Jachut

The permanent life change scares the s*&t out of me to be honest. I'm not the least afraid of having surgery, but I am afraid of having to change for the better permanantly. Its provided me with significant insight into why I've never been successful at losing weight before, basically I'm afraid to change.

OK, I'm in another country so I cant advise you about where to find stuff but I've had to be a bit creative with low impact exercise because I have a bad ankle. I've been having a look around at www.collagevideo.com, they have a wealth of exercise DVD's and can provide some guidance. You can even view a clip of any DVD you're considering purchasing. You can get cycling DVD's to use with an indoor bike both here and at www.spinervals.com. too. So you can do a spin type program at home if you hire or buy a spinning bike. I'd recommend this, interval training such as spinning (which is basically an aerobics program on a bike) will give you better and faster results than just hopping on and peddling away, trying to remember to keep the pace up. I've also been using a rebounder, there's rebounder specific workouts you can get or for lower impact I've been adapting Leslie Sansone's Walk Away the Pounds series, it ups the intensity but lowers the impact. I've also been swimming which is fantastic all over exercise, if you have a local pool and my pool runs a deep Water running class which is mega-fun! But of course you'd have to brave the cold for that, I have trouble doing that in a Melbourne winter and it never gets cold enough to snow here, doesnt go below about 9 or 10 degrees celcius as we have a really temperate climate. Perhaps you could look at hiring or buying an elliptical machine too - and yes, you can get stuff for that too - www.cardiocoach.com!

After surgery you're probably full to the brim of saline pumped into you via the IV, that can put your blood pressure up a bit. It should come back to normal as you get rid of all the extra fluid.

What a beautiful picture, that actually bought tears to my eyes when I thought about how utterly fantastic you must feel. I eye workout clothes enviously too. Did you know you're an inspiration to me? Similar start weight, similar goal weight, same surgeon and even NSV's that I covet, lol. You have done a really really remarkable job, you should be darn proud of yourself.

I pierce flax seed oil capsules and put them in juice for my son, that is if I dont just have a bottle of flaxseed oil itself, which he will take off the spoon, it tastes pleasantly nutty. It helps a lot with his eczema. I only keep capsules becuase the oil goes off really quickly and we often get caught short. You can just take the oil, about a dessertspoonful a day. Its fabulous for you. With regard to hair loss, you have to remember eating with a band is like feeding a baby. You absolutely cannot afford to waste your stomach capacity on rubbish foods more than occasionally. You will never get in the nutrients you need if you eat too much processed foods and dont think carefully about nutrition. You will need to supplement. It's that simple. Waste your Breakfast on white toast and jam and you've missed a valuable opportunity to get in wholegrains, fruit and milk. Combined with the pre-op diet and the post op month of liquids and mushies, I'd say its highly likely many new bandsters get pretty malnourished pretty fast, especially since a lot of obese people werent eating well to begin with.

You mean a big fitball that you sit on? They're really good for core training, all your core muscles - abdominals, back, pelvic floor. There's a lot of info around on them, but you can do ordinary crunches on them and exercises like push ups with your feet on the ball. The instability it gives you reminds you to engage your core to keep your balance. They're also good to just sit and bounce on if you have a sore back.

Oh gosh I'd love to run again! I'm not sure whether that's a realistic goal at 38 but my 36 year old sister took it up a few years ago and has done several half marathons. Boy does she look incredible!!!! Not stringy skinny but super fit and that is my goal too. I dont want to just be skinny. Hopefully you'll get back to it too. It's an incredible rush.

I'm not there yet, but I'd take it slooooowly. I survived quite well for a week after I had all 4 wisdom teeth out on pureed fruit, low fat custard and yogurt and blended family meals. At present I"m having a bit of a cookup like I did when my babies were just starting solids. A pot of lamb shanks, pumpkin, some green vegies, simmer it all up in stock and then puree it, freeze in half cup portions. I think it's important not to just eat yogurt, cottage cheese and fruit - you need your vegies and you need some decent Protein. But you can puree very very smooth like you do for a baby, and gradually make the mix lumpier over the 2 weeks or so you're on mushies.

I'm glad I've read so much about this and am psyched not to expect instant, effortless weight loss. But I figure you have to look at it this way, because what choice do you have: This is the LAST time in your life that you will have to "diet". You have done it before, we all have, we can all diet for five, six, seven weeks. You know what healthy food choices are and you know what healthy portions are. Summon up that willpower for one last time in your life and ride it out. You absolutely can do it. Even with this prediet Optifast hell I've descended into, I know that this time, the effort needs only to be shortlived, and when it's done, I wont pile the weight back on and then more, therefore the effort actually seems worthwhile. Someway, somehow you need to get your head round this and not test the band out for how much you can eat.

