Fanny Adams

Quote: Originally Posted by *Susan* I refuse to eat cat Too easy.....no comment.... ROFL!!

Congrats on your date! Dr Watson is good like that - he went out of his way to make my surgery date convenient for me, as I work away on a mine site 8 days in every 14. Re your question: it depends upon your restriction and whether you want to keep it tight or take it gently. I prefer my restriction a little on the loose side - it does mean that I eat a little more than some bandsters, but I don't have problems with any type of food as long as I'm careful to eat slowly and chew thoroughly. I've never been much into junk food and sweets, so I don't have a huge challenge making good choices as long as I get full on the meals I eat. Other people might like to be more restricted, so that they eat less and don't have to struggle with food choices, but they pay the price of being more sensitive to food types and having PB problems. My average meals are around a cup but I can eat an entree at most restaurants - couldn't manage a main meal though! I like going doing the Chinese banquet thing with family too, as I can have a small spoonful of everything and not feel like I've missed out and still walk away full and satisfied.

Froggi, did you see the news article about that new frog discovered in South America? Here's a link: The incredible purple frog that's one of 24 new species discovered in South America | Mail Online It has the most AMAZING colours!

Don't forget the "extra protein" line!! :biggrin:

You know it's probably not nice of me to say so, but I have a very hard time believing people when they say they only eat 1/4 cup 3 times a day. Do they really use the proper cup measures for that? I mean, look how small 1/4 cup is!! Who could think living on 3/4 cup for an entire day's food intake was a healthy way of living? I take such comments with a fairly large pinch of salt :biggrin:.

Congratulations! It sounds like it has been an uphill battle for you and you have done tremendously well in maintaining or losing even small amounts, without the proper restriction. Now that you're feeling it, I hope the future yields some quick losses to reward you for all your hard work.

LOL! I think I have a grand total of 5 pairs of shoes in all - 1 pair of steel-capped men's workboots (I work on a mine), 1 pair of runners, 1 pair of leather thongs (flipflops?) and umm... umm... 1 pair of ratty old wedge slip-on sandals and umm... umm... ok, make that 4 pairs of shoes all up :ohmy: *edit* And a pair of cheap zip-up black ankle boots! So yeah, five pairs!

Don't forget that an average is just a statistic and there are people who reached 100% of their goal and those who have achieved 0% in that range. There's no reason why you can't be one of the 100% if you work at it :ohmy:.

My two best friends are my mother and my daughter...which is wonderful but also a bit sad in a way.

The trick is small sips and often. You won't be able to slam down a half gallon of water, like you might do now when you get thirsty, so if you are working outdoors and sweating a lot, keep a sipper bottle with you and sip at it constantly.

I'm with Jachut and others - healthy balanced diet in moderate to small portions. I don't eat a lot of bread, white rice or pasta but I don't avoid it altogether either. Mostly, I eat meat and fresh veges, lots of salad for lunch, and a small portion of whatever's going for dinner. I do avoid fried food and junk and am fairly strict about that but not 100%. I don't know how people that aim for 1/4 cup a meal can cope - I eat at least a cup for lunch and dinner!

Sounds fabulous! Can't wait to try it!

The "no drinking" rule is mostly so that you don't wash the food through your band quickly and end up hungry again soon afterwards. Having a glass of wine with dinner on occasion shouldn't be a problem, but if you find yourself snacking when you get home because you are hungry again, you should probably rethink drinking with meals. Also, as you get good restriction, you may find that drinking anything while eating is actually difficult - I am finding this now. I tend to have a little sip of Water just after a meal to wash my mouth out, but drinking anything more than that can lead to PBing :drool: All things in moderation is the name of the game! One of the benefits that I have found is that my tolerances for alcohol have GREATLY reduced. One or two glasses of wine over the full course of the evening is the most I can manage now without getting really tipsy, whereas previously I could easily knock off the bottle on my own - yay for cheap highs! Be really really careful in a "drinking session with the girlfriends" though - the alcohol does hit you much faster and you can easily overdo it before you realise it. The LAST thing you need is to end up with your head in the toilet bowl throwing up; that is a HUGE no-no! I had a glass of wine on Xmas Day, which was 2 weeks after surgery.

