Kris150

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/magazine/tara-parker-pope-fat-trap.html
The Fat Trap By TARA PARKER-POPE Published: December 28, 2011 In the battle to lose weight, and keep it off, our bodies are fighting against us. I came across this article recently. A long read, but worth the time.
It's not fresh, so I might be late to the party (it having been disseminated on the forum years ago...) but it's certainly fresh for me.
What do you think?
Kris

I'm not a big fan of cliches, but there is one applicable here: the band - or any other WLS method - is only a tool and only works as well as the user uses it.
'nough said.

Hi Pinky
30lbs since February sounds excessive... I had the exact same problem a year ago, had an unfill in July and gained 15lbs until Christmas and there I maintained until my recent fill in April.
I understand the difficulties, after all I'm a card carrying member of OA myself and fallen off the wagon pretty badly after the unfill. But at the end of the day, getting an unfill does not give us carte Blanche to start eating like our old selves again!
It is tough to stick to the good eating habits when running a deflated band, much-much tougher than with a properly filled one, but we must stick to it none the less - otherwise we can find ourselves back at square one....
Please, please, please DO NOT ABANDON THE GOOD EATING HABITS just because you had an unfill!!!! Tough it out! Keep in mind that you will have your band back shortly - that's the light at the end of that particular tunnel, and you can pick it up where you left it off.
Sent from my KFTT using LapBandTalk

I'm not a big fan of cliches, but there is one applicable here: the band - or any other WLS method - is only a tool and only works as well as the user uses it.
'nough said.

I'm not a big fan of cliches, but there is one applicable here: the band - or any other WLS method - is only a tool and only works as well as the user uses it.
'nough said.

I love food but I don't love eating, if that makes sense. I don't think I used to be a foodie pre-band coz I ate so much rubbish. Once I could only eat so little I wanted the food to be AMAZING, otherwise I'd feel like I wasted the small amount of space I had. So I eat good food but for the enjoyment of the taste but not to get full.
Funnily enough though by wanting premium food I actually ate nutritionally better food than when I could eat anything I liked.

I LOVE baking and I kept my subscription to Good food magazine after my surgery too.
I'm also member of the chocolate Tasting Club in the UK - admittedly I don't eat any other chocolates, only sample and score the very high quality selection they send out to me quarterly.
And I enjoy all the above. The difference: I don't eat the whole box in one go, I hunt for band-friendly recipes in the magazine and I restrict my baking to special occasions.
Last year, a year after being banded and reaching my lowest weight of 170 lbs, we went to a short holiday in Rome which included a LOT of gelato and fritto misto... I came home a pound or two nuclear, but I accepted that and worked it off in a week. I even bought a Gaggia gelato churning machine which I use every now and then.
I truly believe that you can stay or become a foodie after band surgery - as long as you can leave behind or deal effectively with your food issues (in your head) which made you lose control before. It was a learning curve for me (to begin with, I refused dealing with any non-band-friendly food) but then I learned to do these things with healthy moderation.
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I'm in the exact same shoes.... cannot shift the pounds, matter what I try.
I giving a go to carb cycling a go ... I'm 10 days in, there was no loss after a week...
I took up running after my surgery and now adding some strength training, mainly to improve my running.
This is so frustrating! So if you could keep the ideas/tips going that would be great.
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I LOVE baking and I kept my subscription to Good food magazine after my surgery too.
I'm also member of the chocolate Tasting Club in the UK - admittedly I don't eat any other chocolates, only sample and score the very high quality selection they send out to me quarterly.
And I enjoy all the above. The difference: I don't eat the whole box in one go, I hunt for band-friendly recipes in the magazine and I restrict my baking to special occasions.
Last year, a year after being banded and reaching my lowest weight of 170 lbs, we went to a short holiday in Rome which included a LOT of gelato and fritto misto... I came home a pound or two nuclear, but I accepted that and worked it off in a week. I even bought a Gaggia gelato churning machine which I use every now and then.
I truly believe that you can stay or become a foodie after band surgery - as long as you can leave behind or deal effectively with your food issues (in your head) which made you lose control before. It was a learning curve for me (to begin with, I refused dealing with any non-band-friendly food) but then I learned to do these things with healthy moderation.
Sent from my KFTT using LapBandTalk