I take this extremely seriously with our rising incidence of childhood obesity. I do not want to instill a dieting mentality in my children's heads but I do not want to let them just slide into the average modern lifestyle and end up fat because of it. My oldest son is a bit of a computer nerd, he's into the computer, DVD's, his gameboy and his gamecube. Half the neighbourhood can be outside playing and he'll be in his room on the gamecube. I get tough with him and ration it, make him go outside. They're allowed to have lollies occasionally but they have to walk the 15 minutes to the milkbar to get them. They both play 2 games of basketball a week, and during footy season they play Aussie Rules Football which is a 2 hour or so game, and has 2 2 hour training sessions a week. School is good, they enforce reasonable phys ed and they run lunchtime sports competitions called "Legend in your own Lunchbox" so they're active all day too. We live in a quiet cul de sac with loads of kids so their everyday lifestyle is outside riding their bikes around, riding on their blades or shooting hoops, skateboarding, playing hide and seek and the like. They see me exercise, and often we take them all down to the pool, Doug and I take a turn to swim 30 laps or so and the other plays with the kids, its a healthy family activity. We're also just about to go and invest in a tent and other camping gear now the kids are old enough and that will entail lots of bushwalking. perhaps even more importantly for my almost 3 year old daughter, I never want her to see me agonising over my weight, dieting and having weird relationships with food. I'm so glad to be getting this band now at a time she wont even remember, and all she will ever know in her memory will be a healthy, normal weight mother. I'm a bit of a meanie when it comes to packaged foods and processed crap too, we eat fresh and healthy in this family, biscuits and cakes are home made, we buy organic fruit and vegetables and often organic meat too although it costs a bomb. They have water or milk to drink, I've only ever bought skim milk apart from when they were toddlers, and we dont have and never have in Australia had a school dinner program, so they take healthy fresh food to school in their lunchboxes. They're used to eating fruit and nuts and carrot sticks and that sort of stuff. I hope to heaven I'm doing a good job in instilling a healthy attitude in them (when I struggle with it myself) and not simply setting them up to rebel totally as soon as they're old enough.

It could take you ages to lose the last bit of weight, and that's entirely normal. Also normal weight people who have been normal weight all their lives do not stay the exact same weight day in day out. They have Christmas or Thanksgiving or go on holidays and yes they gain a few pounds. The difference is how you approach it. It's no big deal, you need to let your head catch up with what your body has done. You are no longer a fat person. You have proven to yourself beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are in control. Slow and steady wins the race, what you have been doing has worked, so there is no need to suddenly escalate anything - you will only do yourself an injury. Just keep plodding away and you WILL get there. I guess you need to do some serious head work still to see yourself for what you are and not as a fat person busting to get out. Repeat to yourself that you are not that person anymore.

I carry round a 13 kg toddler and when I think I need to lose 3 of her, I'm horrified to be honest. And I pick up my 37 kg 10 year old and cant barely walk with him! I need to lose an entire 10 year old :-O

Yes, you go for it, I think you'll make a great trainer with that attitude! Good luck :-) Yes, I've had my feet checked, its largely due to a flattened arch problem transferring itself through the ankle, overstretching all the tendons, causing achilles tendonitis and a rather bad case of bursitis in the ankle. I've now got orthotics and regular physio is helping to get the inflammation down and I had a cortisone shot about 8 weeks ago which is now beginning to wear off. I think I can have one more, they dont want to do too many as it can cause problems. So I have probably another sixteen week window to get as much weight off as possible, which should be a fair bit the first 16 weeks after banding. And I do wear a brace. I think I set it off last summer by walking round in thongs all season (and I mean flip flop shoes, lol, not underwear), and other flat shoes, which are all in fashion at the moment. I cant get away with that, I need better shoes, have been investing in lots of cool birkenstocks. I've been swimming, I can now tolerate all the machines, except not too much treadmill which is unfortunately what I love, I do a deep Water running class at my local pool, and have adapted some stuff to the rebounder which is kind of 80's but fun!

