Jachut

My kids were eating cheese on toast this morning, I thought hmm, that looks good, havent eaten that in literally years - you know, toast bread, put on cheese, put under griller. Ugh, it made me feel awful. It was so rich and fatty, I just dont like things like that anymore. Cant tolerate a lot of fat in any form.

You do look great. I got brave and posted some close ups of me too. I like the way you say it - pretty with clothes on, just not so much with them off. I've been thinking about a bit of surgery but I regularly stop and slap myself. Clothes on - hello - is that not how everyone sees us 99% of the time. I get frustrated with myself that I would actually think about depriving my kids of a family holiday so that I can spend money on lipo to look good in a bikini that at 42 years old I would wear maybe 10 days in an entire YEAR and which I could simply choose not to wear anyway and in which I do actually look decent enough anyway. Its a hard mentality to shake off though and I've lived it out publically on here many times, lol. But I really think people can be too quick to jump into the next round of surgeries following their weight loss without taking the time to just be. I'm glad you've got a healthy dose of realism and good self esteem!

The tree man! that was it. I was absolutely glued to that, it was a wart virus mutation and he honestly looked like a human mangrove or some such jungle plantlife. It was utterly incredible and hearbreaking.

I agree with Oregon, work on one thing at a time. A simple rule like no eating between meals, without any other restrictions (you can eat what and how much you feel like) can be very effective, because its not really the fact that you decide to eat KFC for lunch that does the damage, its the nibbling you do bit by bit before and after that. And the other thing I found with my weight loss is that I absolutely SUCK at dieting. I am really no good at it, the minute I decide I'm going to, I want to eat everything in sight. So I banned dieting forever more and decided that portion control was it for me and I decided to be excellent on the exercise part of the equation. Those two things are probably what helped me the most. I can choose healthy for the most part but knowing I've got no "rules" really quiets the need to choose poorly every single time. I enjoy naughty foods when i darn well want to but I dont eat between meals and I run at least 7kms every day and that kept (and keeps) me on track. I had to accept slower weight loss for that and perhaps now I'm having to accept not ever losing that last 10lb that would probably shift those last little lumps and bumps. I was never a star loser, so there's a price but to me, any loss was a loss.

I take a couple of children's chewables and a chewable iron tablet and most days I include some ground flaxseeds and/or flax oil.

I would lie definitely. She needs support and for someone to share her joy because she no doubt FEELS fantastic about it. Does it really matter that you cant see it? People are different in the way they lose weight, and with some people you really CANT tell when they've lost quite a lot. But some situations call for white lies and I think this is one of them, she wont thank you for honesty.

Oh poop. coffee reduces your risk of diabetes and just recently they've found based on initial research that it can prevent alzheimers. I was told coffee and tea are fine. As long as its coffee and not an excuse for syrup and whipped cream. THOSE types of coffee are not fine, lol.

I dont believe in eating if you're truly not hungry. Sometimes when I have a late Breakfast, I'm very much NOT hungry for lunch, so I skip it. I might have a small snack later in the afternoon. Some days are short and I just dont need 3 meals. Regardless of the fact that you shouldnt starve to lose weight i dont believe forcing food you dont want down is a healthy or rational way to treat food. But by the same token, you do need to eat enough to be nourished and healthy. I'm talking about once in a while. If you're always very unhungry, I 'd consider that you may be a bit tight.

I was really lucky as I got down to a BMI of 21 to 22 without suffering too much although the last of that weight loss was very slow, lost like 15lb in an entire year. But to be honest, those last 10lb that would probaby get rid of the final little fatty areas I'm now considering lipo for, I've never been able to lose them. I try constantly and occasionally lose a pound or 3 but I always bounce right back to 150. At 5ft 10 and a US size 8, I should just stop obsessing over it.

