Jachut

I dont really have a large collection but if you have a look on www.collagevideo.com you'll find stacks of them, and there's forums where they've discussed so many issues so you'll probably find the info you want. Also www.videofitness.com is good for forums, questions and reviews.

Oh, I'm not into personalised plates either, Why FFS? Why do people need them? Although I did see one that made me giggle for ages, KEPT. There was a blonde bimbo driving it, and yes, it was a convertable BMW driving down Toorak Rd which is a swanky Melbourne area full of bottle blonde over botoxed over tanned over nipped and tucked older women and men with trophy wives.

Honestly, its 14 months down the track for me and its only really happening now, but I"m amazed that I find myself in the foodcourt at the shopping centre at lunchtime, I wander around looking at everything and every time I leave hungry but without buying. I just cant be bothered. McDonalds is poison and I dont want to eat it. Nor KFC, not that I have touched that muck since I was about 7, I dont want pizza, I dont want that awful food court chinese, I dont want Subway (oh, how I loathe subway) but nor do I want the fattening so called "healthy" options like the mile high vege lasagne and such at the healthy sandwich bars. I dont want a sandwich as they make them too big, if I buy I always end up with a salad of some description.

I dont have fat there, but man, I have big boobs. They're trussed up as tight as possible but they still give the the sh.ts. Mostly because of the attention they get when I run outside.

I'm not a big fish fan to be honest, which is a shame as DH is a keen fisherman. I hate the crap he brings home - bones, skin, ugh *shudder*. Loathe it. I find fish rather dry and hard to eat, its one food guaranteed to cause me discomfort. I love salmon, its really the only thing I buy fresh and cook. Otherwise, and I'm no advocate of packaged foods normally, I stick to frozen fish in sauce type things. I dont even particularly like them, but I can tolerate them and they're softer and not so dry in texture as fish that I cook from fresh.

I let my stomach be my guide. I order what I want and eat it till I"m not hungry anymore - I dont really care how much that is. That tends to be half a meal but we dont have those supersonic sizes in Australia that you tend to have over there. Your stomach doesnt really have a *limit* in terms of you can eat THIS amount and must not vary, it depend what you're eating, how tight you are at that time of day etc. If you listen to your body, you'll eat the right amount. Four ounces might be an average that people can eat, but you're not suddenly going to explode your innards if you eat five comfortably, nor should you eat four if you're full at 3.

Hmmmm, day to day do I feel normal? No, not really. My head hasnt caught up with the weight loss, but when I catch a glimpse of myself or see a photo I think HOLY COW! I LOOK COMPLETELY NORMAL. That's the most awesome feeling in the world. I cant feel my band and I can eat almost everything, but I always am aware when I'm eating. You get used to it though, its not horrible to live like that, it makes me feel in control and reminds me taht I've come from a place I am NEVER going back to. It makes me motivated and keeps me focussed. The times when I've felt frustrated because I just want to stuff my face and not have to eat slowly and carefully are very very few and far between. I dont need that satisfaction any more and when I really feel I do, there are things I can eat around my band (like cookies). I didnt do it for months and months and months after I was banded, now occasionally I do eat five or six in a sitting, but these days more and more I think its just not worth it. I've lost the desire. So I feel more *normal* in that way. It IS a different way of living but its a better way.

Its an endlessly fascinating question. For myself, I personally dont think I use calories any differently from the average Joe, my appetite was just set too high for my energy needs, because basically, what the band has allowed me to do is eat 2000 calories a day and when I added serious exercise to that, whoosh, the weight went away. For a woman and a bandster, 2000 calories is a lot, but I've lost just fine on it. I'm struggling with the last five or six kilos though, I'm going in for a bit of a tune up to get that off, but I do think that at goal, I'll be having a bit of Fluid out because I can maintain quite well on 2000 calories a day, I've been doing so for months. But then, I never got morbidly obese either. I was just fat, and didnt want to become morbidly obese. But for other people, they do all the right things and it STILL doesnt work for them. I agree with you, there IS something different about the way their bodies processes energy from what they eat. I dont do lo carb myself but I do believe some people are almost allergic to carbs, they just have to eat a high Protein low carb diet to have any hope of not just getting fatter and fatter. I dont think science can explain it now, otherwise we'd fix it. Hopefully one day. But I think what all fat people have in common is a hyperinterest in food and a dysfunctional relationship around it that normal weight people often dont just buy into. They dont care about it like we do. I can see the difference between my two sons for instance, one is showing the family trait of being quite solidly built, the other son is a little whippet, full of energy. Number one son can smell food a mile off, he's ridiculous around it, he'd trample over the little ones to get to the table first, number two goes seemingly days without eating. They've grown up int he same circumstances, same household - what makes them so different?

