Jachut

I could NEVER give up coffee. I would rather have coffee than food and that's the honest truth. I'm like a smoker I guess - I know its bad for me but I dont care. It punctuates my day, its warm and comforting, it doesnt make you fat (I just have a dash of skim milk, no sugar), its sociable, it ends a meal, I just love it.

I did cut down to 3 cups a day though and I drink Decaf other than that because there was a time when I was sipping my way through seven or eight cups. I felt sick for weeks, SUCH a headache, but I couldnt figure out the bad taste in my mouth, till I realised I was also pregnant! So I cut down at the right time. First three or four months of pregnancy, bleuch, cant touch the stuff but it doesnt save you the withdrawal. At least I had my withdrawal BEFORE my morning sickness!

Ooh I dont think I could do it. I had surgery on my eye for an infected corneal ulcer a few weeks ago and I dont think I'll ever let anyone near my eyes again, I was totally blind for 3 days. It was truly awful. Granted that was on my actual eyeball but I have a phobia now.

You look lovely though.

Maybe its an Australian thing? We're definitely advised against the heimlich here.

I cant see why a band would affect a breathing tube either.

Dont they advise nowadays that short sharp smacks on the back are often more effective and less dangerous than the heimlich manouvre anyway?

I've read somewhere about problems inserting a breathing tube in banded patients and having to do a tracheotomy instead. If that's true you'd need to wear a medical Bracelet.< /p>

Some foods I think are only worth eating in HUGE quantities, lol. I find with some things if I cant eat my fill and only have a little taste, I'd rather have nothing.

I confess I had pancakes for Breakfast (its my birthday) and I've stuffed myself, need to poke it all down with a plunger coffee. But I cant eat one pancake!

Wow, I'm a very lucky person, some of you have had hard hard lives and I'm really sorry for that.

My food issues arent so extreme, I'm not really a binger and I dont have any real problems, I'm just a chronic overeater. I've always been 10 to 15 kilos overweight, but never obese till the last seven or eight years. Most of my excess weight came on inexplicably - whilst I was breastfeeding each of my three kids I just piled it on and on and on, without noticeably eating more, but that old adage that breastfeeding makes you lose your pregnancy weight wasnt true for me, luckily I actually lost weight during the pregnancies to give myself a bit of leeway, lol.

I'm a disorganised eater, meaning, I hate grocery shopping with a passion, I'm frantic and flat out and trying to raise 3 kids and do a university degree and I suddenly raise my head at 6.pm and realise I have nothing for dinner and its either bundle them all up in the car and race out or order in and for a while we've been ordering in an awful lot.

I get up and am busy getting the kids ready for school and dont find time for breakfast and then suddenly get starving at 11 am (when I'm normally out) and so then its a huge muffin and a big cappucino so of course I'm not hungry at lunchtime so I dont eat and then when I've gotten the kids home from school that afternoon is yawning before me and I"m hungry again and so are they so I eat more crap. If I actually ate at mealtimes I would eat appropriate food. I dont ever sit down to eat an entire packed of biscuits, but I cant eat one or two, I have to eat till I"m full as if I ate a meal so its four or five or even six and then I'll just pick at them one by one over the course of hours and voila! whole entire packet gone.

I like good food too much too, I love entertaining and cooking up something gorgeous but then I feel because it took so much effort I have to eat heaps of it, and then I'll serve a cheese platter and eat a ton of that, washed down by lots of (very good) wine.

I eat when I'm bored and I reward myself with food too. I eat without thinking about it first and I eat too fast and dont even taste it half the time.

I dont think my bad habits are really a case of any underlying disorders, I think I just need to slow down and think about it a bit. I find it hard to maintain changes in habits because the pressures in life that cause me to be like I am dont go away and I suspect if I did have a band I'd still be doing the same bad things only in smaller quantities.

