Jachut

What makes you so sure there's any "correct" way to lose weight? There's really only the way that suits you personally. Even our docs cant agree, so I would never take their recommendation as gospel, if something didnt suit me, I'd change it. I eat 3 meals a day - they're small, but not tiny. I eat carbs. I never drink Protein shakes. I run a lot and only do Body Pump for strength training - and we all know what any weight lifting enthusiast will say about body pump or lots of cardio. I lost 120lb and have kept it off for over four years now. I have the body that I personally wasnt, meaning that it's lean, long and slender and only lightly muscled. I can maintain my 135 lb on about 1800 to 2000 calories a day. I'm happy so I couldnt give a flying you know what if someone thinks I've done it the "wrong" way. My metabolism appears to be just fine! I reckon stuff the experts, stuff current opinion and fashion, stuff what the studies say. I know what works for me!

Weirdly, I had no gas pain after banding, but in the last nine months I've had two operations where my intestines ahve been actually opened up and WOWSERS. It hurts! After my bowel resection, I looked nine months pregnant, my belly was huge and rock hard, it took about two weeks for that to normalise and the pain to stop, but the last one last week, where they reversed my ileostomy was terrible - that gas pain was huge and I really needed six hourly morphine to cope with it, probably because my bowel was also inactive for about three days before it woke up, so I wasnt passing that gas. They told me to do what you already know - walking walking walking. Hot baths/showers/compresses. Bending and stretching to force it out. And when it wants to come out, let it rip!

In my opinion, there's only two real dangers associated with getting drunk with a band First is if you get so drunk that you vomit - vomiting can be dangerous and damage your band. Its best to stop drinking before you get to this stage, but I dont know many people who get that drunk on purpose so you ahve to be a bit more wary than before. But you can definitely get the buzz going. Secondly, if you're anything like me, with a skinful, you may suddenly fancy a 2 am kebab or similar. With a band you need to eat slowly and carefuly, when you're drunk you tend to eat like a sabre toothed tiger. Not a good thing to do with a lapband.

Its not beyond the realms of possibility. However, if it worries you, get it checked out! Its never worth ignoring things like unexplained bleeding. However, if you've simply improved your heatlh so much by a few simple changes, then that's FANTASTIC. Knowing that will give you a huge boost at the start of your journey.

Yikes, having gotten the health fund statements detailing all my cancer treatment, your fills cost MORE than my radiation treatments for rectal cancer - in a specialised radiation centre, overseen by a radiation oncologist, administered by two qualified staff using one of only several machines available in the entire state of Victoria (Australia). Something stinks, lol. Either your doctor is a crook or someone's made a typo. I mean it works the same here pretty much, there's a scheduled fee for a doctors service (for my colorectal surgeon its $68). He charges more like $150. Surgeons and doctors always charge more than what the cost to you is here, our Medicare scheme refunds the scheduled fee and we pay the difference out of our pocket, our health funds are more for hospital costs and extras like dental. But I find it very very hard to see how someone can charge that for a fill compared to something like radiation treatments. I'd be leaving the country before the entire health care system collapses!

I didnt struggle at all, for a good10 weeks I had the most superb restriction the likes of which I have never managed to replicate. The weight absolutely fell off me. I was not only full from small quantities, I had a complete absence of any particular appetite or interest in food, it was the one brief window in my life where I would "forget" to eat. It was fantastic, I milked it for all it was worth and lost about half of the weight I technically needed to lose. I dont often say that because everyone else seems to struggle so badly in this period. There was absolutely no bandster hell for me. But I was banded in 2005 and I have a 4cc band - I know they've changed the design of the band to reduce erosion and slippage occurrences, but in my opinion, the 4cc band was FAR superior to current bands in terms of providing immediate restriction. I also have never had that frustrating Quest for the "sweet spot". Every single fill in my band took me to the spot that was right to me at that particular point of time. The only thing that changed is that the more fill I had in it, the longer that fill would "hold" before I began to feel the need for another, until eventually, I went like 2 years. I recently had to unfill it totally for 6 months due to other surgical requirements and refilling it has been the same experience. NO waiting for restriction. I love my old fashioned 4cc band. but before you cyber axe murder me, restriction to me is a pretty poor cousin to what a lot of people describe. Once my body "recovered" I have never had that lack of interest in food again, I have always been able to eat quite a lot, I can eat every food, I have really had to work my band quite hard - no way for instance could I survive on a Protein Shake for Breakfast. It would go right through, Id finish it and think "right, now where's the food". I am always interested in food, my appetite is exactly the same as it was pre banding, I have just learned that I dont have to pander to it all day every day.

