Jachut

I'm about to put dinner in the slow cooker and then go to the gym as our treadmill is busted. I still have a gym membership for another five weeks. So I'll go and use the treadmill there and do some weights as well, should have time before its time to pick the kids up from school.

I was told 4 weeks. I kind of forgot about it though and took my daughter to the indoor pool with my sister and niece. Then I realised afterwards that I was supposed to have waited. It's because public pools pose an infection risk when you have recent wounds.

Wow, I hope you recover quickly. You're a gentleman and its a shame that that's the result of your brave actions.

I get an insane grin and that runners high really hits me with the right music - I'll push up the speed and focus. Then I collapse, lol.

You do apparently get HUGE calorie burn for hours after lifting heavyish weights.

I can feel my port fairly easily and if I look down (gotta hold my boobs out of the way, lol) there is an ever so slight bump where the port is. I've got 15kg to go to goal, not sure what its going to look like at that point. I'd rather have a slight bump than a fresh scar that's going to take another couple of years to lose its purple colour though.

I asked my doctor, as once I decided, I was all fired up. I didnt have to do the preop Optifast as I didnt have a big or fatty liver. He told me that the best thing I could do was to start exercising and to just eat well and sensibly and that the weight loss would come soon enough. He said not to rush off and do some crash diet because all you do is lose a lot of Water and lean body tissue and not a lot of fat and that the reason for the preop diet is liver shrinkage and liver shrinkage only, and that it is only when this is required that the advantages of doing Optifast outweigh the disadvantages. Personally, I do believe you're better to adopt a moderate approach, have a few of your favourite things rather than crash diet and end up pigging out massivly on a hundred last suppers. So basically what I did was start practicing eating slowly, cut out Snacks and tried to avoid last chance binges. I think I lost a kilo or two, nothing much.

I was thinking about it too - I agree, I think that moderate weight training will maintain your muscle - you're not necessarily looking to gain huge amounts while you're losing weight. But you do want to maintain what you have.

4-5 times every week is fantastic. First pointer - dont walk on the flat. They say an incline of 2 approximates outside walking/jogging. Second pointer - dont always do the same thing. Does your treadmill have any programs you can do? I do an interval training program twice a week and long steady sessions other times. Treadmills are great because you cant really slack on the intensity the way you do on other machines, but make sure you do challenge yourself, you need to be doing more than a stroll. Lastly, just do it. I think its taken me the better part of six months to really make exercise a habit that I miss now if I dont keep up. Its really hard but there's no way other than to just make yourself do it and eventually you learn to love it, or at least love what it does for you. I like music - if you have an MP3 or ipod it can be really worthwhile searching out some music you like that has the right beat - I can be jogging on my treadmill and flagging a bit, feeling heavy or lethargic and the right music comes on and I'm away!

Our treadmill's not working, boo hoo. Fraser got onto it after football training Thursday night, wearing muddy shoes, I didnt realise. All the mud was dried onto his shoes and its all gone under the belt and through the workings. Grrr. So we have to have it fixed. The belt's sticking. So its a big outside family walk today. And I'll go for a run outside for the next few days I guess. I'm going to buy a barbell tomorrow, I have a DVD called Bella Strength which is like a Body Pump class, I"m going to start doing it. I think I'll do it for six weeks or so and in the meantime get me one or two more strength training DVD's and do them in six week rotations. I really want to move it onto the next level.

I've never hated myself - but the baggy clothes, its easy to fall into that trap. I used to do it until I saw a girlfriends on night walk into a restaurant and I didnt even recognise her. She was always overweight (not obese) and after having 2 babies, continued to wear skin tight clothing. She'd do stuff like wear a really tight white lycra Tshirt and still have on a big maternity bra and nursing pads, which you could see through her top. Stuff like that, it looked awful. Ocassionally one of us would bitch to the other, "God, why doesnt she wear some appropriate clothes". Until those Gypsy shirts came in fashion a few seasons back, she walked into girls night one night wearing a big flowing thing and I didnt even realise it was her. My goodness, she went from being plump (a bit too plump for the clothes she chose) to looking mammoth. I realised right then that you're fat you're fat, you cant hide it under your clothes. And I guess I'm lucky that financially we're comfortable, we need to watch what we spend, but I've bought well fitting decent clothes knowing that they wont fit me this time next year. I"m not going to hide in a sack until I get to goal. Even so if you have rolls round your middle, it doesnt look good to show it ALL off, lol. But I've been brave as I've lost and though I dont wear really tight stuff, I wear much more fitted clothes now, and I'm sure that a lot of the weightloss people recognise is simply from me not hiding my body (and having had my hair straightened makes a HUGE difference to my face too).

Well I guess that's what I mean too - YOUR balance is what is important, so dont take the stories other people tell as boasting. That's their lives, you do this the way YOU want to. I guess its just the word "boasting" has negative connotations, it sounds a bit mean spirited. But I get what you're saying.

Actually I do find that a little offensive. I was with you at first but your last sentence or two got up my nose. Boasting? How about being proud of her accomplishments? If, as you say, we are all different how does that mean that those who do a lot of exercise should not be allowed to talk about it without being accused of boasting whilst those that dont should be allowed to say what they like becuase they are average? Everybody here, no matter how fast or slow they are losing, is proud of their achievements and talk about them is not boasting. The band works better for those who do exercise, and discussing the types of exercise we do, how much, how often and how intense is all part of learning how to achieve the best weight loss - if you want to ignore that convenient fact, go ahead, but it is important information to a lot of people here.

