Fanny Adams

*sigh* Isn't it funny how I never managed to find all these stories about how people struggled to lose even when doing all the right things BEFORE I got banded. Now that I'm post-op, they are all around me. I guess we only see what we want to see, eh?

Hi Rastis and all the other Sandgropers Yes, I got banded on 10 December. The op went really well and my recovery was very easy and virtually painless. Dr Watson seems to be a great surgeon. I don't know how he does in patient care however, as I have only met him ONCE! I saw him 2 weeks before the op, when we made the booking. I spoke to him on the phone once, when he called to bring the op forward a couple of days and haven't seen him since. I didn't even get to speak with him on the day of the operation! I'm due back there on 15th Jan for my first fill. What was the problem you had, that required the fill to be removed (if you don't mind sharing)?

Hehehe - I stole a copy yesterday to use in another forum . Hope you don't mind!! (Also hope you don't mind me posting in here with you spring chickens, but wanted to tell Steph I'd pinched her gif )

I just got totally confused by the forum titles and categories reshuffling themselves between viewing one thread and coming back to the menu, but I like the new arrangement. Hello to all you Fabulous Forties out there

No, it's quite different - although Shepherd's Pie is one of my all time favourites too! It's a really simple recipe that has become a family favourite, especially with the kids. Here you go: Savoury Sausage Casserole 12 lean beef sausages 1 large brown onion 2 medium apples (any colour - whatever's cheapest!) 250g (8oz) concentrated tomato paste 1L (1.5 pints?) beef stock (pre-made or stock cubes in water) Cut all sausages into 3 pieces (about 2" long). Brown in large saucepan or wok. Drain fat. Chop onions while sausages are browning, add to pan. Core apples and chop fairly finely, add to pan. Stir until onions go clear and apples start to soften. Add tomato paste and beef stock. Cover, reduce heat and simmer for at least half hour, stirring occasionally. Serves 4-6 people It is ready to serve when the apple has broken down into the sauce, although the longer you leave it, the better it tastes. I usually serve it with mashed potato and peas. I have served it with Pasta but it doesn't go quite as well. If you drain the fat well and make the mashed potato with 0% milk, it is quite a healthy dish. My problem was that I would load the mashed potato with butter and eat over half the dish

Hear hear, Laurend!

In the week before I was banded, I was freaking out about the same things - scared that I wouldn't be able to eat my favourite meals again. The first thing I did as soon as I was allowed solid foods again was to make my favourite savoury sausage casserole with mashed potato. It's actually quite a healthy dish, except that previously I would eat enough for 3 people because I loved it so much. When I tried it after banding, I was able to keep it to a small scoop of potato and only one sausage (previously would have eaten 6-7, normal serving would be 2-3) and was really full afterwards. I ate it really slowly and savoured every bite - YAY! Freakout over!

I know there are several Perth bandsters out there. The Melbournites and Sydneysiders have their own thread and we should too!! So who in here is from the West?

Just make sure that the flavourings are "diet" or sugar free. Any of the diet icecream toppings work. I also love the coffee/chocolate blend (but can't stand the plain chocoate) and using strawberry flavouring (topping or 1 tspn of cake flavouring) in the vanilla one makes it bearable. Other tips include using crushed ice - the colder the better - and making it a little thicker by using less water (going just under the cup marker instead of over). While the drink may not be as big, I found it really gross when all thinned out by too much water. Add the ice to your shaker first, then top up to just under the cup marker, then add the powder and flavouring and shake.

Becky, I have similar problems and the only solution I have found is to take smaller bites and eat more and more slowly. Try to keep the food in your mouth as long as you can to savour the taste. Wait between each bite until all the taste has gone from your mouth, before taking the next one. I have promised myself to put less food in my bowl too, because I have found that if it is in there, I will eat it, even when I KNOW I'm not hungry any more, even when I KNOW I am full and that eating those last few bites will HURT. If it is in there, I just can't stop myself because I can't resist the taste.

Looks like we're all different, as I just finished my first since surgery too, and it was much much heavier than usual. The only good thing about flooding so heavily was that it was over in a much shorter time frame (3-4 days instead of 6-7).

Sorry that you had such a hard time so far. Apart from that RNP being an utter bitch, she/he was also wrong about "the riskiest procedure of them all (the lapband)". Every study I've read (and I'd bet every one you'd find in a google search) says that the risks are MUCH higher with both the gastric bypass and the VSG surgeries. I'd ignore one person's ignorance, if I were you Hang in there - it will get better!

