Jachut

Hi Suzy, this was the one thing of which I was utterly TERRIFIED before my surgery. I had images of myself, wanting, needing to overeat and not being able to. In short, that has NEVER happened to me. I've enjoyed food far more than I ever did pre surgery because I taste it now. I'm not afraid of it since I know I wont overeat, I love to cook now and to eat out and social functions dont make me afraid of gaining etc etc. I eat slowly and savour it. When I feel like a bit of a treat - then the foods I previously struggled with just happen to be the easiest to eat, Cookies, chocolate etc. I can indulge when I want to but having lost so much weight, I no longer want to, I think because I dont have that terrible anxiety about my body and my weight that I need to quell with food. I've become focussed on exercise, have taken up running and now eat to fuel my performance, and try to avoid eating things that will drag me down. I dont ahve that glass of wine at night because I have my long run planned and dont want to be tired and sluggish kind of thing. Its very hard in the early weeks, but all this could be waiting for you too in the next few months as you get used to your new lifestyle and begin to marvel at the changes for the better your body is undergoing. You just need to hang in there, food fills an enormous need in most obese people and you cant just take it away and not feel the absence.

I wasnt required to do it because I had a lowish BMI (35, so obese, but not morbidly so) and truly, I was a person that just ate too much. I ate good food and a healthy balanced diet with a few too many treats, and my quantities were just too large. I was relatively active until the year or so before my surgery when my weight began to cause ankle problems, so I wasnt in too bad shape. My liver function tests and ultrasound - which my doc didnt order, my GP had done so a month or two before when I began researching - showed my liver was in perfect condition and not the least bit fatty. Since I had medical evidence of this, my doc said there was no need to do Optifast, had I not happened to have had the tests I would have had to do it since its standard procedure. So I was lucky, but thought I'd give it a try anyway, lol. Till my doc set me straigth. So in short, I didnt have to do it becuase I didnt have an enlarged or fatty liver that needed shrinking.

You could gain the weight back WITH a lapband if you really wanted to. YOu can also gain the weight back (and its more common) with a bypass. At some point in time you do have to take responsibility for your actions and realise that you have to commit to a healthier lifestyle to make this work. You wont gain the weight back no matter what but statistics do support the fact that most people over time will become fatter again. But that IS within your power to control. Its not wrong, or uncommon to look at the band like its going to "fix" everything, but it just doesnt work that way and if you truly think you cannot find within you the strength to take the bull by the horns and work with this tool, then perhaps it is not the surgery for you and you're right to think about it carefully and even decide against it if that's what your heart and your head tell you to do. People are obese for all sorts of different reasons and not all of those reasons are well addressed by a lapband. People's expectations of what it will do for them also affect whether they think its a success or failure. To some people, nothing short of looking like a supermodel is success, to others, just to regain their health is more important. That's all down to what you want for yourself. Committing to doctors' visits? Surely that's a given with any weight loss surgery, not just the lapband. I think you're right to give this lots and lots of thought, its not a small decision and really and truly, it does take a lot of work for the band to be successful and if you're not ready for that, its better to wait until you are.

Worms in packaged food is not acceptable - I've never had that happen. But produce - yes you have to wash it well and forget buying nice clean scrubbed potatoes, you have to get to work in the kitchen sink!

For me, its just a ladylike bite, not a huge gobful of food on the end of a fork. I've never needed to use baby cutlery or anything like that though. Just perhaps a 2cm x 2cm bite of food.

My dad thought the port would be on the outside of my skin too. Eeew, Id rather have stayed fat. I guess just that people think I must vomit all the time. I have never PB'd, but people have this misconception that lapbanders all have wildly out of control eating habits and eat like bulimic people, unable to stop eating too much or too fast, and that the band just forces them to throw it up again. In short they think its surgically induced bulimia. Which is why so many people have reactions of horror to know I've had surgery, and why so many people who could benefit from a band will not even consider it. That, and people seem to think that the band gets removed when you've lost the weight.

I just waited - all 3 of mine did it themselves. I'm too lazy to think for them, I just waited till their third birthday, said "right, you're too big for nappies now" and took them away cold turkey. All 3 trained completely within a week or two. Most of my friends I know who tried earlier, it took them months and months and they were having to think for their kids, remember to take them to the toilet etc. I never used a potty either, just straight onto the big toilet. I think the thing with training kids at two or earlier like we all were when we were babies, is that it wasnt the kids that were trained, it was the mothers.

Failed, absolutely and utterly! I coudlnt do it - I didnt actually have to but thought I would for the kick start. Yeah, right. I was passing out within 2 days and my doctor told me I was an idiot for putting myself thorugh that when it wasnt medically necessary. Actually he said its actually not good for you at all but its the lesser of two evils when you're facing surgery with a big fatty liver.