That's true too - now that I"m fitter I can push my heart rate up quite high - 160 to 170 without it taxing me all that much - as in I dont lose my breath, turn beet red or anything. I can maintain that for quite a while too. You know you're working aerobically by feel, not necessarily by heart rate - if my breathing is steady at that high a heart rate and I can keep it going, then I am still in an aerobic zone. It depends entirely on your fitness. The heart rates are a guide only. Its because as you get fitter your body gets a lot more efficient at burning fat for fuel - partly because you now have more mitochondria in your cells which are your little powerhouses. Your body adapts to the workload.

I'm coming to believe with the band that there is a strong personality component to success. At first most people lose weight easily, but six months down the track, I am most DEFINITELY having to diet and exercise the traditional way to keep weight coming off. I need to be aware of what I'm putting in my mouth and I have to burn off those calories. I dont even believe in some ways my band helps that much, what is more important to me is that I dont regain weight when I slip up, and I'm sure I wont regain it as soon as I get to goal. I cant eat enough to seriously gain but I can certainly eat enough to not lose. However, I dont believe I've found perfect restriction yet. I actually like having to put the hard work in. I feel I'm learning things about myself and achieving new things every day. I am loving exercising so regularly. Its a great thing in my life, something I could have done before and wish I had. I'm healthier than I've been in years, because I eat well and take care of myself. I simply dont know why you'd want malabsorption unless you were in dire straits health wise. You almost certainly trade your healthy good looks for being normal weight if you lose weight that way. Its necessary for some people and the right choice, but I'd always always advocate the band as the first choice. You can switch later if it doesnt work for you but I wouldnt ever reroute my insides for the size weight problem I had. I guess you have to do some soul searching about whether you really think you have what it takes to get the weight off. Some people are just so hopelessly addicted to overeating that they cant manage it even with a band, and for them, another surgery could be a better choice. But Healthwise, its better to drop the weight more slowly, gradually and gently. I do agree with the surgeon that we dont know the long term outcome of the band yet. I know a few people that have had one 10 years or so - as its been done for a little over that time in Australia, but all have had revision surgeries. Who knows? Its a risk I was prepared to take and I truly believe that because the band works slowly and requires your effort and hard work at retraining yourself, I am learning a new lifestyle that hopefully would stick with me to some degree or another if I lost my band. I certainly wouldnt stop running and working out for one thing.

I agree, it differs for me for day to day and now I just listen to my body's signals. I dont really think about it, I just eat slowly and carefully and stop when I've had enough. But when I was healing, I did measure out a cup and stuck at that or less if I felt full before.

I'd be a bit mad too if I didnt want everyone to know. My mother did that to me. We knew we were having a boy when I was pregnant with my first, found out at the 20 week ultrasound. We told family only and then my mum went and blabbed it to her friend which may not have mattered only someone knew someone knew someone else and pretty soon EVERYONE knew we were having a boy.

We just have bulk billing GP clinics here, big clinics where lots and lots of doctors work various shifts, so you dont develop much of a relationship with them. We generally only need the doctor for scripts for asthma medication, the occasional antibiotics etc and I have a family doctor I've gone too since I was a child that I'd go to for more personal things, but he's quite a long way away. So basically I just went to the doctor and said "I want a referral to a lap band surgeon". That was it basically. He just nodded, and they had to look someone up, it wasnt information they had to hand, and he said he wanted to see me a year down the track - partly out of interest and also just to do bloods - cholesterol, liver function etc. He offered me referrals to the community dietician and physio (for my ankle) and to put together a "management plan" that he could supervise if I wanted but I said that a) I was happy with the physio I was seeing and that I'd follow up all the other stuff with the lap band surgeon.

Today I had: muesli for breakfast minestrone, a fruit and nut bar and a pear for lunch a piece of the cake I made this afternoon (a teensy tiny piece) roast vegetable and pesto pasta for dinner, with a nice glass of red

Sometimes I go for my run early in the morning, becuase I know I have things on later in the day that mean I wont get it in. But I dont like it. I just dont have the energy at that time of the day whereas when I run at 5ish, I feel good, I get right into it and I really appreciate the stress relief by then (its usually arsenic hour in this household). But supposedly you burn more fat if you run on an empty stomach.

Mmmm...donuts, droool.

It sounds to me like you may be undereating and/or not getting a balanced diet. Also when you focus only on Protein, which I know is important, its easy to forget you need your fresh fruit and vegetables too. Are you getting good food in? As a teen, you should probably be able to lose on a few more calories than us old farts so dont be scared to consider eating more healthy foods.

I found the poll on how often you PB interesting. Because PBing is one of those things people report on and talk about you get the idea that it happens all the time. But if you look at the poll results, far and away most people have never PB'd or only very very rarely.

I'm 7 months post op and never had a single problem. Self induced sliming twice in all that time.

Are you breastfeeding Jodie? Because I wouldnt muck around with cutting out carbs if you are. Otherwise, I guess cold turkey if low carb is your thing. I eat carbs and it doesnt stop me from losing weight. But I dont eat much bread or processed carbs, mainly wholegrains.