Yeah but as a woman, you would most likely a) have smaller organs and have much more of your fat distrubuted under your skin rather than within your abdomen, no matter whether you are pear or apple shaped. Males have much more intra abdominal fat as a general rule. So with a slightly bigger stomach and liver and more fat packed tightely around and within those organs means you absolutely cant compare one person to another. To the OP, it will be SO worth still banding if you've "only" got 150lb to lose. This band will help you get ALL of the weight off and it will help you to KEEP it off. I think it does more for me maintenance wise than it did losing to be honest. Stick it out, you can get there. And if you didnt do a liquid diet, I'd be making sure you did one this time, get that liver smaller and out of the way.

That stuff that Spivak used was called Omnipac and I've over the years seen many of his patients discuss it. Now, the harsh bit. I think you need to pull on your big girl boots and get real about this. First and foremost if you can find another doc, then do so. But if you have to stick with this guy, I would personally look at it this way :No relationship with the doc? So what? You dont need to piss in his pocket, you have the resources to do this, you need a service from him - that being a fill, or as many as it takes. Who cares if you cant stand him? If he's what's available, then put your feelings aside and use him. Secondly $150 a visit? Does this deter you because its expensive (and thus tiresome) or because you genuinely cannot afford it? If you truly cant afford it, then my heart goes out to you but I really wouldnt know what you can do about that. Its really rough that your doc retired, and it really does suck, but this is what's available and you can either pay for it or you cant. If you cant, end of story, if you can but just find it annoying, well, thats a choice you're making isnt it? If it were me, I'd perhaps be going back, saying I cant afford to visit every week for these tiny fills and trying to maybe compromise on a slightly larger one, whilst still being cautious that to be unfilled will cost you money too. You havent failed, honestly, we all need these bands filled for them to work, aftercare is vitally important. Support and compassion from our medical practitioners is invaluable, but at the end of the day, you're a pro at this, you know what to do and all you need from this guy is a medical service, not a soul mate. You also dont need to beat yourself up for not being happy with what you'd achieved,50lb is wonderful, its not small achievement, but I'm a chronic high achiever too and I personally would have been pissed off majorly to only get halfway to my goal, but I dont thnk it helps to look at what you secretely feel is a half arsed result and say perhaps I should have just settled - you're worth more than that and you got that far, you CAN go the whole way. But you need to suck up the rough situation and make it work for you. Getting back on track is always hard and its always about blunt truths like this. They're not that great to face, but if you want the outcome, you'll put yourself through the pain. If you can possibly find a more compassionate and cheaper doctor, then obviously that's what you'd do, but if not, then I'd just be hard nosed about it, take what I need from the situation and seek moral support elsewhere.

Body composition is a very interesting thing, but muscle gain takes time, like if you've gained 2lb in a week, eaten perfectly and worked out like crazy, you arent really correct in saying you've gained muscle. Virtually no woman can gain like that. But over time, you can definitely change your composition, look better, get fitter and be more muscular/less fat - you'll lose inches perhaps and it wont necessarily show on the scales.

I have never been motivated by extrinsic rewards no matter how much it may be something,i want. For me the behaviour itself needs to be its own reward, so if we're talking losing weight, saving money,exercising, or keeping on top of the house, its got to be about becoming the type of person I want to be. Satisfaction and respect for myself are the most important things to me. We're all different and respond to different stimuli but to me, shoes, holidays, clothes are not a reward. They're pleasures that I can and do have when i can afford to have them, and I dont withhold them because I'm "bad" (ie. fat). There's been plenty of times in my life when I've tried this approach and it never works for me. My biggest achievements have always been when I've had the real inner desire to achieve something and when you have that, I dont think you need reward. Of course, that's not to say you shouldnt treat yourself when you get there, there's absolutely nothing wrong with shoes or a new wardrobe or a holiday that, lets face it, you will particularly enjoy if you believe you've "earned" it. But they dont take the place of intrinsic motivation, that real inner drive. I believe you need to make that distinction to yourself, view it as an act of treationg yourself rather than really believing that that reward will truly motivate you, because by believing that, I think you're really indicating you have very little faith in yourself to achieve it. Does that make sense, I know what I'm trying to say, but I'm not sure I'm getting it across, lol.

As a teacher, so an on my feet job, a mum of three, so coming home from work and on my feet for another couple of hours running round doing stuff, spending my weekends at kids sport, a dedicated runner (five times a week, 4 to 6 miles), attending body pump a couple of times a week AND finding time for a nice long weekend 6 mile walk with hubby finished with a nice coffee somewhere, and being five foot ten tall, I lost absolutely easily on 1500 to 1800 calories a day. I never needed to go anywhere near 1000 to 1200. We are absolutely all different and you need to find what suits you and your activity levels. The range is going to be somewhere between 1000 and 1500 most probably for the average build, averagely active woman.

