Jachut

I just dont think it has to be like that! You are allowed to go out and occasionally eat something unhealthy or fattening, although you'd be hard pressed to find a restaurant that didnt offer some reasonable choices, particularly in Melbourne. Although six weeks out makes it hard because no doubt you havent gained total confidence in what you can and cant handle and that type of thing. Iv'e been out for dinner at least a dozen times since I was banded in December and never had any trouble. I went out last night in fact for girls' nigth (I can recommend Almazette in Nth Caulfield highly!!). I made a bad choice actually, the thing I thought I ordered was described as minced lamb, rice and pine nut combo and turned out to be deep friend balls of it, which didnt worry me so much except that it was very cakey and difficult to eat so I didnt eat much. I never did eat much when I went out though as a glass of wine, lots of talking and eating all together to me always meant excruciating wind pain within an hour or two, I must swallow lots of air. So I'm used to just sampling in restaurants and not hoeing in and stuffing myself. And I dont feel I must eat lots or eat everything or I'm "missing out". If that's how you were feeling, then its all about an attitude change, learn to appreciate sampling, tasting and seeing your friends, not stuffing a big meal down your gob. I also dont worry about not being able to eat it all. The price of the meal to me is about catching up with people, not getting my money's worth by eating everything on my plate. And finally, if you're thinking that you must always choose healthy, low fat etc then dont worry about it. An occasional meal out means nothing, you want to eat like a normal person not be on some horrible diet for the rest of your life. Eating out is one of the pleasures of our modern way of life and you should give yourself permission to enjoy it! You cant blow your diet totally, you cant eat that much anymore so enjoy what you can eat. Nobody has to work around you, you just order something you like the look of and eat what you can of it, leave the rest. That's all easily said by someone who doesnt have a problem with PB's and intolerances to food, and yep, being six weeks out does make it awkward but it does get a lot better.

Dont be - if it's not working as it should due to lack of restriction, dont beat yourself up over it. If it were so easy to diet and lose weight steadily over such a long period of time (I've never dieted for 5 months straight before) then you wouldnt have a band would you? 30lb is still 30lb and its a good weight loss however slowly or quickly you've lost it. When you finally get in to see your doctor you'll be right. I'd concentrate on trying not to gain and just to maintain what I'd lost. Which is pretty much what I"m doing now too.

Everytime I've had something stuck everyone around me says "take a drink, take a drink". But it just doesnt work. The only answer is to wait till you feel the clunk and grind as it finally goes through. My guess is that if you ate a bit of chicken off a toothpick you probably took too big a bite, 3 in a row spelled disaster.

I was banded December 9th and I've lost almost 20kg so about the same amount as you. I too have hit a flat spot. I think I once said I bet I get the first 20 off pretty easily and then struggle and that's true. I've done well so far with minimal restriction and 1.3ml in my band, but I'm feeling now I've lost the restriction and am ready to be topped up and go a little tighter. I think its natural for our bodies to need to plateau out a bit, I feel a lot like I've cemented this new lower weight in place and my body has gotten used to it, now it's time to move on. I am exercising regularly, doing a short 4km run four or five days a week and mucking around with weights and other toning exercises a couple of days a week and I'm also a lot more active just generally than I was. I eat what I always ate, which was never that bad. On a typical day I might have Cereal or toast for Breakfast, a salad, a sandwich or Soup for lunch, a normal meat and 3 veg family dinner. Occasionally there's takeaway or Pasta or a meal out, I went out last night to a lebanese restaurant, had rice, Beans and falafel. I have the occasional glass of wine, my daily latte (skinny milk of course) and pinch a few of the kids' chips occasionally. Obviously the quantity has reduced a lot and that's why I've lost weight. I dont really have vices like ice cream which I cant stand, or chocolate. My main vice was cake and muffins and out of all the foods I can eat with no problems, those two are really uncomfortable and difficult to eat so I really dont bother anymore. Its probably time to improve more what I'm eating, more lower fat foods and less carbs to get the rest of the weight off.

