Jachut

NSAIDS and such arent a joke with the band - I got a stomach ulcer just from taking Iron tablets. They sit in the pouch and burn holes in you! it really is worth thinking about the sleeve if you are dependent on such medication. If you decide the band is for you, what you CAN do if you must take them is take nexium at the same time to protect your stomach.

Sorry but there are some times in your life that you just have to accept you wont look your best - two that come to mind being at the gym (if your workout is going to be worthwhile at all!) and after surgery!. No, you cannot wear makeup in surgery. That's not to say you cant have a spray tan beforehand! I've spent a lot of time post surgery in hospital in the past two years and I've always been very motivated to get up and shower and do my hair BEFORE the surgeon makes his 8.30 am rounds! Even despite major abdominal surgery and my tummy tuck! Nobody sees me messed up and braless and lying in a rumpled bed, lol. But full makeup in hospital is going to look pretty weird.

Even healthy foods can be sliders and its an insidious habit, one I think we ALL fall into without realising it. If I eat something for lunch that includes solid Protein like chicken, some grains like brown rice and vegies, I'm good for six hours. I dont get cravings. So, to keep my weight down, just eat like that, right? If only it were that simple. The trouble is your tastes subtly change and what you fancy is usually something easier to eat. YOu dont want to get stuck in the restaurant. You dont want to get stuck in the staffroom in front of your colleagues. You dont have time to eat really slowly. For me the things I fancy for lunch are stuff like cheese on rice cakes, yogurt with nuts and muesli stirred through, cheese and crackers. All healthy choices. But all foods that i can eat 500 calories worth of with no trouble and foods which leave me with the feeling that I fancy something sweet an hour or two later. The effort involved in a) making a non slider meal and eating a non slider meal subtly convinces my brain that those foods arent appetising. dinner is the exception for me. I eat tiny dinners. Because dinner is never sliders. But I can eat a huuuuge bowl of oatmeal. But only one egg on toast! So if you can eat it relatively easily and tend to fancy it often, its probably a slider to some degree. No matter what it is. But its just a matter of being aware of the habit. For me, I let myself have what I want but I might add something REALLY hard to eat (like an apple!) to the mix just to add that satiety.

This is a really odd situation - its actually WAY easier here than in the US to get non necessities performed and covered, our health system is very different and as long as a doctor says he considers something worth doing (other than cosmetic surgery), its going to have a Medicare item number attached and if you have private health insurance, your insurer is not going to make you jump through hoops to get approved, doctor will do it, its approved end of story. I dont want to stir the pot but there really is a possibility that this is bogus. Because our system just does not work this way! Going to Thailand for major surgery is not really a wise thing to do, and this horror story appears again and again with cosmetic surgeries also - but Australian doctors do not refuse people in need just because they went to Thailand. Anyway you cut it though, tubing and a port sticking out through your skin IS a medical necessity, if not an emergency. This has to be fixed. If the band itself is healthy, its a simply procedure, although patching you up might be more complicated. Its very bizarre to encounter a doctor who would not treat you - you need to find someone else. I cant believe any GP you visited would not be absolutely horrified and refer you on to another bariatric surgeon right away. And our surgeons do not generally engage in the morally questionable practice of refusing to help people because someone else did the original surgery. This is a medically necessary revision surgery and you should be able to get it done - I would even seek legal advice on this. It is your right and our system operates in such a way that this should be fixed, pronto, no questions asked. You cant go about your life with an open abdomen. If you simply presented to any Emergency dept this would probably be fixed. You might not get to keep the band, but it would be fixed. Sorry, but you need to just accept it. Your band is not going to function as it should whether you risk your health for it or not.

Oh, you poor thing. My husband got chicken pox as an adult and he was REALLY sick, I've never seen him like that. It was utterly miserable. And here I was moaning and whinging because I had typhoid and hep vaccs on monday to go to Thailand and my arm hurts and I feel a bit yucky!

If you buy yogurt without any gelatine or thickeners in it - ie. the pot set type of stuff that develops that whey on top when it sits in the fridge, you can actually drain in a sieve lined with a chux cloth or similar for 8 to 10 hours. All the whey drains out and leaves very very thick yogurt. You can make great dips out of that - a little curry powder and sweet chilli sauce, lime and cilantro, french onion soup etc. Very yummy and healthy!

