Jachut

Oh dont worry - we'll have Americanised health and education systems before too long, grumble grumble. We already have Krispy Kremes and Starbucks moving in! If John Howard sucked up to George Bush any harder, he'd disappear up his behind. We'll probably be singing America the Beautiful too in 20 years time, lol. Sooverit, its taken me 16 months to lose 34kg, quite slow but yes I feel like an entirely new person. And of course being lower BMI, you get noticeable results that much sooner.

OK, at a rough guess, I *think* I'd eat like 150g of carbs a day. I dont believe in low carb diets, obviously, lol. I've lost weight just fine. But I make them good carbs. I dont eat white processed crap. I run alot though, my treadmill shows that in the average training session I burn over 100g of carbs.

Bit of both. Eating bandster style is second nature, I eat almost anything at home but when I'm out I do stop and think about PBing or getting stuck and yes, its slightly tiresome to have to be careful in those situations all the time, but I cant think of anything worse than that happening to me in public. But I find it easy to make good choices - we were away with another family over easter and I ate with everyone, but I just didnt eat what I knew was risky, we all took food so I took plenty that I could eat kind of thing. And if I'm at a restaurant I make the good choices. I have to think about this more now than at the start because my band is tighter. But it becomes a part of your life, its not an obsession.

I can eat meat, its one of the easier foods. chicken too. But fish is really awful, very sticky and pain inducing.

You can still pig out but its a different thing. Eating a piece of pizza is a pig out for me now. Its every bit as satisfying as 5 slices of pizza, an ice cream and a couple of glasses of wine used to be. It has the same deliciously naughty feeling, its fun for a friday night or a relaxing break from cooking, I feel stuffed afterwards and I feel that I've had a "treat" so dont have the desire to do it again for a while. But I've eaten ONE piece of pizza - often not even that. food is there to be enjoyed, we all use food for reasons other than nutrition - its celebratory, relaxing, whatever. Normal weight people do this too. A lapband controls it, its not a life sentence never to enjoy your food again.

Its very important that your stomach muscles and deeper core muscles are in good shape. They support your back, and keep it healthy, it improves your posture and overall look and will make you look slimmer. Losing inches is possible tightening muscles, but getting rid of a belly, that's down to losing the overlying fat. And that is ONLY done by lots and lots of aerobic exercise and diet. Your underlying muscles can be rock hard but if you have fat over the top, your stomach will never look flat. Many people dont have the terrible stomach muscles they think they do, in fact overweight people are often quite muscular and in "good" shape underneath due to the workload of carrying their weight around. At least on their lower body. But fat hides it all.

I agree with your doctor Autumn. Its definitely been a lifestyle change for me. I've never counted a calorie, gram of Protein or anything. But I do eat healthy foods and only eat more fattening foods occasionally. I dont want them inappropriately any more.

I feel very much like I did before banding but healthier and fitter and much more attractive! I still suffer from head hunger to a degree, but I can control it now, partly due to not being able to overindulge and I honestly feel like why wreck my day's diet with a cookie or two if I cant have the joy of stuffing 17 of them down my gullet. Really. I dont enjoy those foods as much in tiny quantities in tiny bites, the experience just isnt the same. The only downside is I do get a bit tired of other people's poor eating habits. I've just been away for Easter with some friends and it was take away food every night. Five nights ofdoughy pizzas and other crap, I managed to feed myself well, and I actually can eat those foods if I choose to but I just a) cant be bothered becasue they're difficult and dont want to because they're horrible, worthless foods. I dont like being a picky eater like I have become.

