Jachut

The thing is when you've had to do a pre op diet you've already done the fast weight loss bit before the surgery. By the time you're out of the op your body has done its completely normal slow down and hang onto a bit of weight thing. When you've done the preop liquid diet, the actual banding is not the start of the weight loss process, that's already come before. And yes, you're completely choc full of fluids after an op like that.

I guess you really have to think about whether you want this to work. Maybe you are going to have to treat chocolate like cigarettes and just quit cold turkey, never to have any more. Some things we just cant handle and chocolate is obviously like that for you. Perhaps you need the same kind of help smokers often need - would a psychologist/therapist help. Do you eat your proper meals first so that you dont have room for more? Have you had scheduled fills? Only you can do it, band or not. I think you should go back to your doctor and start fresh, plan to use this tool that you have but enlist his/her help and certainly start having fills if you havent already.

Everybody gains little amounts of weight sometimes and 2lb is not much at all. You know if you've gained it from overeating but it can also just be day to day fluctuations - heck I weight about 5lb more at night than I do first thing in the morning! If you charted everybody's weight loss there would be virtually nobody who's line didnt go up and down, everybody has small gains and plateaus in the course of losing weight. Dont fret on it, just get on with it and make tomorrow a new day.

I'm just waiting for that second, third fill and that realisation to kick in on blind faith because now, pre band the idea of not eating bread or pasta again really scares me. I'm even more nervous about healthy things not agreeing with me like lettuce or apples or whatever.

I make sure my kids get lots of exercise, with the distractions of computer and television that's hard these days. We walk to school a few days a week, that's about 3kms for them, 6 for me. They play basketball once per week and have basketball training once per week, both also play Australian Rules Football weekly and have 2 training sessions for that, after school they're sent outside to play, thank goodness we live in a newish suburb that's very safe and there's loads and loads of kids around so they have the kind of childhood I had - running round outside, riding bikes and rollerblades, etc. At school they have PE once a week and the school runs lunchtime sport competitions so lunchtime is usually spent playing football and basketball too. Lately they've also been going on Thursday nights to a session run at my gym for kids, mainly because that means I can go workout while they're taken care of. So all in all that's plenty. I have a morbid fear of raising obese children.

I'm pretty sure my poor old boobs are going to need a bit of attention too. Think footy socks with tennis balls in the end.

So if lots of your weight was in lean tissue like bone it wouldnt matter that you didnt get to your "ideal" weight because if it's not hanging off your body as fat, what the scales say isnt important anyway.

I love buying clothes off US Ebay because I'm only a size 16, lol. Here that's an 18-20.

I would think too that most people lose a little weight after any surgery because you have no appetite for a few days after an anaesthetic, then you're on a liquid diet, its all very "extreme" (though a necessary part of healing of course). Most people lose a lot of Fluid in that type of food restriction and the fact that the weight loss stops for so many is really just your body jacking up a bit and surviving. Its actually a really big success that you dont gain because at any ordinary time if you went on a liquid diet for any length of time the minute you start to eat again you pile on the weight.

I think the thing is too people who are not obese simply do not understand the head issues and the absolutely insurmountable barrier you are up against. People who are obese and still think you can do it yourself have simply not faced their own issues honestly. The more I've thought about it the more I've realised you cant cure obesity, you can only manage it. And the band (and other WLS) is really our only tool for this at the current time. I'd rather do something physical to my body that doesnt change its functioning than take medication to achieve that artificially. Tenuate, Duromine, Xenical, Reductil etc (things my mother has suggested) are not an option in my book.

I would imagine too that many men just dont seek out the kind of support a forum offers. Lots of women love to blab their most intimate details to anyone but my husband thinks I'm a nutter the amount of time I spend on my couple of forums.

Would it depend on the variety of rice too - like Arborio is really sticky whereas a long grain like Basmati isnt? I can imagine life without rice - in and of itself who cares? It has no taste and little nutritional value (well the white variety) but its such a given with certain things isnt it? Who could eat a Thai curry without jasmine rice? I'm more worried about bread. I will cry tears of despair over that.

I cant imagine how I could not tell my IL's - we live near them they're a regular part of our lives. They would certainly notice if I was in hospital or recovering from surgery and they would more than certainly notice the liquid/mushy phase of the diet!

I've been told a few times that about a fistful is what any normal person should eat at any one time. That's enough to fill me up now, unbanded (but not for more than an hour or two), I'd imagine a bread and butter plate of dinner would be adequate. But a shot glass? That's starvation. I will be happy if my band restricts me to the amounts any unbanded person would eat while dieting - 3 smallish meals a day, maybe a piece of fruit in between - maybe Cereal and fruit for breakfast, salad and Protein for lunch, normal family dinner just small. I cant see the point of eating less than that and although I may change my mind later, if I'm eating that and its satisfying me I wont be looking for more fills. I'd rather take longer to lose weight and keep to a more "normal" lifestyle. When I do eat that way now I lose weight steadily and reliably - a kilo a week easily - its just that my body kicks in 7 or 8kg down the track and drives me to regain the weight.

I think that even had I decided not to go ahead with this, this is the first time ever I've been honest with myself about my weight problem. That's the hardest thing about this process. Thanks for the encouragement guys! The positive changes start right now!