Hello Carb Cyclers!
Quick question for you: on high carb days you do suppose to eat carbs even if your dinner is after 6pm, right? (Trying to plan my daily meals in the office and left the book home...)
Also, here is suggestion for high carb days:
Danone's new Danio yoghurts: high Protein, low fat, really tasty.
The pot I'm eating right now as my mid-morning meal is a blueberry variety: 160g/159kcal/11.9 protein/18.9 carb/3.8 fat
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I'm working on a massive one-man (well, woman) project in the office. It requires a huge amount of mental work - creating spreadsheets, sorting and correcting tens of thousands of data, comparing, evaluating, what not.... In a nutshell: it's a cracker. (hahh, did you get that? )
Anyway, there is leftover cake from my boss's birthday yesterday which I could normally withstand (I'm not really interested if I didn't bake it, and anyway it's a day old cream cake). However, today, sitting in front of my screen trying to cut my way through the enormous task the cake is calling my name....
So I thought "that's strange, let's see what's going on in my head which creates this unusual food pull". So I did take a moment (or five minutes...) and this is what I've found:
I found the scale of the task so daunting, that my subconscious just refuses to deal with it and it throws up anything it can to distract me from doing it or thinking about it.
It literally flashes a picture of the cake and the feel in my mouth constantly in front of me so I drop my focus from the task. It (meaning my subconscious) just doesn't want to work on this project.
Now, the curve ball is that I did try to give it an alternative option to de-focus: a walk, a chat with a co-worker, answering email, and it sort of works. But as soon as I open my database to work on my project it starts with the cake images again....
I reached a point at which I can look at myself and my behavior from the outside and let me tell you: it is a weird experience. I find myself admonishing myself for the behavior and thoughts of my subconscious and trying to wrestle my focus back on the task on hand.
This is such a strange feeling - I'm dealing with my eating demons since I was 12, but only now I feel I start to understand what's going on. There's going to be a long way to recovery (or just staying sane and away from the cake), but I will see this moment as an important point in my journey.
All that said, I still have a question to ask:
How do you deal with the inner demons? Any "magic bullets" out there? I'd like to know - one might work for me too.
Now.... back to the database...

Hi Alex
I think you should have a chapter on "head" issues (psychology) and how to fight/win the inner and constant battle of staying with the rules in the long term.
There are a lot of books dealing with the journey up to and just after WLS surgery, but virtually none for "long termers".
There should also be a section on how to get back on track if you fall off - that's a popular and frequent topic amongst "oldies".
Good luck and keep us updated - I'm certainly interested in a helpful book for long term WLS patients.
Sent from my KFTT using LapBandTalk

Hi Alex
I think you should have a chapter on "head" issues (psychology) and how to fight/win the inner and constant battle of staying with the rules in the long term.
There are a lot of books dealing with the journey up to and just after WLS surgery, but virtually none for "long termers".
There should also be a section on how to get back on track if you fall off - that's a popular and frequent topic amongst "oldies".
Good luck and keep us updated - I'm certainly interested in a helpful book for long term WLS patients.
Sent from my KFTT using LapBandTalk

If you’re once a fatty, are you always a fatty?


