Jachut

Sorry for the awful phone typing!

Yes, im tight! Didnt realise at first since I always make an effort to eat very light while lying around in hospital have been in Cabrini in Melbourne five times in the last fifteen months and the food is fantadtic, unfortunately Im usually on bowel rest, lol. However, got home yesterday, got (mildly) stuck on dinner, tried to eat some grapes today, no way, no how. Am very pleased to see tht Ive dropped 4lb or so that Id been tring to get rid of for months (and the skin they removed was only 250 grams, this Tt was more about reconstruction and scar revision following bowel surgery than loose skin) and the retriction isnt crazy, so Im going wuth it, after all its going to be a while till Im running and spinning again. Im swollen tight as a drum so that might be it, but my port is now well contained under very taut skin, not under loose upper abdo skin, so maybe tht pyshes more fluidout of the tubing and intothe band reservoir?

For some bizarre reaon I had no swelling after lapband surgery, but have since had two other laparoscopic surgeries and had crazy tight nine months preggie belly both times. It dissipated a lot within a week but took a good two to three to really disappear. I was in hospitl five days with each of those surgeries so spent the worst of the bloating in pyjamas, Had a tummy tuck last Tuesday though and OMG I feel like a snare drum, lol. And this time its not gas bloating that will go away easily.

Well, to my mind the Protein focus of a bandsters diet does compete with the veggies a little bit - for me personally, especially having had bowel cancer, I am NEVER going to eat all my meat to the exclusion of vegetables. I always mix my protein and my vegies on my fork. If i make a smoothie - usually with an Optifast base, I always add frozen spinach. Makes it green or a weird colour if you have red fruits like berries, but its pretty much tasteless and adds a good whack of nutrition - I have a Vitamix, so it gets blended up to no texture at all. I eat lots and lots and lots of soup, soup that I make myself with fresh vegetables. Soup would be my lunch four or five days of the week and probably for dinner once or twice too. I often eat things like baked Beans on toast for lunch. I always add things like kidney beans, chick peas and/or loads of finely grated veggies to a bolognaise sauce, when we eat Pasta, I usually skip the spaghettie and have mine on stirfried zucchini ribbons. I make so much effort with veggies because I just really dont like fruit much. Trouble is, my diet is a more carb focussed, higher fibre diet, which I need with my particular health issues. Red meat is linked to bowel cancer and things like ham and salami are off my diet forever. So I probably get less protein than a lot of bandsters. However, I lost 130% of my excess weight fairly easily, have kept it off for years and dont have any problems related to lack of protein.

Weight loss is not merely a destination, the journey is so enjoyable too!

Not too fat or too old. I could walk a bit, jog a bit when I started, what I did was slow it waaaaay diwn to a weird shuffle and just not stop no matter what. It was a distance of only 3kms, so about 2 miles, and I did a lot of ut with DH walking beside me. I could easily have walked faster, but the key to kearning to run is to slow it down and develop your body's strength for running. Its not just about heart/lung capacity, I always found that if I went slow enough to get a good breathing rhythym going, my legs would give out first. So..... You need to go slow enough that you dont begin to pant uncontrollably. Certainly breathing will increase, probably to th point of discomfort, you will get hot and sweat but as long as you have some sort of joggibg motion going (for me it was a shuffle) youll eventually be able to run. Sure, you might get more out of power walking at this point and you could probably technically go further in the same time period, but the shuffling not only conditions you to eventually run, and i always slow when i walk anyway. If ypu need to get the feel of it, set the treadmill for a speed at which you would normally jog, slow it by a mile an hour or whatever and teach yourself to jog that sliwly. It was psychological for me too, the fact tha i was jogging, no matter how slowly, spurred me on.

Quite an amazing effect on my thighs! However, like I said, i had very minimal loose skin and have been warned that i am uber tightly pulled in as a result. I always get so impatient for people to post pics but now i realise, its all under dressings, swollen to double normal size and i cant stand straight anyway, add to that that my before pics are hardly terrible in the first place and a photo right now is not going to show anything.

Theyre not good for you - and some of the obes they prescribe for colonoscopies can actually cause kidney damage. Yet you can just buy them over the counter!

Running, theres nothing like it. Yes, in the long run you need some strength training, but to shift fat fast, run for forty minutes to an hour every day and you wont regret it.

You are sooooo right. Theres a couple of posts up today and have been manyover my six year involvement with this board about what you do when you ge to the point of maintenance. The answer is nothing. Because wht you do to lose, you need to do FOREVER. Simple as that.

For maintenance, my losing lifestyle is what i adopted forever, nothing changed from when I was losing. My weight loss just petered out over time, in fact i eat less now than i was able to eat when i first began losing although i think over the ast two or three years, goods have become easier to eat and i get more variety now. I run for an hour several times a week, do a couple if rpm classes and to or three body pump classes a week - much MORE exercise than I did during the first year of my journey. None of this feels hard or like a diet, its just my life. I am five feet ten, 140lb, burn 600 or so calories a day with exercise and work as a teacher, so am on my feet all day. I have three kids aged 16, 14 and 9, so my "leisure" time is active too. Yet i gain if I eat more than 1800 calories a day, most often I sit at 1500. I definitely need my band. I may need it less if I were happy to weigh 160, but Im not.

