Jachut

Lately, yes, and on all the wrong things. I'm definitely maintenance eating now, and snacking is a habit I need to quit! For me, snacking doesnt work. I just dont stop once I start.

They're like $5 each here, I couldnt AFFORD to eat them, lol! But I'd prefer to eat them anyday over drinking shakes.

The thought of giving up certain foods and not getting enough fibre and Vitamins really concerned me pre banding. In fact when I got on here and read the most common types of daily menus people were eating, I was horrified and made the decision not to be banded. I didnt realise that there's a slightly different approach to it in Australia, more in tune with what Australians tend to think of as a healthy diet. So its definitly a cultural thing as well, what you do and dont eat, focus on etc. But of that list, I could eat anything on that, and I've been banded 14 months. I have stayed "looser" as I do run a lot and need the energy and have lost well. But at the moment I"m considering another fill which I do think will probably take me to quite tight, just to lose the last little bit of weight, and I'm having the same thoughts as you. Point being, its well within your control the whole way through, apart from some things that your body just wont tolerate. But when that happens, you dont really miss whatever it is anyway.

Its an individual thing - bread, rice and Pasta (but particularly bread) are common foods that are difficult to eat with good restriction, but its not that you're not allowed to have them. Like anything, in moderation they can form part of a healthy diet, but you'd be better served by choosing wholegrain/organic varieties and crossing crappy white supermarket bread off your list for good. I dont like it when people imply that you have to give it up because its a worthless food and will make you fat. I'm almost at goal weight and I've eaten bread, rice and pasta all the way through.

Well there's less calories in a certain amount of fish versus red meat. If you replaced all your red meat with fish, you'd eat less calories, whether or not that would be significant enough to cause weight loss is debatable though. Fish is good for you and you should it eat for the Omega 3's, but red meat and poultry also contain important nutrients that fish doesnt. A little bit of everything is the way to go.

We have a couple of MS bandsters here, check out the Melbourne thread.

Yes, I agree with that. I think of it more as a maintenance tool since every spurt of weight loss so far has been due to me knuckling down and doing what I always had to do to lose weight. The band stops me putting it back on when I stop dieting. Which I always do. But after a months' breather I can get going again, lose a few more kgs. This has been my pattern all the way, diet hard, lose weight, stop and maintain for a while. I truly dont think the band has "made" me lose weight. I've never gotten good enough restriction for weight loss to happen automatically. But I never gain anymore.

Actually, I dont know anybody (outside of my lapband circle) in real life who was very obese and lost a lot of weight. I know plenty of people who lost an excess 10 or 12 kg but dont know anybody who's dropped 30 or 40. So I dont have suspicions about people around me. But I firmly believe that Kirstey Alley and Anna Nicole had some sort of WLS.

I guess you can only try it all. Everybody has their "cure" for hairloss, but many people eat all their protein and take biotin and still lose hair.

Hmm, I'd haveto say no. I've never been a real binge eater but I eat because of boredom, and the foods I eat - Cookies - go down easily and I can easily destroy my day with cookies, I can eat an entire packet and have done. But it might take me 3 hours. I cant shovel them in. Since its got nothing to do with hunger and my band doesnt stop me eating large amounts of stuff that goes through easily, its totally down to me not to do this, and I generally dont.

No, unless it was to replace it with an unpdated model. I expect it to be with me for life, and if something went wrong, I woudl replace it. I'm not averse to reducing fill till I reach a point of maintenance though. Which I seem to be at 5kg from goal, lol.

I got 10, the Moses one got me to. Although anything appears to be possible under Californian law!

I agree, it seems like online one after another after another have slippage or other problems. Yet in real life I know many bandsters and the biggest problem is by far getting restriction right, they go over under and all around perfect restriction. Very few slips and I dont personally know one person IRL who has eroded.

Thanks. Hopefully it will settle down quickly for you. Its so disconcerting to finally be having success in the weight battle only for your hair to fall to pieces as a result.