Well, I dont consider bread, rice or Pasta things I "shouldnt eat"! So yes, I eat those things regularly. Well, I hate bread to be honest, but rice and gluten free pasta are on my menu regularly. Do i eat chocolate, cake, Cookies, alcohol - hell yeah! Which is probably why I maintain now instead of losing. I dont eat a LOT of them, but I do eat them. I am at goal weight and have been for a fair few years now. I ate way less of those things whilst losing. But I always ate carbs - never ever did a low carb diet and I lost weight easily. So whilst some people do need to low carb it, eating occasional rice or pasta is unlikely to affect weight loss too much.

I like it plain and tart, but I also add vanilla, a little sugar, nuts and seeds, fruit, cocoa powder and sugar, whatever takes my fancy - favourite and the moment is a little sugar, coconut essence and coconut, mmmmmmm. I make my own with an Easiyo yogurt maker. Our brands are different here, so I have my faves, pot set ones are the best. We've just had Chobani introduced in one of our supermarkets and it tastes very sweet and different to what we have been getting in Australia to me! A lot more artificial and tampered with.

It depends a lot on what I'm eating. I remain very aware of portion sizes because for me, to feel happy and satisfied, I need to eat things I enjoy - which are often heavier and higher in calories and fat than lettuce and grilled chicken! I make my own toasted muesli (granola) for Breakfast, and to eat a whole cup of that would be one very heavy, high calorie meal - I eat about 1/3 of a cup of it, with a big spoon of yogurt and splash of milk. But for lunch today I've got some home made gnocchi and a walnut spinach pesto - I've got about 1/2 of a cup which I will put on a bowl of spinach leaves. so I'll maybe have 3/4 of a cup in total. Other things, like Soup, I measure out a full cup. For dinner, I dont even try to measure weights or half a cup of meat. I just use a bread and butter plate and dont overfill it. Its usually a pretty small meal.

Im ashamed to say my only vomiting experience in seven years - even through chemotherapy - was alcohol related a few monthsagp. Retching but mothing came up. Then i fell aslep, lol.

That sucks Lellow. Third time lucky i guess!

Oh wow, id be rich if i had a dollar for everytime someone said that to me. Yet ive just stayed ith my sis in Sydney doing the City to Surf and watched everyone i did the race with have a pre race Pasta binge and post race pub lunch. I nibbled, that's all. To stay normal weight i cannot eat like a normal person. End of story. We need our bands and Im surprised you cnt find empathy in a bariatric surgon! I hope you find. Solution.

I went though a very fast radiation induced menopause nd my appetite - in particular my cravings for sugar absolutely skyrocketed. It took HRT and testostetone therapy yo get it back under control.

If i dont eat breakfast (i get up at 5.30 and run 6kms), its after 1pm before i get a break to eat, so i really have to. Truth is anyway, im hungry willing and able to eat. If i eat at recess time (11), then i dont want lunch, but then im hungry after school at four and way prone to the lure of biscuits and coffee. The whole cycle just gets out of whack if i dont get the right sort of calories in for breakfast. I think we're all different.

If I get a spray tan, it pools in my collar bones. I also cant shave under my arms because the hollow is so deep I can fit my fist in it!

All protein shakes do that to me, which is why i avoid them

I am now - after bowel cancer, chemo and radiation i have a lot of figestive woes. The dietitian i was sent to by my colorectal surgeon put me on a low fodmap diet which eliminates gluten because it eliminates wheat, rye and barley, lactose and a lot of fruits, especially garlic and onions, I feel much better and yes., my stomach is so flat now as to be concave. But i havent lost weight, but ive been at goal for years The thing is, if ypu didnt eat a lot of carbs before, you cant start suddenly start pigging out on gluten free stuff, its still white carby rubbish. I eat brown rice, occasional buckwheat Pasta and oats, and stuff like granola that ive made from allowed i gredients. I didnt needto replace bread, cereaml etc as i never ate it and i very occadisonally will have a gluten free cookie or something, but not as a daily food. Its no magic weight loss bullet, but going wheat free has been extremely easy for me, just stopped eating crap like muffins! Garlic and onion free is really hard though!

gorgeous!

Of course its OK!! Maybe a *bit* less than 50lb overweight would be healthier, just overweight rather than obese? But nobody really needs to be super lean and ripped for health reasons.

