Jachut

I've been having a few issues like this lately, but also what I am sure are grumbles from my gallbladder - a couple of incidences of intense right sided upper abdominal pain and chronic but very mild diarrhoea since the start of the year. In that time, mild heartburn has reared its head too, I'm sure its connected because I've never suffered it before. But I absolutely cant sleep well with much in my pouch. I dont get reflux or heartburn but a sense that its there, and I cant lie flat comfortably. Even too much liquid at night causes this for me, I limit it to one cup of coffee.

I wouldnt even consider it personally. Maybe because i've never been so tight that I cant handle any social eating situation fairly well, yes, there's a *slight* risk of a pb if I eat too fast but I can eat most foods and eat a reasonable amount. I would fear two things. One, once youv'e done this well, how long before you start filling and unfilling for every little excuse? And two, what if you never get your restriction back properly? You could start a whole fill/unfill cycle, I've seen it happen on here sooooo many times over the years, when people have been unfilled, not always for this reason but because of reflux etc. I feel very strongly that learning that holidays and celebrations are not solely about food is a major goal. You can enjoy them, try out the various foods on offer but not overeat. There's no need to unfill to enjoy your holiday eating - unless you're VERY tight to begin with. I always take my running shoes and keep exercising on holidays too.

I had a BMI of 36 and I lost weight faster than I ever had in my life for the first 10 weeks or so - I lost about 40lb in that time, which I consider rather fast weight loss. After that it slowed right down, gradually getting slower and all up it took me about 2 years to lose 100lb. I was down to a good healthy weight with a BMI of about 26 within 18 months though, it was that last extra 10 to 15 that took ages.

Day one I started walking, about 3 miles. I didnt do anything more strenuous until about 3 weeks out, did the elliptical for another four or five weeks. Then I cautiously tried a run - I'd lost about 14kgs and it made SUCH a difference. I ran about 3kms and never looked back.

I listen to my body. I also think you cant say you're watching the clock and eating too fast. You naturally eat faster until you have good restriction, as restriction increases, you slow down.

I had a BMI of 36 when I started, so I thought I'd see results quicky, but I didnt. I'd always complained that when you're fat, you can work really hard and lose 20lb and nobody notices a thing. Well, I had to lose about 40 lb to even go down a dress size, and it was a good 50 (half my weight loss) before I began to look less fat and bloated. All the cosmetic gain came in the last 30lb or so, before that, i was smaller but still fat. Then suddenly my face and body begain to change really quickly, and now, if I lose a pound or two, people sometimes comment. I was looking pretty good by the time I got to a BMI of 25, but getting down those last couple of points made the real difference.

Doesnt it just make you so angry? Its a strong theme runnign through these posts, how many of us thought we were fat and have suffered the pain and torment of being fat, when really, we werent! Or at least we were no more than a bit chubby. My mother always had me on diets too. It IS of concern because chubby children do tend to get fat once puberty hits and then go on to become fat adults. But how much worse have we made it, dieting and eating dysfunctionally, instead of learning maintainable healthy habits that would prevent major obesity? I'm sure all of our mothers thought they were doing only the best. How much WORSE must it be for young girls now? When I was a child it was bad enough, I felt different simply for not being a standard height and size, nowadays the ideals are virtually impossible!

Well, I cant see any logic at all for such instructions. Ok, I guess some doctors might consider soup a "slider food" in that its liquidy so wont fill you as well as solids. However, that is only true for some people (same as for cereal). I find soup one of the MOST filling foods I can eat and a fantastic way to get in lots of vegies, lentils and yes beans! Beans are such a healthy food, its absolutely nuts to steer people away from them. They're really fantastically healthy for you and everyone should eat more beans. I cannot fathom why your doctor would say no, unless he's talking no carbs at all. I also eat carbs and I've lost weight perfectly well and kept it off for about two and a half years now. My family has a lot of bowel issues and I will never eat the typical Protein first bandster diet, which to my mind consititues an UNhealthy diet as far as your bowels are concerned.

I dont think Protein in and of itself is magical. I mean, you need it, for sure and most women probably need 60 to 70 grams a day. But I absolutely do not believe eating less than that will mean you dont lose weight and I especially dont believe that eating more will improve weight loss. That is still very much speculative and the evidence supporting it is far from totally convincing. Calories in, calories out is all it comes down to in the end. So even though improving your protein intake is only for the best, since you'll be better nourished, dont be surprised if it doesnt improve weight loss. For some people it does, for sure, but along with increasing protein you MUST make sure you're burning more calories than you consume. If you increase protein on top of what you're already consuming, you could also increase calories and slow your weight loss considerably. In other words, its the proportions of your diet that you must work with, not quantities overall. So if you need more protein, you work mainly with protein and fresh produce and you keep the calories strictly down in the less important areas - sugar, white carbs, limit even wholegrain carbs to some degree, and make sure you get loads of fresh fruit, vegies and protein. That way you'll have calories under control AND your protein balance right. And exercise! That's a huge factor. If you can get to the point where you're burning 500 calories or more in a session, you wont look back.