Ive just had a tummy tuck and i did one, but Im a special case. In the last eighteen months ive had a major bowel and rectal resection, an ileostomy and an ileostomy reversal. My altered bowel is still finding its new normal, and the way my body is at the moment, i absolutely knew i would be having days long episodes of feeling the urge to go and straining, plus the normal constipation that narcotics cause. So I made sure I was absolutely empty and I did a day of Clear liquids as well. Ive made it to day five before needing to go, at least some healing has had time to take place before i have to struggle again to do my thing. If your digestive system is normal theres no need unless your uncomfortable with needing assistance in the first day or two. I actually caused ome real concern because bowel preps do dehydrate you and although i was catheterised i produced very little urine the first night. And dont be alarmed that since youve had such a big clean follwed by very litte food, it could easily be five dys before you see action.

The thing is, youre not really correct in expecting weight loss you couldnt achieve reasonably on your own. It wont usually be any faster or more spe tacular. Youre averaging the expected 2lb per week. Where the band really helps is keeping that loss going ALL the way down to goal and keeping it off, rather than losing that 24lb, running out of steam and putting on 30! Tha band does not alter your body, cause malabsorption or make weight loss miraculous, it simply makes ordinary weight loss easier to achieve.

Ditto. Having spent nine months unfilled due to another illness, i really struggled to not regain, even having chemo! You like to think youve changed, but its easy to lose the sense of how much the band is helping. I need my band and an hour of running every day not to gain weight again.

I was unfilled for nine long months, and refilling was easy but the restriction was different. Its taken more fill for similar restriction and like Lellow, foods like bread are now easy for me to eat. I had a barium swallow to see what was going on and i have very minor pouch dilation, but my doc is not worried by it. I find the restriction IS there when I pay attention and I m maintaining easily enough. Am recovering from a tummy tuck just now and didnt unfill this time, my lapband surgeon didnt think I would need to (it was my colorectal guy who insisted i unfill for the bowel resection). Unfilling can cause issues but when you have to you have to. I'd hate to tjink how skeletal Id be if I hadnt been unfilled last year, and you'd hate to cause permanent damage to your band!

Band aside, i couldnt live without a food processor!

Lapband surgery does not keep you off your feet for long, less than a few hours and they made me get up and walk. Ive since had three very major abdominal surgeries and i always get compression stockings and those things that pump your kegs, clexhane injections and they maje you walk. Personally, unless i had a history of clots i wouldnt get the filter.

Its probably cleaner than many things - your kitchen sink, the dish cloth you wipe the benches with, handrails in the shopping centre,etc. Its just the thought, lol

Running is awesome! I am on day 2 after a tummy tuck right now but cant wait to get back to it, ive been a runner for six years now, since very soon after I got banded. Youll get knockers who tell you cardio is a waste of time and you should be lifting but running helped me lose 130% of mh excess weight and keep it off for years now.

Ok, im literally terrified of the pain, sigh. On a more practical note, what the hell do you wear after a TT? Having been below goal weight for four years now, i have a wardrobe full of nice clothes. Am i going to have to wear sweats to work in three weeks time? Can i take my nice nighties to hospital or should I take the grungy pj's? im completely waxed, nails are done, hair cut and coloured and tan topped up, lol. Gotta get your priorities right! Just doing all the housework i havent done in the last six months as its suddenly incredibly important that it be done right now, have to go and buy easter eggs for the kids, book for hospital, cook inner for the kids tonight, get thedog and three cats vaccinated and do a grocery shop and then itll be time to go to the hospital Phew. See you on the other sude!

They took my pain pump, waaah, lol. Just on paracetamol now and have been up to shower, no catheter either. Talk of removing one of the drains tomorrow. Feeling pretty good, the only reason i querybreturning to work in three (well, itll be two weeks five days) is im a teacher, which is surprisingly a lot more physical than a desk job, also itll be a real pain for all involved if i go for a day and then decide i need more days off, better for them to just get someone in for the week. Being a hero is what led me to need this one in the first place, lol.

I had great restriction that lasted about eight weeks, but i was banded on 2005 and have the old 4cc band, they were much easier to find restriction with

I love thai, but confess that coconut milk and peanut sauce are what i usually go for. Chicken larb is really good and doesnt involve those two evils. I love love love tom yum soup too.

My full feeling is exactly the same as before, it just happens way sooner. Two things - when i feel that just swallowed a large pill feeling, ive overeaten! And i agree waiting till youre really hungry to eat can make eating difficult - you eat fast and are likely to get stuck, and hunger causes me to get acidy and a bit refluxy and then food hurts and burns on the way down. My band also seems a lot more sensitive if im really hu gry, almost like it clamps down on whatever i swallow, which causes discomfort if not vomiting

Im not a march 07er but you can do it Tammy! Its not such a big deal gor three months, i had almost nine unfilled and it wa wearing thin by then, and granted, i had chemotherapy to help me keep my weight in check, lol, bit I really njoyed big salads and crunchy apples and wholegrain bread rolls, sty away from the crap and fill up on those healthy foods that as bandsters w can have touble eating and you will be abolutely fine for three months. And if course, exercise!