Such fees are the norm here but I suspect its different because of our system being different. Here, Medicare pays a schedule fee for everyone, rich or poor, but doctors charge well ABOVE that scheduled fee. So for any given expense, you'll get 85% of the scheduled fee back from medicare but there will be a gap over and above that which is out of pocket. this is the same for all doctors, specialists and surgeon's - you'd never find one anywhere who charges only the scheduled fee, its unheard of. Private health insurance pays hospital costs, not doctors. When a doctor "bulk bills" it means he bills Medicare direct, not the patient, and he bills only the scheduled fee. When we pay this program fee, we are then bulk billed for all aftercare which means no out of pocket cost ever again, for fills, follow ups or revision surgery. We can go for fills and consultations whenever, as often as we like. So in one regard, its the same, it covers the doctor's outrageous fee over and above the base that he should be charging, but the fact is, if we went to another doctor we'd pay a couple of hundred for each consultation/fill so we'd be paying that money out any way. But here, no pay, no surgery.

I'm talking about it more in terms of the type of support and education that needs to be out there tackling this problem, not about what people SHOULD do. I am only this resourceful with food and nutrition after years of not poverty but wanting to be able to stay at home with my kids - which was very hard on one income in the earlier days, and to have money for fun things, not groceries. I didnt know these types of things, I've had to learn them. I've learned to do big cookups once or twice a month in preparation for busy times - I have 3 weeks teaching round starting next week, and yep, there's 3 weeks of healthy dinners in the freezer. Preparation, effort, that's mainly what it is but its sometimes hard to make the choice to expend it in the face of tiredness, stress and pressure. My point is not "you should have done better" at all, that would be unforgiveably rude and judgemental, its more how can we as a society gain this type of knowledge and provide people with the support to be able to change their choices in this way?

I didnt see the show as it wasnt on here but he's on A Current Affair tonight so I've seen the advertising. I've seen a show on this guy before, on Medical Miracles or some such crap all about siamese twins and some guy with the most amazing wart problem, lol. Anyway, this show was documenting this fellow's enormous cosmetic surgeries - he had enough skin removed to house about 4 people. So he may well have lost the weight without surgery but he sure as eggs didnt get to where he is today without surgery. yet credit where credit is due - can you IMAGINE losing that much weight without surgical help? He's amazing.

It sucks, doesnt it. I've just finished sending off pics of myself for an online quote for some lipo and was lookign at my tummy. Its so good for a woman who's lost 100lb and had 3 babies, but it could look absolutely superb with a tummy tuck, I'd have a model stomach because I have the underlying shape. I dont have anything hanging, just "looseness" but I absolutely cant face the thought of the expense, scarring and recovery of a tummy tuck. Seems easier just to not wear a bikini! and then I think, what's the point? My bum looks like a garbage bag full of cottage cheese.

I've read here a lot of people find wearing a compression garment helps. Also, one or two people on here have gone for the panniculectomy with a view to a revision to a nicer finish later on. Losing Jusme doesnt post anymore, but lopped the tummy off earlier on in the peace, which gave her the freedom to exercise and achieve her goals. She's had a baby recently, but she was always planning on going back and having it revised at a later date. If its causing you these sorts of problems, it may be something that's covered. It must be awful, my ordinary sized breasts gave me hell when I ran early on, its soooo good since they shrunk to C cups.

I never had really large breasts, they were an E cup (which is about a DD in US terms I believe, our cup sizes are a bit different) but becuase I'm 5ft 10, nobody would have said my boobs were a stand out feature. They were just kind of right for the height and weight I was. Since then they've shrunk to a C. The only reason I'm upset is that they're a mess, very droppy with a lot of stretch marks on top of them (from puberty). I was desperate for a time there, they were just awful and I couldnt show any cleavage or chest in anythign I wore becuase they just puddled there, the skin was all ripply and had no body or oomph to it, it was would move like Water, ick. But as they shrunk even more, that didnt go away but now they fit INSIDE everything, meaning I can show my chest again, but my boobs dont fall out of everything. I like smaller boobs, I want a lift but DH is (I think) angling for implants too but I wont do it, I have no desire to have big norgs, C is nice, there's a breast there, but it doesnt ruin clothes, grab attention etc. So shrinkage is a bonus from my point of view.