Injuries are very frustrating and as someone who was out running ten days after a very large bowel surgery, I'm in no position to tell anyone to rest, lol. That was really rather a dangerous and silly thing for me to do, it turned out absolutely fine, but I should have been more patient. If you've hurt your back, you need to rest it BUT mobilisation is always your friend. It is never good to simply stop moving. I'd suggest the pool or a recumbent bike - but not vigorously, just gentle mobilisation to move your muscles and prevent stiffness. The thing is, gentle movement will help you heal more quickly, vigorous movement might increase inflammation again each time you do it and turn your injury into a chronic problem. Do a bit of stretching too if you can figure which stretches get to the muscles. You get very tight after an injury and that makes you even more susceptible to further injury or chronic pain.

I dont fast for religious reasons and I've never gone without any Water for 24 hours but I have fasted for 2 days at a time several times in the last year for surgical reasons as well as doing bowel preps at the same time. I dont find fasting that hard when there's a reason to do it. Its not like you'll never eat again. But you can feel a bit lousy if you get dehydrated, which bowel preps do tend to do to you. My biggest tip is not for the actual fast, I mean, what's to do, just not eat, right? There's no rocket science to that. But with a band be VERY gentle with your band for several days after the fast. I find I'm much tighter afterwards and cannot manage a big post fast meal. I'd gone almost two days with no food, done a very aggressive bowel prep for a colonoscopy and all I could manage was 1/4 of a sandwich and half the cup of tea they gave me in recovery. Slide back into eating as if you're on a diet, three very small meals a day kind of thing. I find over about a week, my band normalises again. Due to its tightness, i dont find this difficult, I'm really not interested in food that much for several days after a big clean out.

Hi Wheetsin, so sorry to hear your troubles and issues. I think I agree with you, you just hear so many problems with revised bands, its like once you've had a problem you're going to continue to have more, whether they fix your band or put in a new one. My view of the band was ALWAYS that it was unlikely to be forever and Prof O Brien himself said to me that 20 years was an ambitious goal, certainly very possible but that forever just couldnt be guaranteed given current knowledge (this was six years ago, but still applies). I am thankful each day for my healthy functioning band. Having had my own cancer battle over the past 12 months, I've really had to assess what my band, my health and my new body mean to me and to be honest, my weight and maintaining my achievements was right up there, right alongside surviving the rectal cancer. It means that much to me. For me personally "ectomy" doesnt frighten me anymore. I'm sitting here five days post op from having an ileostomy reversed, with my new plumbing adapting every day to once more having to function. I dont have a rectum, I have my colon (a third of which is gone) directly joined to the outside. But malabsorption does frighten me, reason being, I went through hell and back deciding whether to reverse this ileostomy. To my surgeon, it was a nobrainer, I was young, fit, active and attractive (his words, not mine, lol), so to him, it was automatic that I wouldnt want to have a bag to slow me down. To me though, I was thinking, I'm young, fit, active and attractive and I have a bag, I dont want to be living on a restricted diet, needing the toilet up to fifteen times a day, perhaps incontinent, passing foul smelling gas without control and suffering chronic sore but from the constant diarrhoea. Ok, so none of that has happened to me in a severe or unmanageable way so far but boy it was and is a scary prospect. What's a bag compared to that? But you probably remember WasaBubbleButts poking fun at the RnYers and Bypassers on the Obesity Help forum, oh boy, what hilarity over charcoal underpants and Just a Drop toilet deodorisers. What derision towards people who considered THAT a trade off for weight loss. Doesnt seem all that funny for me now, but you know, it definitely IS a possibly result of such surgeries. In the face of that "ectomy" doesnt scare me at all. I might have to also have my uterus and ovaries removed pending some genetic testing, meh, not using them anyway anymore. I really wouldnt hesitate to lose part of my stomach, truly. And if THAT didnt work for weight loss, truth is, nothing is really going to long term. Its a fact. All of these surgeries should work maybe to a lesser degree than you might like, but like you know, nine times out of ten, complications aside, when they dont work its the patient, not the surgery. Having had a taste of living life with a dysfunctional, uncomfortable and potentially embarrassing bowel situation quite similar to what can happen after malabsorptive surgeries, I'd go the sleeve in a heartbeat if I was going to revise to another surgery. Just my 2c. Everyone feels differently and is more or less tolerant about certain things than others but that's the way I'd look at it.