Yogurt is my almost daily breafast, about half a cups worth it some berries or banana. A tablespoon of LSA and some walnuts, and its a very nutritious meal - and definitely gets me through. Adding crap empty calories like syrup or splenda though, not so much. I would be hungry quickly if i ate that. Thick homemade soup is another staple i make them full of chickn, vegies, brow rice. Theres no way that is an inadequate meal. Again, quality counts. Canned soup is rubbish, again just empty calories.

Puddin, if you've only got 20lb to worry about after having been pregnant, had a baby and coping with a special needs child, yo'uve done pretty OK - most of my weight came with each of my kids - not the pregnancies but the sitting round breastfeeding and eating and being stuck at home for months - at times I was gaining 2lb per week! Before babies I was only a bit "solid".

Oh god, yesterday! I teach in Upper Beaconsfield and its freaking FREEZING up there! My car said 2 degrees in the morning! We had an all day Indonesian incursion and I had to suffer it out on the oval (bikes) in the stadium and in this thing we call the "igloo" - a tin shed basically. I was ready to quit my job! I freeze me a$& off up there.

Long time no see Puddin, glad you are well! My band has "changed" too. Like you, I'm at a good weight - I got very thin when I was sick a while back and have regained that weight, but I didnt want to quite regain it ALL, and I'd like to lose about 8lb but I just cant get that help from my band anymore. If i fill more I get too tight. My band is working very well to maintain weight but its not a lot of help for me to lose. I think that's in the perception though - when you're heavier, you lose weight so easily. When you're already a healthy weight, you really do need to cut down to miniscule portions to lose 20lb and the band was never meant to help you literally starve yourself. I think I eat quite large portions and I always get the munchies between meals, its a constant battle and a constant rebounding on and off the wagon for me to keep away from the carby snacky foods. But when I really LISTEN I am satisfied physically on a cup or so of food and not hungry till nearly the next meal time. That doesnt stop me wanting to eat! I think the problem is with the band, although my body has adjusted to be a stable 145lb or so and I no longer lose, in truth, the 1400 calories or so a day I eat is not enough to sustain a 145lb 5ft 10 woman who works on her feet all day and runs most days. So my body is always saying feeeeeeeed me, even though I dont feel the physical hunger I might without the band. Does that make sense? I actually do better when I allow myself to eat more substantial, Protein filled meals. I have developed this obsessive horror of a meal over 300 calories and if I add the fat and protein to bump my lunch up to say 500, I do get through till dinner very easily. And it doesnt add up to eating more than 3 300 calorie meals and a whole lot of nibbling, picking and "not quite" Snacks. But for some reason I really struggle to allow myself to do this. Obesity is not a disease you really recover from, you can only manage it. You dont reach a finish line with the band, its a life long task and I find it helps me to recognise that and realise I will always be adjusting and readjusting my behaviour. And part of that is just accepting that the band "feels" different some years out. I only have to look at what everyone else eats to remind myself it is doing something.

I've had to eat my words, lol! I dont think that's on ANY diet, nor is humble pie! I got sent to another dietician and she's been fantastic - but my issues are not about weight loss, they're about food intolerances. I am in fact on a diet that, technically, limits fruit but not bacon (which I dissed back on page 1). No wheat, no lactose, low fodmap (which limits a whole ton of fruit - I've got fructose malabsorption too - some vegies, totally bans wheat, rye, barley, oats, legumes and onions and garlic). But the point of it is to limit IBS type symptoms and get my damaged bowels back to working somewhat happily. Its not about weight loss or even what's best for health. My guts would be happy if I stuck to bacon, cheese gluten free bread and mashed potatoes but that would be horrible for my weight and health! So you have to use your brains a bit - the way you interpret your instructions can be really healthy or it can be truly awful. I've managed to still find a good healthful, Protein focussed lower carb lifestyle within my limitations.

I've been threatened with the same - overeating doesnt necessarily mean stuffing your face till your bursting, does it? Its just not measuring. I think mine's fixed itself with a slight unfill, I dont have any symptoms now. My dilation was very very minor , but I was warned to be aware of it or else an unfill would be on the cards. I've gone back to measuring out my food and eating a bit more often - seven years out I'm still learning and working to stay on track. bummer about the metabolism, still I think many of us would have the same problem. How many people do you know who are rather fat without appearing to eat an incredible amount?