Jachut

Sorta, we need to move desparately as we have our two teenage boys sharing a room. Not working. I'm currenly finishing up my teaching degree and interviewing for graduate positions for next year. DH is renegotiating his salary and bonus arrangement, due for a huge boost, so as soon as that's all locked in, we're house hunting. I dont think we'll sell this one, I think we'll keep it and put tenants in it. Its a perfect rental, this area has become high rental, its well serviced, central, near to schools etc. and we're extremely lucky that I own it so under Australian tax law, DH can buy it off me and enjoy all the tax benefits of owning a rental property. But I hear you - 3 kids, 15 years of living here and a year of both DH and I being crazy busy, the garden has just gone to completely ruins, we've NEVER painted apart from the original paint job, the shower screens need replacing, one shower is leaking a bit etc etc. Thank god we built the house and its only 15 years old, built on a concrete slab, so no major stuff to do, but it certainly needs a bit of TLC. We're organising working bees, lol, DH does tons of unpaid tax advice for friends and they're all about to pay up!

Fills will help, what you are experiencing is entirely normal. What you have to remember too is that there's eating too much and there's REALLY eating too much. Many people dont have restriction until they've had a few fills and are eating more than is ideal for good weight loss. That's fine, it comes eventually and if we were all so great at dieting, well we wouldnt be here would we? So do your best, but dont think that it wont ever work or that your'e somehow the one and only person who ever did this or who will ever fail with a band. Then there's overloading your stomach. Eating past the point of comfort, eating till you vomit, continuing to eat foods that get stuck and make you vomit, eating so much that you get reflux, heartburn etc. That's serious, you can do damage. So try your best, try to stop beofre you're stuffed, and take care of your stomach, but dont be too hard on yourslef for not being a perfect dieter just yet.

I went for a walk when I got home from hospital, the morning after surgery. I did go with DH though, not alone.

Nothing gets in the way of my runs. I've also never been unable to drink as much Water as I need to. The only thing I notice is that I cant really gulp it, I need to take a sip (although a big one) let it go down and take another. So no downing half a litre in one go.

Well, to be honest, i dont do the Protein first thing. We're not told to here in Australia anyway, but my diet is based on wholegrains, fruit and vegetables with more modest amounts of protein and I stay very regular. The thing is, there may well be weight loss advantages with high protein, low carb, and it may well not have the dire effects on your blood chemistry that such a high fat diet would be expected to have, but its shocking for your bowels.

I dont work in quite such stressful conditions, BUT I find myself always having to eat quickly, for example, getting myself to work and kids to school in the morning, there's no way I can sit down for 20 minutes to eat a bowl of Cereal. So I choose things to eat - like muesli (which doesnt go soggy) that I can have a spoonful, carry my bowl up to the bathroom, dry my hair and have a few spoonfuls, carry the bowl back to the kitchen, make the kids lunches, have a few spoonfuls. In fact, I can get in a breakfast of cereal AND fruit like that, I could never eat it in a single sitting, so in a sense I'm eating around the band, but a good breakfast really sets me up for the day and means i eat way better overall. For lunch, I would do similar with a sandwich, or cheese and crackers, a garden salad or something cold and non messy which COULD sit on my desk and be eaten forkfuls at a time rather than have to get the meal all over and done with. As to exercise amping you up, I've found that over time,t that effect has gone away from me and I can run late at night and then be able to sleep, as my body has gotten used to it.

I've been crazy busy too lately, and frankly I'm really disappointed in how badly I've handled it eating wise. I have eaten nothing but sugar and fat for about three weeks. Many many days I've not eaten a proper meal but snacked all day. I've simply not had the time to think about it and prepare it and with a band, you cant so easily grab something quick and healthy like an apple becuase when you're stressed and tight, you cant eat it! It just goes to show, we have behaviour patterns embedded which will probably always be there to some degree. Its important to just keep plugging away at that one. TRY to do better, sometimes I succeed, sometimes I dont. As to getting your head around your weight loss, well, yours has been remarkably fast! I dont doubt that you need some breathing space. I think the reason for waiting 2 years after hitting goal to have cosmetic surgery isnt really to let the skin shrink its to let your head catch up, get used to the new you so you can make sensible decisions. There's things I would have done to myself 18 months ago that I think I probably would have regretted now - if only for spending unecessary money. Its taken me a LOOOOOOONG time to accept what I am, how I look, what can change and what cant and come to a happy place with it all. So, you do what you feel you need to do.

