Jachut

That's what concerns me I guess. My diet now is pretty A1 nutritionally, it just has lots of "extras", lol. I guess when you've got a really big weight problem, the risk to your health and quality of life is such that this is a fair trade off. I"m not sure that it is with me and my weight problem. I'm beginning to think I'd be losing more in terms of nutrition than I'd be gaining in terms of health from weight loss.

Thanks guys, its kind of hard to get my head around the concept that some of my most enjoyable rituals may not be that enjoyable anymore. I cant help panicking. What will I replace them with? But it sounds like they may not need replacing anyway.

I really like the idea of eating before you go out, lol. I had a friend who used to do that. She couldnt drink AND eat so she chose to drink. I'd prefer good wine over food any day myself. Not that I have a problem with drinking but it is an enjoyable thing for me.

It's funny but eating out isnt one of my problems. I usually get so wrapped up in the conversation and the company that I barely eat anyway. And I find if I eat lots while I"m talking lots I get lots and lots of tummy pain, it can be crippling. So I hate getting full when I"m out.

D'OH! I've been "practicing" the way I would have to eat for the past week, eating very slowly, chewing very well and have been amazed by how much less I am satisfied with.

I got on the scales this morning and have lost weight, my BMI this morning is in the 34's! LOL, I may not have a choice in this anyway unless i can pack a bit on before tomorrow. Hmm, maybe I'll put the weights off Doug's dumbells in my pockets.

That's what's surprised me and made me a bit unsure. It seems to me not gulping and bolting your food and barely tasting it going down is half the problem. I've read a thousand times of course to really enjoy your food but never actually done it. And of course, if you dont overeat as a general rule, you can enjoy anything in moderation.

This has been such an educational experience. If I dont get the band I still have learned some really valuable things about myself to the point where I am actually feeling I can do this. Looking at weight as a health issue too rather than an aesthetic one (and until the last two years I've only really had an aesthetic weight problem) makes me able to break it down into smaller goals in a way I've never done before. I only have to lose 20kg to be "overweight" instead of obese. 20 doesnt sound like much compared to the 40 I've been thinking of.

I'll let you all know how I go tomorrow and whether the health fund will cover me now I"m a skinny 34'er.

I will go and see the surgeon, its $105 for the visit and our Medicare system here will rebate half of that so there's not much to lose.

I think I'm afraid of never having the joy of a major pig out again. I thought I was just hopeless with willpower but now I've realised after considering this process that food does fulfill some sort of a need in me. The thought of not having my old friend to comfort me, soothe me is quite frightening. But feeling that way does tend to indicate if I dont do something now, I may well be pushing 300lb in a couple of years doesnt it?

On a practical level I'm REALLY concerned by the typical sort of diet everyone seems to be following (read the food journals). They dont come close to the health recommendations in this country. I do NOT want a band so that I can forever live on Protein drinks and other processed crap. Fresh fruit, fresh vegies, good wholegrain products are vital for your health! I dont want to die skinny with my arteries completely clogged and I dont want cancer either!

Wow, this is scaring me. Not one of those daily intakes sounds appealing - maybe its the difference between the typical diet in the US and the typical diet in Australia but I eat WAY more fruit and veg than anybody has mentioned. This will be the first thing I ask my surgeon on Tuesday.

I eat lots of junk too and McDonalds is a fairly regular part of my life, that can go. But I have 3 kids to feed so I make a huge effort to keep our family diet a healthy one.

In any given day, say today for example, I would eat:

Breakfast

Bowl of wholewheat mixed type Cereal - wheat flakes, dried fruit etc. Medium sized bowl, a bit of tinned fruit on top of that and some skim milk

Mid morning - three of my MIL's home made biscuits (cookies to you I guess)

lunch - Minestrone (home made), fresh bread roll with butter, an orange

Just now I ate a banana

dinner is going to be leftover vegetable lasagna - a rather rich concoction that had a bottle of cream poured over it and is topped with pine nuts. I'll probably eat a pretty large hunk of that.

I've had 2 beers and a handful of potato chips at the football presentation day and will probably have a wine with dinner. During the day I've had about 6 cups of coffee with skim milk and we always finish the night with a hot Milo (which is like activite, Ovaltine, that kind of thing).

