Jachut

Well I havent had mine yet, but they'd only do open surgery if there was some sort of real problem, it's not common. My BMI is about 35-36 so I guess there's less need for me to do the pre op liquid diet than if my BMI were 50. You dont necessarily have to be that overweight though to have a fatty or enlarged liver, it depends on a lot of your other habits too.

I only have to fast from midnight on the day before, I dont think the point is to have a completely empty digestive tract, the liquid diet is to shrink your liver. It's no big deal.

I know I'm going to struggle with this. I tend to think I'm invincible and I know I tend to get over things like surgery very quickly. I will not be the least bit surprised if I sit there in two weeks time thinking about eating toast. Its going to be especially hard over Christmas.

Its been one of those situations where I actually do well. If I've got something coming up where I know its likely I'll gain, for some reason I'm really good at taking myself in hand and being strict and avoiding the gain. So I havent eaten everything not nailed down but I am indeed slowly enjoying my favourite things before my surgery on Friday. But I'm useless at real deprivation and actually losing weight. I'm a good maintainer when I choose to be. Most of my excess weight I gained during breastfeeding, which I've done for six years all up. I just bloat up like porky pig and gain the whole time I'm doing it. The gaining always slowed with each feed I dropped and stopped completely when I weaned my babies. It's bizarre, I thought breastfeeding was supposed to make you thin. Try to think in terms of what you are about to put your body through. It's very stressful on the body gaining and losing weight. You're about to have surgery. Try to treat yourself a little more kindly and go in in the best condition you can. I'm obsessed with supplements at the moment, Vitamins, Iron, flax seed. but I must say I feel fantastic.

G'day! Im from Oz and I'm a Jacqueline too!

I think a lot of people have to do Optifast or a similar Meal Replacement diet rather than eating food. I thought I'd give it a go since I dont officially have to do it due to a lowish BMI and no real need for liver shrinking. I nearly ate my own hands in the first 3 days but I got through it then I started fainting left right and centre. My surgeon told me to quit it since it wasnt necessary so I just backed off to 2 meals a day and the shakes I had I added some fruit and yogurt to. So I got out of it easy.

Hi Lou, havent heard from you in a long while. You can still treat yourself with food and yes, show yourself love with food. Not rabbit food, good food, in fact great food. I cant wait! To be able to make the effort, cook something that looks wonderful, artfully arranged on a big white plate, you know those tiny portions in the middle of the plate, I always felt ashamed that I'd prefer the thing to be absolutely brimming with pasta, not some arty looking salad. But I'm honestly looking forward to that - eating like a sophisticated person, not a greedy pig. I've bought some gorgeous cookbooks, and I am determined that eating with the band for me is going to be a sensual experience. I never bothered much before because it always ruined the experience for me, I do love my food to look great, and I love a nice frosty glass of white wine with it too, but it somehow got spoiled when I first ate my tiny portion of carefully prepared food and then gutsed down three more helpings (and another two glasses of wine) until it approximated a normal person's meal. Now I'm going to be able to do it - I guess it is that satiety versus saturation thing. Fresh colourful veges and things like that look divine when you make an effort. But that doesnt mean I'll never eat cheesecake again, far from it. That honestly to me feels like treating myself and looking after myself way more than huge helpings of cheesecake or ice cream does. And I'm hoping the band will make me less rigid, not uptight and calorie counting. I never want to do that, ever again. I cannot wait until I can rely on my body's signals to stop eating. What a novel concept! I've never wanted to achieve what dieting can achieve, being smaller but holding on to it by being obsessed.

Your story is a very touching, but also a wonderful reminder to make the most of the band and work hard with it while it is there. I guess its become obvious to me that you cannot assume you will have it for life and that something could go wrong to any one of us.

I couldnt vote no this is ridiculous because I dont think it is. It is such a hopeless, endless disease. I can well understand how people get to that point. You get cancer or something equally tragic and you have people's thoughts, prayers and sympathy, you get morbidly obese and you get people's disgust and disdain. I've never been so fat as to stand out from a crowd or even to limit me in any way, apart from I'm starting to feel the physical drag of it. I've never been really self conscious or shy and I've always felt relatively attractive. I'm blessed to have grown up in a functional, happy, supportive family and moved into a marriage and my own family that's the same. I've never had a really tragic event in my life. So I'm stable, and happy and very lucky to be so.