Jachut, let me add my voice to that request - I'd love the recipe too!

Congrats, Simba and welcome to Bandland! Good luck on your journey :thumbup:

Some people are good at following the rules and don't have these issues; others *waves hand* have that streak of futile rebellion and like to push the envelope. All I can say is slow down and work on listening to your body. When you get those signals, don't ignore them and try to push on further - it will only lead to pain and nausea. If you know after 2 or 3 bites that it isn't sitting well, stop for a few minutes, then eat something else. Try every thing but take small bites, chew chew CHEW, and wait between eat bite to see how you react to it. I think the process of really listening to your body is the most important lesson of all. I'm still relatively new and I'm still working on this, but if I take things slowly and carefully, I can eat just about anything. When I stop listening, though, and try to eat just that little bit too quickly, forget to chew properly or stubbornly try to keep eating when my body says stop, that's when I run into trouble.

Ahahaha!! Are you sure your friend's friend's friend didn't wake up in a strange hotel, in a bath full of ice and missing a kidney? LOL!

I don't want to beat you up for making silly mistakes, coz I know I've made my share too, so I'll just quote some of your words back at you: "My body has been trying to tell me to stop!" "over the past week, I have had stomachaches. I generally ignored the problem." "I was full after about a quarter of the way thru. But it tasted so good...I ate it. All of it." "After about three bites I noticed it wasn't doing down well. " Your body and band are trying their best to let you know what's going on. Your head is playing mind games with you and fighting to keep the old addictions and comforts going. You have to break that! I know it's hard to give up the old eating habits, but the only way you'll succeed is to learn to LISTEN to your body when it gives you these signals. Chances are you're probably thinking "tell me something I DON'T know!" right now and wondering how repeating the obvious could help. Well maybe it won't but I can also add a trick I used to try to break that cycle: Tell your head you'll "come back to it later". When your body is saying "stop" but your head wants "more more more!", it can be really hard to walk away from or throw out the remaining half of a portion, even when you KNOW you don't really want it or need it. Instead, wrap up the remainder and put it away and tell yourself "If I still want that in half an hour (or an hour), I can come back to it", then go do something totally distracting (walk, play a game, start the washing, whatever). If you're anything like me, anytime I tell myself "NO I CAN'T HAVE THAT", I obsess over it and it becomes the "one thing I can't live without", but if I trick myself into not triggering that "oh my god, I am DENYING myself something, WAAAHHH!" feeling, the desire goes away. Most of the time, I forget to come back to it because I really wasn't hungry any more and when I find it in the fridge hours later, it isn't very appealing at all, so then I can summon the willpower to chuck it where it belongs - in the bin. On the few occasions when I've still been hungry when I came back and the item was still appealing, at least I've managed to get through that without pain and nausea, so that's better than the alternative. PS: Sorry but couldn't let it go without at least this much of a nag... You DO know that pizza and Jack in the Box are not good choices, don't you? I hope to goodness that you are at least several months post-op and not making those choices in your post-op healing phase :wub:

Holy crap, $1000 a fill??? I'm fully self-pay in Aus and my doc charges $150. Medicare does give a rebate on that ($105) so it only actually costs me $45, but I'd still be happy to pay the full $150 compared to $1000. That's highway robbery!

The way you put it, the only safe and conservative way to get big ticket items like a house is to save up and pay cash for them or to try to buy a house where you could still afford the repayments when living on a disability pension or similar. Seriously, who lives like that? There are some things where risk is inevitable and responsible people take care to limit their choices in those things so as to minimise the risk (eg insurance, savings), but it is impossible to elimimate them altogether and still have anything like a reasonable lifestyle. For those people who have taken all reasonable precautions and have had their lives crash and burn due to things beyond their control, like the housing market tanking at an unforeseen rate, I have the utmost sympathy. I don't know if that is what you intended, but your comments come across as saying that anyone who has gone into a mortgage at all has been foolishly irresponsible and deserves whatever happens - and I'm not surprised that people are finding that attitude offensive.