Ok Linda, I definitely agree there IS a link between poverty and poor nutrition but I think its for a combination of both what I said and what you said. I didnt mean to imply my simplistic comments were the entire answer. but let me ask you this. How difficult would it have been to have bought a load of split peas - any supermarket, not a strange item at all - and a ham hock and made a pot of pea and ham soup instead of noodles? Takes very little time, freezes well. I dont have a chest freezer, just the freezer at the top of my fridge, surely you had that? How difficult is it to save the ends and peelings of your fresh vegies and boil them up to make stock for your Soups? How expensive is plain, unprocessed oatmeal compared to mac and cheese? How difficult is it to prepare compared to mac and cheese? Dont mix up lack of time from being a single parent with 2 children and poverty - that's a problem women of all socioeconomic levels face and many deal with it in the same ways - convenience foods. Poverty compounds that by restricting choices. If you absolutely didnt have access to those foods, then that's really sad - that's why its not an entirely individual responsibility but also a policy one. Yet, if you could afford to pay the exorbitant prices of a 7-11, surely it would have been possible to travel by public transport to a supermarket where you had better choices. Nobody is suggesting the poor should all be pulling their fingers out and eating mangoes and pineapple and fresh berries instead of crap food. But good food can be extremely cheap if you know how to buy it and what to do with it. I also dont mean to sound superior or moralistic about it, my main experience with not being exactly flush is being a student in share accommodation - after paying my rent, petrol, student fees etc, I used to have about $30 a week for food and I coped exactly the same way you did and by buying exactly the same sorts of foods. I wouldnt have known what to do with a haricot bean if it bit me on the bum. I didnt really care, I wasnt interested in spending my time cooking. The main difference for me is that was choice - i could have been living at home in comfort with my parents, I wanted the "experience". As it was I turned up on their doorstep a couple of times a week for a good meal. My point is not to call anyone stupid, but more to make the observation that good cheap food is out there - but its not the same thing as having the money to buy loads of fresh food which is undeniably more expensive. Knowing how to access and use those sorts of foods is what takes education - needing access to information is not the same thing as stupid. Stupid is when you know better, could do better and make bad choices anyway.

I can eat whatever I want to - for example, I can eat bread and i can eat Pasta - could i eat both together? Probably not, that's a bit too ambitious for one meal. I think the goal is to eat normally but its a new normal. If you go back to what was normal to you before, well you're not going to maintain your results. Portion size will keep you in control to a large degree, but it isnt everything, you need to make good choices too. You also have to prepared to NOT be able to eat a lot of foods, many people cant.

For me, my band does not work the way it is supposed to without the fibre and bulk of wholegrain foods. tuna and salad vegies for lunch means I'm starving an hour or two later. Tuna, salad vegies and wholegrain bread for lunch and I'm right until dinner. eggs for Breakfast dont fill me unless they come on a piece of wholegrain toast. shakes go right through. Entirely carb meals wont last me either, they fill quickly due to bulk, but the energy rush disappears. But temper it with Protein to slow that blood sugar reaction and give the meal some substance and the combination of protein, vegies or fruit and a carb is what works for me.

I took up running partly because I loved it but also because I knew I dont have time for the gym! I needed something that I could just step out my front door and do and I needed something that I could do at any time of the day, not be dependent on timetables and that if I only had half an hour I could still burn 600 calories. Running was it. I would never ever be succesful with trying to commit to the gym. I like to go to a class occasionally but to me, regular gym going isnt very compatible with jobs and families. I was also able to set goals for running - trainign for different races and i think that was really important in getting the daily running habit established - I think it took about six months before it was a really ingrained habit.