I think you either have it or you dont. It depends a lot on your skin and not on how heavy you are, and also what your weight did during pregnancy. If it shot up very fast and in large amounts, you do experience some serious stretching. I take a wait and see atittude, plenty of abdo strengthening and just see what happens. You may be left with a bit of skin, but it might be only a small amount. They played the last episode of the Biggest Loser here on Friday night and that fellow whatever his name was (not the guy who won), he'd lost an AMAZING amount of weight and he had a six pack with just a little bit of loose skin there on his belly. I could live with that. A big apron of skin I couldnt live with. I pray I'm having this surgery before I got to that stage, I've had 3 babies, one was a caesar and I didnt gain much weight during pregnancy and my belly is unmarked, no stretch marks and no apron, just a lot of fat, so I'm really really hoping that it shrinks back. I guess at 38 I'm not young and I'm not old. But if it doesnt go back I'll weigh it up and I lean towards living with it. I"m not going to be getting round in a string bikini or anything anyway, so if it doesnt blow in the breeze and cause problems it'll be staying. I'd rather a bit of loose skin than a huge scar from hip to hip.

I'm planning to continue the Optifast through the first few weeks, as it's nutritionally pretty complete. That's what the info I was given said to do and to supplement with some fruit juice, some vegetable juice like V8 and some drinking yogurt. Otherwise I'd be worried about getting what I need.

Ive got a BMI of 35 but I'm in Australia. Statistically, anything over about 20kg to lose and it's not likely you're going to do it. Here, they're very sensible in their approach to the band and are also willing to consider people of 30-35 BMI because they realise it's only a matter of time before the weight problem is bigger. Its also a case here of if the surgeon recommends it then Medicare and generally Private Health insurance will cover it, there's none of the quibbling and exclusions and all that stuff. They would also practically never recommend a bypass instead, it's hardly done here at all. I'm getting done on Friday, I need this operation. I dont believe you get to a BMI of 35 without the same types of food and eating issues that are going to eventually take you to 40, 45 or more. The only difference is for me, there's a big preventative factor involved, I want to take action before I start to experience comorbidities.

Oh dear, boobs getting longer than the day? You paint such an encouraging picture, lol. My guess would be that it would be exactly like being pregnant, when your skin on your boobs and belly itches like a fiend from the stretching, it's probably doing the same thing on the way down. Do you guys have Pinetarsal over there? Its a pine tar bath prep that really helps with itching, but no doubt if you dont there'll be a million other things that are similar. And lots of moisturising.

BTW, have you ever wondered if the "conservative fill" is really just a scam to bill as much as possible. My insurance paid my surgery so he's making a killing from my fills especially since I have to go so often. Ah, somebody as cynical as I am, lol. I think probably. In Australia our system is different and if we go to the doctor, we get 85% of the scheduled fee back from Medicare. Of course most doctors charge above the scheduled fee. But I was really peeved at my surgeon, i went for the initial consult, he made me go away, go to an information evening and then come back for another consultation just to tell him yes or no. I felt if I hadnt decided yes, I wouldnt be there in the first place. My time and my money (even though I get it back) to tell him something I could have told him on the phone. It was completely unecessary. I find this all the time and it really pees me off.

Congratulations. I guess you just have to remember that when you're pregnant, its nourishment your body and your baby needs, not calories. I started my 3rd pregnancy at 104 kg and having had pre-eclampsia the previous two pregnancies, although only very mild, I was mighty concerned because I was 20kg heavier. My ob did not want me to gain any weight, he said if I cut out the crap, but ate WELL, I could lose as much fat as I liked, it wasnt going to affect my baby. And it didnt. I pretty much followed weight watchers, and was aided by the fact that she was a very oddly positioned breech, and I basically could not eat after lunch time for the entire last 3 months, had foul heartburn and reflux and just droped tons of weight, I ended up about 12kg under my pre-pregnancy weight. Of course, you've had the same experience so you know its perfectly possible to grow healthy babies without turning into a beached whale at the same time. Sensible eating will do that for you, and I guess now's when you need to resist the temptation to cram in everything you havent been able to eat for the past while.

