isaviolinist

Thank you!!! It really feels great to be living in onederland (and today I hit 90 pounds lost...90.2 to be exact ) - I NEVER thought I'd be here. Its surreal sometime. I'll be looking for your Onederland post soon! Congrats on your awesome loss so far!!

Well, I have been waiting for this day for ages, and finally today, I hit 199.8 on the scale!!! I am SO thrilled! I don't remember the last time I saw a 1 before my weight. With all the struggles I've had with the band (regaining 50 pounds after losing 80 initially and then having to re-lose the 50 and retrain all those bad habits I started again) and my eating (in therapy now for binge eating disorder), I couldn't be happier and more proud of the hard I work I'm putting in. It really hasnt been easy (I think we can all attest to the fact that WLS is NOT the easy way out), but I'm so glad that I'm following the rules (most of the time ) and feeling great! And I thank my lucky stars everyday for all the support and love around me. Can't believe I'm living in onederland! Its nice over here - I think I'll stick around!

Hey Va Viv - thanks so much for posting the link for me. It did work and I'm on board for the new challenge now See you there!!

Yay! Can't wait for the Feb challenge!! My fiance and I are taking a late Valentine's Day trip at the end of the month and we're going to a super fancy restaurant and I'm hoping I'll be able to buy a new dress in a regular size for the occasion Anyways, here is my info: Name, real or screen: isaviolinist Age: 28 Weight on January 31st: 194 Goal Weight for February 28th: 187 Exercise Goal for February: Up the intensity in all workouts/continue working out 6-7 days a week Dietary Goal for February: Continue to be mindful of what I'm eating and what my body is asking for Personal Goal for February: (similar to dietary goal) continue making progress with my binge eating disorder Date Banded: June 18, 2009 Total Weight Loss Since Banding: 89 (as of Jan 31)

Hey, can someone post a link for the Feb challenge thread? LBT is completely dysfunctional for me (has been for awhile since the switch over but it just keeps getting worse and admins have stopped responding to my messages...guess they don't care) and I can't see any new posts under New Content (it just says "No new posts to display") and all of the threads I subscribe to under My Content are erased (I get the same error message: nothing to display). So I have no way of accessing it. :-(

My situation isn't really the same as yours, but I struggled with my band for a long while and regained a lot of the weight (50 pounds to be specific) I had initially lost. In September I decided to get back on track with my eating and exercise and I re-lost all the weight I had regained plus more, but I was still feeling like I was struggling and was not in control of my eating. So I started seeing a therapist in December for my binge/compulsive eating issues and it has helped me tremendously. I know that many of the things you're going through aren't directly food related, but maybe you should seek out a therapist to kind of guide you through some of the trials you're going through. Mine has really helped me and I love talking to her every week. It really helps me to get through some of the daily struggles I go through.

Its really hard to determine your calorie needs without knowing your body composition. For me, at 5'2, and with maybe 27-28ish% body fat, 900-1000 calories a day enables me to lose about 2 pounds a week fairly consistently. But if I were 5'2 with 10% body fat, my calorie needs would be different. Its good to just experiment and see what works. I don't really believe in the starvation mode theory, but what does happen is that your body tries to maintain an equilibrium. And one way it does that is by slowing down its metabolism based on how many calories you're eating. So if you're consuming 800 calories, your body will try to burn less because it is getting less which is why you may start losing less if you eat a very low calorie diet. If you're 6'2 and weigh 190 and its mostly muscle, your body's metabolism would desperately try to slow down as much as it could if you gave it 800 calories a day. But if you're 5'2, weigh 190, and have some lean mass but less than what is healthy, 800 calories may work perfectly fine. Its always good to listen to what your body is telling you regarding how it feels. So if you're current calorie intake is making you feel sluggish or just not right in some way, it may be your body's way of telling you it needs something different.

I count calories (I aim for 900-1000 a day) but I don't really count carbs or fats. I do watch my protein but if I only eat 30-40 g of protein one day, I don't fret about it (many other days I eat more than 80-85g of protein so it all balances itself out). I track on fitday.com and it creates a little pie graph for me of my carbs, fats and proteins. I try to get the graph as even as I can (33%-33%-33%). I don't do low carb or low fat or protein only or any other type of dieting method. Its most important to me to just eat a balanced menu everyday. So if I go over my calories one day, I worry less about that than if I have a day where I ate 95% of one macronutrient and not very much of the other two.

Does having laser hair removal hurt? I've always thought about, but I'm scared. Is your chin (or wherever the hair was removed from) really red and irritated for weeks after? Would love to hear from anyone who has had it done.