I can only echo what Bambam has said. For me stuck = pb, the two go together, and its always operator error. It can be months and then suddenly twice in two days - and for me being female, that's often associated with rogue tightness that only sometimes occurs for me in the week before my period. Its always operator error when it happens. I know the kinds of foods that are triggers for me, I know that it's likely if I'm really hungry (I eat faster) etc. But sometimes I do those things anyway and sometimes it results in pbing. I wouldnt call weekly "that" often but that regular would make me think I needed to review my eating habits. Daily would definitely make me think I was too tight. But whilst I dont get stuck often without an accompanying pb, I do get what I call a feeling of "unease" several times in a week. It can come with eating slightly too fast, eating slightly too much, eating a difficult food. It doesnt hurt or cause ANY symptoms except that I'm aware my stomach isnt liking it. Its difficult to explain, more of an instinct than a feeling. I actually hate it more than being stuck. Yet I couldnt say there'd actually been an incident of any kind.

Hehe, i've tried this, in a different way. Before I was doing boot camp, I did my own circuits at home. Sometimes I take my daughter to the park, which has a large perimeter, 500 metres. I would do circuit style exercises on the play equipment, and run the boundary in between. But - some of my exercises involved my daughter, who at 7 is about 50lb. I do squats with her on my back, or I piggyback her and run the perimeter (yes run!, lol, its a good way to make yourself puke). Man, that's hard. When I think I've lost 100lb, no wonder I was so exhausted all the time. My BMI was 36 with 100lb to lose and I marvel at the idiots who tell me I wasnt heavy enough (mainly on here, sadly). If I tried to get through my day with 100lb on my back, I can see how much I needed this surgery.

I think its a matter of what you get used to. I've been drinking skim milk virtually all my life, since I was about 10. My children have never drunk anything else once past infancy. I dont actually drink milk though, I use it on Cereal and in coffee. Full cream milk makes me feel nauseous, its disgusting! That's because I'm not used to milk having a creamy taste. I'd just suck it up and get used to it. Its like the sugar in coffee thing. I cant believe people use artificial sweeteners on a daily basis like that, when two weeks with no sugar in your coffee, and you're used to it. Its one of the easier dietary challenges to master!

I'd be like you. I panic if I cant exercise, lol, I'd be back into it as quick as I could. Yet I think taking it slowly and gently would be more sensible. Gentle walking will move the blood, lymph and fluids around your body and help the swelling, heavier exercise might cause more. Also, I was like this after my caesar. I didnt want to be an invalid. I didnt want to get fatter than I already was either. So i didnt lay around, I was active. Fast forward five years down the track, and my weight's gone post banding and I've got these weird bumps down below. Right at the ends of my caesar scar. Thought it was ust the shape of my stomach, kind of a big crepey down there from childbirth. I pushed on one day and it moved! And squished! Eeek. Turns out they're incisional hernias, and most probably caused because I didnt take it easy post surgery! They didnt cause me any particular problem but they look a bit odd. It'd be a shame to look down your newly flat stomach to see it bumpy and uneven. Weight lifting in particular sounds alarming because of the increase in intraabdominal pressure when you lift. Have you checked whether you're allowed to do this much? If you are, then I'm full of admiration for your strength and commitment, but please do check.

the points system is about the only "diet" I can tolerate, because its not too much counting and weighing - I like the near enough is good enough approach with eyeballing portion sizes, so I can do it in my head. I hate journalling. If I wanted to be obsessed with food every second of the day (which is how I personally feel about journalling) I wouldnt have gotten banded. I can roughly tote points in my head, its basically calorie counting but easier. Over the years I've learned the points value of virtually everything, lol. Toting up like this is a lifelong habit for me, I say I dont "diet" but I do indeed know what I'm eating, and I dont find the inaccuracy of mental calculations and forgetting you ate this or that to be a problem. with WW, its up to you what you choose to eat but anyone with half a brain knows that although you can make up your daily points with chocolate and Starbucks, you're hardly going to be healthy. Yet I like knowing I can have a day like that if I want to. Life is too short to be a food robot. I havent done WW since being banded though. I havent needed to and I wanted to avoid dieting forevermore. I will never count, journal, weigh or attend meetings again, ever. That's former fat me behaviour, the new me just eats when hungry, till not hungry. I have no idea if I could eat all the points or not, my mental calculations tend to add up to about 24, 25 a day, so its probably a tad more, and I suspect I could easily do the 18-20 they'd recommend for me now at my weight if I needed to lose.