And I was so worried I wouldnt be fat enough. I'm deluded. That was the hardest thing I have EVER done, I was shaking with nerves. Nothin like being honest about what you really eat for the first time in your entire life. Even my poor mum is a wreck because she had NO idea I had all these issues going on. Obviously she can see I'm fat but she had no idea what the emotional side of it has been like for me. Anyhow he thought I was a perfect candidate - an all round overeater but not a binger, not a chocaholic, I know how to shop for and cook healthy food because I have a family to take care of, I'd done loads of research, I'd obviously sorted some issues in my head and I"m blessed to still be in excellent health and am therefore no anaesthetic risk. He agreed totally with me that better to nip this in the bud now rather than wait till I do develop problems and he offered the opinion that by taking action now, at my age and my relatively moderate obesity I'm unlikely to have skin problems and require major cosmetic work (I disagree, I'm saving for the boobs already). So.................. information session, back to see him on 13th of October with my final decision, on to all the testing and surgery likely some time late November, early December or possibly in the New Year. Phew. I feel like I can breathe again (and stop eating, I had to make sure I kept that BMI over 35). He wants me to lose moderately if I can, make healthy changes and start thinking about and establishing all those new habits right away.

In the ordinary course of events, you wouldnt lose fitness and strenght that quickly - but perhaps with the post band diet, the extreme liquid phase etc you have lost significant muscle mass - its a necessary part of the post op recovery but its not necessarily the healthiest way for your body to lose weight. Maybe you need to start again from the beginning building strength and just take it slowly and gently rather than resuming where you left off. Only once in my life have I managed to excercise vigorously and regularly while dieting at the same time - normally I'm doing one or the other. And I must say I found myself very weak and the exercise requiring enormous willpower (where normally I love it) while I wasnt feeding my body its accustomed level of calories. But if you're really weak I'd seek a medical opinion.

I've got to wait till October 13 to see the surgeon again with my final decision and THEN he'll start all the testing. I know what I'll decide right now! Sheesh, another fat summer for me I guess. It could be next year by the time I"m banded. I'm going to use this time to start changing bad habits. I want to get back to a 3 meal a day habit and cut out all the rubbish.

Perhaps a fill, if you're not breastfeeding you could cut back significantly after six weeks or so.

I'm getting the distinct impression that surgeons here are more relaxed with those kinds of rules because all the information I've gathered "locally" seems to indicate that you will be able to eat and drink totally normally, just in more moderate amounts. Maybe its because they've been doing banding so much longer in Australia. Beer just about explodes my tummy anyway, I drink very little of it and never having it again wouldnt be a problem to me. When it comes to alcohol I'm a wine drinker and virtually have nothing else apart from an occasional Drambui. I dont drink soft drink either. I have a friend who was banded in about 1995 - just an acquaintance that Doug used to work with and she used to decide whether to drink or eat when we went out - she couldnt fit both in, but when she chose to drink she had no problem with beer.

This is really hard isnt it. I've told my mum and dad and its knocked my mum absolutely for six, she's so upset. Not that I'm going to do it, she's supportive of that but she's absolutely shattered at what she perceives I've gone through that she never realised. My dad is really upset too. They think that maybe they've contributed, done something wrong when I was a child, what could they have done differently that I not have had this happen to me kind of thing. I'm really not looking forward to telling the IL's. Doug's mother drives me insane, she was a nurse 25 years ago and thinks she knows every surgeon in Melbourne, she has an obsession with seeing the "top" doctors for everything. Rather than sympathise at my recurrent corneal ulcer problems (have had surgery on my eye recently and need laser surgery in the next few weeks) she started crapping on about how Karen over the road saw mr So and So and he's the ONLY guy to see and the rest are butchers and she'll ask Laurel and get me his name (yawn, blah blah blah). Doug had to get cross with her and tell her to back off. Then Doug told her he's thinking of laser vision correction surgery and she went off the deep end "people go blind from that, blah blah blah". So she'll have kittens when I tell her my news. I know her heart's in the right place but it really really gets up my nose how she thinks being a nurse back in the dark ages means she knows everything about everything.

I had Velvet too and I loved her to death. I also loved Sigmund the Sea Monster on Saturday mornings, a show called Isis and the Flintsones which we used to go and watch at 6pm weeknights on my Grandma's colour TV.

Seemed to me that when I went to the surgeon yesterday all that seemed relevant was that I'd had a weight problem since childhood and had been dieting for 25 years. That was it, I was approved. I'd been so worried. Here, if the surgeon approves something, the health fund wont quibble. Except for cosmetic surgery of course, that's self pay, except in special circumstances.

I've just been through having to justify what I'm doing to my mother, who's been away for 4 months so to her its news. I've shared with my friends and had no negative reactions but what I find frustrating is people who are only a little bit overweight saying stuff like "you can do it yourself" or "if you have to do all that headwork anyway, why not just do it yourself". My mother keeps suggesting Jenny Craig. None of these people know what it is to be obese or just what you have to overcome. Their intentions are good but it still drives me nuts. And both my husband and my BIL were talking about how they "knew" how to lose weight, both have lost about 25kg in the past. When I respectfully pointed out that they had both regained it all they had excuses "oh, but I started work and stopped playing footy" that type of thing. If you havent kept the weight off then no, you werent successful, end of story. Its MY body, they are MY issues and its MY decision. I dont care what anyone says about it or if anyone thinks I shouldnt do it.

Mr Crosthwaite - I liked him and like you said the age/experience factor is reassuring. Plus the fact that he does work with Paul O'Brien will satisfy my nutty MIL who has an obsession with every doctor you see being the "best" in his field. She had kittens because I took Fraser to Dandenong hospital with asthma - its 10km or so away versus the Children's at 45km away!