I'm the same - in the last 10 days or so my restriction has disappeared, thank goodness I"m back to the doc next week for a check up. But I'd had such a good record of losses everytime, this time I wont have lost at all. Because I wasnt super tight anyway, I didnt notice at first. Then I realised I hadnt had any discomfort or golfballs for ages, then I realised I was eating my bandster sized dinner and still looking for more although I rarely ate more and yesterday I ate a chicken and avocado sandwich for lunch - really really difficult food that I would have had to go slowly and carefully on and that would have had me feeling stuffed to the gills and not hungry till dinner time. It went down whilst I was typing on the computer - again a recipe for disaster, and THEN I ate a huge banana and even then I could have eaten more. So definitely no restriction. My weight's swinging all over the place and I havent seriously gained but it's ony a matter of time. Its scary because whilst I've often said that I believe I've lost a lot of my dependence on food and changed my habits for the better, that's totally true, I no longer look to junk. But I most definitely do not have a handle on the quantity side of it, this is a good lesson for me to learn. I've said once or twice I dont think I'd regain all my weight if I lost my band but the last week has forced me to think about that and I dont know that it's really true. I've been very cautious about fills, I'd rather control myself than have the band simply make it impossible to eat much of anything but I definitely need to be topped up and I think I'm ready in my head to be a bit tighter than I was, I feel I've achieved so much and felt so great at 93kg but I'm champing at the bit to get that other 20 off now. My mind honestly has never veered towards thinking anything's wrong. I"ve lost weight so the band got looser is all. I've done a heap of running over the past months and its well known that good hard aerobic exercise causes you to lose a lot of your deep visceral fat, that's one of its prime health benefits. So I've lost fat round my stomach (if not from just under the skin, lol) and my band is looser. That's a normal part of the process.

I find salad one of the easier foods to eat, not that I have major trouble with anything. But I dont need to be careful at all with it. Salad and fruit - if those didnt go down, I would consider myself too tight.

You sound like despite your troubles you are not letting anything cloud the triump you've enjoyed! You've done so so well. But its a good reminder that plastic surgery is not just any old thing to be taken lightly, a nip here and a tuck there. So warranted in terms of many people who''ve lost large amoungs of weight but major surgery all the same. I hope you recover well and quickly from hereon in, you must be champing at the bit to get out and enjoy life with your new body.

I've lost jack sh*t over the past month and I said I'd join the onderland challenge and have done nothing, but I was just fiddling round and my BMI is now 29!!! I'm not obese. Makes me determined to recommit and get right back on track. Its not that I've been so terribly bad but there's room for improvement. And back on that treadmill today too!

When you lose 9 lb in a week, you lose a lot of Water. No doubt after the following 2 weeks you've lost body fat but your water levels are returning to normal and they've kind of cancelled each other out. The scales are evil. They just dont tell a true picture. Like why I've maintained at 93kg for a month yet gone down another clothes size. Just keep at it, you're doing all the right things and it WILL work for you. Dont focus on what the scale says.

You could always pierce the capsules and squirt the contents into juice or water too. I've done that for the kids before. But its easier to just buy the oil and take it.

It is easier to maintain than lose, lol. Maintaining is exactly what I'm doing right now. I think I need another fill. I just realised I havent had a golfball in about 3 weeks, I can eat difficult things much more easily and am still hungry after the same amount of food that was filling me weeks ago. I'm really anti being tight but I think I've actually loosened off so a small fill is in order. I've been 93 for weeks and weeks and weeks. I go back to my doc in 10 days and I'm determined to have lost something so I'm really working hard for that time.

Actually that would be true of gel capsules, I never thought of it - they wouldnt get stuck becuase they do go soft and mushy pretty quickly once they're in contact with water.