I changed my goal weight in that I started focusing on body fat percentage as opposed to weight. So instead of a weight, I am focused on getting down to 22% body fat which is a healthy amount for females my age. I have a lot more lean mass than most women my age and height (I have 140 pounds of lean mass and I'm not losing any...in fact I've gain 1/2 a pound of lean mass in the past few months...for comparison, most women my age and height have 110ish pounds of lean mass). Initially I was hoping to get down to 130 pounds, but if I end up with 130 pounds of lean mass, obviously 130 pounds total is not realistic (Im sure I dont need to explain but that would be 0% body fat). So I'm aiming for 22% body fat percentage and when I get there, I'll reassess how I fell and what I want my next goal to be.

I have binge eating disorder (sounds like you do too). People on here have had the experience that once they have been banded, their compulsion to eat goes away (although I wonder if they had a compulsive eating disorder to begin with...not sure). I did NOT have that experience. And please dont fool yourself - its extremely easy to binge with the band (think 4 milkshakes, or 2 pints of ice cream, or 10 cups of pudding...whatever...their is tons that will slide right through). I initially lost almost 80 pounds and then regained almost 50. And it was due to bingeing. Ive since lost all that I had regained plus some, but I've started seeing a therapist who specializes in eating disorders. I would STRONGLY suggest getting into therapy or a support group or something similar prior to being banded. I am so glad that I've chosen to go to therapy now, but I think my experience could've gone a little bit smoother if I had started to deal with these issues before my surgery. good luck!

Holy Mackerel!! This recipe sounds amazing. I don't eat meat and this sounds just divine. Plus, I love anything involving nutmeg Will be trying it out tomorrow night for din din! Thanks again!

I'm obsessed with peanut butter. I love ANYTHING with peanut butter. I was having difficulty controlling myself with it, so I've stopped buying it pretty much. However, I do always keep a couple jars of PB2 in the pantry. Its really great for all kinds of things: mixing into shakes/puddings, making peanut sauce for salads or anything really, low cal peanut butter icing, peanut butter sauce for ice cream, peanut butter greek yogurt...Its amazing stuff. And two tablespoons only has 45 calories (as opposed to 180-190 calories in 2 tablespoons of regular PB). Anyways, peanut butter is really good in moderation. At whole foods you can grind your own PB (thus you can take as much or as little as you want, and since youre literally grinding it straight from peanuts, there isn't any sugar or salt or any other additives/chemicals). But look into PB2 - it definitely helps me with my PB craving.

The longest I've ever been able to do a liquid diet post-banding was like a week. Sometimes I consider doing one, but I often find that it back fires and I end up eating more than I really want to. But I have binge eating issues. If you don't and are easily able to control what you eat, you may be fine with that. If I were you, I'd probably start by logging food (I log online at fitday.com) - every single thing that goes in your mouth, and I would start exercising. Set a realistic goal for yourself (like 1200 calories a day, and 4 days a week of exercise). I gained 50 pounds back and that is what I did. I "restarted" in September getting back on track and have since lost all that I had regained plus more. Good for you for getting back on track!

Much luck tomorrow!!

Hey everyone! Congrats on all the success this week! I'm checking in at 195. That's 1.6 down from last week. My goal was 193.6, so I missed it by 1.4 pounds but I'm still happy about how I did this month. 6.6 pounds (a little over 1.5 pounds a week) isn't too shabby And definitely looking forward to the Valentines Day Challenge!! So: isaviolinist 195 pounds Thanks for recording it!

Hi Ken - Thanks for your prompt response. My Content is now listing all of the posts I have posted in I think. However, now, the posts are not chronologically in order. Currently, this is the order the posts in My Content are in (by time/date stamp from top to bottom): Yesterday 10:19PM, Yesterday 11:47PM, Yesterday 7:57 PM, Yesterday 11:49PM, Yesterday 6:05PM, Yesterday 11:57PM, Yesterday 10:16PM, Jan 28 2011 10:49PM, Jan 28 2011 5:29PM, Jan 28 2011 12:28AM, Jan 27 2011 8:19PM, Today 12:22PM, Yesterday 8:02AM, Today 3:37AM, Jan 28 2011 12:33AM, Yesterday 6:32AM, etc.... I'm glad that it looks like My Content is showing all of my content now, but how can I put them in chronological order so I don't have to scroll through 3 pages in order to find a thread that was posted in 5 minutes ago? As for the New Content, I'm posting a picture of the homepage and a picture of my New Content page (taken right now at 12:50PM). From that you'll be able to see that none of the posts listed on the homepage appear in my New Content. There are a bunch of new posts that were posted between 11:00-11:59AM today (shown on the homepage). On my New Content page, there are NO new posts between 11-11:59AM. Additionally, it only lists two posts between 10:00-10:59AM today which I definitely know is not true because there were two posts made in the New Year, New You Challenge 2011 between 10-10:59 (I received email notifications and then I checked in the thread to see when they were posted) which doesn't show up at all when I click on New Content (which you can see in the picture). By 10AM there are always tons of new posts on LBT, so I know that there were more than 2 posts made in the 10AM hour and you can see from the screen shot that there were tons of posts made during the 11AM hour, none of which show up on New Content. Looking forward to a solution. Thanks. Edit: I'm sending you via message the links to the photos in Picasa. Thanks.