I agree with several others - I think being tight (not necessarily "too" tight, just tight) and being filled too quickly are the main risk factors. I just think you'll do better long term if over time you learn to gain that self control, not rely on a hard stop from a tighter band - it does come with practice. I think being so tight that you cant eat quite a few different foods, have stuck or PBing episodes more than once in a while is risky and I think fills need to be done conservatively. Like if you think you eat too much but are still slowly losing, but would rather lose faster, you dont really need a fill kind of thing. I guess I do believe that it DOES have to do with behaviour modification and using the band to help you achieve that, not getting a band to stop you eating so much so that you automatically lose weight. Its taken way longer than what I ever imagined it would every time I went on a diet but after 16 months, my eating habits ARE better, I DO say no when I really want to say yes, day after day I DO choose healthier foods and avoid the not so healthy ones. I never thought I could do that, but I have and I honestly do not think that if I lost my band I would just pile it all back on again. Maybe I'm kidding myself but I've achieved all I've achieved with a relatively loose band - loose enough that I can eat bread and pizza and all of those bad foods and I've chosen to undertake a lifestyle that includes a lot of exercise and that lifestyle and those choices are normal to me now. I dont believe for a moment that we all need a band because its impossible for any of us to achieve that. We CAN do it but we need help to do it which is what a band does for us. I have no real basis for saying that, its just what I think.

It may be better metabolically but it doesnt work for me. I eat way more when I eat so often, I do much much better to eat 3 meals a day and totally ban snacks.

Well I'm in Australia and you dont have to fight here to get the surgery at a BMI of 35 which is where I was at, with no comorbidities (apart from a bad ankle). It cost me the same as it cost anyone else, and you really dont go self pay here as our medical system is entirely different - but basically if you have private health insurance and your doc agrees to do it, the health funds dont argue. And if you dont and have it done through the public system you may have to wait a long time, but it will cost you pretty much nothing. You can go privately and self pay but most docs wont touch that due to the likelihood of running out of funds if you need revision surgery etc. It was the best decision I ever made though. I am now normal weight and whislt I would like to be a bit lighter still, I would be happy if I stayed here, I am maintaining effortlessly at the moment.

Mine's a few inches diagonally above my belly button, under my rib cage. I've never ever heard of it being put in the groin. That would make for some interesting fills, lol. Mine sticks out now and is very very easy to feel and it does gross my DH out but then its not often that he rubs my tummy! The bits he wants to grab are the same as ever, just smaller.

With anything like that I find that they're easy to eat becuae they're easy to chew to mush. But the problem is I tend to shovel them in, lol. Who eats pretzels or chips slowly? I just grab handfuls and THAT does cause me problems. So I have to really stop and remind myself to SLOW DOWN.

I just wish that I could say something that made a pre-bandster really *believe* that they're not giving up everything. I remember that panicked feeling, I was really looking at the band as punishment for being so bad, and not at all like the great thing that it has turned out to be. Honestly, I enjoy eating more now than before band because it no longer controls me.

It seems to be the way it's done in the USA, but it isnt done that way everywhere in the world. We're not advised to follow low carb diets or put Protein first in Australia, just to eat sensibly, healthily and from the five food groups, avoid what doesnt agree with us and try to eat solid food, not too much mushy. I've eaten carbs all the way through and my stats bear me out that it is not necessary to eliminate carbs in order to lose. But I do think the overly carb focussed low fat diet that was pushed as healthy throughout the 80's and 90's has pretty much been debunked, I think overall to lose and keep it off you do need to lower your carbs and up the protein a bit - mostly by cutting out processed carbs - white bread, white rice, Cookies, cake, chips, etc. Of course you can have a treat now and then, but basically your carbs need to be good wholegrain low GI ones like oatmeal and good wholegrain bread etc. But our bodies need carbs for energy, the cravings when you cut them dont come from detoxing or anything, they come from the fact that you're witholding an entire food group! Which always makes you lose weight - scientific mumbo jumbo about insulin levels aside - NONE of that is proven. Its all conjecture. Being banded, I've found my carb intake has increased dramatically simply as a matter of course. Bread does become hard to eat and its no longer a food I'd say that I like much. You have to focus on good nutrients so the protein and vegetables tend to come to the fore, I do try to get in my dairy for Calcium and basically there's not a lot of room left for starchy things. I rarely would eat potato or rice with dinner anymore but I do love a good spaghetti bolognaise occasionally and I always always start the day with muesli, oatmeal or weetbix, something good and fibrous to keep my bowels healthy and to give me a good burst of energy for the start of the day. So overall, I think lower carb, different carbs but not NO carbs. I also dont like to eat out of boxes and packets. meat comes from the butchers, fish from the fish shop and fruit and veg come from the market or the fruit and veg shop. Packaged foods are too full of stuff that you dont need and higher in fat, more processed and just not as good for you. Learning to cook properly from scratch is a skill that will help your weightloss along remarkably. I managed to get carbs in after surgery by blending anything that was fair game! I even had Christmas turky blended up, lol.