Saturday I did Optifast all day - 3 shakes, 2 pieces of fruit (an apple and a pear) and a large salad. Sunday I had optifast for Breakfast, a toasted cheese, ham and pineapple sandwich for lunch and optifast and large salad for dinner. Yesterday I had optifast for breakfast, a peach, a mango, a lamb, pesto and roast vegetable wrap for lunch and a small bowl of spaghetti bolognaise for dinner. Today I've just had breakfast - I had an optifast shake with some fat free yogurt and some tinned fruit salad all whizzed up into a smoothie. I plan to have the optifast/salad dinner again and I'm going to be out at lunchtime doing Christmas shopping, I'll probably buy a salad or something healthy at the food court. I've got a headache and I look absolutely dreadful and feel like shite but hey I've lost 3 kg in 4 days!

I havent heard of a non adjustable band - but the adjustable band presumably gives you the perfect amount of restriction for you. Why would you go for a non adjustable one. Another benefit of the adjustable band is that if you get ill and you need extra nutrition then they can take some fill out and give you more room. What if you had no adjustability and your band gave you reflux, heartburn and constant vomiting? Think hard about it, its the flexibility, adjustability and even removeability of the lap band that make it such a safe procedure.

Speaking of trainers, I'm disgusted with my current gym. I know more than the idiots working there. It takes very little knowledge and training in Australia to become a certified fitness instructor. When I went in for my first assessment 12 months ago, it took all of 10 minutes and he just belted out a stock standard program, did not listen to my concerns about a sore heel, did not check out my card after any of my workouts (you leave them out to be ticked, signed and filed, they were always just filed). When they rang 6 months later to see how I was going I said I needed a new program becuase by then my problem with my ankle had become pronounced. I wanted a circuit program around the weights machines, avoiding the treadmill and elliptical and the bike becuase they ALL irritated my ankle at that point in time. They had no idea how to create a cardio circuit on weight machines. Pathetic. I made it up myself and I just do what I feel like when I go in now. Usually I prefer working out at home, I get better info and instruction from DVD's and looking up stuff on the internet and I can work out my own rotations from my library of DVD's to keep challening myself without having to make an appointment and pay for a personal training session. I wont be renewing my membership when it falls due in Feb.

Band or nothing for me. If I'd tackled this problem 20 kgs ago I think I could have done it without the band, indeed I would have had to because I would have been merely overweight, not obese. I know I need some help, mainly because the weight I have to lose - around 35kg is just so staggering to me, I cant see it happening. I cant get started, tomorrow never comes, I'm not good at deprivation, I'm a terrible dieter. During periods of my life when I've decided I"m never going to diet again, I've lost weight. Take away the obsession with not eating and I stop eating too much. Trouble is my weight problem is too big now for such an easy solution. But I know I'm very good at avoiding gaining weight when I set my mind to it. I know my danger periods and I can avoid gaining. I went through an entire pregnancy and didnt gain weight due to nothing more than my own determination - and it didnt require horrible deprivation, it just involved everything in sensible portions. I think if I lost the weight and then lost my band, I could keep the weight off. I've learned a huge lesson about not ignoring small gains and I've learned huge lessons about how much exercise helps my body to maintain a stable weight. I may be kidding myself but I'd give it a try, so I would definitely never ever consider gastric bypass surgery.

My surgeon was kind of non commital on this, because I've got a BMI of 35 and my blood pressure and cholesterol are fine. But I had all my preop appointments, with the respiratory surgeon, gp and dietician on Friday and all expressed surprise that I wasnt starting it that day (14 days pre op) so did both the nurses that did all the measuring and weighing. So I rang his rooms and got his secretary and there was nothing on my file but she said to start just in case and she'd have him ring me Monday as he was in surgery. So I started lunchtime Friday, its now Sunday here. I'm not hungry really, its easy from that point of view - 3 shakes a day, a piece of fruit and 2 cups of salad or green veges. Its even kind of exciting because it's the first step in my whole new life. But I feel quite nauseous, weak and dizzy, and really really flat. Horribly so. I've been getting in the 2 litres of Fluid and taking a multi Vitamin even though Optifast is nutritionally complete. Does that weak feeling pass? Is it like a detox where suddenly the headaches clear, and you start to feel full of energy? Or am I going to be dragging my sorry butt through the next 2 weeks?

No no I mean I'm going to do Optifast for breakfast and dinner and eat a proper lunch, lol.

