Jachut

That's exactly right.

Yep - McDonalds doesnt supersize in Australia and we dont have half the products that appeared on Supersize me either. There's quite a lot of salads and the like available, fresh fruit, fruit smoothies etc. Oh and those litre buckets of softdrink , good lord, that's just amazing. We dont have anything like that here!

Im big boned. Thats my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

Sigh Vines. I think about you nearly every day and hope it all works out.

God I'm so over this. Its stupid. This is addressed to everybody and nobody in particular. I can accept that notes of warning, mentions of what can go wrong, etc are helpful to newbies, everybody needs the correct information. But you ladies need to realise you are in the unfortunate minority for whom the band has not been as successful as you'd hoped. Things go wrong and unfortunately it was you who had to suffer that. Everybody does need to know that things go wrong for sure. But they dont for the VAST majority of people, the band is a useful and successful tool if not a miracle worker. What you have to say on the topic is valid, but it goes past being helpful and does indeed come across as pissing on peoples parade. People who are positive and upbeat and hopeful for their bands are NOT living in denial. We are not that stupid and we do not need you ramming down our throats every second of the day how terrible the band is. It is your problem and you need to deal with it. You have sympathy and respect for what you've been through but you have nothing to do with my everyday life and I do not wish to constantly hear what a downer your band was on a board that is supposed to be informative and supportive. You may not mean to but you come across as bitter, twisted and nasty. I'm fast coming to the conclusion your pessimistic, depressing outlook on life is more of a reason for your lack of success than anything else, physical complications notwithstanding. I cannot in any way see that you have a balanced or healthy outlook on your lives. If you have nothing nice or positive to say then dont say it. There was no reason for this thread to have been started at all. I have the utmost respect for experienced bandsters, whether they have their bands still or not. They've been there, done that and have experiences to share. I have no respect whatsoever for whiners, whingers and nasty people who just want to make sure everyone knows how miserable they are.

God I'm so over this. Its stupid. This is addressed to everybody and nobody in particular. I can accept that notes of warning, mentions of what can go wrong, etc are helpful to newbies, everybody needs the correct information. But you ladies need to realise you are in the unfortunate minority for whom the band has not been as successful as you'd hoped. Things go wrong and unfortunately it was you who had to suffer that. Everybody does need to know that things go wrong for sure. But they dont for the VAST majority of people, the band is a useful and successful tool if not a miracle worker. What you have to say on the topic is valid, but it goes past being helpful and does indeed come across as pissing on peoples parade. People who are positive and upbeat and hopeful for their bands are NOT living in denial. We are not that stupid and we do not need you ramming down our throats every second of the day how terrible the band is. It is your problem and you need to deal with it. You have sympathy and respect for what you've been through but you have nothing to do with my everyday life and I do not wish to constantly hear what a downer your band was on a board that is supposed to be informative and supportive. You may not mean to but you come across as bitter, twisted and nasty. I'm fast coming to the conclusion your pessimistic, depressing outlook on life is more of a reason for your lack of success than anything else, physical complications notwithstanding. I cannot in any way see that you have a balanced or healthy outlook on your lives. If you have nothing nice or positive to say then dont say it. There was no reason for this thread to have been started at all. I have the utmost respect for experienced bandsters, whether they have their bands still or not. They've been there, done that and have experiences to share. I have no respect whatsoever for whiners, whingers and nasty people who just want to make sure everyone knows how miserable they are.

YOu look so happy and so beautiful. You also dont look overweight anymore so you're right, you probably will lose slowly from hereon in. I'm in the same boat now, I'd like to lose another 20kg but I'm really only 14kg above my longest held non overweight adult weight, and its coming off really s-l-o-w-l-y now. Like 1kg (2lb) a month. But I figure over a year or two that's another 12 to 24kg so I'm just concentrating on the NSV's and the joys of not being a fatty boombah any longer. You're glowing literally, you must be feeling wonderful.

Oh, there's better stuff out there for you. I myself have felt such loathing for my fat clothes that I can barely stand to touch them to throw them in the back of the car and head for the charity bin. Years of being forced into stuff I didnt want to wear, that I convinced myself was nice enough, god I've loved getting rid of the bloody lot of it. I found a Tshirt the other day in the back of the wardrobe though which I tried on and I cant believe how huge it was on me. I honestly cant see that I've lost that much weight. Massive. But if you're attached to it, why not keep it for sentimental reasons? Remind you where you've been and how far you've come?

As you lose weight though, its unavoidable that you will lose muscle tissue. YOu want to minimise it of course but it will happen. At goal weight your FFM will no longer be 140, it will be less. Unfortunately, there is no way to make the body lose just fat when losing weight. No matter how perfectly you do it you will lose other body tissue as well.

Good luck!

Oh, I'd just tell em and be done with it, you'll have the negative remarks and have to justify your actions and then it'll be over. I really dont get hiding something like this from friends and family - you cant keep obesity a secret. They can see you're fat right? So everybody knows that even though you may not eat much right in front of them, you sure as heck are doing it somewhere, at some time. That's a really hard thing to face up to, we think we keep our dirty little secrets hidden but obesity is a very public disease, everybody knows anyway. You've done absolutely nothing to be ashamed of, in trying to justify it to my family I told them that nobody questioned my husband when he had an operation to fix the compartment syndrome he was suffering from, nobody is questioning that I need surgery on my eyes, nobody gave me sh&t for having a caesarean in my last pregnancy, this is NO different to having an operation to fix any other ailment in your body. Its a disease that can be managed by surgery for most people. You have a lifetime of this to get through and there will be times when you simply cannot eat another bite or its going to come up, if you get something stuck on your third forkful for instance. I wouldnt have the energy to hide something like this forever.