I know, I dont get American sizing at all. I thought it was one size different with ours but its 2. I noticed that when someone on another board said she was 5ft 10, 192 lb and a size 10 - and I thought hang on that's only an Australian 12 and she weighs more than I do and I"m in a 16. So I'm really a US 12? Cooooooool! No wonder you talk about 6's and 4's and we dont go below an 8 over here.

Agreed - if I could pull my finger out and cook myself say a grilled piece of fish and vegetables for lunch, I'd be sweet for hours on that. I'm sure I'm not "tighter" at night its just that I eat more solid food for dinner than I do for lunch. But dang it, I dont want to change those habits. Eating on the run and buying lunch out and nibbling all day are too easy, lol.

What I find even more irritating is that I've lost this 16lb many times in my life. I once thought I was HUGE at this weight. I used to be able to say "hmm, getting a bit porky, better cut out the cappucinos and muffins mid morning" and I'd easily lose a kilograme a week. 2.2lb! Now I cant budge it for love nor money despite burning well over 4,000 calories per week exercising AND having a calorie deficit in my diet to boot! All the formulae say I'm falling short of my calorie requirements by about 1500 calories per day - so why isnt the weight coming off? Bodies are tricky things.

I'd suspect that if the lapband really did reduce life expectancy by that much and they knew about it, then um, it would be a widely known fact and they certainly wouldnt be banding people as "easily" as they do now. I'd take that particular nugget of wisdom with a grain of salt - surgeons like anyone else are prone to bias and even misinformation. Secondly I'd say that the reduced life expectancy was more due to the health problems caused by being obese and by losing large amounts of weight (which is very taxing on the body and does increase the risk of many disorders and diseases), and I'd even go so far as to say the Protein first diet recommended by so many surgeons, which by the very nature of the band means you're going short on fruit and vegetables and grains is a great way to die early of bowel cancer or heart disease. High protein diets dont do anybody any favours. Otherwise, how is having a bit of silicone in your body any differen to an artificial hip or knee, to a steel rod or collection of pins holding broken bones together. I'd hazard a guess breast implants are more dangerous than lap bands!

Me! Me! My average weekly routine would now consist of four runs - two 5km runs, one 7km run, one 10km run and three body pump or circuit sessions involving weight work where I may also do about 3 to 4km gentle running on the treadmill. there's a few factors at play here - 1. I'm nearly at goal so dont expect to lose fast, 2. I may be gaining muscle, losing fat (which is my primary aim now) and 3. that much exercise makes me bloody hungry, and I'm eating more to compensate for that. I think my strongest weapons in weight maintenance are great exercise habits and a good body composition with plenty of muscle. That way I dont have to rely on "willpower" or live on a paltry diet for the rest of my life. I've had times before where I've been in really good exercise habits for years at a time and it is almost impossible to gain weight when you're very active, it allows you to enjoy eating a lot more than you otherwise could. So for me, what will be will be. I guess I'll lose more over the next year but its going to be very slow.

You could be me Laura, that is exactly what I am like. Nobody could fault my exercise habits, but my eating is not as perfect as it was at the start.

I'm at 3 ml too and I can still eat anything and I still get hungry, lots. I'm now running up to 10km at a time and have added in weight training as well and I'm 5ft 10 so I think I burn a lot of calories in a day. I still have in my head that women need teensy tiny little portions of food and compared to that I eat like a truckie. But the hard facts are I have lost 30kg so despite my preconceived notions of how the band should feel and how much I should eat, what I've done has been adequate. But I hear you on being a little hungry - because I'm not losing any more, lol. I do need to eat less and I'm a bit frustrated that 3 ml for crying out loud hasnt given me the restriction to lose that last bit! How much is it going to take? I'm more of a mind to think I have to do it myself from here. To have come this far and been lucky enough to never PB and to still be able to eat any food, I dont really want to push my luck.

Yeah, I get that a lot, especially lately when I have really upped my exercise. Must be the lower tummy relatively empty but I'm still getting satiety messages from my upper tummy being full. Its like "oh, my stomach is growling" but no real urgent EAT messages are coming from it. other times I'm just starvin marvin well and truly.

