Jachut

Today I had a bowl of Cereal for Breakfast and went out for lunch at a friends house for the kids to have a play. I had a big dollop of pumpkin Soup, a tiny piece off an Italian bread pull apart thing (like the size of a cracker), and a small piece of quiche, oh, a few almonds and a piece of dried mango from the cheese platter I took. And a cup of coffee. So not too bad, I feel stuffed. Tonight for dinner is a chilli con carne I made from the leftover roast lamb, I've always made it with beef mince so its an experiment. Probably have rice and Beans with that, I doubt I'll eat much though.

I really LOVE spinning but my gym stopped doing the classes and started some lame rebounding class instead. I've got a treadmill now so I dont go to the gym, but I'm still thinking about buying a spinning bike and some Spinervals DVD's as well. If spinning doesnt work, I dont think anything will, lol. It burns massive calories.

At present I have a short term goal of getting below 90kg. That will be HUGE for me. I've already lost way more than I ever dieted off in the past but I've weighed in the 90's a million times in the last few years. When I see 89 I'm going to jump for joy. My longer term goal is still 75kg although I know I'll want to go lower when I get there, we'll just see how much effort that is going to take. If its not realistic I can let it go. At present though I'm very focussed on improving my running performance - increasing both speed and distance.

I was the same. I backed out of two initial consultations with one surgeon and didnt show for another. I kept changing my mind. But in the end I forced myself to at least go and see the surgeon and he was so not what I'd imagined and I also thought I wouldnt be approved, because I'd gleaned most of my info from here - but it isnt the same in Australia. He was open and honest with me, told me that he was happy to band people from BMI 30 because he strongly believed in the preventative benefits of the band, he was open about the risks etc. He made me feel I was the perfect candidate and said to me better to do it now than when you're 50 and have wasted another 12 years of your life just getting fatter. Once I made up my mind (pretty much instantly) it couldnt come fast enough. I have a couple of friends who could really benefit, hugely obese girls that weigh twice what I did at least, and I really really have to hold my tongue. I so want to encourage them to think about it, but I dont want them to think I'm judging, calling them fat, etc.

Oh, I wore bathers when I had the spray tan done! Sheesh. Can you imagine?

I didnt even consider Bypass, its not done in Australia anyway. I was nowhere near obese or miserable enough to consider such drastic action, I simply needed help to get back on the rails, and to be honest, for the extent of the problem I had, lap banding was pretty drastic. I just got goggle eyes all along the line from all the hospital staff, family and friends, but my surgeon knew where I was coming from (an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure). I knew I was on a bad track and needed help to turn it around. Had I been fatter, more miserable, more unwell I still wouldnt have chosen the bypass if it were available. Today I've been out for lunch with my girlfriends, had so much fun I was late picking up my boys from school. I had a ball. I eat like a normal person, I enjoy food and eating socially like a normal person, yet today is no longer one of those days that I think "oh, well might as well enjoy today and start again tomorrow". Might not eat dinner tonight as I'm pretty full. What I would have done is had fish and chips or pizza for dinner, crammed it in in the anticipation of a diet tomorrow. I eat normally and well and can eat everything, just enough less consistently enough to lose weight. That's all I wanted to achieve from this, to have done anything else would have been way overkill. As I checked out my flat brown tummy this morning after yesterday's Magic Tan I am also thankfull that I've lost 20kg in 5 months not 2 months. Nice and smooth, no loose skin. I look healthy and feel healthy too.

Its truly amazing how much you can change in size and shape without changing weight. I dropped an entire size virtually overnight with a net loss of a measly 2lb. I was atounded. The first size I dropped, it took me 14kg to do it - that's over 30lb.

Ah, yeah. I only really crease when I sit down, lol. Under my boobs got brown though, no idea how. Kellie I got it done at the local Sunlounge. If you google Magic Tan and click Australian search you'll find locations. There's a fair few around. I've had an ordinary spray tan at Body Bronze before and that was pretty darn good too.

Actually I agree with that. I dont think any degree of regular PBing is OK and I really really dont think it's OK to not be able to eat any form of meat or breads for long periods of time either - Ok if you cant eat steak for example, but you have to be able to get some form of red meat in unless you're a vegetarian and know what you're doing with substituting the nutrients. Not only does that tend to make me think "too tight" it also means its very difficult to get in a balanced diet. But - if you had to have your band loose enough to allow for this, then for a lot of people, the band simply wouldnt work. So its a personal thing.

Your life and mine sound very similar. I'm lucky not to suffer from depression or any other problems like that, and I think whether or not you do is just in your personal body chemistry, and not anything to do with anything you've done wrong. I have 3 kids and I'm a uni student too. I've been out of the workforce for 10 years, fell unexpectedly pregnant with my third almost 4 years ago and decided to go back to uni to retrain as I never wanted to go and do boring dead end clerical work in an office again. The way the tax system and childcare system work in Australia, I cant afford to work because my husband earns too much money, and it would actually cost me more in childcare than I could earn, plus I personally wanted to be home for my children's first five years. So I study part time and pay for casual childcare. But I'll let you in on a secret, I loathe being a stay at home mother. I find it thankless, boring, and repetitive. I'm sick to the back teeth of cleaning up a house that just gets messed up again, I have no interest in being domestic and motherly, I want to get out there and lead a life. That doesnt mean I dont love and enjoy my kids but stick around the house worrying about sleep routines and cleaning the floors? Pah. So I too want to be a mum and believe in the value of staying home with your kids but cant pull it together in that contented, sweet picture of home and hearth that other people seem to manage. So what? Its a different world out there today and we need different mothers as a result. You're teaching your kids so many more things about what they can achieve by being a student yourself. If that's the way you want to "do" motherhood, then that's absolutely fantastic, there's no rules. Happy mothers equal happy children, however you achieve that. Working mothers, studying mothers, stay at home mothers, they all do it differently but equally as well. Give yourself some credit and just make your life what you want it, you dont have to fit a mould and its not shameful to try something you thought you always wanted and not enjoy it that much afterall. I cant comment on medication but I do know that what led me into banding was finally feeling that I'd lost complete control of every aspect of my life and I was indeed in danger of becoming depressed, if dropping the kids off at school and then sitting in the car bawling was any indication. YOu have to look after you too, you're the most important person in the whole equation.