A tim tam is just a chocolate biscuit. They're not that terrific actually but something of an Aussie icon. Although you can bite off one corner, then the opposite corner and suck your coffee through it, then you cram the whole thing in your mouth while it dissolves from the coffee. Not a habit I'd recommend taking up though, lol.

We've got a thing going with a forum I've been a part of for 3 years or so, my girfriend's hubby is regularly in Sydney for business and he picks up boxes for everyone - literally 15 or 16 boxes.

I actually dont like them, I dont get what the fuss is about, give me a Donut King donut any day! I think they're strangely tasteless and not donut-y at all, more like white bread with glaze on it. Which is good since they're opening one here in Narre Warren next year!

Good on you though, my vice is bikkies. Cant have bikkies in the house.

Hehe, I once did have a habit of reading diet diet magazines and eating mars bars or tim tams at the same time, lol.

But I've been good on here, I'm preband because I'm giving it one last really good shot and I realised if I didnt do that I would indeed have a pre-band last ditch eating fest for several months and would end up even worse off.

I find my capacity for stuffing myself stupid greatest when I've lost weight and am in the gaining it back phase. Once I've hit a new high, my appetite disappears remarkably and I go back to the type of eating that if I maintained all the time I wouldnt be fat in the first place. So I generally find dieting (because you do it when you're really fat) pretty easy, its keeping going after you start feeling comfortable again that's the hard bit. Oh and keeping on eating that way.

I took a good hard look at myself and realised if I was going to have a preband eat fest, then I wasnt in the right headspace for the band. I was thinking of it as the end of something, not a new beginning. My dilemma was that if I started right now, I would fall well below the recommended BMI of 35 and I cant even pretend to have any real comorbidities. Of course, I've lost a couple of kg's and indeed am not a candidate for a band in this country, but I find it very motivating to come here all the same.

Dont hate yourself, think back. You've gone on diets before havent you? Stuck with them for a few weeks at least and lost a little weight? I would consider this period before your first fill as one where you are still for all intents and purposes unbanded and are going to have to "diet". Youve taken a big step, be a little kind to yourself and start right now to think hard about what the band can and cant do for you. YOU are going to have to change, so start right now. From what I gather it takes several fills for lots of people to really reach a good level of restriction so for now you must impose those restrictions yourself.

And what you ate is hardly 3 packs of Tim Tams and a large pizza! Its not that much!

To be honest, I decided for now not to get a band because after hanging round here for a little while I realised that in my heart of hearts I was really wanting it to be a miracle cure. Once I realised just how much work I was going to have to do to get weight off, I decided I may as well tackle it alone. You have a little "helper" and if you work with it it WILL work for you.

My friend who was banded two weeks ago was told (after the initial day or two of clear liquids) that anything that would go through a straw was OK and not to worry at all about calories etc because it was hard enough to live on a liquid diet as it is. She was also never on a liquid diet pre surgery. I'd say each doctor is different, but of course, she lost hardly any weight before her first fill.

If you're eating 1200 or so a day you'll get enough Protein as long as you choose real food.< /p>

I'm in Australia too and the dietary guidelines I've read about here seem a little different to me too Loopylou. I think we must have a lot more focus on fruit and veg here in Australia and the high Protein diet is a little less common. I've got a friend who was banded about 2 months ago and she's been told pretty much what you describe.

I think basically our Australian way of eating is healthy and that you'd do pretty well to eat what you consider a normal diet in much smaller proportions - ie. a small piece of Protein, a small serve of starch and half the plate vegetables for a main meal, a salad with some protein for lunch and good quality Cereal and fruit for Breakfast, with fruit as Snacks.

Desi80 you want fat to be a health issue, not a moral one. I never want my kids to feel worthless if they do get heavy and I would never want to see them judge someone else that way. I also want them to have a healthy attitude to food, not a morbid fear of it.

Its a very difficult balance to strike isnt it?

