Jachut

I can eat pizza - just a slice but it takes me about half an hour and it feels the same as if I'd eaten 3 slices! I can eat almost anything.

Gosh Mark, I'm only in Narre South and I slept very comfortably in the raw, lol!

I've always slept in the nude, so do my kids. I cant stand wearing clothes to bed - Melbourne has quite a mild climate although it can be cold in winter and I did spend this past winter wearing some sort of top to bed as I froze, probably as a result of having less fat. But I get all tangled in clothes, cant stand nighties and night dresses and I would simply boil in pyjamas. To me PJ's are something to wear round the house and take off when you get into bed. I think its healthier too - we tend to sleep too hot and my eczema prone kids sleep much more comfortably in the all together without the heating on.

One thing I've learned is that exercise does work, but it takes longer than you expect, and certainly for the average person, longer than what you read it will take, to show. You're not going to show appreciable gains from lifting weights in just 3 weeks, six months however will really prove to you that its been worthwhile. At a micro level though you will be gaining muscle and that can affect your weight. But weight lifting itself doesnt burn a lot of calories so wont show a fast reduction in weight, over time though of course you would know that the more muscle you have, the more calories you'll burn. Cardio can show a difference in weight quite quickly due to the calories burned, but you have to work freaking hard at it. For many people, to expend huge calories running, they just get hungrier and eat more and the weight change is negligable. Stick at it! It will so pay off over a longer time, its just a bit soon to see any results yet.

Even I agree that liquid Protein is needed during the early stages and I totally disagree with the emphasis on protein in general - I really think once you're eating you'll get enough from your food without being obsessed with it. But early on, if you didnt drink Protein drinks, you'd be subsisting entirely on carbohydrates in liquid form - juice, V8, Jello, etc and not even good carbs at that - simple, easily digested ones. And a Protein shake does make a relatively good fast meal if you're on the run. You can either continue with Optifast plus additional nutritious fluids as that has a fair bit of protein and a lot of other nutrients or switch to protein shakes.

I drink plenty of coffee - way too much in fact. Just as an aside - the cultural differences really jump out and bite me sometimes - I dont really understand the widespread use of creamer - we dont have creamer here. Oh, I think you can buy something called Coffeemate at the back of the bottom shelf in the supermarket. Why does everyone use creamer as opposed to a dash of milk? Sometimes I think lattes must be different here too - here its made the European way - just a shot of espresso with about 2/3 of the glass hot milk (I always have skim, hate full cream milk). So its not a fattening option by any stretch. We have Starbucks and Gloria Jeans that do all those confectionary coffees with the syrups and such but they're not terribly popular here.

I hate hate hate really ocker Australian accents. That Steve Irwing type "g'day mate, howzit 'angin?" kind of thing. I'm a patriotic Aussie but that just makes us sound stupid. We dont all talk like that. On that note, Russell Crowe. Someone should exterminate him and put us all out of our misery. He speaks like that and he's not even an Australian - he's a New Zealander. Man, I cant stand him, he really irks me.

Lana, I eat MORE than that every day and I've lost almost all my weight and I have 3ml in a 4ml band. Is it really too much - are you not losing? I dont call that a huge volume of food - the choices could be a little better - a few vegetables wouldnt go astray - but volume wise, it seems pretty much like what I'd get through a day. Although I couldnt get through two slices of pizza at a time, and you're right you probably need more fill. You're not supposed to starve and live on a few grains of rice and one or two peas you know! Dont feel guilty for actually eating. As long as you make good choices and balance with physical activity, you dont have to subsist on TINY quanities, the band helps you to eat less, which of course you need to do. But dont get the wrong idea - for many people its sufficient to just eat what someone with a smallish appetite would eat. See where it takes you weight loss wise - dont strive to eat tiny quantities if you dont need to to lose - becuase basically the more you can eat and the wider variety you can eat whilst still losing weight at a reasonable rate the healthier (and probably happier) you will be! What other people eat isnt really relevant - its balancing your own caloric needs that matters.

Your point being? I'd say number one precaution is dont mess around with your own band!

Well, what he says is probably true to some degree, where there's a large emotional or compulsive eating type of behaviour, I guess the lap band still slows you down but you have more work to do than somebody who's really only a volume eater. I was pretty much a volume eater and the band has worked brilliantly for me. But I do have to use significant willpower and self control to mainly eat good healthy foods and stay away from junk. I mean, who isnt prey to the convenience of take away and junk foods in today's society? Its the lifestyle we live and that takes some overcoming. I also exercise hard and often. The band doesnt make me do that. So you do have to find within yourself the things you need to work with this tool and not everybody can do that, but I think his stats are awfully pessimistic, I think you'll find people are happy with varying degrees of loss and regaining control over thier lives!

I know, some posts do turn out like that. Others are great debates that stay reasonable. It does depend on how sensitive the OP is on the issue and how tactful people are if they are disagreeing or saying something not so complementary.

I always start with cardio for no other reason that if I did heavy weights first I'd pike and only do 5 minutes or something.

I have the small band - I have 3cc in mine and I STILL dont have good restriction - its restricted me enough to get me down to 5kg or so from goal but I just cant shift that last bit. But to have got so far without PB's and still being able to eat any food, I just dont think I want any more fill in it. Its like tempting fate. I exercise like crazy though so that's made up for my large food intake - in bandster terms, I still eat way less than I used to!

Fantastic. Oh, I'd love my boobs to be where they're meant to be! But as I was moaning in another post, too many kids to educate, houses to extend and family holidays to pay for to make my poor old saggy boosies a priority. So I'll just live vicariously.