Ah so metamucil do capsules now? I cant drink the stuff either, bleurgh. I'm worried about this, I'm a fruit and veg nutter and I currently eat enormous salads for lunch quite often. I know I just wont be able to. I also eat 2 or 3 pieces of fruit a day and wholegrain bread, often have meusli for Breakfast too. So I'm very regular, lol. The more I think about it the more I think some sort of Protein shake/smoothie seems to the perfect bandster breakfast and has become a bit of a habit for me. What a great chance to get in dairy, fruit, protein, my dessertspoon of flax oil and a spoonful or two of unprocessed bran. So much of what you need in a day in one package, its a bonus! And again, you just cant waste your stomach capacity on crap. Most people need 20 to 30g of fibre a day, most unbanded people dont manage that! I'd say supplementing fibre is a good idea.

There's so much info out there on how diabolical coffee is but I just dont care. I love the stuff. Of course I love really good coffee, but I will drink absolute crap too if that's all there is. I've given it up before and it made no difference to my weight either. And I refuse to believe that propaganda that decaf is worse for you than regular coffee, I am so addicted to the ritual of coffee that I love my six or seven cups a day so I do have to drink a fair bit of decaf and keep to 2-3 regular cups. I'm like a smoker, I dont want to know the bad news and I just dont bloody care to be honest. I'm about to give up an entire way of eating, my coffee is staying! I drink it all ways, usually black with just a dash of milk, or straight black, I dont have suger, except in lattes or cappucino's, I always have raw sugar in those. A teaspoon of sugar everynow and then is not going to make or break a diet and having a latte with a bit of sugar is a way better snack than a huge chocolate thickshake or something like that.

I'm going in on December 9 also and from what I know of friends that have been banded, afterwards I am going to enjoy good food without feeling guilty, because I am not going to overeat it.

Well I've tried to stick to my presurgery Optifast routine even though I dont actually have to. I wanted the kickstart. After fainting twice I realise I cannot get by on 500 calories a day. Yes the hunger disappears as your body slips into Ketosis but I"m active and on my feet all day and I just cannot function on that. Add that I was trying to keep working out also and the fact that I know I lose weight fast and well on 1500 calories a day and really, I come to the conclusion that since I dont need to shrink my liver, Optifast is stupid. I think 1000 to 1200 is really the lowest you should do.

Good luck!

I had to schedule my appointments with the respiratory physician and GP, get them on the same day and get them on a day Eliza was at daycare, and then get on my surgeon's next list after that so for me it was 8 weeks. I have been very impatient, this has been a six month process for me, but I believe I really have needed that time to come to terms with it all. I did get initial advice that I wasnt heavy enough from one surgeon and I also chickened out and thought I could go it alone. I did well for about six weeks as I always do, then fell off the wagon and realised I couldnt keep up the momentum for another 30kg! Once I got the process rolling again and booked into see another surgeon (4 week wait) I then had an 8 week wait to go and am being done next week.

Candysmooch, yoga is fabulous for your strength and flexibility and you should definitley keep it up. But to shift fat, you need long periods of cardiovascular exercise. If you add in some serious walking or training on an elliptical, treadmill, bike or whatever, it will make a huge difference to you.

Its the pits isnt it? I'm coveting an ipod with a waterproof case so that I can swim laps with music - about $300 Australian dollars. I just dont have it at the moment, have to save up. I love swimming apart from the fact that I cant have music.

I'm coming to realise that may be the MAIN purpose of the preband Optifast, lol. By the time you have your surgery you're half dead with hunger and your system has virtually shut down, your metabolism slowed to a standstill. Seriously though, my surgeon has impressed upon me the importance of not striving for that super uber fast weight loss but rather slow and steady so taking in liquids many times a day in small amounts - ie. dont let yourself be starving, eat/drink often if you need to and the weight will come off eventually.

Anwyn I cannot recommend www.cardiocoach.com highly enough to make your elliptical machine FUN. Try it, go on, it will challenge you and get you back on that blasted thing more often than not. Its the only way I can use any workout machine other than a treadmill, without dying of boredom and falling off the thing mid session.