Jachut

I cant imagine tanning would have any effect on the band whatsoever, but its rotten for your skin, lol. I have to use all my willpower to stay away from the solarium, I love being brown. I'll do it for a special occasion but I do find that a good dose of light makes me feel really positive and happy, and its a very relaxing thing to do. Maybe that could spark your appetite a bit.

Well, more sloping shoulders probably, not much you can do about the shape you're born with. I've got some of those bra clip things, they're fantastic.

This is my so called I'm not pigging out before surgery diet Breakfast 2 pieces of wholegrain toast with butter and jam Mid morning latte and an apple lunch Eliza and I polished off a cheese platter from the previous day, - brie, a fruit/brandy cheese, and an aged cheddar, crackers, fresh dates, dried apricots and almonds. OK so ate a little bit much Afternoon a muffin dinner zucchini slice and salad - a BIG piece of zucchini slice. Late evening a hot chocolate. and I had probably 6 cups of coffee during the day too.

I think I'll probably always see myself as overweight. I remember way back being 72kg at 5ft 10 and thinking I was enormous and truth be told, I did have significant excess fat on my body. I was looking back at my wedding photos and truly, I could have done with losing probably 6 or 7 more kilograms. But I looked LOADS better than I do now, yet in the mirror I dont see it. I catch an unexpected glimpse of myself in a shop window though and go "whoa, who is that fat middle aged woman?" I know though that I'd need to lose more than 10kg before anyone noticed the weight loss. Its simply a function of how fat you are sadly. My tiny sister loses 2kg and her clothes dont fit, I know I'm still wearing some clothes I had when I was 15kg less! Just take heart in the more you lose, and the lower your weight gets, the less weight loss it will take to make a big difference. You'll start going down a whole clothing size for every 10 or 12lb, not every 30.

Pat - round shoulders probably, maybe before you lost weight you had a bit of fat there to hold them up. I cant keep brastraps up and I cant for the life of me carry a handbag. I always end up at the physio because I've hurt my neck hoiking my shoulder up to keep the bag on there. I have to carry handbags in my hand :-( Jess maybe also in addition to what everyone's said above you no longer have the bulk on your upper body to distribute the weight, kwim? Its one thing carrying around a pair of heavy boobs when they rest on top of your belly and you're back is fat too but when your frame shrinks and your boobs dont, you might have trouble. I'd look for a modern feat of engineering in the bra dept to hold em up.

Unfortunately its not that easy. If you're going to lose weight and keep it off you cant do it by taking Xenical and eating ice cream. You have no option but to learn to eat ice cream as an occasional food in appropriate amounts. Life sucks doesnt it?

If you choose lower fat things and avoid stuff like cheese, butter and sour cream it wont matter so much anyway how much you can fit it. It's really easy to way overdo the calories eating a baked potato with butter and sour cream - not so easy if its pureed apples. All the literature I've been given suggests fruit, vegetables and lean meat cooked into meals and pureed rather than high fat or sweet stand ins such as macaroni cheese, rice pudding and the like. Although it must be hard when you're eating out. You cant really ask a restaurant to blend your meal for you can you?

Surely you can see the difference in your face? You look way different (and lots happier)

I'm deathly afraid of a tummy tuck, being a relatively modest 70lb or so overweight and having gotten through 3 pregnancies with not even a stretch mark, I'd be quite surprised if my tummy was really bad afterwards, sure I might have a bit of poochy skin but I really dont demand perfection there, I dont show my tummy as a matter of course, so to be honest, unless it was visible through my clothes and looked like rolls of fat, I wouldnt bother. I'm deathly afraid of the scarring, of getting a keloid scar (although my caesar scar is OK) and I really cant see the point of a perfectly flat stomach if its got a horrible scar all the way across it. I'd honestly rather have some loose skin. I think I'll need a boob job though, they're going to be absolutely terrible when they're deflated. Those scars are hidden so dont worry me. What I really want as my reaching goal weight reward though is to have my hair bio-ionically straightened. I can easily blow dry it straight but its quite frizzy and it drives me nuts. I want a headful of silky straight hair. My mum thinks I"m going to chop it all off into a "sensible" style when I get my weight off. Nuh uh. I'm 38, I'm hanging onto long hair for a few years yet.