Sigh, pregnancy is awfully hard on your body isnt it? I found I didnt gain so much during the actual pregnancies, in fact in my last I gained 4.5kg (10lb) and that was all. But it was during breastfeeding that I piled it on and I piled on more than could be explained due to the changes in eating habits. I fed each of my beautiful three children for 2 years or so, so lots of time to pile on weight, half a kilo or so a month didnt seem noticeable but it sure adds up over the years. Yet I have to be honest and say life at home with kids brought some terrible changes to my eating habits. Like you I'd never had a serious weight problem before, unlike you I was "heavy" and usually had a BMI of 27 or so so I was overweight, just not hugely so. I found the disorganisation, comfort and boredom eating that crept into my lifestyle the killer. It didnt happen after my first baby but after the second I stopped exercising too - it was just impossible when the first was too old to tolerate long hours of walking. So I got fat over the years. The bigget thing I've discovered since being banded is that I've been able to reign in the bad habits very easily. I really feel for people who have such longstanding and serious eating issues and I feel blessed that I really dont. None of the lifestyle factors have changed of course, my life is still utter chaos trying to fit in study and 3 kids but the band has enabled me to quit my dependence on those comfort foods and even when I'm disorganised and havent shopped and dont have healthy foods to hand, I dont say to myself "blow it, I may as well enjoy this" and pig out totally. There's loads of room for improvement but that's true of any mother of young children I suspect. If I eat junk food for lunch I might take half an hour to get through a burger and I'm STUFFED and dont need to eat again taht afternoon, beforehand I would have had the burger, fries and a sundae to boot. I still do bad things for my healht, like I live on coffee, now often at the expense of food. But since I've broken that cycle and since I've had a taste of being fit and healthy again, its easier and easier every week to make good food choices, and I"ve always been aware of what I feed my kids (I can be scathing of fat parents with fat kids, dont you often hate what you most fear becoming?), now I'm even more so. In fact its been terrific for my whole family since they are pretty much at the mercy of what I feed them. People here have had problems and yes, there's risks but overall its been a fabulous experience for me and so worthwhile.

I've shrunk an inch over the past few years. I know because I nearly punched the Weight Watchers lady in the face as 176cm meant I'd have to lose more weight! I'm pretty sure I"m actually 179 though, I measured that in my surgeon's office.

I feel a bit that way too. I was ready to eat my surgeon if he so much as said to me, dont expect to lose more than 2/3 of your excess weight. Based on what I'd read here I expected it and I felt that I had every right to expect to get to my goal and to expect his support to get there as long as it was reasonable. He never did, so I was prepared for a fight I never got, but it still might be coming. I want to be in the vicinity of 70kg and I dont want to settle for 80kg, 84kg, whatever. That's a healthier weight than 114 but its not a healthy weight for me. I remember being 70kg and I bloody well liked it and its where I'm headed again. I'd take it far less well from another patient, I'd suspect them bitter and twisted because they'd not managed to achieve their true goals.

They are good arent they? Although I prefer tuna in a can, it jsut seems to be "wetter" and not as ouch inducing to me, I find fish can stick a bit and give me a bit of trouble if I'm not careful with it, particularly tuna. I love flavoured tunas though. What on earth did we do before they came in. Remember the only tuna in small cans was sandwich tuna in oil?

I went to the hospital on Saturday because I was in horrible pain with my eye and I knew it had ulcerated and wasnt just the ordinary corneal erosions I get. In the course of routine I had my pulse and blood pressure checked - my pulse was 58 beats per minute and my blood pressure was 110/70. Wowee - I've never had a blood pressure problem but it was 130/80 when I started this journey and my pulse 72. So losing half my weight and all this running I've been doing is doing fantastic things! You notice it in how you feel of course, but detail freak that I am I love to see it in numbers.

