Jachut

Yep, I lost my pants in the supermarket one day. I caught them about half way down, but I did drop Eliza, lol. I was lucky I wasnt working, I've been at uni for the past few years. All I needed to get by was a couple of pairs of jeans at each size, tops could last longer. And DH pointed out, I spend $40 getting my nails done without blinking so why was I being so stingy about jeans that fit. I wasnt going to wear them long, they didnt have to be the best jeans, just ones from Jeans West would do. So evertime they had a 2 for $99 sale (which is often) I'd go out and buy the next size down!

I cant believe any doctor would tell someone to do that, the advice is ALWAYS to eat lightly and stop eating about 12 hours before surgery - for ANY surgery. It is life threatening to have food in your stomach when you have an anaesthetic. Then again, when someone of normal weight tells a disordered eater to have a "last meal" they may be waaaay underestimating what someone will eat. I know someone who ate an entire BUCKET of KFC and had to reschedule their surgery too - her surgeon hit the roof.

I can eat bread, but its much more unusual to be able to eat it than to not be able to eat it. Its one of those foods you just have to say goodbye to.

My daughter was about four months shy of three when I got banded, I didnt have undue problems. DH went back to work on the monday (I got done on a Friday) and by then I was pretty right. I didnt lift her for a few weeks and she had a couple of spaz attacks at that, typical tantrum stuff, but basically she knew I had a sore tummy and wasnt going to lift her up. She just had a shower with me in the morning, she wasnt quite toilet trained but we took care of nappies on the floor - and I switched to disposables at that time, having been a dedicated cloth user, lol, and she was in a bed, not a cot, so she got in and out by herself. For cuddles she just got on my lap on the couch, she did hurt me a time or two by squirming but nothing too bad. The boys were 8 and 10, so they were able to help me out a bit. The only thing was I didnt get to have any real rest or a sleep in the afternoon or anything during that week of recovery, but, sigh, how is that different to motherhood at any other time? I've had the flu all week and have had to soldier on, DH is now coming down with it and you'd think you'd have to dial 911 MAN COLD. I just had to watch about 1500000 dora the explorer DVD's for some peace.

Actually, there's a lot of theory saying swimming is the least effective fat burner. Dont let that get you down though. The best exercise is the one that you will do, the one that you enjoy, and the one that you are capable of doing reasonably well. There's also lots of theory that long slow cardio like the running I love so much wastes away your muscle and doesnt burn as much fat - well, my body tells a different story, I love it, I know I will do it, so I dont CARE what the theories say. The reasons for the downers on swimming and Water exercise is a) you dont get as hot and that decreases fat burn and b)people just cant swim well enough to get a decent workout. You cant do much about the heat factor and I dont think its probably that significant anyway. But everyone has to start somewhere - when I started running, i could only stagger 3kms, not a great workout in the whole scheme of things - maybe 300 calories! But NOW I can run 10kms in about 55 minutes, THAT's burning quite a lot of calories! You would get there with swimming too. When I've fancied going for a swim, I do interval style training - I swim maybe 10 laps of the 50 metre pool nice and easy, then i do 20 laps of swiming one way REALLY fast, as if a shark were after me and doing a recovery lap of breaststroke, then a few cool down easy freestyle laps. You could adapt a routine like that to whatever your abilities and distances that you swim. The important thing is not to cruise, but to work hard, and this will definitely help you to break your pleateau.

Public care is still excellent in terms of standard - its just that being cared for in a private hospital is a little more luxurious. However, bigger public hospitals are better equipped, for example, whilst I was in hospital after having my second baby, the lady in the room next to mine had her twins at 30 weeks. Those twins went by ambulance straight to Monash, only a big public hospital would have the neonatal care facilities to cope with something like that. There's no way they'd stay in the nursery at a private hospital! With private, you choose your doctor, you choose when you'll have your procedure etc. With public, you go on a waiting list and get who you get. It depends what you're waiting for, of course, anything life threatening gets priority, if you're waiting for something elective, it could be a very long time! Ewan is having an adenoidectomy and tonsillectomy in a few weeks, and I wouldnt dream of putting him on a public waiting list to wait maybe a year! Here, you can go private in a public hospital too - because private hospitals are smaller, less well equipped, if you were having major, life saving surgery, it'd be probably done in a public hospital anyway, you just have a private surgeon. You'd go to a private hospital to have a boob job, or your wisdom teeth out, or to have gynaecological surgery or bariatric surgery etc. Smaller things.

I would do the WLS first. Its not like you wont be able to exercise forever, and many people have surgery BECAUSE of chronic injuries - I certainly got banded because of a chronic heel/ankle problem that was preventing me from exercising. However, I was lucky, I had one cortisone shot that gave me real relief for a good 12 months. By the time that was up, I was 70lb down, fit and running regularly. You could jsut as easily have surgery and THEN have an accident and be able to exercise, its really not reasonable to refuse you a lapband because of this. And you will recover better weighing less.

