Jachut

Yeah, that's the right one. Sorry I cant make it. I only live around the corner too, lol.

I think I first had red meat about 6 weeks out, I've only eaten a steak once or twice since surgery though, steak is not something I ever ate a lot of. I'm pretty sure I couldnt eat a steak now, well not one I had cooked anyway! I can handle roasts - we love lamb in our household, and burgers, mince etc.

It is prohibited here. I run on a treadmill partly becuase my bones would collapse if I ran on concrete all the time but partly for safety. When I do go outside, its generally late morning, early afternoon.

I live in mortal fear of gastro, I must be INSANE becoming a teacher. I just know my first few years are going to be a blurr of coughs, colds, flus and gastros, although my own kids are germy enough that my immunity should be pretty goods. We've had four bouts of gastro in the 8 months I've been banded and I only got it once - and for that time I took Pramin tablets which prevented any vomiting - I had a bit of nausea but I basically got a fever and aches and pains but not the stomach symptoms. That was 3 days after I got home from the hospital. Kids, who'd have em?

Compared to Australia, not a lot (its about $80 per day per child here in a centre) but childcare is a killer isnt it? We use family based daycare for Eliza which costs me about $30 for a six hour day, so that I can study. I cant wait till next year when she starts kinder and the childcare can be cut down. Even better roll on 2008, she starts school and then I can go full time at uni.

I had my surgery on December 9th, so far I have lost about 25kg (50 something pounds), which is a tad over 65% of my excess weight. I'm still losing but very slowly now. I want to lose another 15kg.

I run usually five times a week, about 5 kms or so - 40 minutes. I generally do it on a treadmill because I have 3 kids and not a lot of time to get out to the gym. I also do some core work and just pushups and tricep dips for upper body but all the running (I run on a fair incline) has really toned my legs. I find it hard to get a workout at ANY speed walking now, walking is just an incidental exercise for me now, but its a fabulous place to start. I can run with my heart rate right in that fat burning aerobic zone. Like with running, walking needs only a good pair of shoes and you're good to go. Oh and a stroller, yes! Every weekend Doug and I pack up the kids bikes and the stroller and we head into somewhere nice to walk - along the paths around the bay in Melbourne, round the Botanic Gardens, round Albert Park Lake - places where there's heaps and heaps of other exercisers. We power along and generally do about 10kms. Just be active, whatever you do. And push that tiny bit so you do actually get fitter and can handle something really time efficient like running. I took it up because I knew I needed something that could burn a good 800 calories or so in an hour. But doing too much too soon is deadly, its taken me almost a year to build up the kind of fitness i have now where I am strong enough to do stuff like that without getting injured.

This is a hard one - I didnt see the "fat" me when I looked in the mirror. Now I dont see a "new" me but the image of me I have in my head more closely matches reality. Does that make sense? I never ever saw how fat I really was. And I still see my face as it was 20 years ago too, lol, which is most definitely not reality now.

My oldest has one more year of primary school left and I like awake at night worrying about where we're going to send him. Our school system is different here, suffice to say I had a nice cushy private school education as did my husband and there are SO many social and cultural expectations that arise from that. We are school snobs, but we dont have the means to send our kids to the kinds of schools we went to, at $22,000 per child per year, that'd be over $60 grand of after tax dollars to educate our three children. Yet the schools in our area are a no go for us - we built in a new area and the population hasnt aged sufficiently for there to be good secondary school options yet, the schools we're zoned for dont even go to year 12 yet, as the first wave of students hasnt reached that age. How on earth can you select a school with no knowledge of their Year 12 performance or even the subjects/units that the school will be offering. For us, its going to mean a move, we have to move back to a more established area. And that's what makes me sad. We've spent the last 15 years of our lives since we built this house hating the area, hating everything it stood for, hating the demographics and the socioeconomic profile of the population here becuase we thought we were more highly educated, "better" people than those that have to live in an outer suburb. We've finally exorcised our demons, learned a few lessons about life and come to terms with where life has taken us and suddently we have to be the wannabes again, struggling to find the money to buy a family home in a good area so that we can select a good school for our kids. And in the meantime, they've grown up with us barely noticing, we've been so obsessed with our own material wealth. But the are loving well adjusted happy kids so I guess we've done something right.