This is a winter NSV, not a summer one, coz I'm on the upside down half of the world, hehe, but it gave me a thrill. I WOWED my brother at bridge on Sunday. We play bridge every 2nd week, so he has been watching my progress and has been very supportive and complimentary all the way through. However, on Saturday, I went shopping for the first time since the operation (huge sale on at one of my favourite shops) and I bought a heap of stuff. I knew it was nice and I looked good but I truly wasn't expecting his reaction when I walked into the bridge club. His jaw dropped and he was just about speechless for ages - just kept saying "WOW!! You're looking so GOOD!!" Talk about an ego boost! I think it was a combination of a really cute outfit in a colour that really suited me and wearing clothes that actually fitted nicely instead of hanging off all loose and sloppy. In case anyone is interested, the outfit was a pale pink long sleeved t-shirt with a built-in mock white blouse beneath (collar and cuffs), straightleg blue jeans and black boots. They were in an AUS size 18, which is 14 in US sizes, so I was doubly stoked about that bit, having come down from an AUS size 24-26 (US 20-22). Yay for sweetheart brothers!

Thanks Rastis! :frown: I think it is fairly slow but it is steady and I'm just below the average loss in my December Merry Losers group. I was so close to my 2nd major milestone (under 100kg) last Monday, that I could almost taste it but the scales were mean to me and wouldn't give me that 0.3 before I had to fly back to site. Oh well, I'm sure it will be there waiting for me when I get home and you might hear the screams of delight from where you live . All in all, I have been stoked with this process - I'm right on track for where I should be in my 18 month plan and confident that I'll make goal. PS: You're doing really well yourself, Rastis! I know you've had a couple of hiccups but it looks like those numbers are on their way down again - well done!!

Some suggestions for making the Optiyuck palatable: Add a generous teaspoon of coffee and sweetener such as Equal - ice coffee milkshake! Add a generous splash any "diet" brand of icecream topping - strawberry or caramel milkshakes! It is hard to stick to but it really does give you a good kickstart to the loss. Good luck! PS: Don't panic if at about 2-3 weeks post-op, the scales stop moving down or worse start going up and down about 3-5lbs for a couple of weeks. This happens to many many of us and it is perfectly normal, even if it seems impossible given the tiny amounts you will be eating at that stage of the post-op diet (full liquids/mushies). It seems to be a combination of some of the initial loss being Water loss and your body is just balancing that out, possible increased sodium intake if you are having a lot of canned Soups, and the "starvation mode" theory that says that your body will hang on to everything it has if you stop feeding it. If it happens, just hang in there and continue with your plan - you will find the stall only lasts a couple of weeks and the loss starts again. It is just really disconcerting when you are not expecting it - believe me, I know that one from experience!

Hi lellow, another Dr Watson patient here, banded last December and have never regretted it for a single second. It's truly an amazing feeling to be free from the hunger daemons, who have ruled our lives for so long. Dr Watson is very straightforward and very helpful and accommodating - I'm sure you can't go wrong to go with him. Be prepared for it to be a slow process - this isn't gastric bypass surgery and the weight doesn't just fall off overnight. However, it does work if you stick to the guidelines at least most of the time. My advice would be to take it slowly and carefully, don't try to too much restriction and rapid weight loss, concentrate instead on changing your eating and exercising habits and the losses will come. I think in the long run, that is a healthier approach and has fewer complications (I am convinced that most of the vomiting, slippage and erosion problems we read about come from people trying to be too tight so they can lose faster.)

"So far so good, but I just finished my antibiotics." That sounds like your cause, right there. Going on a course of antibiotics is almost guaranteed to lead to thrush for me. :tongue_smilie: Google "antibiotics thrush", I'll bet you find a number of medical articles that support that link too.