I have a glass or two of wine once or twice a week too. I probably drink less than I used to because I'm mindful of the calories. Also I find that if I'm eating out, or at someone else's house - and therefore probably eating more - wine whilst eating can really hurt. It burns my stomach, in a really acidy, refluxy way. This is only since the last two fills, perhaps it stays in contact with my oesophagus for longer or something. Anyway, I now tend to have a glass before dinner and then stop drinking alltogether these days. I can drink wine whilst eating if I'm just at home though, how weird is that.

You just havent reached optimum restriction for you yet, probably. Dont panic over it. I've managed to work with short lived restriction, I just tend to lose well for 2 or 3 weeks after a fill and then very slowly after that. Just keep plugging away, you get there eventually.

Hmm, I dont buy meat in boxes, lol. Meat comes from the butchers.

We dont have any of those products here, probably similar ones - but here a sausage is a long thing in a casing that you barbecue, the only "sausage" similar to what you're talking about is from McDonalds. I've become addicted to gourmet yogurts - the thick greek kind with pureed fruit in the bottom of the tub. Oh yummmmmmmmmmm. Full fat, I cant bear low fat yogurt. They're a meal but so easy to eat.

I think if you can find the emotional and psychological support you need, the band will work for you! Its just there waiting for you to be ready. I really hope you are able to overcome this. But its there waiting till you're ready to use it so please dont think of it as a failure. Have you had fills etc? The band has helped enomrously with my emotional eating - or more correctly boredom eating - but I guess there's degrees of being afflicted, and perhaps I was lucky.

This is really hard not to do but honestly, its just SO bad for your body to suddenly eat everything that's not nailed down and then abrubptly almost stop eating altogether. Just dont do it. Its really hard and I think everybody will have little pig outs pre banding but try very hard not to just throw in the towel and eat unrestrainedly for weeks. You'll have to lose it again and it will affect your recovery. If you eat well and exercise now for a few months prior you've got a greater chance of virtually getting up and walking off the operating table, you'll be back to normal activity (and exercise) sooner and therefore you'll feel better and probably get better results. It must be harder facing a strict low carb full of rules diet post banding, but they dont tend to want you to do that in Australia and I've eaten all those foods I never thought I'd eat again, some of em I enjoyed, some of em I didnt, but you really can eat anything in moderation - being banded is a lifestyle, not a never ending diet. You're not saying goodbye to anythign permanently.

I thought I had 3 but have miscalculated, there's 2.6 in there after my last fill. Its a good level, I can still eat almost anything, but am really finding I dont want to eat the harder things. I'm sure I could eat a white bread roll for example, but just looking at it and thinking what work it will be, I just dont want to. I'm not hungry between meals either and have started losing again. but I can feel this is a 3 week fill too, the restriction is lessening slightly so I think I'll still need another to get to goal weight. I dont seem to keep any restriction I get for very long, which pretty soon wont matter anyway, I'm nearly at the end of my journey.

They just dont do that to me. I used to use sugar to destress so I know it soothes me, but dont get those huge lows after the high like that. I wonder why it happens to people. Oh well, the best thing is not to eat simple carbs I guess but if you ate them with some protein, that probably wouldnt happen because you wouldnt get the huge sugar rush due to the lower overall glycaemic index. Low GI carbs on their own can cause an insulin spike.

Yeah, it will slow down and even stop soon enough. When you lose weight that fast, its not all fat, but you cant help it at this stage of the game. It wont hurt you and it does even out over time and I didnt find I turned into a muscle-less blob or anything, lol. I still had plenty of lean body tissue AND fat left and I've got a healthy ratio of the two now. So just enjoy it.

We're more British in Australia than American. We say holidays, taps, rubbish and bonnets and boots instead of hoods and trunks. Its a rubbish bin, not a trash can, lol. I do say "gimme some sugar" to my kids all the time though. Rubbers are something you use to erase pencil and durex is sticky tape.