Gee, I dont know how anyone could expect that this post wouldnt turn out hurtful and angry. There's so many things we can do to reduce our environmental impact besides stopping having children. Economically we need more children. Hey, howsabout we refuse to medicate anyone over 60 so they drop dead of natural causes? That way we dont have to support all the old geezers sucking us taxpayers dry! I mean, what use are old people? They dont give to the economy. They just take. And they're using up precious oxygen. Oh? That's hurtful and rude and completely wrong? Well, that's how ridiculous your argument is Sunta. Come to think of it what use are say, dogs? They dont add anything to the ecosystem do they? They're useless too - the just add love and warmth to the family home. Cut em loose! Cats too, in fact ALL pets. Hmmm, do you think if I got rid of my kids I could drive around in an ENORMOUS four wheel drive that I dont need in the city? Perhaps I cold pull my finger out and actually wash a few cloth diapers? Maybe I could decide not to subsist on a diet of entirely packaged processed foods? Nup, that would require a bit of effort to actually cook and prepare. Oh, no there's nothing I could do so I think I'll just sit right back and point the finger at everyone else.

Depends on the surgeon, but it seems to be average around $3,000 to $4,500. Good luck with your pregnancy, and I had a similar amount to lose and its worked really really well for me.

Yes I am, I've always had 75kg there on my ticker but I've always thought I'd want to pass that and get to 70. However, after suffering a long plateau I've had a good think about just what it will take to get there and maintain it and I"m not sure that 75 wont be good enough - afterall I'm fitter than I have ever been in my life, and have more muscle, less fat, so perhaps 75 will be the new 70 for me, lol. I'll just take it as it comes, anything from hereon in and I'm more than happy. I dont have a stunning figure, I'm curvy and well covered still and would like to lose a bit more but I look totally normal, my body can perform amazing feats such as running 10km, I have energy to spare at the end of a very busy day, and I've exceeded my doc's goal so yeah, anything else is a bonus. I'm really into living life too, not living on a diet. I havent dieted so far and its worked but I suspect to lose weight at anything other than snail pace I'd have to count calories and frankly that bores me to tears. I got this band so I would never have to do that kind of thing again. What I suspect is that I will lose it but its going to take me an entire year to lose the next 10kg, whereas I lost 30 in the past year. I think my days of 1lb to 2lb per week are over for good. I'm pretty tall so I'm thinnish now, but I dont feel in anyway frail as I'm really fit and strong, and I am definitely a person that can go quite low in weight and still not look too skinny.

Mine's tight at night and a little iffy in the morning but I can eat plenty during the day. It works well for me, since generally I eat a very small dinner, but for some unknown reason, it gives me a reprieve if I eat out (probably because I usually have a glass of wine) and I never seem to have trouble in a restaurant or anything, yet at home, at times I have put my dinner aside completely becuase I just cant be bothered trying to eat it. I never ever was a night eater though, so perhaps that has something to do with it.

Gosh, that really sucks (about the 35lb). What a great effort, where does this doc get off? I'd guess a band would work as well for her as for anyone, but its the risk of surgery you'd be concerned about. Her poor body must be struggling under that much weight. For sure she'd have to lose some weight before surgery. And she'd be facing a lot of problems with excess skin and the like too. It really is such a tragic disease, obesity, I really feel for her.

Yesterday I did a 1hour Body Pump class, went tanning and then came home and ran a fast 4km on the treadmill.

Who knows? I'm the other way round, I'm thinner at this weight than I was at 16 years old. I cant figure it, I thought I was just "feeling" thinner you know, but a comparison of photographs, I have double chins and am really beefy at 84kg at 16, whereas I have none of that now. I think I have a lot more muscle due to the exercise over the past year and as an adult, you just naturally lose that facial puppy fat I think. But what can you do than go with it, you will get there, just keep plugging away, and exercising makes a lot of difference.

Amazing transformation Sue, even without being able to see your face, you look a lot younger, and you've got a lovely set of collarbones there.

My youngest is 3, she's pretty much out of toddlerhood now, but this has really worked well for me because I'm a part time university student so she is in 3 days of family day care per week. Because I'm doing a Bachelor of Primary Education and its part time and its very easy for an almost 40 year old with a bit of life experience AND I'm one of those super duper annoying people that gets straight A's without even opening a text book, I have quite a lot of free time to myself. I never had that when my boys were small and their baby and toddlerhood years were when I packed on the weight. Its a really hard time of life, but you do come out the other side of it. We do a lot of stuff exercise wise with Eliza though - my DH and I go for a run at night and I get the dubious honour of running with a jogging stroller. We often head off to do it (run, that is) somewhere scenic on a Sunday morning, again with the stroller. I also have a treadmill at home and I just run or do weights while she's watching afternoon telly or something, she's more often than not occupied with the older boys. But I'm not sure that would have worked at 19 months, she'd have more likely tried to stick her fingers in the treadmill workings - and I have clouted her on the head with a 5kg dumbell before too. Eliza can turn the treadmill on, set the speed right for her (without being able to even see the console, lol) and have a nice little walk, lol. She's pretty active too and is starting swimming lessons today.