I've been back on solid food for a week but have been sticking to the softer types, spag bol, casseroles, etc. I got told "a cup" rather than half a cup and have been using that as my measure since the beginning (ie a cup of broth on clears, a cup of thick soup, etc). With the solids, I am still using a small soup bowl to help limit my intake. On the Soups, a cup was just perfect - filled me up and kept me satisifed for ages but didn't overfill me. On solids, I'm finding that I have to be very careful what I put in the bowl, as the cupfull most definitely fills me and anything more makes me really tight and uncomfortable for some time afterwards. Unfortunately, I have always been in the habit of eating to the point of bursting and am quite used to that pain of being overfull - it's almost like I need that pain to signal stop. I find with eating really slowly and chewing, I am actually aware that I am full several bites before I get to the bottom of the bowl, but I still can't stop myself from eating those last unnecessary bites I am just going to have to put less in the bowl because I can't seem to break the habit of finishing my plate, even when I KNOW I shouldn't, that I don't need it and that it will actually hurt if I do... *sigh* the things addiction makes us do...

Bloody good question and one I'd like the answer to

Here ya go - just for you! And I totally agree - this site is awesome for motivation, information and support.

ROFL!! I would vote for Khe Sanh if it was on the bill but if they put Barnsie's Working Class Man on there too, it would be a toss up! And I don't care how old it makes me seem, I work on a mine site these days so that gives me the right to sing Blue Sky Mining at any opportunity!

I get this problem too but I'm not entirely convinced it is ALL in our heads. I've even gone so far as to take pics on my digital cam of myself in the bathroom mirror, then compare it to the person I see and the pic is ALWAYS 10x more awful than the reality. There is a difference! However, I do accept that a lot of is head space - some of us see ourselves as heavier than we are, some of us as lighter. I wonder how well that correlates to whether or not one has been heavy all their lives. It seems that most of the people who have posted about seeing themselves as fatter than they are (especially after losing the weight) were heavy from an early stage, whereas those who gained the weight as adults have trouble seeing it. I was slim up until around 30 and then ballooned very quickly (and stayed fat for the next 15 years despite innumerable efforts to lose it). Consequently, I have a clear memory of myself as slim and can often convince myself that I don't look "that" bad. I've been in denial about just how huge I have gotten for years and years. When I look in the mirror, I instinctively hold my head at the right angle to minimise the double (triple!) chin effect. I make sure my body is angled correctly to show the "best" side of me. I still have a waist (albeit MUCH larger than before), my boobs are enormous and my butt isn't huge. I carry most of my weight in my tummy, which sticks out like I'm 9 months pregnant, my arms and my back. I am thicker front to back than from side to side. All that means that, if I wear the right clothes and stand at the right angle to the mirror, I see the waist and boobs and not the fat and think I look fine. Then that horrid camera will catch a side on view of me, with my gut sticking out, rolls of back fat and the chins wobbling in all their glory and there she is! That fat heifer has grabbed the photo pic again and where was the girl I saw in the mirror? :confused:

Sorry to poke my head into the Men's Room (you guys DO know us wimmens are spying on you, dontcha?) but I thought I'd add my 2 cents. My personal drink of choice has been scotch and water, lots of ice. I've always been a scotch/bourbon drinker but usually with coke (or diet coke when dieting). At 70 calories a pop, I can slow sip a couple and nurse it through the night without having gas problems and not breaking the calorie bank. I have to agree about becoming a lightweight though - previously I could knock back half the bottle quite easily, now 2 over the course of an evening gives me a serious buzz. YAY for the cheap thrill :confused:

ROFL!!! I had to read that 3 times before I worked out that it was a typo and you meant "he was like..."! I was thinking oooh that's getting a bit close to the bone, isn't it? Talking about what your husband was licking!! :omg:

I was on holiday with my daughter in Malaysia in November, just before getting banded. On our first night, we got a taxi from the airport to the hotel, which was a lot cheaper and nastier than we were expecting (we moved the next day) and there was no door man to help with the bags. As we walked up to the steps, a local man, who had obviously been drinking, came up to us and started to show us how to use the old luggage lift in the steps. He pointed right at me and started laughing out loud, saying "You so fat, lady! How you get so fat?" Then he looked at my daughter and said, "You fat too but not as fat as her!!" and proceeded to laugh some more. I was so shocked I didn't know what to say! Needless to say, he didn't get a tip for helping with the bags!!