This is exactly my issue too, and the advice I have had is to go for implants as well as a lift. I'm really ambilvalent. Like you, the affordability of just a lift is attractive to me, I could make an appointment for next week. But what I really want is cleavage, since my C cup breasts are now small enough to be well contained in even a bikini top, the fact that they need lifting is not obvious to anyone but me. But the flaccid old lady skin on the top of them, I'd die if anyone saw it. Its really ugly, like the old broad in There's Something About Mary, lol. But I actually do not like fake looking round breasts and I really do not want BIGGER ones. I like my C cup size. I hate the whole botoxed, juvied, breast implanted look. I really fear going down that path, and I have issues with seeing it as unforgiveably vain and selfish to spend that kind of money on myself instead of say, a bigger house which we all need, or my kids education or even a holiday for them. So I've done nothing. I'm not sure I care that much. Why fix my breasts when the rest of me looks 42? I think I *should* be fine with that, grow old gracefully, but sometimes the vain me pops out. So in a nutshell, the advice I've had from 2 surgeons is that I'd need implants to fill out the tops. In essence i'd go for that, if I could sort out my moral issues on whether or not I should.

Ah, Gracie, you're my own personal fan club, lol! My everyday diet is a totally and absolutely normal diet, including all foods. Nobody would ever know I had been banded, nor would they think I was on a diet, ate weird or anything. They might think I was disciplined and a bit of a health nut becuase I can knock back that second bit of cake. I eat Protein, carbs, mostly healthy food, a little bit of junk now and then, I like a glass of wine at night. I am not on a "diet", I didnt lose weight on a "diet" and I will never go on a "diet" again. I like running, i do it for 45 minutes most days of the week. Its not a chore, its a pleasurable activity that gives me headspace, time to download the days' mental stuff, and makes me feel great about myself. I think good skin is 99% genetics and that's it. You are either lucky or you arent, nothing you do is going to change that. But I'd still rather be where I am now even if it meant a tummy tuck than where I was.

Its fascinating isnt it? I need to be a very low BMI and even then I'm STILL jiggly, although I'm very fit and toned underneath. If nature blessed me a bit more, I've got the sort of body that if I could get it thin enough I could model (would need a bag over my head, lol) - if I was still 18! I look overweight VERY quickly and at quite a low weight. People have gotten nasty and called me anorexic on here (c'mon! 150 at 5ft 10 anorexic?) but honestly, I could still lose 20 lb and not be alarmingly thin. I've got loads to lose on my butt! I saw a woman the other day and I couldnt stop staring, she was just so curvy. Utterly perfect curvy, flat stomach, perfect, rounded breasts, but curves in ALL the right places, the type of body that is not fashionable but that I bet men drool over. I could never in a gazillion years be like that, the minute I put on the weight to HAVE curves, it just all hangs in rolls. Yet, I'm betting we would have been around the same size. She was a lot more "solid" than me being several inches shorter but ever so much more shapely. And the biatch didnt jiggle!

Doesnt look like a lot to me, I think you're doing fine. I lost easily and well on about 1500 calories a day and I maintain on about 1800 so my daily list would look HUGE to most people. But I firmly believe that a) I was a bit lucky, with the amount I ate, to only get to a BMI of 35, I must have a pretty good metabolism, and because I eat well, varied and enough and I run daily, I have kept my body's furnace going rather than slowing down and have absolutely no need to exist on puny amounts like 800 calories a day. People have said to me, oh, you eat almost normally (I eat like a normal person with a smallish appetite) why do you need a band. The band keeps me from wanting to eat 3000 calories a day, which is about where I was at - AND that was mainly healthy food, so you can imagine what sort of volume it was. My dinner plate used to be a large sized plate piled high.