THINK THIN, BE THIN
I think I’m well qualified to speak on this subject, since once upon a time my schoolmates chanted, “Fatty, Fatty, two by four, can’t fit through the kitchen door!” when I walked into the gymnasium for a physical education class with a teacher who, after weighing and measuring each kid, announced to her captive audience that Jean was the shortest and heaviest girl in the class. After which I was the last kid (once again) to be chosen for a volleyball team.
I believe that in order to become a thin person, we must learn to think like one. It’s a tall order, I know. You might as well ask my dogs to learn to think like cats (I’m pretty sure my cats can think like dogs, but it doesn’t seem to work the other way around, to the everlasting detriment of the dogs).
At the same time, I believe that we must never forget our inner fat person. If we do forget, the fat folks may burst out of us and take over again. I know mine did last year, for six months and 30 pounds of regain. She was aided and abetted by the loss of my beloved Lap-Band®, but once she was out of her cage, she took charge so fast it made my dizzy blonde head spin. That’s not a pretty sight when that head is busy gobbling all the food in the western hemisphere and the body attached to it is rejoicing, “Starvation has ended at last! It’s party time!” (which is what my gastroenterologist said my metabolism was doing, although not in those exact words).
I lost the weight I had regained, plus another 10 pounds. I know (or I hope) I don’t look like a fatty any more, but a fatty still lurks inside me somewhere. My fat demon is hidden from view, but she’s still my demon. Exactly what every girl needs, along with a good bra and a good hairdresser. Seriously, though, my fat potential lives on, mainly because obesity is an incurable, chronic disease that no surgery today can cure. As long as my inner fatty threatens to take over, it’s hard for me to think and act like a thin person. But I refuse to give up the Quest for Thin Jean, and I strive every day to emulate her. I believe that practicing thin behavior will eventually teach me thin thinking, and I believe that practicing thin thinking will keep my body thin.
FAKE IT UNTIL YOU MAKE IT
We have now arrived at the bad-tasting course in this home-cooked meal of advice. In order to practice thin thinking, we need to do things that we’ve done over and over again in the past without long lasting results, like making good food choices, practicing Portion Control, and exercising. I know that this concept frustrates many of us and infuriates some of us. Some people scorn the practicing part of the WLS journey. They say, “It’s just another diet.” A friend of mine declared a week before her band surgery, “I refuse to diet.” Perhaps it’s a matter of semantics or personal preference, but I persist in believing in the importance of practice because thin thinking and thin acting don’t come naturally to me. I wasn’t born with piano-playing skills. I had to take lessons and practice every day just to be able to play “Chopsticks”. Even famous concert pianists must practice every day. The same is true of being thin.
This reminds me of the “fake it until you make it” slogan repeated in 12-step groups. The 12-step tradition recognizes that sobriety or abstinence doesn’t come naturally to people with addictive tendencies. It doesn’t expect its members to leap from the first to the 12th step in one week, one month, or even one year. All it asks is that we practice desirable behaviors every day, day after day, while the struggle to do that gradually lessens and we gain some control over the undesirable behaviors. Eventually we discover that we don’t have to “white knuckle” it anymore because the desirable behaviors have become habits.
Assuming that you had WLS because you don’t want to be a fatty any more, I’d like to suggest that you begin by not eating like a fatty any more. You don’t have to do it perfectly, because you’re just practicing, right? As far as I’m concerned, you can leave the perfection stuff to God. All you need to do is do your best, day by day, to work with your strengths and work around your weaknesses. Even if practice doesn’t always make perfect, it’s got to help you with the fake it part until you get to the make it part. Yes, it’s a lot of work, but you can do it!

i feel a section on (want power) would help...
there is a difference in wanting something bad enough to do what it is you need to do in order for it to happen......very different from will power.
DEF recipes...(please include alot of grilling outside types) as i do alot of that

Hi Alex
I think you should have a chapter on "head" issues (psychology) and how to fight/win the inner and constant battle of staying with the rules in the long term.
There are a lot of books dealing with the journey up to and just after WLS surgery, but virtually none for "long termers".
There should also be a section on how to get back on track if you fall off - that's a popular and frequent topic amongst "oldies".
Good luck and keep us updated - I'm certainly interested in a helpful book for long term WLS patients.
Sent from my KFTT using LapBandTalk

As many of you know, I was stuck for more than a month. I was monitoring my calories, getting in all my Protein and exercising, yet the scale didn't budge. I know, plateaus are normal, but they still suck. Around the time the plateau hit I also started taking birth control pills. I even gained 2 pounds, which for me was the deal breaker. I had to find a way to break the plateau and start losing again.
So I started researching. Low carb, high carb, no carb, etc. I see so many variations on here! What's right? What's wrong? I already knew it was a matter of choice without a clear right or wrong answer, but I also knew individual body needs also played a very big part in it. During my research I kept coming across something called carb cycling, so I decided to look more into it.
Carb cycling is essentially trying to optimize your metabolism by alternating high and low carb days. Body builders often do this to build muscle and burn fat before a contest but it's also very helpful for weight loss. Then one day I turned on Doctor Oz...and wouldn't you know it... it was an episode on carb cycling. Chris Powell, of The Biggest Loser, was on his show talking about he has all the contestants on the show carb cycle and how he does it. For me, this was the point I decided to give carb cycling a try.
Chris Powell's method is specifically for weight loss so I decided to go with his (there's many out there). He has an excellent book called “Choose to Lose: The 7-Day Carb Cycle Solution”.
His theory: No carb diets don't work. It's not sustainable long term and eventually it significantly slows the metabolism. Worse, people who cut out carbs usually end up gaining all their weight back and then some when they do suddenly reintroduce carbs. Carbs are the energy block of the body and a long term lack of carbs will cause the thyroid to slow down significantly.
7 day diet/carb cycling: High carb day followed by low carb day, alternating daily. Start on a high carb day and always eat within 30 minutes of waking up in the morning. Always limit or omit carbs after 6pm.
All this is within your own personal daily calorie allowance.
High carb day/energy day:
Preferably complex carbs. Protein, low fat. unlimited veggies.