I know exactly how you feel, its awful. My DH is probably 50lb overweight on his 6ft 3 frame, he's not huge, but he's fat enough, and he has a build where its all gone on his gut. It makes him miserable, his pants fall down, lol, he either has to constantly pull them up or give up and wear them under his armpits. He suffers back problems too and I can really sympathise becuase he looks like nothing more than a 9 month pregnant woman with the way its distributed on him. He eats very little for a man of his size, truly, he doesnt eat a lot more than I do banded. He runs with me, he's not as fit as I am but gets on the treadmill four or five times a week to run 4kms and he walks at lunchtimes too. Yet he loses NOTHING! His weight just stays at 112kg day in day out. To make it worse, he has mates his height who weigh the same and they're not fat! He just is not muscly, he has a very very think and long body shape (competitive runners in the family) so he's meant to be really light for his height. I think he should get banded, that it would really help him but he's not willing to do it. I dont know what else to do for him.

This is only my own personal view but I really think its more to do with the shock your body suffers from big weightloss. I have always been fairly loose (bandwise that is, lol) and I can eat 1800 to 2000 calories a day. I've lost almost all my weight at this level of calories and I eat carefully AND I take a multi daily. I really do not think I'm deficient in anything and my 12 month follow up bloodtests backed this up. Yet I had excessive shedding but nothing too drastic until 12 months to the day it really increased and I began to notice the ends of my hair looking really ratty and thin (long straight hair). My hairdresser and I determined it was not falling out at the scalp at all but breaking off, the hair around my head that would have been growing at the time of surgery and all the hair from that point to the scalp is really fragile and is simply snapping and breaking whenever I put any tension on my hair to wash or style it. Two solid months of Protein treatments and deep conditioning treatments EVERY time I wash my hair and no blowdrying or straightening and this morning I looked down to see only 4 hairs on the basin, not 50 or 100. So it is not necessarily falling out from the scalp (and I never saw any hairline issues or part widening), it can be really weakened and breaking off. Its important to determine which it is becuase the breakage is treatable with some work and a few good products.

Its important to work out where the loss is coming from too. I went for a good year saying "I'm not losing hair" before suddenly realising that the shedding was indeed more than normal and ever increasing. But my hair was breaking off, not coming out at the scalp. All of a sudden this increased and it became incredibly dry. Two solid months of Protein treatments followed by conditioning treatments EVERY single wash (talk about time consuming) and no blow drying or straightening and today I did straighten my hair with my new non damaging bio ionic Iron, and I looked down and there were a measly 4 hairs on the basin. Usually there's been more like 50. I have long hair so it'll probably take 2 or 3 years for the ends to fill in again as the broken off hairs and new hairs grow down.

I couldnt live further from Eltham Jess, but its gorgeous out that way. Its a big adjustment, going from inner city living to the burbs. Lol, it took me, oh, 12 years to stop complaining about how far away everything was. Now I'm used to it I couldnt go back, too much noise, traffic, pollution. Congratulations on the purchase!

No, I've never gotten above 245lb, but I did once throw a perfectly good scale in the rubbish bin in a temper!

Great news! I've been wondering how you've been, glad to hear you're OK.

Not much change for me, I wish I could find it.

It'd be interesting to really poll it to see what percentage of us have been heavy from childhood, how many of us gained during college years and how many (like me) who literally exploded after having babies.

Oh Green I have four boat neck 3/4 sleeve T's, I've got black, white, chocolate brown and jade green! Although I like a deep scoop neck personally, whilst I can still get away with it. My chest is even the tiniest bit bony now, and I get a sick pleasure out of that!

I can eat bread, but I had a schedule with solids, I was very slow and careful about it. It was months before I ate bread, its a very common difficult food and personally, I wouldnt be trying to eat it at this stage. You may be able to in a few weeks time when the swelling has completely gone. Dont try too many things at once, take it very slowly to avoid blockages and PB's.

To a lesser degree I have the same problem. I dont ever PB, but the first few bites stick a fair bit and I have to wait. But once I can resume eating, I can eat a pretty much normal person sized portion. And that's with 3ml in my 4ml band, I just cant figure why I'm not tight at that level. Unless I've miscalculated somewhere along the way. I've scheduled a fill for next Thursday but I'm in two minds about it.