The weirdest thing i notice with anaesthesia is that a few days later I'll get really miserable and cry all day. Every single time. That and the sore throat from the tube. I also smell like a hospital for a few days. sleeping can be a problem simply because you spend an entire day sleeping it off, then you're not doing much while you're recovering, so you're just plain not that tired.

I would go in for a check up, you may have stretched out your pouch? If you dont feel increased restriction after a fill, that's what I'd suspect.

Exactly. What happens here is that our system really is very good in that if you have private health insurance, it covers ANYTHING bar cosmetic surgery. I think you should be able to pay a higher premium to cover cosmetic procedrues the same way you do for top hospital cover vs basic cover with an excess. Our public system works this way - everyone is covered, its not means tested (except that if you earn over a certain amount and dont have private insurance, you pay extra tax). You get 85% of the scheduled fee for EVERYTHING back from medicare. So, a privately insured patient goes for surgery. The cost of the specialist visits, the surgery, all the presurgery testing and procedures is all billed through Medicare. The patient pays up front and then claims a refund. Then the private insurance covers all the costs of the hospital stay. And for the priveledge of being insured, you get to choose your surgeon and your hospital and get it done when you like and you get better food too. So... what most surgeons do is charge well OVER the scheduled fee. so you dont get 85% of the service back, it equates to more like 50%. Its ridiculous how much some of them charge. And then most bariatric surgeons will charge a once off service fee (I paid $3,000 for my band) and then bulk bill all your aftercare which means they only charge the scheduled fee and bill it direct to medicare, no out of pockets ever after for the patient. If you're a public patient without insurance, you can get almost anything done but for stuff like bariatric surgery, you'd wait an awfully awfully long time - but it would be entirely free It works out kind of stupid - it cost me about $3,000 or $4,000 per baby in the private system and it would have cost NOTHING in the public. However, I saw the doctor of my choosing, no sitting in public waiting rooms in long queues, my ob delivered my babies and i got a nice week in hospital with good food and wine, lol.

Oh boy, wait till you experience the world as a THIN person! I never got dirty looks, snide remarks or just plain had people dislike me when I was heavier, it happens all the time now. They see thin they automatically think shallow, life served up on a silver platter, has it easy, doesnt have to work for anything etc. I'm darn glad I'm not model gorgeous as well!

I dont think the long term stats of ANY weight loss surgery are ideally what you'd want to see. You can eat around any surgery, and they all have their own peculiar complications - but liquid calories are pretty easy to do! The thing with the band is you can ALSO adjust it, so you can fail to get fills that you need or you can do stupid things like unfill to go on a vacation etc. That doesnt help towards long term success. And the fact is that any statistics take into account people who are ill, mentally unwell, physically disabled, non compliant as well as those that just dont have success. Chances are with any surgery if you are able bodied, and dedicated enough to eat well 90% of the time and exercise quite hard very regularly, then you WILL be a long term success. That sounds so easy but its probably a minority of people who actuall do this. You can decide that you will and instantly wipe out about half the reasons for failure from your personal outlook.

I think you're probably imagining it to a degree, you will lose muscle with weight loss but if you eat appropriately and exercise, it will only be muscle loss commensurate with the lesser amount you need to support your lighter body. Everyone experiences this, no weight loss is every 100% fat. But what you do and how you lose can affect how much fat v muscle you do lose and you want to MINIMISE the muscle loss which will usually entail some pretty serious exercise to keep as much as you can on your body. It is exceedingly hard to build significant muscle on a weight loss diet, you need loads of calories and Protein to build muscle, well beyond what bandsters (especially women) can usually manage. Some people on here have managed it, men have a natural advantage of course. But you dont lose enough muscle off your body in a week to significantly affect the way you look. In the week since banding, probably what you have lost is a load of Water, a little bit of muscle and a little bit of fat. But I doubt you've lost 13lb of muscle!

I eat a carb based diet and always have. If I drop the carbs I have very little energy to exercise. I'm a runner and I run moderate distances, so I dont need to absolutely carbo load, but my typical day will be Cereal for Breakfast and a sandwich for lunch or Soup loaded with lentils or Beans, fresh fruit and vegetables and only moderate Protein - like 60 or 70g a day. You know how they say that exercise gives you energy - well I foudn that for six months, I really had to force it, I didnt start experiencing that energy boost until I was really quite fit. In fact none of the benefits of exercise were all that noticeable to me until I'd really gotten fit - I think its not the exercise, its the fit body that makes you feel good, so you have to kind of hang on for that. Now its a positive cycle, in running an hour a day or so I can easily afford to eat about 1800 to 2000 calories to maintain my 148lb. So my band is loose and I eat plenty.