That's a pretty "good" day for me - otherdays have far more fatty treats slipped in and lunch during the week is nearly ALWAYS rubbish out on the run, like McDonalds.

But the Australian recommendation is for 2 fruit, 5 veg every day. It doesnt look like anyone is eating that (a serve of veg is 1/2 cup). If I do go ahead and get the band I really dont want the quality of fresh food in my diet to get dumped in favour of processed Protein Drinks and other rubbish like that. What's the point of that?

Someone please tell me you're fitting in loads of fresh salads and fruits?

Cats, cant bear dogs *shudder*

Red wine or White?

Sorry Porclndoll, I'm in Melbourne, Australia. Its easy to get beautiful fresh organic produce home delivered here, relatively pricey though!

Does everyone suffer from this?

I think my chances are good - I'm 38, I've had 3 babies and dont have a single stretchmark. I dont have any wrinkles yet and I only have a "relatively" small weight problem of 30-40kg. I'm more than happy to take my time about losing it?

Am I kidding myself?

Of course my boobs are going to look like footy socks with tennis balls in the end after feeding three babies :-)

Its not always a blast being tall - my ideal weight is really about 75kg and its a weight I managed to maintain for a few years in my early 20's but even then I couldnt shop in normal stores. I was just too large framed.

People's body shapes are different too - I have a girlfriend about the same height/size as me, she wears 2 whole sizes smaller than I do! I am more pear shaped, she has really really thick legs with no ankles :-)

I also dont see my fat in the mirror. Because I'm very tall, my slip from overweight into obesity hasnt actually added much inches to my frame. Gone up one clothes size but am 20kg heavier. There just hasnt been that in your face STOP signal for me, until I started to feel crap. I was surprised when the physio said to me that my feet hurt because of my weight, I've had vulnerable ankles all my life. I dont see that if I go out and jog I may hurt myself (which is why one ankle now is really giving me trouble).

I know I'm bigger than others, I know I cant buy clothes in normal shops but I really dont think I realise how fat I am.

I'm going to see the surgeon Tuesday, I'm really unsure whether this is what I need and at the moment am leaning towards not doing it. But I think I really need to at least discuss it with the surgeon.

At present I have a BMI of 35, so I'm really only JUST squeaking in and not sure if my weight related problems would actually be considered comorbidities anyway so this may all be academic.

BUT - I dont want to have that "last supper" mentality. This process will take a while, I doubt I'd be having surgery in a week or two although our health system is WAY less complicated, our health fund will cover it or it wont, there wont be any substantiations, appeals etc. I want to make changes now, not eat myself stupid until the surgery date. What would happen if I fronted up to surgery 6kg lighter, and my BMI had slipped down to a shapely 33?

I feel personally all the issues that have led me to consider this huge step will still be there, I've gotten a hold of them temporarily any number of times in my life. If you're a candidate when you first walk into that surgeon's office is that all that matters?

It's one of the things Im most afraid of. Anaesthetics make me morose and weepy anyway. Will I come home and cry over what I have done?

Do you find enormous challenges in overcoming the reasons you overate despite the band stopping you from doing so. I can picture myself prowling the house desperate to relieve those feelings that I used to eat to relieve.

At the moment, I think about food and my weight constantly. What I'm not going to eat, how I'm going to avoid it, how I can get away with eating it, etc etc. Does that ever go away?

What I would like is to one day be a normal person who eats whatever they feel like eating when they're hungry, until their not hungry and then not think about food again until hunger strikes? Can this ever really happen?

If it can, if you can achieve that do you think its to do with physical hunger or is it a psychological journey? Do I really need a band to undertake that journey?

I really feel like I"ve seen a light these last few days. I now know what I have to do but I'm not sure if I need a band to do it.

That's fantastic. I used to feel smug about only being "overweight" a few years back and thinking Oh well, I dont really need to worry. Wrong! It must be great getting back to that after being labelled "obese". What a horrid word that is.

What worries me about this process and the food selection afterwards is it sounds very heavy on the Protein very light on the fruit and veg. How on earth do you get your recommended 2 fruit, 5 veg in?

I can honestly say that if it involves minimal fruit and vegetables and being unable to eat many grain products like bread, that would probably make me lean towards not doing it personally. I feel like I may be of normal weight then, but not necessarily healthy. There's not a lot of long term studies of the effect of years and years of a diet like that.

I really dont believe in the virtue of high Protein diets and whether or not you're at your proper weight, you cant eat eggs every day of the week and maintain normal cholesterol levels surely?

What about cereals, fruit, lean red meat?

I think I've changed my mind again. Sigh.

Bear in mind, though, that the less one has to lose to begin with the slower it is likely to come off. And if you fall within the bell curve of most bandsters and lose "only" 50-60% of your excess body weight, how much would that be? 30 lbs? It would seem like surgery to lose 30 lbs is not a risk worth taking.

That said, there may be good reasons to get banded and only you and a doctor can decide that. If you believe the behavior modifications the band helps us make are modifications you can't make consistently on your own, then it may be a good fit for you. Do you eat too much? Or just consistently eat the wrong things? The band does not help us eat the right things; that we have to do on our own. What it does to is help us eat LESS of everything, so if that's what you need and think it's worth the risk and expense, you're on the right track.

Wow, that's struck a chord with me. I do eat too much, of course I do but I'm not sure that hunger is my main problem, its more emotional eating and choosing the wrong things to go along with that. Nobody relieves stress by eating celery do they? This is such a big scary decision and like you say, I'm actually not sure I would go through surgery to lose only 40lb. I'm positive I could do that on my own, what I dont know I can do is lose the 80lb I'd like to. But surgery doesnt guarantee that either does it?

I'm still going to go and see the surgeon on Tuesday, I really want to discuss the option. However, I'm not positive its for me and I'm not sure my health fund will cover it either. For lots of low BMI candidates perhaps there is good consideration to be given to whether that much money would be well spent on a personal trainer and a dietician rather than just go it alone?

For the last few days I've "practiced" the way I would have to eat, measured out half a cup or so of food and chewed it really really well and really concentrated on it. It's really made a difference - we had a Pasta bake type of thing last night for dinner with parmesan on top and I found when I really stopped to actually taste it, it was very rich and I couldnt eat very much, the flavour became too intense for me. Ordinarily I would just bolt it down and not even taste it.

Sigh. It's SO hard isnt it? The good thing about this process is that it's actually really made me think about my eating habits and what I would have to change in a way I've NEVER done before. I've realised that that is going to be very hard but that all the band would offer me is a physical restriction on how far I could go off track. This morning I'm really thinking that I might go along to the dietician my doc recommended and give that a really really good go first.

LilAngel I guess all you can really do is go for the initial consult, really get a good idea of what kind of weight loss statistically you could be expecting and weigh up whether its worth it. I know that thinking of going through surgery to lose 30lb has really stopped me in my tracks.

Trouble with flylady is by the time you've shined your sink, your 2 year old has spread talcum powder round the bedroom. By the time you've vacuumed all that up, the 10 year old has fed the cat and left a trail of cat food from the plate all the way to the bin. Go and mop that up only to find your 2 year old needs a nappy change, deal with that to go and feed the whining 8 year old who is demanding food. You're shined sink is now covered in dishes, which you have to do and then put on the load of laundry, oh and then go and mop the floor AGAIN because the kids have been in and out the back door and its raining outside. Get sidetracked by the revolting smell coming from the boys room only to discover they've been hiding most of their school lunches in the bottom drawer, eeew, clean that up and wonder just when you will get to the ring around the bath, the toilet which they boys cant actually pee into for love nor money, do the banking, the grocery shopping, fit some study in, get to football training, cook something for dinner and do the ironing and put all the clean washing away. By this stage of course, the house needs vacuuming again, I think i dusted about 2 months ago though so that should be right for another 6.

Flylady? When? LOL!

Its a bit anxiety provoking isnt it?. I keep thinking I'll never ever be able to enjoy food again if I do this.

Study here today and all day yesterday too. I have a busy week ahead of doctors appointments (see the surgeon on Tuesday!!) so I have to get it done, have a big assignment due for Narrative And Genre on August 18 and next w/end will be busy coz its my birthday.

Doug is taking the boys and Eliza to a football round robin today for the last day of the Aussie Rules season - my 8 year old played this year. Its a grey cold rainy Melbourne winter day.

I don't think there is a darn thing you can do to change their core personality, or if there is, then I'm not so sure I would want to do it.

Have to agree with that. I have a 10 year old, an 8 year old and a 2 year old and being able to keep up with their mess is one reason why I really need to lose weight. No matter what I do, they're pigs plain and simple. We dont have any behavioural problems with them, but they're just SO messy and I think that's in their nature because its what I'm like. I have to work everyday to overcome that because of course, I dont have my Mum living here to clean up after me.

Really to keep a decent house with 3 that age, you just have to be prepared to not sit down ALL day. Just follow them round with vacuum and mop. At present I just cant manage that, I'm done by 3pm.

No real advice just commiserations, lol. They're blessings, really.

Tee hee - you make me feel blessed that we have so much wonderful fresh food that is cheap and easily available in this country.

I usually buy organic fruit and veges, have them home delivered. You wouldnt believe how good those taste.

I think learning how to cook properly and how to really nourish yourself are probably two very big hurdles.

The difference is you'll probably keep the weight off forever, they probably wont.

Honestly, THAT is why Im considering a band so seriously. I honestly think if I can lose the weight with the band, I could also do it without. To me, dieting is not the hard part, I'm actually sure that for a while I could be a star patient, particularly since I love the gym with a passion. Its keeping it going past 10-15kg and keeping it OFF that really gives most people problems.

They'll lose weight, sure but so will you and you will lose more and you will keep it off.

fee you're in Australia arent you? Its just the gap between Medicare and what your surgeon charges, like any other operations. So, medicare will cover x% of the surgery as long as it's clinically necessary but beyond question your surgeon will charge way more than the scheduled fee, they all do, your private health insurance will cover the cost of your hospital stay according to your policy and then depending on the policy may cover some of the gap charged by the surgeon.

Not quite ready - Im 5ft 10 and 245 and I"m thinking about the band - I absolutely dont feel good at this current weight, which is far and away the highest I have ever been.

But I get where you're coming from. If I felt in control and like I was going to stay here and not keep getting fatter then I could accept that perhaps its just how I want to be. But every medical professional I see for every other reason tells me I'm seriously overweight and need to lose it pronto.

Im the opposite too - my conscious mind is telling me I'm fat, my body is telling me it doesnt want to bear this much weight but in my head I look the same as I did 25kg ago.

partly that's true of course - the fatter you get the less you notice extra weight. But if I do happen to see a photo of myself, particularly standing next to other people, I'm HORRIFIED. Im 40kg overweight but in photos I can see that every part of me is bigger than other people.

When I look in the mirror I honestly dont see it. I make effort every day and go out feeling good. I still buy nice clothes, wear make up, get my hair done. Its only how I feel that has really alerted me to the fact that I have to do something.

How does one handle special occasions like Christmas Day, birthdays, special dinners out?

I'm not fussed by the thought of going out to dinner and only eating 1/4 of what's on my plate, I'm talking about drinking with meals. I understand why that's not advised but can you do it on occasion?

Like on Christmas day etc you're going to want a champagne or two and when you go out you normally have wine with your dinner and finish with coffee right?

Is that impossible to do? Does it just wash the food through quicker so you're less full for less time or does it overfill you so you puke in your handbag, lol? That wouldnt worry me to be honest, evening has never been a hungry or picky time for me and I dont mind going to bed hungry, but surely you wouldnt be anyway as you'd still have a reasonable quanity in your bottom part of your stomach?

Funnily enough, this is one of the things worrying me most. Stressful as it feels to think about not being able to use food to soothe myself when I"m overwrought (Like when Eliza has covered her entire bedroom AND the new carpet with talcum powder), I worry about the many enjoyable social rituals of food. I can give up overeating and I want to gain control of those occasions but I'd like to be able to "normal" for little snippets of time. I dont know if I can never be "normal" again.