I'm ashamed of how many clothes I have in my wardrobe that dont fit me and still have the tags on them. I'm a sucker for jeans, I've got at least 8 pairs in sizes 14 and 16. I have had to give quite a lot of clothes away because I had them so long they were really out of fashion, lol. But I've got some divine stuff to get into and even now, I'm dressed in literally rags but I'm not buying any more 20-22's! I'm buying heaps of stuff that will fit me later.

I thought any liquids apart from alcohol or caffeinated ones - although obviously the less calories in your liquids the better. What about decaffeinated coffee? Does that count?. I'm slowly cutting back again from my 7 or 8 cup of coffee a day habit, replacing all but 2 or 3 with decaf instead.

Primarily my reason is a chronically swollen painful ankle. I'm about 35kg (70lb) overweight and am always carrying a toddler, so can easily be putting 750kg stress through my ankle every step I take. The thought of living with it like this or it getting arthritic is awful, I"m only 38 and I do not want to live my life on anti-inflammatories. But also, despite not being very overweight, or out of shape yet, I know its only a matter of time. I used to only be 12kg overweight, its climbed steadily over the years and I dont think it will stop. I dont have any real food disorders, I'm not a binge eater, I just consistenly overeat by "socially acceptable" standards, basically too many calories in, not enough calories out. Simple. But everytime I try to diet, I get six weeks and 6kg down the track before my body starts ringing alarm bells and compelling me to eat my way back to where I started. I really think my appetite is just naturally set a bit too high for my body.

My MIL makes the best brandy butter to go with Christmas pudding! Oh man, that stuff is heaven. But for Christmas we dont really overdo it. We normally have pork, turkey and ham, but as we've established before I think Australian meats are way leaner, we just do them au natural in the Weber (kettle BBQ) so without any added fat or dressing, serve them with salads and a we have a seafood platter too, its a big meal but generally healthy and low fat - till the christmas pudding comes out. What's a killer for me is the alcohol over the festive season. Its just every day, a few champagnes, lots of wine. We dont do egg nog or any of that stuff, given its usually boiling hot at christmas time here, the middle of summer. I just try to make Christmas day ONE day only, we dont have lots of leftovers and we dont have lots of chocolates, lollies and the like. What does me in when actually going away is a couple of wines everyday and the cheeses, pates, dips and crackers that always seem to come out pre dinner and the baking everyone does that comes out with the port after dinner! I really pork up badly on holidays and its just from picking, not eating huge quanities at once.

I think its wise - most people are fine when they jsut diet because lets face it, they usually dont diet for very long. Althoug a lot of overweight people are malnourished anyway due to the amount of processed food they consume. Even in general, people today are not active enough to be able to consume the amount of food their bodies require for complete nutrition without seriously overdoing the calories. But a lap band forces you to keep the calories and quantity down, for a very long priod of time, well forever really, and it would be sensible to supplement. It's also sensible, although easier said than done, to not waste stomach capacity on bad food choices.

Groan, I'll be going home to an almost 2 and a half year old so I'd say I'll get oh, one day off work, lol. The lifting part, I have no idea how I'm going to cope. I think I'll have to send her to my mum's with Doug in the mornings for a few days otherwise I'll probably burst all my staples like I did after my caesar.

I think you need to let your head catch up too - I havent been banded yet but no matter how much I read here, I cant stop expecting that I will come out of that operation and never feel hungry again, my weight will come off steadily, I wont have any plateaus and there will be no problems. It obviously doesnt happen like that. There's no race, you're doing just fine and what your family and friends "expect" isnt really the point. Its your journey, not theirs.

I'd try to find something you can drink that's not sweet. I'd imagine on the liquid and puree phase its easy to just have relatively sweet things and start to crave some more hearty food. The soup suggestions are good ones. Would you be allowed to puree some baked beans in tomato soup for some protein? My surgeon takes the view it doesnt matter what it is as long as its been pureed down and can go up a straw - meat, beans, etc can be included. He wants me to try to avoid that massive fast initial weight loss which he pointed out isnt really fat anyway.