Walking up 21flights of stairs is a pretty good workout! Most people, even those who are fit, would end up out of breath. BUT - walking is a great way to start out when you're very heavy, havent exercised, or want to go gentle on your body and there are a million other health benefits. It is never a waste of time or a "lazy" option, however if you're looking to walking to get you to a superior level of cardiovascular fitness, it just isnt going to happen, unless you're a very dedicated power walker (true POWER walker!) with lots of hills to tackle. Ordinary working the way most people do it is good exercise, will keep you out of the cardiac ward but will not build really great cardiovascular fitness. For that you need more intense activities. Even then its hard, because your body adapts. In short, you need to be feeling that lungs burning, gonna die feeling for at least intervals of your workout to keep advancing your cardio fitness. However, fitness is a subjective concept. You want to be fit enough for YOUR lifestyle, apart from for reasons of basic health. You dont need to be able to run a marathon to be healthy. I tend to call "acceptable" cardio fitness as being able to run 10kms in about an hour. That to me would be a person who can engage in effective weight reducing exercise, tackle any sort of active sport or pursuit that normal life would throw up and do it easily. But that's only defined by the boundaries of MY life. Yours may be different.

I know I use a lot of colloquialisms that confuse people here, the Australian version of English and the American are quite different, and I also use the ur not or form of spelling in words like colour, neighbour, etc. But there's a sub-language that astounds me, the "woa, sista, you don no what ur sayin" kind of sentences that just blow me away - how on earth do people get by in the world with that sort of level of literacy? Its utterly amazing. But I think literacy standards are slipping markedly worldwide. My own children, stickler though I am for the queen's English, cannot spell well, do not read, but instead get their exposure to the language through different mediums than I did as a child - video games, playstation magazines etc. I'm a teacher and I cant fight the cultural change.

It also sounds like you may be lacking iron.

Its really weird how that happens, i mean if the food is supposed to stay in your pouch how on earth can you know you're stuck instantly? But that's how it often happens. It varies for me - a real mistake bite - swallowed unchewed, swallowed hastily, way too big, I'll know that right away. Sometimes however I can pack in four or five more bites before it hits me. For that reason i find waiting between bites even MORE important than chewing. Never take forkful after forkful without pausing.

Weight loss for me was a series of plateaus, I would not lose for 2 or 3 weeks, then 4lb would go, then I'd not lose for 2 or 3 weeks again. I never ever lost consistently every week apart from the first 8 to 10 weeks. I guess my longest plateau though was maintenance. I never got to "goal", I just petered out at about 150lb, thankfully that was a BMI of 21 for me, not 31.... Actually I lie, I'm still losing occasionally, like 1lb every 6 months! but I've lost like 5lb in the last 2 years so I guess you'd call it maintenance.

Well, for starters, you look like an entirely normal, healthy man to me and you look great. Not too thin at all. But I know what you mean sort of, DH is a bit the same. He's 6ft 3 and currently 94kg so what's that, probably a tad under 200lb. He's still quite definitely overweight - becuase his family are all quite gifted runners and tend towards the very thin, he is very very fine boned (his wrists are smaller than mine, he has these incredibly long, unmanly fingers, lol) and he really is probably meant to be somewhere around 170lb to get rid of all his excess fat. He doesnt want to be that skinny and I have to confess, he has been when he was young and its less attractive than he is now. BUT - its unarguably healthier. The only real answer in this sort of case is if you want the bulk but your natural body type is thin, you have to build it it in the form of muscle - keeping unhealthy fat on you is really not the answer. BMI is confusing, i mean yes, 24.2 is healthy but how much fat do you have? Is it healthy for YOU? I spent my entire teens and twenties at a BMI of about 25 and I was most definitely FAT. Fatter than was healthy. It was just not a good body composition for my body, which is tall, thin and lightly muscled. I am a person who has a more appropriate body composition with a BMI probably a bit less than I have now. Yet, I'm also the same. I've now got a BMI of 21, and I've still got plenty of coverage on my lower half, enough that I want to lose it, but I know if I lose more weight, then I'm going to just be entirely scrawny up top - there's an easy answer, lol, lipo, the ultimate way to lose fat, not muscle. Because women with chest bones sticking out and rib cages that are bigger than their bustlines are not that attractive either.... I think overall though, your body is what decides. You have to stay true to your natural body type, and if that's very thin, then that's what it is. And it really gets down to focussing on your body composition rather than actual weight.