He rang me this morning, no I dont have to do it. I'm going to do 2 meals a day though - Breakfast and dinner, since I've started anyway, why waste the weekend's good work? I'm just going to have lunch, I'm very active and it was not having that top up midday that was difficult. Dinner's easy since I just go to bed a few hours afterwards anyway and to breakfast I dont find hard either. Would you believe I made 24 cupcakes and a ton of chocolate chip Cookies and didnt eat ANY? didnt even swipe a tiny bit from the mixing bowl

tomorrowsdream, it's early days for the band in the US, it's obviously not got full mainstream medical acceptance and support. Here in Australia where it's been done for more than a decade, they'd look at you like you had 2 heads if you insisted you wanted a bypass instead. There's hardly any surgeons that even do the bypass, and its saved for very extreme cases. Bottom line is the band is a gentler, safer way to ensure weight loss and it IS successful for most people long term. The statistical incidence of slippage and erosion is low but you hear about it more on sites like this because this is where people come to for support and nobody needs support more than when something unexpected happens to them. The fact that the band can be removed when problems arise is one of it's biggest attractions. If you're malnourished and sick and lose all your hair after bypass and are miserable with your decision there's nothing you can do about it.

I feel like if I remain fat or more likely, continue to get fatter, I'm going to be there for hip replacements, knee replacements, certainly ankle surgery. I'm probably gonna get gallstones as I hit the fair fat and forty milestone, there's just a myriad of things that being obese contributes too. The likelihood of those is FAR higher than if I get a band, lose the weight and maybe, just maybe have a slip or erosion down the track. Statistically, its not common, and I guess I feel quite secure too knowing that the surgery team I've chosen has a good 10 years of experience behind them. If it needs maintenance so be it. I find it hard to get my head round the fact though that I could get three years down the track, be slim and healthy and NOT have changed in my head in some way. Keeping weight off is the hardest part, but how can new habits not be ingrained after that long? You'd have to get used to seeing a certain amount of food on your plate, get used to eating very slowly and carefully etc. Would you really go back to wolfing down entire platters of food in 2 seconds flat? I do wonder about that.

I'm just going to wait and see, I've been to two information evenings for the two surgeons I was considering and both had people who'd had the band and lost their weight get up and speak. All four of them said they occasionally drink while eating - like going out for dinner, one man said really, if you're hungry sooner who cares? You're usually going home to bed anyway. All of them said it didnt give them problems as long as it was tiny sips with the meal. All said however that they waited a while before the after dinner coffee as it had a tendency to back up! I asked the surgeon I chose, he said its best to follow ALL the rules, but once in a while doesnt hurt as long as it doesnt make me PB or cause me pain. But not to do it too often. I'll see how I go I think. I dont think its going to be that hard to have a pre-dinner glass of wine rather than a with dinner one. Its the coffee after dinner I'll miss. I dont have one till an hour or two later at home but I like it instead of dessert when I'm out, or with dessert if there's something I really want - not really a dessert eater anyway.

1. What does your handle mean? Just a shortening on my name - Jacqui Hutchinson 2. What book are you currently reading, or did you last read? I picked up a Patrician Cornwell last night - Trace - but fell asleep after a paragraph. 3. What do you do for a living? Stay at home mum and part time university student - doing a Bachelor of Primary Education 4. For what in your life are you most grateful? My 3 beautiful children and my strong, functional family ties 5. What's one thing about you that you think would surprise other people? Not necessarily good but when we built our home where we did in outer Melbourne, people just about fell over from shock. We are sooooo not outer suburbs people, according to others. They had me pictured as living in a renovated home in a leafy inner suburb. Fact is we couldnt afford it back then but people never expected us to build a new home in a new area. Melburnians tend to be obsessed with where you live and where you went to school, its crazy. 6. One word to describe yourself? Outgoing 7. One word others use to describe you? Funny 8. Would you rather play a game with someone better or worse at it than you? Oh worse, definitely, lol. I like to win 9. Favorite movie? Favorite show? I'm addicted to Taggart - a scottish detective show. They're probably on some obscure cable channel over there. I collect the DVD's. Favourite TV shows are Australian dramas such as Blue Heelers (a cop show) and All Saints (a hospital show). 10. Something unusual about yourself? I have a large pine cone shaped brown birthmark on the outside of my upper right thigh. I never had it removed because they specialists wished to wait till I stopped growing, by then it no longer bothered me. I forget that I have it these days.

Well done, I have renewed respect for those who get through it. My warped mind thinks liquids and mushies will be easier if I"m well and truly tanked up beforehand, roflmao!!