Yes I feel this. Quite often, its not painful, its simply a new bodily sensation to get used to. Some things are a little more uncomfortable than others to the point where I usually dont bother with them - cake, donuts, white bread. No great loss! I can eat them if I really want to but it does involve drinking coffee with them to wash them through in tiny tiny bites.

Not for me, I have 2.5 in a 4ml band and can still eat anything. I've determined that I am darn lucky and that I will try to lose the rest of my weight without more fills in order to preserve this freedom. I cant eat a LOT of anything though.

Yes I'd go back and see your doc too. If you only need to maintain now and not lose, then you could probably be a bit looser without the risk of gaining much. You're in it for the long haul now and you cant spend the next 30 or 40 years eating only snack foods.

I think long pauses are a natural and healthy part of the journey, and that you do need to give your head and your body time to get used to the progress youv'e made to that point. I look at it like I've lost 65% of my excess weight and regardless of several more fills, If I'm honest with myself I know its not a case of being tighter, its a case of working harder to get the next 15kg off. The bad habits sneak back and I know that I can maintain but that I have to work to lose and realistically I'm no better at keepign that up consistently than I ever was. So the rest of this weight is highly likely to come off in little bursts as I pull my finger out and put in a good month or two and that there'll be long plateaus in between. But I try to remember how much happier and better I feel as compared to a year ago and thus focus on my success, not how much work I still have left to do.

6-8 glasses a day should be ample for everyone - and I agree, if you're urine is clearish then your'e drinking enough. There's nothing to be gained by consuming massive amounts of Water over and above what your body needs. And other fluids DO count as water contrary to popular belief. No doc would tell you to consume 6 to 8 cups of coffee a day or 6 to 8 glasses of coke, but regardless of the other crap in it, it is still water and still helps to hydrate your body. But you're better off without so much of the bad things of course.

Still if drinking helps you personally there'd be no reason not to do it. But it makes things worse for me, it just sits on top of whatever's stuck and makes it worse. I have to get up, stretch out, walk around and above all STOP eating. After 8 months of being banded, I now get an inkling a bite or two before the golf ball happens and now it virtually never happens to me. Once you've felt the golfball, its often a bite or two too much and its really bad. I've never PB'd though.

Oh Penni, what an awful decision to have to make. If it were me I think I'd do the band again in the hope that someday there will be a better solution to obesity. I just dont think I could ever consider one of the more final procedures.

It is a bit odd. I mean every surgeon has different recommendations but I've never heard of anyone not having to do some sort of liquid to mushy to solid regime afterwards. I'd follow that up, ask the question again.

Sheesh, how many ways can I misspell exercise? Lol.

I just say "no thanks, I"m full" I dont find it difficult. But then, I didnt hide the fact that I had a band either, and if someone pushed it on me, I'd say why I couldnt eat more.

I'll be away then, but such is life, we can always do another one at another time too.

I really think it doesnt. If your body underneath is firm and well toned, your skin will look better but skin is NOT muscle and no amount of excercise is going to affect the firmness of your skin, sad to say. Its basic physiological fact, same as how no amount of exercises will improve the size or shape of your breasts - because they're skin, fat and non muscular tissue. Exericse is still a vital factor in how you look and feel though.

So glad you are OK. That's very scary, especially since I"m 39 too. YOu make me glad I've never really taken the pill for any lenght of time. Then again, I have more babies than I intended to have, lol.

I was the same - in good health, just overfed. We eat well as a family. You know, its made being banded quite easy, I havent really had to change what I eat, just how much.

Wow, that's incredible. I cant tell you enough how much I was not talking about that type of plastic surgery the other day - nobody in their right mind would think that that was all about vanity. That's an incredible change and must make you feel so much better, not to mention how great you look.

It will probably take your head a long time to catch up with your body, but hopefully it will cease to be a topic of interest for other people once they've adjusted to the new you. As to whether you've finished losing weight, that's up to you. There's nothing wrong with any of the options, losing it, not losing it or simply taking a breather. But that 21lb will make more difference on you now than probably the first 50 or 60 did so there's probably still a lot more changing to do if you keep going. I can kind of understand how you feel because I dont see the change in myself all the time. But then again, I never saw myself as "fat" either. I just closed my eyes to it. Practically I knew I was but in the mirror I looked no different to what I looked at 21. So I can kind of bear to look now but I really cant see the change. It sure messes with your head.