I find it interesting too that I feel wonderful now at 80 kg odd, yet when I weighed this at 16 I thought I was enormous. Compared to other girls I guess I was. Not more than a pound or two over the top of my healthy weigth range but not petite and slender either. Now that I'm almost 40, all my more petite and slender peers have all had a couple of babies too and family life has taken its toll and now at 80kg, I am the object of envy, lol. All my friends are getting FAT as they get old, I'm pretty much in the minority being at a normal weight.

I was going to suggest the Water as well - or hiring/buying a rower at home if someone can help you get up and down. I'm really disillusioned with gyms. YOu go in with such high hopes to really achieve something and you end up being led by some trained in 2 months 18 year old with a cookie cutter workout that he's just given every single new member who walked in the door. I guess that's OK if you start out unfit and needing to learn but I certainly wouldnt assume that the average suburban gym would have the expertise to work with an MS patient. Of course that's a generalisation, and perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I did 3/4 of a physiotherapy degree so I'm not clueless but I would look for more expertise for yourself Kebsa, you need to perhaps hook up with a physio studio or something like that?

What I'm getting at though Cam is not disputing the physiology of it, I mean each person working at their own level for sure, and for me at the start walking was enough too. What I really mean is that you have to go a bit beyond your *comfort* level, whatever that may be, work a bit harder as you get fitter - pretty much exactly what you're saying. People dont like it, it hurts, it makes you tired etc. But you see so many people just cruising through a workout and then they wonder why it doesnt make a big difference for them. Like the women you see cruising round the Tan chatting away nineteen to the dozen - nice incidental activity but not fitness improving exercise! But I have never been morbidly obese, I've been overweight a lot of my life but not obese. My obesity was a short period of perhaps 2 years so I realise that I just dont understand how hard it is to be starting from a position of having to lose 50 or more kilos.

I wish you lot would bugger off. I was enjoying this thread, and love to encourage new people to enjoy a sport that I'm passionate about. Grump grump. Go spruke your filthy wares elsewhere!

Well firstly I agree absolutely with Puddin, there just comes a time when if you're going to lose more, and reasonably quickly, then this is what you have to do. Its calories in/calories out, nothing more and most people that get right down to goal weight do LOADS of physical activity. There's no way to sugar coat it, get moving and you'll lose. Really moving. That said, I've gotten to where you are now. I need to lose another 10kg max but I just cannot get it to move. I've been stalled pretty much for 4 months. I know I have to eat less, but my current level of fill means that do do so I have to ignore hunger, eat less than what I want to eat and I"ve never ever been good at that. So I am going for another fill. Like you, I"m phobic about it. I've gotten this far without ever being overfilled and have only ever PB'd once. I can still eat bread etc. I even think I'll be having fill removed once I hit goal because I think the level of activity I do will allow me to maintain well on 1800 to 2000 calories a day. But I cannot lose on that any longer. You havent failed, you havent done anythign wrong, its just that we all get to a point where the band needs to be tweaked to continue working unless you are superhuman and can continue to diet without the band working at its optimum level!

You will be nervous so there's no point saying dont be. But you havent done so badly, dont forget you're being treated for a lifelone disease, and you just havent tweaked the treatment quite right yet. Many many many people go in having not lost, having even gained, its a matter of getting the fill right, not reading you the riot act. And if you dont take the step and go back, then you really might go off the rails. You need more fill probably - I've had I think five over a year and I still havent gotten to a level of restriction I'd call good.

What a biatch. You're better than me, I would have given it to her both barrels. The longer I"ve been banded, the more I think that the health professionals that work around banded patients ought to be formerly obese bandsters themselves. Truly, you cannot understand it if you dont know what its like. Now I'm a "get on with it and pull yourself up by your bootstraps" kinda girl and I dont have very much patience with "its too hard" or "if it were that easy I would have done it already". Your band is going to help you but you're either going to get with the program or you arent, and if you dont, there's nobody to blame but yourself. But you sure as sugar dont need so called professionals bringing their misinformation and bias into your treatment, nor do you need their judgements and assumptions. You need the facts and you need their support. And I think that should go for many surgeons too quite honestly. Some are appalling, they have no understanding of the issues surrounding obesity at all. Sorry you found it so unsatisfactory, but personally I chalked it up to their lack of understanding and I went out and informed myself and made my own decisions about what I would be eating, how I would be approaching banded life etc - because I think everyone has to come at it from their own personal angle. In here you'll find so much helpful information and advice!