Low carb day/burn day:
A little carb in the morning to boost metabolism
Cut carbs the rest of the day.
Protien, healthy fats, unlimited veggies

3 of each/low carb and high carb. 7th day is cheat day
Cheat day:
Boost calories to boost metabolism
Boost to no more than 1000 extra calories a day
Cheat at Breakfast and lunch, not dinner. 6-12pm “behave”
Cheat at a table. Not in a car, or at a sofa, etc. No “hypno binging”
No leftovers allowed.

Mind you, this is the short version of all this. If this interests you, I'd strongly suggest buying his book for a better understanding. It's very enlightening.
...So this is what I've done for the last week. I am very happy to say, carb cycling broke my plateau, despite still being on the birth control pill too. I lost 5.4 pounds this week!
I have decided I am going to continue to carb cycle. I am not a fan of the low carb days, but I am getting more used to them. Plus, I find my "carb cravings" have all but disappeared since starting this- something I didn't think possible.
For me, it's working. I just thought I'd share the results of my little self experiment

I'm not a big fan of cliches, but there is one applicable here: the band - or any other WLS method - is only a tool and only works as well as the user uses it.
'nough said.

I'm not a big fan of cliches, but there is one applicable here: the band - or any other WLS method - is only a tool and only works as well as the user uses it.
'nough said.

I LOOOOOVE the "want power" expression!
I think that's the most important thing for success. Without that nothing will happen as we won't commit to all the necessary changes in eating habit that are must-haves for losing and maintaining on the long term.
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Cutiepie, time to get beck in the game. Fresh start, focus on what you are eating, 1/2 - 1 cup per meal, Protein first (3-4ozs) then veggies, then carbs. Weigh your food, log what you eat, and if you can consult with a nutritionist.
You can do this. Change that helplessness and depression into positive I CAN DO THIS thoughts. As Ms. Carolinagirl says you have to have WANT POWER. & I know you want this. I believe in you.

I found a great recipe yesterday that I want to try. It's huge on the Protein.
250 Calorie Quinoa Egg Bake
The link to the recipe is:
www.fitsugar.com/Healthy-Quinoa-Egg-Bake-Recipe-26947762
Hope this works for everyone. Nice to be able to make it on the weekend and then just grab a piece in the morning on the way to work!
18.9g of protein!!!

I'm not a big fan of cliches, but there is one applicable here: the band - or any other WLS method - is only a tool and only works as well as the user uses it.
'nough said.

from my own experience:
TOM
stressing at work (over my in laws health issues)
me and my ole man fussing
(he cant ever find dirty clothes basket after 28+ yrs)
allergies
me breaking a nail
traffic snarls
van halen never touring again
my band tightens up......so to answer you, yes
i dont have any fills (just the primer at surgery)
just not hungry...i welcome it sometimes.

Good morning all you strong, committed people!
I'm a tad chirpy this morning.... and there is good reason for that, which I'll share right now:
Just after replying to Kelly's post on Tuesday I've stumbled upon* a tiny but amazing book about WLS. (*: stumbled upon = was suggested by a band blogger) I read it on the spot (thank you Amazon Kindle!) and I believe it changed my perspective completely and put my head right about why things went sour, what I need to do to succeed and gave me tools to do it.
I'm sue by now you are on you seats' edge to get the title of this "magic bullet" - so here it is:
Skinny jeans... at last! by Clifton Thomas MD.
Finally a book more concerned about giving you a helping hand to succeed with your WLS than telling you what to pack for the hospital or what the mushy diet consist of or what or what a fill means.... A useful book for "old bandsters"!
Now go and read it!!!! I mean NOW!! (Then come back and let me know what you think)