I got the gas pains in the hip/side. Not in my shoulder like everyone else. Right above my pelvis, in the side like a stitch and slighly higher up under the arm too.

I agree with Susan. Unless you consciously set out to change food choices as a bandster, you'll end up eating less of what you ate before and therefore you're not really teaching yourself much. You need to actively work to choose better foods. All the principles that you would normally apply to dieting without a band you should apply to eating with the band - crackpot silly diets excepted. It really probably will be alright when you get refilled but you've got to redo all that hard work and I'd be pretty pissed by that too. If you dont want sunshine and sweetness fine, then you need somebody to phrase it another way - ie. snap out of it, you still have your band, you can get refilled and you have nothing stopping you from working towards your goal again, so stop the moping and get to it. Sunshine and sweetness is only a nicer way of saying that. You're no less human than anybody else, you havent done anything a million bandsters wouldnt also do if they were in your situation and the solution is exactly the same, hop to it and get back on that bandwagon.

I havent posted on this thread for so long Hmm, lets see Breakfast: Organic meusli with a banana and some yogurt Lunch: a meat pie and sauce. Naughty, but mmmmm it was good. Fresh from the bakery. Aussie cuisine at its finest :eek: Afternoon: An apple Dinner : havent eaten yet but we're having roast lamb, its almost cooked. It'll be a tiny bit for me, not sure how I'll handle it since my fill but the gravy ought to help it go down. Oh and roast pumpkin and broccoli and cauliflower.

Yeah, pasty faced, stringy hair, wow nature dealt you some downers hey? Just kidding, holy moly you're gorgeous!

If she has damaged the port/tubing it is fixable, much more easily so than your band. Its another operation and I'd be stinking mad about it, but it is fixable and I'd be demanding it be at their expense.

Thanks! Probably a bargain compared to what I'd pay here in the shops.

I might try something like that then (Walmart is a bit far to drive from Australia, hehehe, but there's plenty online) because the underwires in my bra tend to nick me in the underside of my upper arms with every arm movement and I get too really sort spots.

Do they give much support? I have DD's :-( I've never tried anything like that, always stuck with a traditional underwire sports bra.

I also think the most efficient way to run a weight loss clinic is not necessarily the way that's best for the patients. I get a strong sense that there's a lot of doctors out there in this becuase it's the "next best thing" and I would neither trust their judgement nor take their advice if it was not in accordance with what I felt was best for me. Despite my doctor being the one who has the knowledge, I think I'm the one in the drivers seat and I will do what I think is best when I want to do it. That said, my doc takes the slow and steady approach to fills and is very encouraging about good lifestyle changes, good nutrition and is not about fast weight loss or getting to a certain weight or size. Which suits me fine. I dont think its the least bit cowardly to avoid being too tight or even to avoid being "tight" at all, I like to use my band as a bit of an appetite suppressant, not a full on STOP sign. Aftercare is free forever for me too courtesy of the once only $3,000 out of pocket fee I paid, which was my only expense for the surgery, my insurance paid the rest. That is to encourage people to be back for monthly checkups whether they need fills or not.

We're going to move soon as we need more bedrooms to accommodate our offspring, and we're going to have room for a complete home gym if its the last thing I do. Unfortunately Australian houses dont have basements and attics. Very useful things, we get concrete slabs and brick veneer here.

Well I think Australia is fast catching up but on the whole we do eat a fresher, healthier diet. There's an abundance of fast food and convenience food but the culture is still fresh and homecooked. I think that would have a huge outcome on long term outcomes with the band, as well all know its still quite easy to eat a high calorie diet whilst only consuming a small quantity of food. I'm not trying to be argumentative, you're right, so thanks for acknowledging that. I think I'm really trying to say that statistics are a huge conglomeration of "facts" gathered from a lot of places and for each and every individual, not all of the lifestyle, psychological or other factors that influence those facts come into play. Therefore no one statistic constitutes a hard fact for any particular person, simply a likely outcome based upon others experiences.

Oh those NSV's are even more important than the scale victories I think. Really, who cares what you weigh, its all about how you feel.

Good for him. Recently here, someone dropped $10,000 in an envelope on the street and a guy (relatively young, early 20's, so not an age where you'd think honesty was a top priority) handed it in. I'm not sure I could have been so honest, when I think what my family could do with $10,000 but then again, you couldnt enjoy stolen money could you? His parents have done something right, that's for sure.

I wasnt told anything at all in regard to calories, Protein, Water etc. My approach is just healthy eating in moderation, I'd eat closer to 1500 calories a day, its crept up a bit since my restriction waned and I started losing only v-e-r-y slowly but I've had a fill and its moving again at a good 1lb per week pace. It really worries me that people are told to eat so little. There's definitely going to be nutritional deficiencies - both on the levels of protein (at the expense of other foods) bandsters are told to eat and certainly on a daily diet of less than 1000 calories. You cannot maintain that long term.