I found it helpful to consider that I started the journey the first day I made contact with the surgeon. I felt the urge like everyone does to pig out like there was no tomorrow until I had my surgery but I got myself in the mindset that I'd already started and consequently I ate well and I recomitted to exercise a couple of months beforehand. I didnt try to lose weight, I figured there was no need to do that really but I didnt have that last supper mentality. I felt rested, well and not too stressed when my surgery day arrived, and the weight dropped pretty quickly. What amazed me as that 3 months later I went out for a walk and decided to try jogging and jogged 4kms without stopping! I feel it really helped me to start working out seriously before I went into surgery. Other than that I was terrified on the morning, I've had other ops before but for some reason I kept thinking "I may not see my children again". I think its easy to want to punish yourself for needing this surgery, I mean other ops I'd had were no more necessary than this one was, I could have lived with the minor problems that I'd suffered. I'm getting my eye operated on in a few weeks time and have not once stopped to think "should I be doing this?". So spend some time thinking it through and go easy on yourself in terms of self judgement. This really is an operation to fix the most dangerous health condition you're likely to suffer and if you were having a hip replacement or a quadruple bypass you'd be scared but you wouldnt be questioning if it were necessary and nor would anyone else. Youre doing the right thing and it works to one degree or another for almost everyone!

We take a tablespoon of flaxseed oil each in this household - not capsules. It really does help with dry skin, flaky nails and my son's exzema and asthma. I find "real food" Omega 3's and 6's have more effect in terms of my skin and hair than taking capsules, though I'm not sure why. I notice if I go for a long time including lots of nuts, salmon, other fish, the flaxseed oil etc I"ll suddenly notice I'm literally glowing. Whereas capsules seem to produce no noticeable effect. Too bad all the good foods high in Omega fats are horribly expensive, lol. I really dont believe a true low fat diet is that great for you, you jsut have to eat the right fats and it comes down to quantity - you cant eat a lot to keep the calories low enough to lose, but there's little point for your health in eating a ton of fat free stuff.

I'm sure it will!

I couldnt have said it better myself. I want to do the work for this. Whilst I dont in any way look at someone who's filled tight or who's had a bypass as taking the easy option, I prefer for myself to remain fairly loosely filled and to have to actively work on my appetite and food choices. I'm not actually doing that great at the moment, although I havent gained at all. I"m pretty sure I could gain at this level of restriction. But I really feel that I need to get control of these things not just rely on my band. A lot of people may think well, why have the band then, but to be honest I've hit two Patches so far where I would have just chucked it in and regained all my weight plus some. If I stick at 93kg for a year I dont really care. Well maybe that's an exaggeration, lol, but I dont see the answer to it as being another fill, I see it as working harder.

Not sure, I havent done anything since my last run on Wednesday night which felt like shite so I decided to take Thursday off. During the early hours of Friday I woke up and tore my cornea, which developed into an ulcer (its due to a hereditary eye condition I have) so I couldnt open either eye till about midday on Friday and was in lots of pain Fri/Sat. Its loads better today but I get this blurred vision like wearing someone else's glasses for a few days afterwards which makes me nauseous - that kind of motion sickness nausea. So I think I'll probably do nothing today. But back on the bike tomorrow!

That's not a dumb thought at all - I was desperate when I hit this weight on the way up. It was the fattest I have ever been. But now it's far from the fattest I've ever been and I feel sooooooo much better in every way than I did just prior to being banded. It does help to remember that I'm still fat though, lol, I have a tendency now to wear smaller clothes and I'm sure I dont look as good as I think I do.

I dont take any medications regularly and have no problems with whole pills anyhow. I expected the barium swallow stuff to taste awful but it's only the once, so definitely Protein powders/shakes for me. I will never willingly consume a Protein shake. They taste like slurping down a warm fish milkshake. Yuck yuck yuck. I'm not a good Vitamin taker either though. I just hate the sensation of swallowing big pills.

Yeah, whatever it takes. I've had a huge corneal ulcer this weekend, similar kind of pain to a migraine and I really couldnt give stuff what's gone in my mouth. For me, I get nauseous so dont want to eat, but this isnt an everyday occurrence for you. Put it behind you, dont worry about it. Its hard enough dealing with pain like that. HOpe you feel loads better very soon.