I eat everything in moderation within reason. I ate a pancake with maple syrup for breakfast this morning, shock, horror! Not the wisest of choices nutritionally, but normally I have a good high fibre cereal or a yogurt. lunch is usually salad/meat combos - I was just at the shops and had a lamb kebab minus the pita bread, I had it in a bowl. Or a sandwich or wrap of some description. dinner is usually meat and 3 veg type meals.

Ah, OK, that sheds a different light on it, perhaps its the way you framed it at first. If its a continual behaviour, its not acceptable really because she wont be getting what she needs. But you're her grandfather. If this problem isnt tackled in her home, there's not a lot you can do about it. You can try to do the right thing, but its really her parents that need to be doing it because you arent going to have enough influence to help her form habits. She's just going to think that those are "your" rules if its not reinforced at home. I have a similar problem with my middle son. He's gone to school on half a bowl of Rice bubbles and taken a ham sandwich. That's it. Two bits of multigrain bread with a bit of ham slapped in the middle. Of course I made his lunch and put in fruit and a muesli bar as it will be 1.30 pm before they have lunch. He refused to take it. He wont eat the sandwich either because he hates sandwiches but he wont eat anything that requires any effort - I cant pack him chicken and a salad, and yogurt because all those things take time to eat and take time away from the playground. He's driving me insane becuase he will come home starving and then even if I start dinner the minute they're home at 3.30, he just eats and eats and eats till he gets dinner because he's literally starving. I'm going in today to have a chat with his teacher. I've had enough, I cant get through to him! Every other child has a lunchbox full of utter crap - chips, chocolate, those bloody Krispy Kreme things that have invaded Australia like some sort of disease lately. He'd eat that! But I wont provide it. So yeah, I do understand getting tough. If its a manipulative/behavioural type of thing - not if she's genuinely full and then half an hour later has room for the sundae when its a treat as a meal out. Its just that the clean your plate and you can have dessert thing gets up my nose - I see so many people cluck at me because we may take the kids to McDonalds for a treat and when they run off and dont eat all of their meal becuase they want the playground, so what, I just chuck it out. But everyone else seems to bolt their kids to a chair and FORCE them to eat before they're allowed to do anything - usually by saying eat it all up and you can have an ice cream. I really dont agree with that. I think if they'd rather do something else than eat McDonalds, then let them!

OK, rant coming, sorry, cant help myself. I wouldnt call you a bad grandfather, we all try to do what's best for our kids. But I cant at all figure out what message you think you're sending your grandaughter by not allowing her to eat the Sundae for being too full and then allowing your wife to eat it in front of her. That's like punishment for not cleaning her plate, any kid would find that confusing and yes, mean. If she gets the message that not eating all her dinner is cause for punishment then of course she's going to feign a stomachache as an excuse! If you werent going to allow her to have the Sundae, why didnt you just send it back?. I just think kids should be left alone to eat as much as they feel like. And its human nature to want to make room for the Sundae but not the eggs, nothing you EVER do is going to kill that instinct in a child. And I dont think its healthy to try to - all you end up doing is making them force down a meal they dont want to get to the bit they do, ie. join the clean your plate club! I'd rather let my kids have the sundae on the odd occasion without having to shove in a meal they dont want beforehand. If its only on occasion. Saying if you eat x you can have y achieves nothing but dysfunctional eating behaviour - it may satisfy our ideas of disciplining a child but has no benefit to their eating behaviours. At home we just plain dont have dessert, ice cream, nothing. Its not part of our daily diet so it doesnt hurt on the odd occasion that we're out. And if we're say at mum's for a family dinner where there may be dessert, its not the focus - I dont word the kids up beforehand that if they eat all their dinner they can have dessert. They eat what they want of their meal and then maybe half an hour if dessert comes out they can have some. What's the point of saying no, you didnt eat all your meat? If you feed kids a healthy diet then they will get the idea that some foods are everyday foods and some foods are not, you dont have to force them to eat everyday foods before they eat a treat to get this message across. And yes, children need to learn that actions have consequences but creating a battleground over the dinner table is not the place for that. Let their appetites be their guide, if you provide healthy food and not crap most of the time then that wont be a problem. If your kids cant keep out of the chips or the Cookies and then wont eat their meal, you dont bribe them with eating their meal so they can have a cookie, you dont buy the cookies in the first place. You provide fruit instead. And lastly eating out is a treat for kids, as it is for adults. Is it really so important, on one occasion, that she doesnt eat her eggs? She's also learning that there's sometimes rules for eating out and that sometimes eating is about enjoyment and socialising, more so than nourishment. I dont see the harm in a child having fries and a sundae if its truly an occasional treat and she understand that its not behaviour that can occur every day.