Funny, I havent noticed much difference! I think I eat better food, less cheap stuff like rice and Pasta and less meat at a time, but meat for more meals than I used to. I never used to eat lunch, just pick all day but now I eat a meal at lunchtime. And the kids are all a year older, my 11 year old is now 5ft 8 and about 55 kilos, so he's getting BIG with the appetite to match.

Tomorrow is another day, that's right. Sorry the MRI was horrible. I am going to be watching Biggest Loser. I loved it last season, I love all those shows.

I get that and yeah, I dont know all your other circumstances so perhaps I was making a few assumptions there. And I'm speaking about myself, where a bit of work would be nice but cant be called necessary. I would appeal it too - if you're having problems like that, that's a different matter. .

Of course I'm speaking of my own situation - I'd never be able to demonstrate a need for reconstructive surgery, but like most people a bit of a nip here, a tuck there might improve things - so I wasnt even knocking vanity surgery either, I'd like a bit just as much as the next person. I was just makign the point that whilst that's a great thing to be able to do for yourself and a fitting reward for all the hard work after banding, there are other responsibilities to be met with your money and waiting a bit while you save, whilst frustrating, isnt unreasonable. If it was truly needed in my situation, I'm still not sure I'd be able to find the money for it right now though. There's too many other very important things, such as the kids education, that would take priority. But that's all down to personal choices.

But he hasnt said you cant have it - just that he wants to save for it. Honestly, I know you want it badly, but when it comes to spending that kind of money on yourself, really, if your husband's only request is that you save for it, I'd call that reasonable pay off. I know this is "our" journey and all that and you do it once and you want to do it right. But somewhere reality does have to set in and if you dont have the cash right now, then you dont. And you're talking about a relatively large amount of money and your partner's opinion is just as valid as yours - if he says you can have the surgery but he doesnt want to go into debt for it, then I think that's a pretty fair trade off. It is a bummer, but you will get the surgery one day, it doesnt really matter in the scheme of things if its not right now. Consumer debt is just such a silly spiral to get yourself into - save your debt for important things like appreciating assets.

Sucks doesnt it. I dont need a tummy tuck, but I would like a breast lift/slight reduction and a touch of lipo on those last stubbourn areas. But with cosmetic surgery not being covered by Medicare or Private Health insurance in Australia and there being no way on earth I could claim it as reconstructive its not happening. We want to extend the house, we are about to begin paying private school fees as our oldest is starting secondary school next year, we have 2 kids to follow him, my SIL is moving to Canada for 2 years in July so we'll have to try to get the family over there from Australia for a visit at some stage and I'm still 3 years from finishing my degree and getting out into the workforce after being home raising kids for the last 12 years! Money for cosmetic surgery? We're very comfortably off but its ridiculous to think of even beginning to find that kind of money for what amounts to vanity - as I dont seriously "need' it.

Yeah, I read about this! How amazing, what an awesome thing that could be if they could just cure drug addiction so simply! And it would certain sort out the obesity that results just from plain bad habits to that that occurs from a true food addiction. I mean a lot of people get fatter over time due to poor food choices and lack of exercise, not from uncontrollable addiction to food. But those are the people that generally lose well without a lap band! If we're here on this forum reading this, we're probably all addicts to some degree. That's the beauty of the band though - maybe we wont all be having revision surgery in 10 years, we'll be lining up to have the band removed and get our heads fixed.

I can eat anything, but I can and do get blocked up and have had one PB which happened in a pub. I try to stay with safer foods for me that I know I can eat safely and that if I feel block me, I can stop eating and they will go down - yes I have foods that I know may block me up but WILL go down and foods like meat that I can usually eat but when they block me they cause real problems. So for me, I'd stick with Pasta (the absolute easiest), woodfired pizza on those really thin crispy bases and I'd probably mainly eat the topping, risotto, maybe Soup, salads of any kind. I'd stear clear of big pieces of meat such as steak, definitely not fish (fish is my worst offender), dont eat the garlic bread, dont overeat. But that's all personal, it depends what your problem foods are. And I eat carbs so I have the pasta/risotto options, but even so I'd rather skip the high Protein rules for a night and not puke my dinner up in public, lol.

*snort*. ah, yes, consider the source. It is supposed to be for life. However, I havent ruled out the fact that I may be having replacement surgery at some time down the track. There's not enough data to know. Plenty of people around in Australia though who have had theirs for periods of time approaching ten years. Because it doesnt reroute your insides, if the band itself "wears out" then they'd just be able to replace it.

I guess you havent got the mechanical retching stress that you do with a PB (I've only had one but it was quite violent, not as bad as vomiting though) but its probably best that you do what you can to avoid it, accepting of course that it will happen to every bandster out there at times.

People (particularly ones who struggle with their own weight) walking around the shops with their almost five year old strapped into a stroller eating hot chips and/or drinking coke. Man that gets me angry! I really really strived not to inflict my bad habits onto my children. And what's with older kids sitting in strollers when they're big enough to walk. I had a very fat friend that did this with her daughter at basketball, the poor child sat in the stroller the whole time becuase her mother didnt want to have to get up to chase her. Of course the kid was fat. Eliza ran from one end of the centre to the other and got an hour's exercise! I could see her, why not let her run? And I dont feed my kids that crap. We know its bad for them, that it will make them fat. I may not have been able to get a handle on my own addiction to bad foods like that but there is NO excuse for feeding it to your children on a regular basis apart from laziness or sheer stupidity. And on the same topic - kids birthday parties. Why do kids have to have a birthday party every single year, and they get bigger and more expensive due to competition with other parents. And the rubbish food that's served to them. My friend had one for her son the other week and served up little cocktail frankfurts wrapped in pastry and topped with cheese and baked in the oven. EEEEEEEW, I just about died when I saw the kids eating that - what awful food!