Poor you. If its any consolation, I had over a year of pain with my ankle, to the point where I really couldnt walk enough to get through my daily activities for a while there (and I was only 35-40kg overweight!). I'd be down on the bottom level of the shopping centre and need to get up to the top for the bank and just couldnt face it, I'd go home instead. I had trouble getting from my car to the lecture theatre for uni, because I had to go up and down steps to get under a main road. It was awful. Nobody really knew what was wrong with it. 20kg off and its gone, almost entirely. I have some swelling there, but no pain at all, heck I'm running five times a week. So hang in there for that surgery, getting some weight off fixes all sorts of ailments you never even knew you had and makes others way less intense. I did also get a fair bit of sciatica and havent it for ages. You will get there, and you'll feel so much better for it.

Ooh, I'd feel PMing someone with something aggressive to say would be way out of line. If I felt that strongly that I just had to get my message through to a specific person, its time to walk away I think. Well said Wheetsin, by the way. That's very true. I never even thought about who owned this board, I just found it and joined up.

Ooh, I'd feel PMing someone with something aggressive to say would be way out of line. If I felt that strongly that I just had to get my message through to a specific person, its time to walk away I think. Well said Wheetsin, by the way. That's very true. I never even thought about who owned this board, I just found it and joined up.

http://www.realestate.com.au/cgi-bin/rsearch?a=o&s=vic&cc=&c=40890774&tm=1148504706&id=102539387&f=0&p=10&t=res&ty=&snf=rbs&ag=&cu=fn-rea&fmt=&header= Waaaah. Story of my life. We made the huge mistake of building in a new suburb in outer Melbourne and because our house hasnt risen in value like the inner suburbs, we simply cannot afford to get out of here despite a family income of almost $200,000 a year. It sucks. This is the type of house we would need to buy in the area I grew up in, closer to work for Doug and good schools for the kids. I had a look at it llast weekend and its only just adequate size wise, its pretty but in practicality only better than the home we live in now (worth about $300,000) simply because of the extra bedroom. Sigh. When I go back to work perhaps. Oh, that's Australian dollars too, so x 1.2 :think

I'm not sure there's any consensus on that. My instincts tell me tight fills are deadly. I think sneaking up on restriction slowly by tiny increments and not aiming for a sweet spot but a spot at which you have enough help to exercise self control and willpower to eat well without relying on tight restriction to do it. And a huge dose of exercise to kick your weight loss along rather than a super low calorie diet. I'm no expert though, that's just my feelings, not backed up by anything scientific.

There really are no long long term statistics anywhere. The band has been done longest in Australia and even that's only a decade or so. We dont even know for sure that any of us will have these things in our bodies in 20 years time.

That's a stack of weight. So very well done. And I really do mean that.

Get unfilled! You have a problem there, and you're probably really irritated by the PBing too. Not eating for 7 days is not a healthy way to lose weight. There's just no need to do that to yourself.

To my way of thinking, locking threads after they've turned nasty is pointless, if we're going to be moderated like that then get rid of inflammatory posts before they've even begun. But who wants to be moderated like that? I certainly dont so I agree wholeheartedly (although I dont live in America). So if someone is allowed to post something meant to inflame things then everyone else should be allowed to reply.

To my way of thinking, locking threads after they've turned nasty is pointless, if we're going to be moderated like that then get rid of inflammatory posts before they've even begun. But who wants to be moderated like that? I certainly dont so I agree wholeheartedly (although I dont live in America). So if someone is allowed to post something meant to inflame things then everyone else should be allowed to reply.

Good for you. And remember, the louder and prouder you are, the more likely you might just be the person that makes a difference for someone else. I kind of knew about this surgery years ago but it wasnt until an acquaintance of mine had it done and was open about it that I realised that "real" people did do this and that it was a possibility for me. It really led me to where I am today.

I take a deep breath and mentally remind myself before I start to eat, otherwise I'm prone to getting discomfort. I'm afraid enough of the pain that I dont eat fast anymore - it really does become habit in a very short while if you just remind yourself to concentrate on it.

Yeah, Good Luck Greatdame. This thread is about how you interpret statistics and meant to highlight that there are no real hard facts that apply to everyone. It hedges round a sensitive topic at the moment but wasnt intended to prolong an argument.

I'd just like to distinguish something, without dissing anyone's right to quote facts, numbers, statistics and whilst agreeing that yes, people considering the band need to consider these things. But hard facts are not the same thing as statistics, which are afterall skewed by extremes. I dont believe there are any hard facts about the band at all, there are only statistical averages to consider. Ok, so its likely that a lot of people will lose between 50 and 70% of their excess weight with the band. Its likely that some people will not lose at all and its likely that some people will have other problems - its also likely that many people will lose all the weight they desire with no problems whatsoever. Statistics! Not hard facts.

If it has a fly longer than a few inches I wont wear it, so I havent had this problem. I'd be betting that the discomfort dies down over time though.