I'm so glad you had this revelation - you will be one of the happy customers! I've NEVER found good restriction in the sense that others have talked about it. I can still eat every single food I choose to. But I've attacked this thing from head on, eating everything in moderation and exercised my butt off. I'm nearly at my goal weight. I could probably use a tad more restriction to get to goal but I feel like I've come this far, I can do the rest. And I feel like I've done a good part of the work, changed some bad habits which, whilst I've got my band to help me maintain may not seem so important but it does give me some reassurance that if something were to go wrong in future, I've got a different outlook and lifestyle than what I had.

To be honest, I think these really bad carb cravings and the saying carbs make you want more carbs has to be to do with some other imbalance in the body, because I eat carbs and I dont crave them unreasonably. OK so my favourate cheat foods are sweet carbs, but I dont "crave" them. I dont want them more when I eat them. I dont start eating carbs and cant stop, to me they're just a food like any other food. So I do suspect when people say that, its either because something is wrong, something to do with this whole Syndrome X thing or that people have just plained starved themselves of carbs to such a degree that their body is literally crying out for them. It takes all 3 foodgroups to nourish us and if you cut one out, you're going to crave it. But if it works for you and keeps you on the straight and narrow it could be answering a need in your particular body.

I think the thing is when we were kids - well in Australia anyway - we didnt have the appalling diet that kids today have. I grew up on healthy food, things like McDonalds were a treat we got only two or three times a year for birthdays or whatever, my kids eat Maccas way more often than that! Our biggest indulgence was fish and chip night. I walked or rode my bike to school, I played softball and netball and tennis and trained for those sports as well. My leisure time was spent riding my bike around the neighbourhood, running around outside. If someone runs this poll in 25 years time, I"ll bet money that a lot more people will say "yes, I was fat as a child". I see so many fat kids round these days. Our lifestyle has changed so much. I feel very very lucky because we built a house in a new area that is more conducive to the kids having the same kind of lifestyle that I had. I hate living here to be honest, loathe everythign about this cookie cutter brick veneer suburb, but its fantastic for the kids. They hang around outside, they disappear after Breakfast, and come back for dinner. I know I'm the ONLY one amongst my friends and acquaintances whose kids have this freedom! Everyone else's kids are stuck indoors or in their own backyards and trotted out only for organised activities.

I usually buy the flavoured cans, so there's a little bit of oil in them, but they're not very high calorie. I usually dump them on top of a salad. Occasionally I'll eat a tuna sandwich or have some on some crackers.

So true, but then again, if you're walking around and its not the least bit challening, then its not really doing you much good. What I found really skyrocketed my fitness and got me to the point of being able to run was interval training. I just did 1 to 3 minute intervals of the hard stuff and before long, I could jog lightly for 3kms or so without my heart thumping out of my chest. Now an 8km per hour pace on the treadmill is easy jogging to me and my heart rate wouldnt move out of the 130's. When I started I was doing 6.4kms - so slow I could barely jog it.

No, not really. I was heavier than other kids, but much taller too. I got teased for being fat but I was never really overweight or obese, just not skin and bones like kids tend to be. I was just "not skinny" enough to be the odd one out. I wasnt one of the popular, pretty ones but then again I couldnt give a flying f..k about that anyhow. I always thought they were bimbos anyway. My kids are the same - not overweight but they're not skinny either. Not the most popular but not dorks. Its a good way to be but I reckon they all (the oldest in particular) have the potential to get fat in adulthood. I never got seriously fat until after my second baby, once I hit my 30's.

F..k I'm Good Just Ask Me. Right, like you need that on your car, lol.