Ports can and do flip, its not unusual, if they come unstitched. As to sticking out, well now I'm at a low weight, mine is visible when I'm standing up as a round lump, let alone when I am laying down. Its not so ugly that i cant wear a bikini, but its definitely there. I'm lucky not to have a lot of loose skin, but if I *did* have a tummy tuck and reduce the small amount that's there, it would stand out really really obviously. But better than being fat and lumpy in my opinion.

At five foot ten, and 150lb I wear a US 8 to 10, depending on the item. I can wear size 6 tops and jackets. At 200 lb I was wearing a 12 to 14 and at 245 I was a good size 16-18. Everyone's different, I seem to be quite "large", I've got pretty wide hip bones I think.

I have a 4cc band, banded December 05. Its always worked well for me, I lost easily, and more importantly, I believe I found and kept good restriction WAY more easily than people with the larger capacity bands seem to. Like Cleo's Mom has pointed out, these bands only need tiny fills - my final ones were 0.1cc. I think I went 1 cc, 0.5 cc, 0.3 cc and then a couple of 0.1's over a three year period (had some small adjustments after hitting goal weight). When i was banded, nearly everyone in Australia was getting 4cc bands, but there was sizes 9.75cm and 10 cm (the circumference). I got a 9.75 because the surgeon said at a BMI of 35, that would be best, I simply didnt have as much internal fat to lose, and he felt the 10 would become loose for me and require a lot more adjusting. But yes, they're all the same diametre, the actual capacity of them doesnt affect the size in the end, but it can be harder to get good restriction.

My doctor was quite upfront about the fact that although the band itself is designed to, and probably will last forever in your body, the balloon part probably wont. If you get banded at say 20, then it is virtually a given that you will need to be rebanded at some point in time. Its a mechanical device with a changeable part that will probably wear out. But they really just dont know! I personally find it very strange that some people have posted that they are planning banding, and also planning and saving for a mountain of cosmetic surgery afterwards and then suddenly pull up short on this issue. They say "whoa, I might need MORE surgery? This may not be the procedure for me". Um, forgive me but in amongst tummy tucks, gall bladder removals, breast reconstructions and face lifts, who *really* is going to worry about a 40 minute operation 15 years down the track to replace something that wore out? Now, as to complications such as erosion, slippage and other evils such as cronic reflux, I dont think that's a "when" issue at all, its definitely an "if". But I think you need to be realistic that complication rates with the band are higher than what you're led to believe, becuase you must work with a band and many many people do that terribly! And then some people's bodies just dont handle bands well. Those complications dont tend to be reported, the figures you read are always slippage and erosion ones. Do your research and make the decision based on what YOU believe, dont let what is probably biased and disillusioned negativity sway you.

I really worried about this and kept thinking I can do it myself. Then I realised, I was giving myself an "out" (I'm banded, not sleeved) - no band, then there was always the ability to overeat. THEN I realised, if I was going to lose weight and keep it off, I could never ever ever eat the way I was eating again. Ever. Either way, it had to stop. Weight loss surgery didnt seem so scary after I'd faced that fact. Really faced it. And then, once I was banded, I felt satisfied after smaller amounts of food. I didnt eat till I was utterly stuffed that often before banding, but I got the same feelings of satisfaction on 1/3 of the volume of food. So I've never felt, oh, I want to eat but I cant. And I dont think an occasional treat is a bad thing anyway. So if I really want something, i just have it.

One foot in front of the other is the only place to start. I'd just make a pact with yourself to do a gentle half hour walk five days a week. Progress SLOWLY. Dont push yourself past your comfort zone, pay attention to your knees, and see how they go and weigh up whether you need to mix walking up with something else like swimming. Give yourself a couple of months for that to become a habit before you think about harder exercise or getting really fit. I could walk, i was quite fit, but the thought of running was just as daunting, only I had a burning desire to do it, so that helped. But I just went out and did what I could, and gradually built on it. There really is no magic, its small steps and consistency. Running has taught me one of the most valuable lessons I've ever learned, honestly, and that's just the value of small steps and consistent work and the amazing things it can achieve over time. From little things, big things grow!

