Jachut

That's a bit what my life has been like the last 10 years and why I have gained so much weight. I keep thinking "oh, this week will be no good, I'll start my diet next week" and proceed to make the most of the current range of engagements. I hope with the band I can learn to make the best choices in whatever possible situation and not eat half a cow, a field of potatoes and an entire barrel of wine everytime. But at least generally my outings are family oriented or restaurant based and health choices are possible. There's nothing wrong with mum's roast lamb, just on a smaller scale. I guess alcohol is the number one menace though - I find with a drink or two inside me, all my good choices go out the window.

I'm worried about this too - my tummy is actually OK. I mean its fat and blobby but I dont have loose skin or stretch marks after 3 pregnancies so I"m hoping, hoping. It hangs a teensy, tiny bit but ony with the last 10kg, most of the fat I've gained has gone onto my upper abdomen and my boobs. I'm worried that once I remove the stuffing, I may find I didnt get out of childbearing as lightly as I thought I did. Ditto my face. I have no wrinkles at all at 38, most people say I could pass for 28. May be a different story when its not filled out so much. You can only speak to a surgeon - isnt there a possibility that if its causing rashes and discomfort it may be covered by Medicare? In which case if you did it now and it needed tweaking, you would only have to pay for it once, but you would probably have to pay yourself for the second surgery. If you wait, then you would get it paid for once. 20kg more will make quite a difference, probably more than the first 20kg.

It takes a while to get your head around it, I was terrified of not being able to eat certain healthy foods (and I still havent got my head round the fact that salads may give me trouble, then again they may not) but really in the end, what do you want more - white bread or a healthy body? You just have to take your time in the process, it does fall into place. Even if I dont get the band (going to see the surgeon this morning) these types of thought processes have been hugely enlightening for me. But it does take time to think it all through. "Normal" eating is what got us all in trouble in the first place.

I'm so looking forward to that. I walked past My Size yesterday (a plus sized store here) and I thought to myself after a few months, I'm NEVER going to shop there again.

And try to remember its very bad for your health to let your weight yo yo wildly. Its actually quite stressful for your body to lose the amount of weight most people here have to lose/have lost, it has negative health side effects as well as positive ones so you want to make darn sure you only do it once.

Ooh, lovely!

Well Australian's whinge pretty heartily about the standard of our health system but by world standards, its pretty darn good! Where are you getting married?

Oh to not be able to eat processed carbs! They are my danger food, whoever said those are what got me here in the first place, I'm in total agreement! Its taken me a long time to get my head around possibly not being able to eat those things anymore! I hope I can still eat nutritious wholegrains though! Perhaps though you just need more time and more settling in before you can really eat a wide variety of food?

Varicose veins wont go away as you lose weight but being very heavy predisposes you to developing them.

I've got some spider veins, not a lot though and no varicose veins. Nobody in my family has ever suffered varicose veins but my mum has lots of spider veins. My first visit with the physio for my injured ankle, he remarked on the state of my feet. They're not really bad but the heels are callused a little and I had a split - he wondered whether I walked funny due to this but it wasnt painful at all. I use heel balm every night - too look at them they look like anyone else's feet. I too wear flip flops (only we call them thongs), sandal type shoes and clogs in the winter all the time - not the least of which because my heel is very swollen and painful so I find a full shoe a tad uncomfortable at the moment.

You ought to try hanging round a university campus Jess! I couldnt believe it when I started my degree at the ripe old age of 36. When I was at uni right after school 20 + years ago, there were people of all shapes and sizes from all walks of life. Well not anymore. Where have all the ugly people gone? Every girl is pencil thin, gorgeous and every boy is buffed and tanned. Its unbelievable, it looks like a movie set! Not only that but they all have the latest mobile phones, everyone has brand new cars (no driving round hotted up Cortina's like we all did), acrylic nails, tinted hair, designer sunglasses and amazing clothes. My goal is to fit in a lecture theatre seat. I cant pull the table down and when the person next to me moves theirs my thigh gets in the way :=( Well done though - I dont think I'd even try my wedding dress for at least 30 kilos!