I know just how you feel. I lost really well on the pre-op diet but have only managed a pound or two since, yet I only really cheated on Xmas Day (not by a lot) and New Year's Eve (had a couple of drinks but didn't eat over the limit). I'm starting to eye off that "Slow Losers Unite" thread on the main pages :confused: I've just about finished with the mushie stage now (as per instructions), and have found that now that I've moved onto more solid food, I am feeling some level of restriction. Not as much as I would expect after a fill, but a small bowl of solid food will fill me up completely and I am no where near as hungry as I was on the liquids and mushies. Still, in the 25 days or so since the op (10th Dec), I have gone over 800 calories a day only twice and then only to 1500 a day. I don't know what more restriction will do for me, as I am staying in the boundaries using will power alone so far (albeit easier lately). I spent the first 10 days after the op on around 3-400 calories a day and STILL didn't lose Getting restriction might make it easier to stick to the diet, but if you can't lose on under 800 cal for a month, what the heck's going on?? I'm due for my first fill on Jan 15 and if nothing has changed by then, I'm going to make an appointment with the dietician and see if she/he can suggest what is going on. PS: Yes, I am exercising more now - not a lot but decidedly more than previously.

NO NO NO!! Don't go now - just when I was getting out the popcorn and settling in for a rousing battle between The Duelist and the Cyber Sisters!! *ding ding ding* And there goes the bell, folks, time for Round 4 of: The Duellist VS The Cyber Sisters!!! :ranger:

Ok, I fell off the wagon badly yesterday but today I am gonna pick myself up and get back on it. From post-surgery to the day before yesterday (20th Dec), I had gone 9 days straight on less than 400 calories a day - not aiming for that number but just eating the fat free Soups, yoghurts and jellies up to 4 times a day. Regardless of all the "you're healing after surgery", "you're just rehydrating", etc, I still felt I should have seen SOME movement in the scales - how the hell can you eat so few calories for so long and not lose?? But there I was - regained 3lb in the days immediately following surgery, then have been stuck without movement for a week! Yesterday, I couldn't take it anymore and gave into the cravings that have been bugging me since I started the pre-op. I rationalised it by saying maybe I've gone into "starvation mode" and what I need to do is EAT! So anyway, it was only Post-op Day 10 but I went to Domino's and got those spicy chicken wings I was dying for and ate all four!! My god, they were GOOD!! I ate them really slowly, chewed thoroughly and relished every bite, so there! It gave me no pain but I did feel full afterwards (whereas previously I would have eaten them as an appetiser, then had half a pizza [blush]). I also had several soups and two serves of custard, so I felt like I had stuffed my face all day. Surprisingly, FitDay says it wasn't as bad a blowout as I had thought - here's the numbers And after all that? This morning on the scale - no change! I'm going to just go back to eating semi-normally (still mostly soups and smaller quantities, and just say f**k it till I get my fill. I'm disappointed that the loss is stopping, as I have told all my friends and family and I was looking forward to being able to show off a big difference at Xmas, but I guess I'll just have to settle for the 6kg loss and pick it up again after January... Can anyone tell that patience is not my long suit? LOL!!

I seem to have been dropped off somewhere along the way, so I'll just add myself again... USA chatita - Houston, Texas christasha - Chula Vista, California DonHoll1 - Indiana egorsgirl1 - suburb of Dallas,Texas Ellisa - Ohio freebird - Cheyenne, Wyoming grannyk - Missouri InTheCityGirl - Las Vegas, NV Jazzywoman - Ohio jomama36 - Sterling Heights, Michigan jwright - Michigan Kennergirl - Louisiana motocrossgirly - Liburn, Georgia Sandy63 - Dahlonega, Georgia sfeiner - Baraboo Wi sghatl - Georgia thundandlight - Massachusetts tomecia25 - Dallas, Texas Twilight - Montana MrsKrzyz- Western New York Antsmith101 - Irvine, California CANADA Meghan1983 - Hamilton, Ontario AUSTRALIA Sewenup1 - Sydney Fanny Adams - Perth

HI Cherry, I'm a new bandster too (Dec 10) and also in Perth. Welcome to the club