I leave huge amounts of hair everywhere all the time anyway - really alarming amounts. It blocks the drains, it hangs off the bathroom ceiling, it's all over the sinks, it's revolting. I havent gone bald yet. its interesting that hypothyroidism causes that. My sister is hypothyroid, had no symptoms other than menstrual irregularities, it was picked up randomly. I display nore of the symptoms, I'm tired a lot, have very dry hair and skin, huge dark circles under my eyes, I've got a lot of grey hair which I take great pains to hide (I'm 38) and I have a weight problem. I've been tested a gazillion times and I'm normal! Dont they give you a full blood workup before banding? They do here, so you'd find out if you were anaemic, hypothyroid or whatever before your op.

I'm the same, at the lighter end of what my surgeon would consider. I swore blind I wouldnt stuff my face until surgery day and so far I havent - I usually do pretty well when I want to avoid gaining weight, like on holidays etc, but I cant seem to actually lose weight. I wanted to lose and I havent lost anything, but at least I havent gained I guess. My surgeon's office rang yesterday to remind me its time for the Optifast diet (3 weeks till surgery) I said "he said I didnt have to do it" and she checked with my file and said "you're right, lucky you". And I was thinking "thank goodness, I dont think I'd be able to", lol, some banded patient I'll be right? Cant even do the pre-op diet. After surgery I'll see how I go but I have steeled myself for less spectacular initial weight loss. I need to lose about 70-80lb.

I just dont keep things in the house that I will eat. I bake for the kids in small batches, time it for right before they get home from school and let them go. I have to use my willpower for a short period of time but odds are they'll polish off the lot, if they dont its straight in the bin. I can keep chips and ice cream for them because neither of those do anything for me. But I cannot keep biscuits, cakes, muffins, nuts, fancy cheeses or anything like that in the house. And I only bake basic butter cake or basic Cookies for the kids, nothing too attractive. If I made a carrot cake I'd eat the lot by myself!

I wonder what it is specific to banding though - I mean you hardly ever hear about people losing a lot of weight just through dieting, and losing hair do you? I suspect people just may eat too little after being banded to keep up complete nourishment.

More exercise.

Well then, I guess I can be happy that I dont weigh as much as my car, lol! On the other hand I weigh 2 of my sister in law! I always said I'd never marry a man who weighs less than me or is shorter than me, well currently I weigh 0.90 husbands!

Its not unusual after an anaesthetic to have some hair fall out but really its an extremely short anaesthetic for a lap band. And I dont believe you can put it down solely to Protein either. When you think about it how often do you lose hair when you have just gone on a diet? I really think you have to be really really careful during the pre op and post op phases, I think lots of people just get severely malnourished during those phases. I've heard of so many surgeons here that advise their patients that its hard enough to stick to liquids without being a stickler for calories, fats etc and what does that lead to? People who live on chocolate milkshakes, ice cream and the like for that mushy period. Combine that with losing weight too fast and you have a pretty poor environment in your body for keeping your hair and your skin healthy. My surgeon has advised the following: no preop diet - he only advises it when necessary, he's told me to do the following afterwards - follow a nutritionally complete Meal Replacement plan such as Optifast, 3 x per day, plus supplement with lots of V8 juice, some prune juice, another type of fruit juice (apple, orange etc) maybe one glass per day of each and in the mushies stage he says I should be eating a normal diet just blended up - ie. Cereal and fruit for Breakfast, protein, vegetables and a starchy vegetable for lunch and dinner, some yogurt in there somewhere. Take a multi Vitamin without fail. Above all, just ingest in small amounts throughout the day but get it all in! Keep the calories high enough to avoid a massive Water loss which makes you feel encouraged but really does you no good. If I did all that, I would be eating better than I do now. I cant imagine why my hair would fall out. Geez, I hope he's right!

I can wholly understand online forums just taking up too much time. I have to actively limit myself, I only visit here for short periods but I have an online mothers group that I'm enormously involved in, there's 80 or so of us, I see the melbourne girls regularly in real life too and we've even had a national meet earlier this year and are planning the next. But if I didnt limit myself, I could and would sit on the comptuer for four or five hours at a time. Good luck and I hope your break away does you good and you get some other stuff under control.