Oh, I know, its awful isnt it? I have been waiting for my first consult - cant believe I cancelled TWO appointments due to nerves over a month ago and could have been well down the path by now! Its tomorrow! I'm nervous nervous nervous because I dont know if I'll be heavy enough to qualify, i'm JUST a BMI 35 and healthy as anything. Dratted good health, lol! I'm in the mood seriously to be making some good changes to my life and my eating habits. I've learned lots from researching the band and want to put them into practice. But to be totally honesty I could not afford to lose any weight before I saw a surgeon. I didnt gain on purpose but I couldnt lose more than a couple of kgs, which I did. That's frustrating me too. Three or four entire months I could have been working away, I so dont want another fat summer! But its going to be, sigh. Then it'll be a wait for surgery if its on the cards for me. Surely I can lose in that time? It wont matter if I've lost 6 or 7kg by the time of surgery as long as I was fat enough on my first consult right? Waiting waiting waiting!

Oh - and the reason dieting doesnt work (and really my concern about the very low calorie diets some people seem to exist on after banding) - you lose muscle as well as fat when you lose weight. You've got to eat right and you've got to exercise right to build and maintain your lean body mass while you lose your fat. It is entirely possible to lose weight on the scale yet become fatter - which is what usually happens with crackpot high protein/no carb diets, very low calorie diets and yes with the liquid diets that are often recommended pre banding. In some situations these sorts of diets are necessary but they're not a long term solution to anything.

BMI isnt really that accurate an indicator because it doesnt take into account how muscular (or otherwise) you are. Its also very easy to assume BMI 35 = 35% body fat. Yet, based on BMI many people who are not morbidly obese could qualify for WLS because of their height/body weight ratio. Having your rolls pinched is quite another thing and really embarrassing. When they grab those back boobs, it doesnt matter whether your BMI is 50 or 28, there's fat you've got to lose! I dont know what my actual body fat percentage is now but around 10 kilos ago it was 39%

I've had the same issues and my mother keeps saying to me "this is for the rest of your life". Well, duh! And what do I want the rest of my life to be, to be a fat, lethargic person controlled by food or to be healthy and energetic. Who cares if I cant eat this or that? It's taken me a loooooooong time to get that straight in my head though. I'm terrified I wont be fat enough and I'll be too healthy when I go to the surgeon tomorrow. If I cant get this done, I really dont fancy the thought of another year or two getting fatter till I do qualify! You'll be fine, just take as long as you need to really think it through, dont be afraid to change your mind a few times and eventually you will feel its the right thing.

It was a compliment!

that being banded might be a lot like being pregnant for me. When I was pregnant with Eliza I started out the pregnancy heavier than I had been at 9 months with my second child. Eliza was a very high breech, she sat oddly the whole way and I suffered abominably with heartburn and reflux - I was downing a 500ml bottle of double strength Gaviscon every 2 days plus I was on Zantac too. At the end, whenever I bent over I would just spontaneously throw up (a little bit) and had to pick up all the washing off the floor with the long BBQ tongs, lol. I had heartburn and acid shooting out of my nose in the middle of the night and had to sleep sitting up, when she was delivered by caesarean, she was so far up into my chest cavity that her little face was striped and bruised by my ribs, that lasted almost 9 months till the marks faded. But the fantastic thing was that I could eat maximum 1/2 cup or so at one sitting, I had zero, absolutely zero, interest in food, couldnt bear anything rich or spicey and couldnt afford to waste my stomach capacity with rubbish or liquids. Over the course of the pregnancy my weight held completely steady, I never gained. Of course, when I got home from hospital I'd lost almost 15kg. I remember thinking, if only that feeling would last. It was like a holiday from eating madness, I ate for nourishment and that was it. Of course, six months into breastfeeding (which seems to make me gain gain gain) it was all back and then some. Will I regain anything of that wonderful freedom with a band? I dont suffer greatly from hunger now but I never knew what it was like just to not be interested in food before.

My ass is bigger'n yours!

