Fanny Adams

I haven't tried putting seafood in, but I love seafood so might try it - never occurred to me to mix those two! I did find one recipe that used a little bacon, and I think that would be yum too but haven't tried it. And you haven't had pumpkin properly till you've had it in with the lamb roast and potatoes - now that's what I 'm talking about!!

Getting "stuck" is when some food gets jammed in the opening from the upper pouch to the main larger stomach below, and it is very painful. You'll know it when it happens, it's unmistakeable. This can cause thick saliva to flow, which is your body's way of preparing to vomit and is known as "sliming". The stuck food will eventually either go through, or you will vomit it up, known as PBing (productive burping). This is a little different to pre-banding vomiting, as it is mostly just the chewed and undigested food in your pouch and doesn't contain the stomach juices that make it smell like vomit. Feeling full is just that - feeling like there's no room left to fit in more food. This also feels different to pre-banding days, in that the sensation of fullness is higher up (ie in your upper stomach). It wasn't as satisfying a feeling for me at first but after a while, I got used to thinking of that as my new "full" sensation. The aim of eating when banded, however, is not to try to eat until you feel full, i.e. can't fit any more in. You should be trying to eat until you no longer feel hunger (or "satiated"). Stop after each bite and listen to your body and think about whether or not you are still actually hungry, or if you could stop now without still feeling hungry. Stop eating when that happens and don't try to push it till you feel "full". It takes a while to learn the new signals from your body, but hang in there and listen to it and as you get restriction the signals will become louder and clearer. Good luck with your journey!

Hey Laura - a northern convert to the great Australian tradition, pumpkin soup! Here's another recipe: Pumpkin Soup If you google, you'll find dozens of other variations on this theme. I was surprised to learn recently that this soup is virtually unknown outside of Aus. It would have to be one of the most popular soups here - easily as common as tomato soup.

Yes, just chocolate. They do flavoured coffee drinks too, but that line doesn't contain coffee.

I've been really enjoying this guilt-free treat at the end of the day, and thought I'd share. chocolate, white chocolate and vanilla flavours and is OOOOH SO GOOOOOOOOD! Rich, creamy, totally YUM! I make it my late night snack and it really hits the sweet spot :frown: At around $6-7 for 10 sachets, it's not the cheapest drinking chocolate around but at only 60-70 cents a cup, it beats Starbucks prices anyday!

Sorry to butt into the Men's Room, but you might find the carbonation in soda water just as bad as the beer, so bourbon & soda might not be such a great option. I drink scotch & water, which goes down very well and is probably one of the lowest calorie options in the alcoholic range. If you use lots of ice and are very generous with the water, it's not too heavy for daytime . I'm pretty sure you'd get away with that as a "man's" choice :frown:.

I've heard others say their doctors told them not to drink coffee, but mine never banned it and I was drinking coffee pretty much straight away....

Roasted pumpkin is delicious! BEST way to have it, IMHO! Just cut it into large chunks and throw it in the roasting pan with the meat and spuds - you won't be sorry!

I don't weigh my meals but I took that advice about the sandwich plate to heart and use that as my measure. At lunch or dinner, I take enough food (meat & veg) to cover the plate without piling it up. If I can't fit it on the plate without putting it on top of something else, I can't have it - simple. Breakfast is usually in a bowl, so it doesn't work the same - usually a poached egg, 1/4 cup baked beans, 1/4 cup canned mushrooms, so about 3/4 cup in total?

Thank you for answering. You explained your thoughts quite well on why you found the book blasphemous towards the end. However, do you think that many kids would have read this book and taken that meaning from it, without having been prompted by the controversy in the news? How many kids do you think would have seen the movie without bothering to read the book, if the controversy hadn't made media headlines? I've taught literature to adolescents in the past, and to be frank, I've often had to lead them by the nose before they see the symbolism in the Narnia series, which is quite blatantly Christian. I doubt whether more than a few of the brighter sparks here and there would have "looked under the hood" to see any religious or philosophical statements made in this movie - unless, of course, they are lead by the nose to try to see it in that light. I also found it interesting that The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe did not generate any scandal from the "atheist crowd" when that movie came out, yet it is far more obvious in promoting Christianity than The Golden Compass might be in speaking against Christianity.

I remember the fuss over The Golden Compass too, albeit only as a news item about those weird people overseas (i.e. in the US :thumbup:). I've seen the movie and I remember coming out extremely puzzled as to what all the fuss was about. I saw a harmless kid's fantasy adventure, and didn't get any religious or anti-religious overtones from it at all. Can you explain what you found "blasphemous" about it? I couldn't find it even when actively watching the movie with that idea in mind. If I hadn't heard about the controversy before I saw the movie, I'm pretty sure it would never have occurred to me that this movie had religious connotations.

Whoohoo!! Underwear pics!! YAY!! :biggrin::frown: I think you look great and, as Jachut says, all that's left is a bit of loose skin and you're gonna be much harder on yourself about that than anyone else would be. You might consider beefing up your upper body a teensy bit (but not too much!) just to get a little more of that V-shape guys tend to strive for, but you look just fine right now :thumbup:.

Good luck ladies!!! Hope to hear from you soon!