Pushups and dips worked well for me, I have a nice tone to my arms. I do have ever so slight bat wings, but my underarms were at one stage a big concern. being pear shaped, I never had huuuuuge arms anyway. I began my journey at a BMI of 36, and by the time I had gotten down to about where you are, between about 28 and 31, I was dismayed at the weird things going on under my arms. I had bat wings and I had awful side boobs, this roll of soft flesh that hung over my bra at the sides. I had to choose bras with huge thick sides and full coverage, because all that soft flesh spilled over at the front too, gave me that awful look you get when your bra is too small even though it wasnt. I thought boy, can you have a side breast lift? Anyway, although I was upset at what I thought was extra skin, a miracle happened there. I lost more weight, got right down to a lowish BMI of 22 and somewhere along that way, all that flesh disappeared. All I have to show for it is a slight wrinkly bit under each arm. Even the saggy, loose skin floppy boobs improved. Now I'm fairly small breasted these days from having big DD's, that's the sacrfice but big boobs have never been an ambition of mine anyway. In my experience, toning of course is great, but its really getting rid of ALL the fat that makes a huge difference to "loose skin" under our arms, on our tummies etc.

I might occasionally have one in desperation (dont like them much) but no way would I eat food this processed every single day. All that salt, chemicals, etc.

After my first year, in which I lost probably 60lb, I froze for about 9 months. I was sooooooo cold. DH experienced the same thing. i was never one of those hot people that sweated all the time, but I never felt the cold like I did once I'd lost significant weight. It did balance out over time and I no longer feel freezing, but I certainly do feel the cold more than I did at my highest weight. I also love summer. I can dress in barely anything and not worry about how I look and the heat doesnt bother me at all (and it gets HOT here in Melbourne).

I think it was always meant to be, same as for people who get much heavier than I was. I was tall as a child and I was a bit solid, for want of a better word. Definitely not fat. But not being a tiny petite little femine girl was soul destroying. I was called fat, tortured for my size despite being perfectly within normal range. As I hit puberty, I grew right up to my 5ft 10, by the age of 14 and hit probably 145lb. Huuuuuuuge for a 14 year old girl whose friends are still 5ft tall and under 100lb. Not fat, not at all but I thought I was. I had a massive appetite though, oh golly, what I used to get through is amazing, lol. Not for particularly bad food, I was just growing. Got right up to about 185 lb by mid teens at at that WAS fat for my 5ft 10 height. I had rolls and couldnt wear anything fashionable - nothign went over a size 14 in those days (which is about a US 10). I managed to gain and lose about 20lb through my teens to early 20's, I was about 160 when I got married, not quite thin but OK enough. Had my first baby, managed to not gain a lot and ended up stabilising at around 170 afterwards, had my second, piled on the weight and then gradually climbed throughout my early 30's, right up to about 220. Had my third baby, gained no weight for the pregnancy, got home about 20lb lighter than when I'd conceived and then proceeded to edge up to about 245. I swear I gained weight at the speed of light during breastfeeding, it just came from nowhere, I certainly didnt eat noticeably more. I was very athletic during my teens and had given all that up and just age I guess, and it began to pile on. Sadly, my youngest sister has followed the same pattern - she's spent her life chunky, slightly less so than me, and is now getting quite alarmingly heavy - she's about 5ft 8 and I'd hazard a guess she's hit 200lb by now. Its amazing how it goes in families. My middle sister is petite and has a perfect figure though. So although I wasnt really ever obese until my 30's, I wasnt thin and i beat myself up over it and dieted and then binged and that cycle led to the kind of eating habits that allowed me to gain serious weight later on in my 30's. I really echo JoJo1's sentiments, being tall and bigger, and maturing early is every bit as damaging as being obese in childhood. It feels the same to the child and it causes the same behaviours. I'm a teacher now and I still look at those young girls who are just perfect - tiny, coordinated and pretty and think they are sooooooo lucky. I can see the future ahead for a couple of my grade six girls particularly and it just makes me feel sad. I know how hard it will be for them.

Well....yes, but I struggle mightily with soup, its one food I love and eat (because home made, its so healthy!) but it's a go slow food for me, pb's are highly likely with soup. Cake goes down no problem though. And you know what? I cant eat yogurt for the life of me, I pb every single time. Its not a given that because you can eat cake, you can eat x, y z. But the general point is spot on, you dont NEED to choose Cookies and cakes, there are other healthier less difficult foods you can eat. However, I do agree, when someone ends up eating these slider foods, its generally a good indication that they're too tight. You should be able to fill up on healthier foods.

For me, a serve of a good wholegrain with a meal makes that difference. Even half a piece of wholegrain toast with soup will stick for hours. I dont like sandwiches and never have, but they're the ultimate filler. The meal also needs to contain Protein. Hot also makes a difference for me. For example somethink like about 3/4 of a cup of a Heinz Chunky soup (bits of meat and vegies in it) and half a slice of wholegrain toast would do me easily five or six hours until dinner. Something like tuna on whole grain crackers and an apple would fill me jsut as much at the time, but head hunger, if not actual physical hunger would creep in. Its the hot/meat/wholegrain thing that does it for me. I guess I'm echoing what Jen said above. I rarely have any trouble after dinner, becuase most dinners are this combination. But lunch I have to think more about. Breakfast doesnt make a lot of difference for me, i can go without easily, I can eat just a bit easily or I can fit a hearty one in, any way anyhow, I dont get hungry till lunch.

This is so me! If left to my own devices, I would spend my days in an orgy of carbicide, lol. I just downed carby sugary foods, small bits at a time, but a hundred times a day. I have ALWAYS lost weight well when I make a 3 meals a day rule. My mind needs that "out" so my absolute and only rule to weight loss is 3 meals a day. Those meals can be absolutely whatever I fancy. Funnily enough, you dont often choose cake for lunch, you choose healthier foods for meals than for Snacks, so that cuts out a lot of the crap and even though I might decide to have something unhealthy for lunch, I feel no guilt as long as I've kept to my 3 meals. Over time, the need to eat rubbish has subsided as I've lost the fear I'll never eat it again. Now 90% of my meals are healthy but not obsessive which just causes me anxiety that I havent had x grams of this and y grams of that. I dont think about the nutrition side, just eat a wide variety of all foods. That's how I've beaten grazing. Its still my natural inclination and yes, I do fall back into it, but a strict 3 meals a day policy works well for me. Its simple to remember, follow and to get back on the wagon when you fall off.

Immediately post op, they were similar (about a 5 out of 10 for me, not bad pain at all). By the next day the lapband pain was gone enough that I went for a couple of miles walk. The csection pain was fairly minor but hung around a lot longer, naturally, as muscles and organs had been cut. I was fully recovered from my band within a week.

I never shut up about it, it sneaks into all my posts! I am a passionate runner! During my weight loss phase, I ran a LOT - an hour six days a week, sometimes an hour and a half. All of that cardio stripped the weight off my body. Longer term, I've toned it down a bit. I love it so much, I want to be able to do it forever. I fulfilled a desire to do a half marathon, but my body is not really built for running, I'm an enthusiastic runner, not a gifted one. I stick to about 7 or 8kms maybe 4 times a week now - its just enough to keep the weight off, keep me keen, but not to get sore knees, hips and heels. Other days I do a bootcamp session, that's INTENSE! One day is cardio, the other strength training and he's just introduced a boxing session also. I'm going to drop the cardio session (I get plenty with my running) and do the boxing instead. Its a good balance for me, I manage to fit it all in around full time work. At the moment, I'm also running 3kms at lunchtime 3 days a week because I'm training the grade 3 to sixes for the upcoming cross country. Lots of cardio based stuff with bodyweight strength training works for me - I like to look long and lean, I dont have a great deal of muscle, but I like the look of the body I have and dont really want more. I can eat what I want without worrying about weight gain too.

They dont use fluoro or xray routinely in Australia. Do you know what? I think using it has a very big downside. The reason being, the band is rather fickle. You just dont know how your body will react to each fill, whether you will swell, whether it will take days to feel the effect or whether the renewed restriction will wear off after only a week or two. Filling your band to cut off point, which you can see on a screen, and then backing off just so things go through, that's fine in theory. However, many many people cant handle that aggressive a fill and will swell up in reaction. Meaning they're unable to swallow even their saliva within a few hours, even though the machine showed it was the *right* fill. I think approaching it very slowly, with small fills may be more expensive and inconvenient if you dont live a few suburbs away from your doctor, but its way better for the health and longevity of your band in the long run. Not to say fluoro isnt useful - when you cant find the port, when you cant get good restriction etc. Just that its not the be all and end all. I've never been stuck more than once for a fill, never been overfilled and never had fluoro.