I've been thinking about lots of stuff like this, particularly bread. But in the end I've decided what's bread compared to not having this weight problem anymore. I am REALLY concerned about many healthy foods though. Things like red meat, pineapple and lettuce. Lettuce is the one that really gets to me. Never eat a tossed salad again? I really cant imagine that. It sounds strange, but most junk food is completely expendable to me, I know its no good for me and I have no qualms about letting it go. But I cannot imagine my life without salad. I think what I want to be able to do is pare down my diet back to the basics - my meals are healthy. Its all the rubbish that follows them that needs to go. But I dont want to have to change the basic way I eat, which is actually pretty good.

My problem is head hunger, but then really what obese person doesnt have that problem? I too am about to just start the process but I havent really thought that this would disqualify me. I've certainly argued back and forth about it with those nearest and dearest. I've been to an information evening and what the surgeon told me was that because the band restricts what you can physically eat, you HAVE to stop regardless of whether your head tells you to or not. You WILL learn to listen to your body. Now that doesnt mean you wont be eating inappropriately and not at meal time, but you wont be able to use food the way you did before and eventually you are going to be forced to find other outlets for those uncomfortable feelings you used to soothe with food. I'm not a binge eater but I do know that when I get in that "mood" only certain foods will satisfy and I have to eat a LOT of them - a lot more than I will be able to eat with a band. I've spent so much time explaining to my loved ones that the band is not the easy way out but is going to be just the start of the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life - re-educating my attitudes towards food and the way I use it. You're exactly like any other person preband, if you didnt have those problems, you wouldnt need a band.

Yes, I'm sure alcohol will be my problem when I'm banded. And I've certainly been noticing lately that lots of things that shouldnt be on the menu are much easier to chew up and turn to mush than lots of way healthier foods. But surely its OK to plan a treat every now and then?. Even when you're losing weight, its what you do most of the time that counts. You're supposed to be developing new habits that last you the rest of your life, well normal people dont live on grilled chicken breasts and lettuce leaves forever! What's the worst that can happen, you lose a little less this week? I think one of the most important things is to learn to handle those foods and to fit them into a healthy diet.

Everyone seems to forget to that its a HUGE achievement to have lost 42lb and not regained it all! It seems to me that that's the key - and the main thing that the band changes for all of us chronic dieters. We all know we can lose weight to one degree or another, what we cant do is keep it off. Your band is working! Its probably just time for a little adjustment. I also think that frustrating as slow loss and plateaus are when you're trying to lose weight, it is simply not normal for the human body to drop weight on schedule, same amount week in week out without stopping for a bit of a breather now and then. Your doctor will have seen it all before, you're not a child, you're an adult on a very difficult journey and you have no reason to feel ashamed or afraid!

Like are some easier cases than others and the bit of restriction some people get with just the band enough to motivate them into eating well and cutting back enough to lose their weight. And when you get to goal, say for example your fill level is keeping you to 1000 calories a day. Do you then unfill progressively to the point where your weight stabilises?. Or does dieting and getting off a big amount of weight (and actually achieving it like you can with a band) stuff your metabolism so much that you really only NEED 1000 calories a day for life to maintain your weight? Because that scares me to be frank. I just cant see that's healthy for 30 or 40 years running. And why do people regain if the band is removed? Wouldnt you have thought that after a few years, old habits would have been kicked and new ones established. I understand you could suddenly eat more and you may go searching for that full feeling, which of course, may be overeating. But I dont quite get this.

That's fantastic! You must be feeling great even if you need to convince yourself when you look in the mirror. What's Mr Crosthwaite like? I'm seeing him next Thursday. I went to an info session at Peninsula Private last night run by a Mr Draper and he was young and very much eye candy, lol? Crosthwaite sounds like a cranky old name to me, lol.

I've got a tiny little pouch of fat over my caesar scar, I think your muscles never quite recover. It doesnt mean much, just that I'll probably never have the "perfect" flat stomach. Who cares? I'm 38 and I have 3 kids, I dont mind a bit of physical evidence on my body reminding me of that - just not a whole LOT of it, lol. I went to an info night last night and the surgeon stressed that it does not interfere with pregnancy and that caesareans dont present a problem.