you have the supplies and are in trouble and are talking about un unfill if you're willing to do it yourself, good luck to you. I'd go to the emergency room personally. I dont think there's ANY excuse for filling yourself. That's seriously a silly thing to do.

That's definitely true. I did get fat on a diet of highly processed carbs and so many of those things are just so hard to eat now. So I think a higher protein/lower carb diet is an important part of getting healthy and losing weight. I just dont believe you have to totally limit carbs like Atkins. I guess I think the South Beach Diet kind of lifestyle is more my scene. But I dont like counting anything. I just like to eat what I want when I want and you can do that if you make healthy choices most of the time.