With walking (and runnning for that matter) the time isnt so important as the effort you're putting in. If you're getting out of breath and raising a sweat, then the intensity is right to increase your fitness, even if you only covered 1 mile inthat time! when its easy and you start getting faster, its time to push a bit harder.

Not quite, I've woken up coughing badly precisely once in four years and occasionally, when I go to bed I find it hard to fall asleep becuase I'm aware my pouch is still full and I worry about reflux happening in my sleep - it never ever has apart from the one coughing episode. If its occurring with any regularlity its a problem, as its quite dangerous, you can have nasty complications from inhaling stomach contents. But it may simply be a matter of being a little too tight. However, ever since being banded, although I've never been a reflux-y person, I certainly dont push it by eating and then standing on my head! Banding does make you a little less able to eat and then jump around or lie down or whatever, simply becuase food is sitting high up in there. Eating and drinking close to bed isnt a really good practice, and if what you've experienced is due to things like that and you can easily manage it, then I wouldnt be TOO worried. But do look honestly at an unfill if you think at allt hat you may be a bit tight.

Calories. I've never ever been a low carb dieter, and whilst I appreciate the theory behind low carb eating, I think the practical application of it for real people leads to a truly horrible diet. I've eaten good carbs the entire way through my journey and never limited to them, so for me, its calories that matter. I dont actually count those either though - although just roughly calculating is a daily habit. I lost well on about 1500 a day.

Yes, I do but its within the same clinic, all the doctors work for the same group of surgeons.

I think its more to do with your particular genetics than it is to do with age. I've seen bellies completely ruined by pregnancy that belong to women in their early 20's and ones that bounce back like mine did when I was 35. Yet my boobs are a train wreck, but they were saggy when I was normal weight in my teens, so that was always likely. It can all be fixed up later, truly, the first thing to focus on is getting the weight off.

Well, it its not one thing its another. Personally I wouldnt ingest artificially sweetened products day in day out in that quantity, it would freak me out. But I drink a glass of wine most nights and WAY too much coffee and I dont worry about THAT, so its just a matter of not having too many bad habits I guess. I dont like plain Water a lot except if I've just run, so I do drink cordial occasionally, but its occasional enough that I drink full sugar. I'm a bit paranoid about artificial sweeteners.

Well, I was a sweet tooth and still am but have been very successful with the band. I have simply learned how to eat normally, and eat sweet things only occasionally. I lost steadily and well, WAY past the 60% of excess weight that the average person loses, to lose about 120% of my excess weight. I eat ALL foods in small portions and i run for 45 minutes a day. I've kept all the weight off and never regained more than 4lb which happened when I thought I might have a small unfill - didnt figure i needed as much fill for maintenance. I had a small regain of 4lb and then that levelled off. I've maintained for about 2 years now, and I do very occasionally commit carbicide and go on days long binges of eating nothing healthy, occasionally before my period I just go off the rails totally. But the portion size remains small and i keep running daily and I never ever gain weight. I think the band CAN work for sweet lovers. I just choose not to eat them like I used to but if I"m going to pig out, its still the same foods it always was.

Me too. I thoroughly enjoyed every stage and every new low. I put a new photocard in the digital frame the other day and it popped up a picture of me at about 200lb and I nearly DIED. I was enormous! And that was halfway to goal, lol. But in the photo, I'm wearing the first pair of jeans from a normal store, and a size 16 (your 12-14) top and I felt fantastic. I was in a hurry too, but I wasnt focussed on the end quite so much, and I'm glad coz now I look back on that 2 years as an incredibly exciting and happy time. And you know, after that point my loss slowed right down and it took me about 18 months to lose the same amount as I'd lost in the first six. But that's a good thing, there's a whole head journey thing you ahve to go to to get to self acceptance, you'll probably find the same when you get near goal and start feeling that you're still fat, you've got skin, you're jiggly, you look older in the face, you dont look at ALL like you thought you would. Whoa, weight loss doesnt make you look perfect? You need the time to get your head round all that and have it catch up with your body, so dont wish away the time, its important.