I was about 245lb at 5ft 10 and about 145 now, and I think height helps too. I didnt end up with a lot of excess skin BUT my body does show signs of 3 pregnancies and a large weight loss. I would say, probably, that I have the skin of woman a few years older than myself. I am in the kind of shape not many 42 year olds are which makes people think I'm younger, but I have older skin, if that makes sense. I could have younger skin and be fat. However, my boobs are utterly wrecked, there's major reconstruction needed there. I think that's more to do with breastfeeding and pregnancy and what mother nature originally gave me as much as it is to do with weight loss. I'm a bit sad about how much older I look in my face. I dont have wrinkles but I've had a dramatic reduction in volume in the cheeks, eyes etc and I do look gaunt and hollow and tired. I look at all those befores and afters for facial fillers, its exactly what I need but I cant see the point of embarking on 20 years of injecting crap into my face on a six monthly basis. I guess overall I look way better than I did and my overall persona is not 40 something, so I am content with that.

when you do get something stuck and throw up, its is not uncommon to be unable to eat for a while. The inflammation would have meant NOTHING WAS going down until you were settled a bit. Trying to eat immediately after pbing is not the most sensible thing to do. Its likely to result exactly as it did for you.

The further I've gotten into this journey, the more often my mind has changed. After I hit goal i was super obsessed with getting it ALL done, now I'm glad I've waited. I think I've mellowed out, lost the focus on how I look and started to come to terms with what nature gave me - what's good, what's not so hot etc etc. I no longer want to carve up every part of my body. But boobs, boy they need work. And much as I'm not really a fan of the implant look at all, I dont think a breast lift will be enough, I'm already down to a C cup, by the time that loose skin comes out, there wont be much breast tissue left. I think I'll need an implant for the shaping factor, otherwise I'll still have no volume on the top. but I most definitely dont want to go back to being a DD cup or more! I like being a C, to me its a perfect size. Even D was difficult because the smaller size bands dont come in the bigger cups and if you go up to the "full figure" range, the bands are all way too big for me. I'm a 12C at the moment (about a 32 D in yoru sizes). Here in Austrlaia, 12DD are difficult, its not an "unusual" size but you can bet if yoiu go into a department store there wont be one in the style you're wanting.

Its a strange strange feeling getting out there in a two piece for the first time since you were a child. It's hard to imagine feeling more naked if you WERE naked. but what I've discovered is that although we worry about our rolls of flesh and such, a 2 piece can actually be more balancing to your body than a one piece - strange but true. I felt my flabby stomach shouldnt be shown, but really, its not that bad. But I do have a fairly wobbly backside, lol. Well, a one piece of tankini directs ALL the focus straight onto my thighs - a 2 piece visually breaks me up and stops the focus being on my problem area. My DH who is brutally honest said that although I am no bikini model, I actually look better less covered than when I try to hide the flabby bits. Its the same as how wearing baggy, loose jeans FEELS more comfortable becuase bits arent hanging over, but well fitting jeans will always always look better. Be brave. Get out there and show yourself. Once you get used to it, you will feel great and in truth, covering up fools nobody anyway.

There's a lot of evidence that the band works better for people who have less to lose - you're more likely to be able to work the band well, you're more likely to lose ALL of your excess weight. And my surgeon says its easier to perform the surgery and fit the band (and choose the size that will ultimately be best for the patient) on a lighter body.

Ok, its official as of this morning - I have no tits. DH threw back the doona this am (to get me out of bed to Iron him a shirt, grrrr) and we looked and there was NOTHING there. Well, just a big uggly hollow where my breastbone is. But my tits, we couldnt find them. They came back a bit when I stood up but not much. I've come to realise why Hollywood is so plastic surgery obsessed. To get to a low weight, to have a flat stomach and a nice small backside, most women have to completely sacrifice their faces and their bustlines. You lose the weight and then you have to go and put some bits back. It simply isnt physically normal to tiny hips, no stomach and big firm boobs :-(

I'd say its quite common to feel that - like theres' something lodged in there? A bit like when you get a popcorn kernel stuck in the back of your throat, makes you want to keep swallowing? I had that for about a week after surgery and once or twice I've had it after a fill but its always resolved within a few days and not caused any problems.

I'd also guess the proportion of bariatric patients who actually KNOW how to eat properly and who DEDICATE themselves to it are not the majority. We're talking a huge population with a lifetime of disordered eating behind them. Its not like they've performed these surgeries on normal weight people with healthy food relationships and seen the effect it has on bone density is it? How much of our previous lifestyle is to blame, how much is actual weight loss to blame, and how much is after surgery lifestyle to blame? I once said to someone studies schmudies and made them REALLY mad (fancy that!) but really, they mean little. We can only do the best we can from this point on, cant we?

Fried camembert mmmmm..........

spag bol = spaghetti bolognaise

Moussaka Its greek lamb and eggplant casserole, a pretty staple food here, like good old spag bol.