Congrats! I think quick is the best way to go, provided you have put in sufficient forethought and research time before asking for the surgery. I spent a couple of months seriously researching the op (after dreaming about it for years), then had to wait 6 weeks between getting the referral from my GP and my appointment with the surgeon. That was mostly because of my own schedule though - I work away from home 8 days out of 14. At the first surgeon's consultation, he said "let's do it!" and made the booking for the op on the spot - for only 2 weeks later. Then, about 5 days before the op, he called and said he had a cancellation and had an opening even sooner! I ended up going under the knife only 12 days after the consultation! It was a whirlwind and felt frighteningly fast, even though I had spent so much time thinking about it beforehand, but it did have the advantage that I didn't have much time to fret about it. How exciting for you!! Good luck!

You should be agreeing with me about the underwear pics!! :cool2: If enough of us request, them, you never know our luck! :coolgleamA:

OOH! That sounds delish!! I'm going to try that when I get home from the mine site! Do you think it would freeze? I'm away from home for 8 days at a time and only home for 6 and there's no way I'd eat all that in 6 days! Even cutting the ingredients down to 1/2 or 1/4 would probably make more than I would go through in a week. *edits* Actually, it's probably pretty dry, isn't it, until you soak it overnight? So should be fine to keep in the fridge. Mmmm...definitely gonna give it a whirl - bet it is really filling too!

I have a friend with an American wife who wanted to cook her hubby a pumpkin pie. She spent half an hour searching the shelves at the supermarket for canned pumpkin! Finally, she asked one of the shop assistants who, after looking at her like she had suddenly sprouted an extra head (I mean CANNED pumpkin???), pointed her to the fresh produce section. Catherine had never cooked fresh pumpkin before, so she bought an ENTIRE Queensland Blue! She took it home and rang her mother in the States for instructions on how to cook it. Her mother told her it was easy - just boil it for about 15 mins and it will get really soft, then you can mash it up for the pie. Unfortunately, the mother neglected to tell her about that all-important step of cutting it up first! Yep, Catherine found the biggest pot she had and stuck the whole pumpkin in there to boil. Apparently, she rang her mother back in tears about 2 hrs later, wanting to know why the pumpkin was still hard as a rock! Hahaha! I was kinda hoping the story would end with it exploding pumpkin guts all over the kitchen but sadly, it didn't :wink2: Still.. canned pumpkin?????

That sounds great, except I don't know what mountain bread is. Is that some kind of lavash or pita bread?

Ok, so like I said: "if you drink with your meals but DO NOT snack between meals or eat larger portions at meals as a result" then the water doesn't magically make you gain weight. I think people need to keep this in mind. The rule against drinking water is so that you don't eat larger portions at meals or quickly become hungry again after meals. If the water is NOT causing you to do these things, then taking a couple of sips with your meal to help rinse your mouth probably won't hurt a great deal. Knocking back a full glass or more with dinner is likely to have that result and should be avoided.

Many of us gained just after surgery, with the most common time around 2 weeks post-op. I think it is a combination of several things: 1) some of the weight we lost in our pre-op and immediate post-op was just Fluid and the body eventually balances this out, causing a slight regain 2) the body does go into that starvation mode shock, when you drop the calorie level down as drastically as the post-op liquid diet dictates (I gained 3lb when I was averaging 4-500 cal a day!) 3) if you are eating a lot of canned Soup (very high sodium) or putting extra salt on your soup to try to boost the flavour (like I did), you retain a LOT of extra Water, which is reflected in the scales. For me, I lost 15lb in 15 days - 10 days pre-op, 5 days post-op, then gained and lost 3lb over and over again for the next 15 days. It was 20 days post-op (30 from starting to lose) before I dipped below the 15lb lost marker again, but since then it has been slow and steady. Don't panic if this happens to you - it seems to be pretty normal for many people and will happen no matter what you do! Mind you, cutting out the salt did help to some extent.

I did the Optifast pre-op for 10 days prior to surgery, which was 3 x 150 cal shakes + 2 cups of steamed low carb veges at dinner. It would have been for longer, except that my surgeon had a cancellation earlier in the week and moved my scheduled date back a couple of days. It was hard but I was doing the nicotine patches at the same time and found that those were better than any appetite suppressant drug I've ever taken (and I've tried a few!). I lost 10lb in 10 days, which made it worth it!

Sorry to hear you had such a rough time. Adventure World is sucky like that - almost no healthy food options at all! You might have to take a picnic lunch with you next time, but I still wouldn't recommend solid foods so quickly after a fill. My doc says liquids for 48 hrs then slowly introduce solid foods to see what you tolerate. So far, I've tolerated everything coming back into the diet but boy howdy do I know that I have restriction now! I have to eat very slowly and carefully, else I can get stuck and have those horrid episodes too - never been stuck for 6hrs though! OUCH!!

"One lady even said her DR. said the band was a failure and was going out of style and wouldn't even be on the market in 5 years." Hehehe - that made me chuckle too! I guess no-one told her doc that it has been a great success for many years in other countries and is still growing in popularity?

I do a 3hr flight every week to and from my work (I work on a remote mine site, 3000km from home) and I have never noticed a difference in tightness. I have noticed however, that I can no longer eat all of the meals provided on the plane - I used to eat it all, as well as the cheese & crackers snack, and get off the plane still hungry. Now, I can only manage the meal and leave the bread roll, crackers and cake because it won't fit in. That's been the same however, from the time of my first flight after banding and the portion I eat is no more or less than I would eat at any other main meal.

Those are my favourite veges too and I would have at least one of those at every evening meal and occasionally all of them. However, I limit the portion size to 1 baby potato (max 1" diameter) or 1/4 cup of mixed peas & corn, etc. My mid-morning snack is almost always a dozen pitted prunes - I find this really helps with constipation problems :smile2: