Jachut

I was talking to my trainer the other night (doing boot camp at the moment) and he expressed alarm at what I eat v the training I do. He said my metabolism must be shot for me not to be 40lb underweight. I dont necessarily agree, I think that eating 1800 calories a day or so is quite normal for a lot of women but his point was how much exericse I do and he couldnt figure how I can sustain it on so few calories. Truth is, I still get quite strong cravings for sugar and carbs - and its nothing more than the fact that I really ought to get Fluid out of my band and just eat more decent food in total. I am not managing to meet my calorie and nutrition needs on good health foods and need to resort to slider foods to get them in. So really, w whislt my band is not too tight, its probably too tight for where I'm at. Could you say the same at all? Its very very hard to come to terms with normal eating and not eating to lose weight. Its probably the hardest part of my personal journey. I'm way too afraid of gaining to have an unfill. And of course, if we're not fuelling our activities, them dehydration, lack of Iron, general lack of nourishment can become a problem. Also, that blood pressure sounds very low, that's not normal. it would be why you fainted, but the trick is to work out why it dropped that low.

Anything is going to help. But, sorry to break the news, but to get real benefit longer term from walking, it does need to be for an hour and it does need to be so fast you can hear the wind whistle in your ears. You just dont get something for nothing, anything worth having takes effort and all those cliches apply double to exercise. However, if you're overweight and sedentary, then starting off with walking is PERFECT. At your level. It will make a difference. And over time, you build up to more strenuous exercise. And if you dont, walking will always keep you out of the cardiac ward, it will always have health benefits, it just wont make you very fit or very in shape the way other exercise like running and strength training can. But not everyone wants that anyway. So walk and enjoy it. But will walking make the weight fall off you for months and months and get you right down to a low BMI?. Probably not. Running, circuit training, spinning, stuff like that probably will. Dont discount how you may be able to build over time. A BMI of 37 may not seem hight, but I was a 36 myself when banded and moving my bulk aroumd was SO difficult compared to now. Losing weight makes hard exercise much much easier.

Early on I got stomach aches every now and then, I'd wake up hurting, it'd last a day and then go away again. And I got a lot of weird pain that would radiate up into the roof of my mouth. It was unexplained but had stopped happening by the end of the first year.

Oh, what I would give just to enjoy a simple barbecue like this again. I *can* eat it but its a highly dangerous combo. Unfortunately when I cook this sort of dinner to entertain, I also include sausages and things like potato or Pasta salad - high fat options and nowhere near as diet friendly as a lean steak and a tossed garden salad. But easy to eat. Sometimes I find the band such a pain. I can eat a great variety amd I eat well, but its just such hard work to eat healthy foods sometimes.

I made positive changes before being banded - but I didnt lose any weight. Not that I had a requirement to. I recommitted to exercising regularly and got myself fit, which I believe was of major benefit to me in terms of recovery. And it was a mindset thing - I changed my life from the time I made the decision to have surgery. I ate healthy but I saw no point in trying to lose weight, nor did I ever feel tempted to have one last major pig out. I didnt eat everything that wasnt nailed down. So I get the point that several people have made above about weight gain prior to surgery. I dont think someone who goes out and stuffs themselves stupid for months is necessarily ready for what this surgery really entails, its more a desperate grab for a magic fix in a lot of cases. But I still think its heartless, judgemental and more than a little stupid to expect people who have such major weight problems and issues to do with food that they are willing to consider surgery to "prove" that they can do it before they have the surgery and i wouldnt use a surgeon who expected it.

Oh, dont get me started on skinny people who take credit for their shape. My BIL used to be merciless towards my DH, he obviously "blamed" him for his weight. He'd make comments on it and at the same time boast about things like how he barbecued 12 sausages and at them ALL. Or how he loves a big cooked breakfast. neither DH nor I ever ever ate like that and we both have weight problems. Yet somehow, we're the piggies while Mr Skinny can eat a year's worth of cholesterol, lips and assholes all wrapped in sausage casing in one sitting and he's somehow on higher moral ground? sheesh.

Well, a percentage of the medical profession are freaking idiots is all I have to say. so many of these doctors impose their moralistic bullsh*t on their patients. To my way of thinking the sooner, the better, and you're not a pig or hopeless or a failure, you're a person suffering from a disease which only progresses in one direction. I would be seriously concerned about this guy's empathy and ability to relate to his patients, concerned about the way he's going to support your weight loss. My guess is a lot of rules, expectations and punishments for not achieving to his schedule. I'm sorry this has happened to you.

A BMI of 25 to 30 is overweight by anyone's charts. But not necessarily unhealthy, you can definitely be way fitter and healthier being slightly overweight than someone who may have a lower BMI but doenst live as healthy a lifestyle. The risks only really start escalating once you become obese. However, that's no reason to simply stop there, or feel you have to. It is entirely reasonable and possible to get to a normal or low BMI and age isnt really a barrier to it - what you are willing to do and how you are willing to live are the important factors. personally, I think exercise is the key factor here - if you are prepared to work out hard and regularly, you can do it. I'm doing boot camp at the moment with a 53 year old friend and she's one of the fittest in the group - she can definitely match me with running and strength things like pushups, although at 42, I'm hardly young either. I really hate that attitude oh, I'm in my 50's now, so I cant weigh what I did when I was 25. There's absolutely no truth or logic in that statement. but I think Mimi's statement is spot on - everyone's point at which they are living comfortably is different, I actually like killing myself with strenuous exercise, so it doenst phase me. But definitely, where my weight stopped is where it stopped. I'd love to be about 63kg, but I'm simply not willing to live on less food and do stuff like log my calories so 68 to 70kg is going to have to do.

I've never been a particular believer in drinking more thanm what you're thirsty for. Nor do I believe what you drink has to be plain Water. coffee and tea and such DO count towards your water, you just might need a bit more due to the slight diuretic effect, which is virtually negligible anyway once your body is used to caffeine. And I think the theory that when you're thirsty its already too late is complete bollocks. Ah, thirst is there for a reason - to tell us its time to drink something! Why on earth would we feel it only AFTER we should have drunk? Do we get hungry only AFTER we should have eaten? No. Do we feel the urge to pee AFTER the event? Thank goodness, no. Well, not usually, lol. I think lining up bottles of water and thinking I must get through these today is kinda silly. Drink what you want when you want.

I actually have a little personal theory on this. We dont use fluoro in Australia as a general matter of course. And on Australian board forums, you just dont hear of people being overfilled so often. Of course it happens, and by way of contrast, here we have to wait so long for restriction, with tiny, conservative fills. But I think that just because fluoro shows on a screen that the doc has got the exact right amount of restriction does not mean that your stomach does not then swell in response. I think it leads to aggressive fills that cause problems, whereas small, cautious filling results in less incidence of overswelling. Personal theory only, lol, there's no scientific basis to it. but I've never spent any time wishing I could have a fill under fluoro. It doesnt appear, statistically speaking, to be advantageous at all.

Way way way too tight. There is no long term success to be had in starving all day and then eating at night. Your body will let go of weight, sure, because calories in/calories out is what matters the most. But you're not getting proper nutrition and you'll lose a lot of muscle weight and not as much fat as if you ate properly.

I'm tall - 5ft 10, and fairly willowy with long arms and legs. I'm pear shaped, have a really shapely upper body and a nice flat stomach, but am a bit wobbly below the waist, lol. Naturally I'm medium brown haired, fairly olive skinned, but freckly caucasion olive, not that wonderful mediterranean skin - of course, like so many Australians I have Irish and English heritage and nothing exotic. At the moment, my hair is the most revolting colour, I'm fairly grey and was colouring it myself a nice cool darkish brown with NO red (my hair throws red highlights naturally) and I loved it but my hairdresser convinced me that I was wrecking it, it was getting too dark in the ends and time to get it done professionally. It is now the most horrid ginger colour after she stripped all the old colour out of it, I'm NOT happy at all but she insists its a work in progress. She's a great cutter luckily! I have one of those wedge bobs, long at the front, short at the back, I'm a bit fussy, and straighten my hair perfectly smooth every day, its naturaly very fuzzy. I'm fussy about my hands too, I have nice hands, long fingers. Otherwise nothing much stands out, I have green eyes, but they're a little on the small side, and a slightly weak chin, in my fantasies I have a beautiful jaw line. I'm fairly ordinary looking - not ugly and not gorgeous. I dont like make up and anything that looks "unnatural". Hate hate hate a full face of make up for daytime, and cant stand hair product and big hair and stuff like that. I dress very casually, you'd never catch me in stilletos just to go shopping. Since I lost weight, I look fairly tall and I've finally got that fit body I wanted, I look athletic and fit.

Well, you look amazing. I only wish I could be curvy like that, I'm more of a beanpole, lol. I'd love to see the before's!

Bad food will always go down fine, probably no matter what your restriction. But you do need to calm down and change your attitude a bit. You seem to be looking for problems and then panicking because they dont happen. Why SHOULDNT you eat a home made pizza like that? Why exactly is it a problem that that would go down? Do you really WANT to be able to eat nothing? That was a healthy meal, if you were still hungry, maybe finish it off with something fibrous (amd therefore filling) like an apple. Cereal with banana is a healthy Breakfast (as long as its healthy cereal!). Just stick with one bowl. If you're still hungry, have something like a hard boiled egg for some Protein to damp down the hunger. Over time, with more fills, you wont be hungry after the pizza or the cereal. You need to choose those more solid foods you mention - yes there's more risk of them getting stuck - but you eat them more slowly and carefully and they'll stick with you for longer, making you less hungry. Are you eating this way, or do you still have some work to do in this regard? Big, solid meals are a thing of the past. You will, by necessity have to eat smaller, more frequent meals with a lapband, something which is better for your body and metabolism anyway. But it takes a long time for your head to catch up with this, dont be so hard on yourself, cope as well as you can and have faith that over time, it will get easier and more naturall to eat in this new way. You dont pick up other coping mechanisms overnight, it is really hard when such a major one is taken away so suddenly. Eventually, food wont be so important to you, and believe me, I never thought I'd be saying that! But sadly, ice cream, biscuits, chocolate covered sultanas etc will ALWAYS be easy to eat. You have to not eat them very often.

It depends entirely on your foot, your gait and your personal biomechanics, which of course, being heavy can affect. My advice would be to go to a specialist store and get their advice, have them analyse the way you walk/run etc. Personally, I have very wide feet and rather flat feet too, with a tendency to pronate slightly. I swear by Brooks shoes - I wear the Adrenaline and am on my fifth pair. Asics are great shoes too for overpronators but they're too narrow for my feet. I personally think Brooks and Asics are the best, most serious shoes on the market, Nike and New Balance etc can tend to be more fashion shoes, good shoes yes, but with not quite such stability in them, but its probably not something you'd notice if you're pretty biomechanically sound.

Yeah, i've got a pair of jeans. they are astoundingly enormous, and I was a BMI of 35. I cannot believe I fit into them. They look like a pair of joke pants for a clown or something.

I may have been lucky enough not to have a lot of extra skin, but I do have it, especially on my backside, which is very droopy and my thighs, which are rather flabby. Size wize, I am probably a 10 in US sizes at 5ft 10, and more likely a 6-8 on top. So I am not *big*. But I want to be FIRM and I find myself constantly thinking I'm fat and that I just need to lose more weight. What would happen in reality is my top half would be skeletal and I would still have the flab below. I dont know how to get around it and just be happy with what you have. It doesnt come easily. I feel like I need to sit down and watch my life on video to see how I really do look and move, and I need to see that surrounded by other people, so I can see how I am the same as everyone else - good points/bad points, pretty average sized etc.

Oh, they're fun! But they ARE pretty hard. Especially that stand up sit down stuff they make you do, there's real danger of your legs simply giving up and you falling off the bike! Tiff, its funny what you can do in real life v what you can do in the gym, isnt it? I can carry a 50 lb six year old right through a shopping centre but I tried to do a chin up and boot camp and couldnt even get an inch off the ground! My trainer said "oh women dont use their biceps much" and I thought, are you kidding? I'm always carrying cats, kids, groceries, putting bikes in and out of the car, moving the Water filled basketball ring to sweep under it, etc.

I'd be thrilled with weight loss that fast to be honest. yep, you're a guy, many guys lose faster. But its steady, and it REALLY adds up. I didnt lose more than a pound a week all the way through this, but I've lost 120% of my excess weight and its stayed away. I couldnt give a rats how fast it came off from my perspective now.

My surgeon never suggested a weight, but he did give me the stats - between 50 and 65% of excess weight is the average lost - then he said that it was up to me whether I stopped there and that many people were able to lose more. I had to see a dietician exactly once - to go through the post op diet - and she laughed at my goal of 70kg and said I'd never get that thin and that perjaps I ought to be more realistic. What a dickhead. Its hardly like I was aiming for a BMI of 18. I did it easily.

I've missed this, sorry you had to have this done OD. Hope you recover quickly. Do you think this might solve those lactose issues you'd been having?

If you love bacon, cook it really crisp and crumble on top of things for some flavour. Bacon and other cured meats are not healthy foods anyway, so you're better off without them. I have no trouble with bread but I dont eat a lot of it, need my stomach space for healthy foods like the lean Protein and vegies. Take heart, its a bit confronting when you find long time favourite foods that you love that you suddenly cant eat anymore. But over time, you come to not like the thought of eating them, becuase you can anticipate the discomfort. I occasionally crave something like a really good gourmet burger but the craving has no substance becuase I know what I'm missing is the ability to eat it like I used to - the thought of taking it apart, ditching the bun, eating just a litte of it isnt so tempting! My main problem is fruit. I've never loved fruit, something about the texture of it, I dont like the sensation of eating it. It turned out to be the most difficult food for me to eat - dried, fresh, cooked, pureed, impossible. I like the flavour, but the actual thought of eating fruit makes me shudder now and i will gag when eating it. The only thing I can handle is a crisp, peeled apple or an orange but oranges are so inconvenient! I have to drink organic juice now to get my fruit requirements in.

I do much better with no Snacks, once I start, I tend to keep picking. Weight loss is really only about calories in/calories out. Mentally, I cope a lot better with eating a good meal and then just knowing more food is off limits till the next one. But it makes little difference really, despite all that is written about it, if you spread the same intake over five smaller meals. You just do what is right for you.

I've been banded since 2005 also. I went through this once and have realised that there's really only so much a band can do. No restriction is ever going to be able to stop you eating when you're not evem really hungry and no restriction is ever going to make good food choices for you. You cant just keep getting tighter forever and at four years out, I decided that the band has really dont what it can for me weight loss wise and any further tightening would be really silly. I find I no longer have that initial enthusiasm, I'm not motived by or excited by constant weight loss as I hit goal a good 2 years ago now and I just dont really have much left to lose. So I find its harder to make good choices. I'm much much more likely to eat junk these days because I can - i dont gain, I exercise a lot, I'm fit and healthy so there's just a lot less reason to avoid it. This worried me and I went and got more fill. But I dont think it works that way, lol. I just got too tight and had to take it out again. that was a year ago now and I havent gained an ounce, so I really didnt need it. I'd really like to see another 10 or even 15lb gone but I really know deep down, that only I can do it and going tighter is not going to help. Its all down to my choices.

Even when I was fat, I never really *looked* at the photos. I kind of looked around all the bits I hated. I have one photo that serves as my reminder. I was rarely in photos, not because I avoided them but becuase I was usually taking them. I have one of me when I was about 40 lb down, nearly half way. I was feeling great, back in regular size clothing, had had my hair straightened. I came across it one day and thought WHOA, I was huge. Then I realised how great I was feeling at that stage and it makes me shudder to think how big I really was.