Jachut

I guess it depends on your build, and where you carry weight. I've got only about 40lb to go as well, but whilst I can easily feel mine, I cant see it - getting old and losing my waist, lol. If I look I can see a very slight change in profile of my abdomen there, but no lump sticking out. Perhaps get it checked out.

I think you'll have a bit of a problem with location Andy. Frankston is a LONG way out of Melbourne. There's loads of bandsters about the place but I think you'd have a higher strike rate if the clinic was mobile and held in different locations at different times.

I've had it happen once. I made a comment about my abundant backside and got a really weird message - it was only once so I just deleted it but had I gotten another I wouldnt have hesitated to forward it to the moderators. That's creepy.

Six months down the track, my weight loss has been fantastic but stalled somewhat and I know those old habits are still lurking, many days I give into them but just in more moderate quantities. I know for sure if I didnt have my band I would be well on the way to regaining the weight that I have lost by now. I feel I've beaten a few demons, I dont think I'd return to eating the way I did, but in no way do I have this all under control on my own. I mean, today I had pancakes for Breakfast, and we're going out tonight. So I decided not to eat lunch (breakfast was very late - 11 am). I can make a decision like that now because I wont be starving, before I would have thought, Oh may as well REALLY enjoy today then and just pigged out all day. I dont do that anymore. But I still ahve times when I eat terrible foods, becuase I just want comfort food. And my body doesnt like being 21kg lighter, I dont know how to explain it but I just know its fighting to go back up.

That sort of stuff doesnt worry me. I dont have anything else that other people dont have and I guess mine is prettier than some and uglier than some too. They're not looking - oh, I'm sure they make a wise crack here and there, but you dont hear it. I was allowed to wear underwear, they told me to wear an old pair, but there's no way they would let you wear it if they were going to take it off. Why on earth would they want to have to take a pair of knickers off an unconscious obese person and then put them on again? That'd be hard work!

I had a lot of ankle problems and consulted several sports medicine specialists and physiotherapists and podiatrists. Two things I was told consistently by all these specialists: 1) Most people who run regularly will need orthotics even if they dont think they do (I have some fabulously expensive orthotics now of course) and 2) stay away from Nike shoes, they're just fashion shoes and nothing they make is good enough for regular running, Brooks and Asics shoes are the ones to go for. I've always loved brooks shoes and they serve me really well. But I truly couldnt run without orthotics. I dont know how true it is about Nikes either by the way, but I must have been told that on 10 separate occasions by 10 separate professionals.

I voted no because I just eat normally, I dont avoid carbs or do high Protein, and I generally eat about 1500 calories a day. So no ketosis/breath problems here. But the 2 weeks on liquids after surgery - jeeze louise. Doug insisted we slept back to back! He said my breath was awful. My tongue also went disgustingly grey and slimy.

Hey Andy, saw your message on Bandsters too - good luck with this great initiative. I'd have emailed but for the fact that I have a fwife of one of Doug's colleagues that I'm working with, its kind of a personal relationship as well as a professional one that I wouldnt be able to exit gracefully if you know what I mean. She's just done me a home strength training program and I'm working on my treadmill. Is the whole thing local to Frankston? Or can they work with you in other gyms throughout Melbourne?

I just bought some wool to make Eliza a little cardigan this week! With my online group of friends, we get together regularly but we decided to have "stitch and bitch" on the first friday night of every month. Most of the girls are into patchwork and cross stitch, but I like my home very minimalist and modern, dont like pretty stuff like that much. Give me a huge vase with sticks in it and I'm happy. So I decided to knit something, its easy and portable. Bet you anything I only ever do half of it though.

Here's a million dollar Melbourne home, Hawthorn is about 8km out of the city: http://www.realestate.com.au/cgi-bin/rsearch?a=o&s=vic&cc=&c=97829900&tm=1151213304&id=103171900&f=0&p=10&t=res&ty=&snf=rbs&ag=&cu=fn-rea&fmt=&header= Yep its gorgeous, but you can see how small it is! And that'd be oh, maybe $800,000 US dollars. We used to live in the street, but we were only renters and we lived in a block of flats :phanvan

We're really lucky in a way (although it doesnt always feel like a blessing) because we built our house in a new suburb and as such, its filled with young familes. There's be 20 kids of my childrens' age living within our immediate vicinity and our area is safe, it's all courts, dead ends and cul de sacs with little pedestrian walkways, no main roads etc. There's no traffic in here other than residential traffic, its just the way they design the estates and then after years, they join up and eventually it will become like the rest of Melbourne. So I'm able to open the front door and just let em go. They ride bikes, blade, run around and come and beg for money to go to the milk bar. There's skate parks and ordinary parks and all sorts of stuff all around about so many kids to do it all with. But often times I can have literally 10 children in my house, they'll all be at the computer or in the boys' room watching a DVD, they make incredible noise and mess and I do get heartily sick of it. And they're obsessed with sleepovers. Its school holidays here too, although only a short one, our long summer holiday of course is over December/January. But there's not a night that goes by when one of them's not sleeping somewhere else or there's not kids here, and they like to sleep out in the family room on the couches watching the big telly, so you get up in the morning and there's doonas and pillows everywhere, slumbering bodies, huge mounds of dirty dishes from their midnight Snacks etc. We're moving soon and it will be really a relief to move away from all of this and into an older, more convenient area, but the kids will really miss the lifestyle. However as they approach teenagerhood I think its best to remove them from the influences of lots of wandering children before they start to get up to no good.