I guess I would look at the time between now and when this is sorted out as a period when you're going to have to purposely "diet". There's no reason not to lose weight if you artificially impose your limits, count calories, however you like to do that. It might be very hard but there's an end in sight, you only have to do it till you get a proper fill.

YOu can do it!

One thing that would concern me which I've learned over the last week or two is how little some people are eating. Rebound weight gain would be a problem despite people having retrained their eating habits but because who could stick to less than 1000 calories a day forever without some sort of help?

Your body would immediately say "i need more food" surely? And your metabolism could not be unaffected by living on so few calories for so long.

But perhaps you could have gradual unfills until you reach a point of stability?

Just guessing of course.

In Australia, the main recommendation for people who are "pre-diabetic" or have "syndrome-x", if medication is not considered necessary, is a low GI diet. That means not cutting out carbs completely but not basing your entire diet on them and when you do eat them eat great quality, complex carbs, not processed white rubbish. And stick to low GI fruits and always include Protein in your meal. I would guess to a very large degree you'd have to do that with a band anyway, since rice, white bread seem to be problem foods. High GI carbs just send blood sugar levels skyrocketing.

And exercise exercise exercise.

With all those z's in your title, at a glance I thought you said "I have a surgery date, need pizza"!

Calm down, what's done is done. Its a good chance for you to really think about tackling those head issues. Have faith in yourself. Those stressful situations you describe are exactly when I eat too. But this is a great reminder for you that the band is just something to help you overcome these, it wont do all the work. You can and you must continue to think about eating inappropriately and too much.

How proud will you be if you last those two months to the next fill and still continue to lose? You can do it, just take a deep breath and move on from a couple of little mistakes. They dont matter!

If its any consolation I once threw our expensive scales in the bin right before the rubbish men came around because it didnt say what I wanted it to, lol.

No way would I let someone take out a part of my body that is working - not even if they'd found stones that were causing me no problems. You need your gall bladder, you dont grow body parts just for the fun of it.

There is a high risk of gallstones after ANY weight loss, whether it was generated by surgery or not. Post pregnancy too. Fair Fat Forty and Flatulent as the saying goes - meaning overweight caucasian women post pregnancy are especially prone.

Any stones you have/develop may also be able to be treated with ultrasound to break them up so they can pass.

But sheesh, insurance companies not paying for gall bladder ops? That is truly unheard of over here! If gallstone attacks are not medical necessity what is?

I weigh myself clothed after dinner at night, lol. Then I know it cant possibly get any worse!

That's the kind of stuff we do - family walks, family swim sessions. I know it will help to build healthy habits, but I really hope we're not also sending the message that the worst thing a person can be is fat!

I would think though that it would be incredibly important to keep up muscle building exercise as well, like weights or something. That would give you optimum results. It may put a few extra kgs on the scales over time but you will be less fat.

The trouble with extreme dieting on less than 1200 or so a day is that your body WILL start to burn its own muscle as well, regardless of what you are putting in your mouth. As you're muscle disappears, so does your metabolism.

Your body will deplete its glycogen stores very quickly and at 800 cal a day you're not replacing them. The whole point of dieting of course is to burn the fat from your body for energy and you're body does do this, but it also inevitably burns muscle. The more extreme your diet the more Protein you'll lose from your body.

Atkins' claims (and other similar high Protein low carb diets) have never been proven and have very little scientific basis to them. Slow and steady has always been the way to go with dieting precisely because you preserve your muscle tissue to a greater degree and are therefore less likely to have that huge rebound weight gain which happens because all of a sudden you start putting calories into a body that may be lighter but is less optimally proportioned than it was before. Fatter bodies burn fewer calories than leaner more muscular ones.

Now this may not be a problem if you have a band in place for life since hopefully you will keep the new eating habits - apart from the fact that its possible to be very light but incredibly flabby at the same time due to little muscle. But if you ever took the band off you'd be almost sure to have an enormous weight gain. You're body would not be able to handle the level of calories a normal person would eat in a day.