Yay, thanks!!

So far, changing it to 5 minutes hasn't effected anything. When I direct my browser to: http://www.lapbandtalk.com/, I can see new posts in each of the different forum topics (Introductions, Pre Operation Lapband Surgery, Post Operation Lap band surgery, General Lap Band Surgery, Lap Band Fills, food and Nutrition, Fitness and Exercise, etc). These are the titles of each of the New Posts in these categories right now at this moment (Jan 30, 10:13PM) which I can see on the homepage: "body image" (posted 9:48PM), "Getting my Lap Dance tomorrow" (posted 9:57PM), "Newly Banded. Any Regrets?" (posted 10:06PM), "5 days post-op...still hungry" (posted 10:10PM), "Acanthosis nigricans" (posted 8:10PM), "Utah fills and aftercare" (posted 9:15PM), "Calories per day" (posted 8:51PM), "Nintendo Wii" (posted 7:45PM), "Surgery Date 12/05/2011?" (posted 9:41PM), etc. The list goes on. Not ONE SINGLE ONE OF THESE POSTS (or any of the others that I did not have the patience to list) is listed in the "New Content" section when I click on it. Additionally, I know how to see my own posts under "My Content". That was not my issue. My issue is that many of the threads that I have posted in are not listed under "My Content", including this thread. So once again, I've been looking at the same 5-6 "new" threads all day today and when I want to respond to the mutltude of threads that I am subscribed to and which I have received email notifications for today, my only access to these threads is by clicking on the link in the email (as they are not listed under New Content, My Content, and they do not show up in a search). LBT is not functional for me. If there is a fix for it, I'd love to know what it is so I can stay. If this is how it will remain, I'd also like to know so I can find a new band community where I can interact with all the conversations going on (not just a few select ones everyday).

Sweet thanks!! If you try anything out, let me know And yes, I love my blogging community. I have a great group of people that I follow and who follow me. And when we support others, we are supporting ourselves at the same time (I know I always say that, but its SO true!).

Thanks so much!! I LOVE cooking - and it has become so much more fun since having my band. If you try anything out, let me know what you think!! Please do!!

I'm following your blog now! I love following others' blogs - its so helpful for us to support each other. My blog is in my signature if you want to follow it

Hi Jodi - I don't eat pork, red meat or poultry - just seafood and vegetarian Protein. Here is the link to my blog: http://violinistwithaband.blogspot.com/ If you look on the left hand side underneath the "Followers" there is a list of recipes that I've posted. There are recipes for salmon, walleye, shrimp, cod, crab cakes (2 different types), and cioppino (there are a bunch of other recipes, but those are the seafood ones). I have tons of seafood recipes that I haven't posted also, so if you're looking for something specific, just let me know

Congrats on your amazing success and thanks for sharing your story! How inspirational! I hope you figure out the pictures as I'm sure you look amazing!!

Cleo's mom is correct. Losing weight is a simple equation of calories in vs calories out. It doesn't matter if you eat them via 3 meals, 5 meals, 20 Snacks, ice cream only, whatever. If you consume less energy than you burn, you will lose weight. So try tracking your calories. I use fitday.com and I like it. I also agree that eliminating certain "bad" foods is so ridiculous. If we have a healthy relationship with food, then there won't be any "bad" foods. I rarely eat less than 60 carbs a day (or whatever the figure was that one of the above posters gave). I love ice cream and mac and cheese and I'm not giving them up anytime soon. But I track my calories (both consumed and burned) and continue to lose because my input is less than my output. Instead of depriving yourself of everything "bad" (this is not specifically directed at OP, but to the general LBT public), go to a therapist or support group and fix your head issues. I eat every single one of the foods that MarcyLoo listed (and labeled as completely off-limits) including snacks, carbs, liquid calories, protein shakes, soft foods, yogurt (and trust me sweetie, a bit of low-carb low-cal granola ain't gonna stop if from going through...what is low carb low cal granola by the way? Seems like it would be one or the other - not both), tuna salad (without apple bits or any other kind of 'bits'), bread, rice/grains, and potatoes. I eat them all and lose 2 pounds per week on average, consistently. I'll be interested in speaking to you after you've had your band for a year to see if you are still following this prescribed stringent and restrictive diet. Back to the OP, If you're doing what you should be, and your calories in are less than your calories out, your plateau will break itself eventually. If you want to speed up that process, change up your macronutrients (if you're eating tons of carbs, try to cut back on carbs for a few days and add more protein...if you haven't really been eating much fat, try adding some in to your diet), try varying your calorie intake (instead of 900 calories everyday, do 800 calories one day and 1000 calories the next) and try a different work out routine. Often tricking our bodies by changing our eating pattern for a day or two or changing our exercise will be enough to get things moving again. And please remember, this isn't a diet (diets are what lead to most of us being morbidly obese), its a lifestyle change. Think of it that way. Good luck!