Where's the jaw hitting the floor emoticon! That's awesome. To buy a house like that in Australia, you'd have to be a multi gazillionaire. That would be in the realm of only the very top 1% of the wealthiest people in the country, truly. We just dont have houses like that here. We have our beautiful historic homes in the closer in suburbs, but they're 2-3 bedroom single storey homes with one bathroom and a tacked on kitchen, often the bathroom is only accessable from the outside. They require major renovation to make them liveable by modern standards. Congratulations.

ARGLE! I now have a nasty flu/head cold. That is an entire month where something has been legitimately wrong with me every single week, enough so that I've run no more than once or twice in any week. I reckon I'll need 2 or 3 more days before I'm fit to run again too, grumble grumble. Its having kids that's the problem, little grots spread disease with the greatest of ease. I never used to get sick before I had kids.

Ah, unfortunately it comes to us all I think, that nasty detail of actually having to watch what we eat, lol. I've done fine so far without paying much attention (though generally I like healthy food), but I'm at the same stage. Well done on 65lb though, that's a TON of weight and 35, wow, that's just an ordinary person's weight problem, not an obese person's!

My surgeon has a doctor he works in conjuction with, somebody with a medical degree. I think he also has a sports medicine practice, he gave me a cortisone shot in my ankle and I was able to stop going to see another doctor in a very inconvenient location, and because I'm entirely bulk billed for my fill/review visits, it was very handy not to shell out any money to have my ankle looked at either, lol. I consulted with my surgeon prior to surgery, he did the surgery, I saw him six weeks post op for my first fill and have seen the doctor for every month since, I'm due to see my surgeon for a six month review.

www.treadmoves.com for some great treadmill workouts.

Im in the same place right now at the moment. I get on the scales in the morning and it flashes 89.8 and then settles on 90.2. I've been this weight for about five weeks. I just want to see the eighties, its been 12 years since I've been there, I will really truly have broken some personal boundaries then. So why do I continue to make bad food choices day in and day out, its less than half a kilogram for crying out loud and I just cant lose it. And I've had a horrible exercise month though not through laziness. I've had a terrible erosion in my eye, then eye surgery and two bad head colds, there has not been one week in the last four where I've been able to exercise more than once or twice. I need a firecracker up my you know what.

I drink about as much as I did preband - a glass of wine 2 or 3 times a week. I dont think that much is going to do too much harm to the diet, but just like preband, I tend to consume too many alcohol kilojoules when I'm out that one glass of wine becomes two or three. My alcohol tolerance did change a bit after banding but only for a short time becuase I went so long without a drink. But I"m used to it again now and can easily handle say 2 drinks over the course of a dinner, whereas I was getting quite hilariously tipsy on that amount for a while there.

I need that underarm lipo. I went to buy some new bras the other day even though I've only just done so not 3 months ago, they're too big already. Anyway, some that I tried on were too small and I had all this spillage under the arms. I've never ever noticed that before! I think I"ll need the outer thighs done too, I seem to have developed mild saddlebags somewhere along the line. I tell you, its amazing. I've hidden my body under a layer of fat for the last 10 years and I really didnt realise that I am indeed aging. I thought I was holding up incredibly, but it was really just the fat hid it all. As the weight comes off, I"m not finding the same body that was there before it went on.

Well Dawg's lost enough weigh that it's not just an "accident" - its obvious he's put in quite a bit of effort and isnt just losing simply because of Pnut's efforts. But I get what you mean, and yes, my husband has dropped about 12kg himself since I was banded. He's tried hard, but its been easier becuase of the great improvement in the standard of food that's been in the house. Also we both tended to pull the other down, when one of us got the munchies, we'd encourage the other to do it. Now Doug still gets the munchies, but I NEVER come home with a block of chocolate or some other treat anymore, so there's only half as many times that he'll have a little pig out. But I think more of it is competitive. He doesnt want to be a fat 40 year old CFO with a glammo wife, lol. People will think I've chosen him as my sugar daddy,tee hee.

Yep, mine's there and its healthy. Nobody in my family has ever had gall bladder problems and there's a very strong genetic component.

Hmmm, its 2 am here, I'm sick and I cant sleep. Nasty flu, grump grump. I was never a person who compensated for my weight or tried to hide it or was fat and jolly so overall it hasnt changed. But I have a girlfriend of over 20 years whom I love to death, she's a friend for life. She's very very obese, probably 60kg overweight and is going through a real kind of frump at the moment, she has a toddler and a 7 month old baby and her husband travels a lot for work, I think she's finding life tough and I'd hazard a guess she's put on significant weight. Because we're both also part of a close online group and I told everyone about my surgery, people keep wanting to see pics on me, I keep getting complements etc and I really think its rubbing salt into her wounds. She's witnessed how much my life has improved but i think she feels that it wouldnt work for her, she's too bad a case, she's too ashamed of her failings. I so wish I could help her, I dont want to be a source of sadness to her, but I dont know how to approach it.

No, not me. To me this is a lifestyle that I want to maintain for ever and that being so, I eat like an ordinary person. That means my calorie levels are probably all over the place low some days, high others, they vary with my monthly cycle. For periods I eat really well and then might have a few days that are shockers. I have no idea how much Protein I eat and I dont want to count it. I've lost weight, I still have a headful of hair, so I suppose I"m doing OK.

I dont think anyone knows yet! Its too new a procedure. We are taking a bit of a leap of faith when we undergo the op and its entirely possible than in 20 years nobody on this forum will still have their bands. Hopefully that's not the case though!

I'm trying to ring in a few more people from around my local area. The more the merrier.