I wasnt banded when pregnant but all mine were different. I never had a serious weight problem but was always heavy, sitting at about 175 to 180 at five feet ten, so id always considered myself fat. First baby at 28 i gained the then recommended 12 kg, so 30 lb maybe, evenly through tha las half of the pregnancy. Got induced due to high blood pressure at 38 weeks, lost all that weight and maybe 8 lb more within six weeks. Second pregnancy at 30, my weight was sitting at the 185lb end by then,breastfeeding and being at home are not my friends. Had morning sickness, ate constantly as a result but had a false confidence as i had lost it easily the first time. Piled on 40 lb, lost, seriously, only the 9lb my baby weighed, plus about 10 more over the next eight weeks. That was the start of my serious weight problem. Gained up tp about 220 just breastfeeding, being at home, not exercising and goung on and off diets over the next five years. Fell pregnant at 35 and was seriously concerned now, my ob said to me that a baby needs nutrients, not fat and that simply by improving my diet i could halve calories yet provide better for my baby, he suggested weight watchers. Followd the points program entire pregnancy, about 28 points a day. No preclampsia this time as i gained NO weight at all, heald steady. Left hospital five days after delivery 30 lb lightervthan when i'd conceived, had to buy new clothes. Thats my best ever weight loss attemt prior to banding. Stacked it all back on plus 20 over the next two years, by now had a bmi of 36, fat,bloated, unattractive, tired and miserable. This is when i got banded. Hope that epic helps, truly, for me it was more the way i let myself go in that year or two after pregnancy than pregnancy itself that made me fat.

Well done, thats awesome. Jeez i wouldnt want to have to buy clothes in asia, even at my size 6. In Bali, everyone was in hysterics at my feet - size nine, i mean not amazingly big, and they thought i was a giant!

Clothes that are too big make me feel thin, i have a very bad habit of wearing too large clothes. So by the time i thought i actually needed new oned i was well down into the next size. I wasnt dealing with corporate wear so everday clothes are pretty cheap.

I couldnt finish a childs meal most of the time either, those are huge too. And mostly rubbish. Im happier to pay the money to let my kids eat real food from the adult menu and leave most of it. But my two eldest are well beyond childrens menus now. Hopefully your hubbies only gain your leftovers and not your lost pounds! Mine is banded too but was never a big eater like a lot of men are.

Im not gaving any trouble in fact ive been unfilled for eight months for some unrelated surgeries. I havent gained, but im pretty single minded about it. I have continued running/bootcamp/bodypump and eaten well through radiation, chemo and major bowel surgeries. But the band was a large part of me becoming that person!

You really need to measure and accomodate your shape - i'm a pear so always go by hip as a too large waist can be altered, but you can still getbit wrong as sizes vary by brand. But once you start youll get to know your faves. I,m 135lb and a US6 but im 5 ft 10 so little help.

Im not that happy. Dressed, i am rapt with my new bod, i know i have a great figure. You really cant tell i was ever big. But it IS a 43 year old body that has born three children and has the scars of a cancer battle, i even had to endure a stoma for eight months. It is marked, a bit flabby, and its knees and hips hurt and it now faces a battle back to normal bowel function. Plastic surgery would make it slammin' but its not really in me to go down that road, i truly think i need to embrace my age, my issues. But does that woman in the bikini in that teeny photo feel like strutting it and showing it off? Not really. Im not 20 sad to say

And in fact i would say that this mentality is the main reason for the rather poor success statistics that the band has - way more so than any inherent faults of the band. I totally believe that most people frustrated by that fine line between finding restriction and being too tight are simply failingvto recognise what the band can do and what they must do. Truth is that no amount of restriction will prevent you eating forbidden foods. But in fairness to the op, she sounds like she has made a start in the right direction and i for one DID in fact loose an awful lot of weight almost automatically at first. I know i did on some level expect this thing to control my behaviour and that it has done. I also know that i have changed drastically as i havent gained at all, even being unfilled for eight months

It is frustrating, especially whrn i have had much bigger gi surgery involving first making an ileostomy and rerouting my plumbing and then reversing that last friday and both times was on fluids, and not even clears, for only a day or two. I mean i had bits cut and removed! Nonetheless the band needs to heal really well and scar tissue needs to form to hold it in place and personally i'd rather err on the side of caution. I just dont get going through this surgery and being unable to stick to the post op diet, i really dont. Nobody says you havevto starve, just stick to a certain food texture! but she may not havevthe samebguidelines as you.

It was clear liquids from midday for me, that will all clear your system quickly. So black tea or coffee, broth, apple juice, gatorade or jelly and not much else.

Yes my later fills were all .1 or .2 cc