Jachut

I know exactly what you mean!

Interesting point Penelope, not that I'm taking issue or arguing about it, I cant remember if it was me that said that or not, in this thread, but i've said it often enough I had the band so I'd never have to diet again. I didnt diet. I dont diet. All I do is get full on smaller portions, I choose healthy foods about 90% of the time - but I have my treats, I drink moderately, I love some chocolate after dinner and sweet carb foods like muffins and cake will ALWAYS be my main 'problem food'. I indulge in them every now and again. The band simply gives me portion control. In return for such dietary freedom, I run for an hour most days. Do I consider my life a "diet". No. I eat what I want to when I want to and I dont force myself out the door to exercise. I love running. I lost 120% of my excess weight to have a BMI of 22, I am in perfect health, my cholesterol levels etc are fine (because basically I do eat a healthy diet). So its in your definition of diet and what you considered "normal" eating pre band. If you previously ate most of your meals from a drive thru, or out of boxes and packets, you'd find my regime like a "diet". I didnt and I dont. I dont really care how many calories I eat in a day. Its different day to day. I find if I eat a lot one day, I will be less hungry the next. My band has helped me to listen to my body. See how there's no SHOULD's in this? You can use a lapband any way that suits you personally.

Oh, I dont know. Say you develop alzheimer's or dementia in your 50's? How would you handle a band or a sleeve if you forget how to eat like a WLS patient? What if you're one of those people that naturally get REALLY skinny in old age - tends to happen in my family - like frightening thin, 110lb at 5ft 10 thin like my dad's mum. Her entire 70's and 80's were all about everyone worrying about her eating as her extreme thinness did lead to stuff like osteoporosis - she broke a fair few bones - and she was always sick with colds and stuff. If that happens to me, as it seems to be a family thing, I'd suspect my family and myself would want my band out. Say something better comes along that requires NO surgery to your innards to control obesity? Wouldnt it be nice to be able eat normally again if by some miracle they worked out a way to control our heads rather than cinching our stomachs? Say you develop an illness and really require normal amounts of food and nourishment to sustain yourself? What about various afflictions of the stomach such as ulcers, motility issues or even cancer which you can develop that are not necessarily CAUSED by the band? You might not *have* to remove the band but you might want to. I'm sure if you have a bypass, switch of sleeve that you could work with issues liek these with medical help but it'd be a helluva lot easier to simply unfill or remove a band wouldnt it? (that's of course if the band lasted that long!)

I made a deal with myself not to do this - I felt i had decided to embark on a new life and it started the minute I made the decision to do it. I didnt try to "diet", I didnt try to lose weight and I didnt ban foods. But I did vow to myself I would not eat everything in sight whilst I still had the chance. There is honestly nothing you HAVE to give up after surgery, you can have all things in moderation. But there's a lot of things you wont want! But its really common to feel this way and eat like this and there's MANY bandsters here who have done so and gone on to be successful.

I suspect my gall bladder is sending out a few brief warnings too. Either that or its gas, as it came on once after drinking diet coke. The other thing that appears to set it off is cold things like ice cream. I get a pain I would describe as colicky, like it feels like the muscles in my stomach are in spasm and locked tight and it does radiate to my back and makes me scared to take a deep breath. Its a real ache, very painful and it aches up my esophagus and into my cheeks and the roof of my mouth. There is NOTHING that relieves it - like with labour or period pain, you curl into foetal position around it, there is no position to get into which relieves the pain. For me, I've had four or five attacks of this since banding, where it lasted half an hour or so and occasionally I'll get just a shadow of it, but it doesnt turn into anything. It feels as if its my stomach but no nausa. It could easily be gall bladder. I've got my head in the sand at the moment. I figure if its going to get worse, I'll know about it soon enough. Or, it might just be a spasm in my my stomach muscles set off by the cold food. But it doesnt feel like the pain before you're going to vomit.

Gallbladder problems are extremely common with EITHER surgery, and indeed any weight loss without surgery. and it doesnt happen due to lack of Protein, it happens becuase weight loss can cause a shift in the levels of bile salts and cholesterol in the body which causes stones to develop or causes silent stones to become symptomatic. You're at risk of that with ANY large weight loss, dont let that put you off either surgery.

For the longet time I could eat it without problem, then i began to leave most of the rice and now, it just plain doesnt appeal to me anymore because I just KNOW it would get stuck. its amazing how your taste changes, and the foods you think you'll miss just lose their appeal.

Its thought to be any or all of those things - not following post op instructions (which all are so different, so which surgeon is right?), having your band too tight (and I suspect this applies to an awful lot of people who dont think they are too tight), constantly overeating or pbing, possibly irritating the stomach by taking things such as NSAID's on a regular basis, poor band placement, overagressive, fast filling. Basically, if you put your band in, fill it gradually, dont overfill it and leave it the heck alone (avoid the constant fill/unfill cycle) and use your head -work WITH your band and exercise rather than rely on extreme tightness to control you, your chances of being OK are better, but even then, it still happens. But its a very small percentage.

thanks, that makes sense. Well, that's my major concern taken care of. I really do think, much as I love my band, that the sleeve will be the surgery that's done the most over the next decade and more. I notice they're doing lots of them in Western Australia - its a HUGE state, simply enormous - probably 1/3 of the entire continent of Australia but much of it is desert and outback, its very sparsely populated apart from the south west corner. Many many people are coming in from very remote areas when they have WLS. Fills and constant maintenance are not easy when you may live as much as 2000kms (or more) from your doctor - it'd be like trying to traverse from the top of Canada to Mexico. Sleeves seem to be on the rise there and I'm sure it'll take off in the rest of the country.

Actually for me its the opposite. If I'm going to have a drink - more than a glass of wine - I need to be VERY careful because I tend to forget to chew enough.

I was "hungry" at day one. I woke up the day after the operation VERY eager for the cup of coffee and juice they brougth to me. But I filled up extremely quickly (a few tablespoons) and it lasted for hours. Then I'd get hungry again and it was time to eat. But I had more problems with my body needing food but my stomach not telling me to eat - I had a bit of fainting by about day 4. I started on proper food - still liquid, quite thin and thickening up but I would do stuff like blend up the roast lamb I'd cooked the rest of the family for dinner - bit of lamb, quarter of a potato, a spoonful or two of vegies and a lot of chicken stock and blend to a soupy liquid. Sounds revolting, tasted great at that stage. And that sustained me a lot better than trying to live on what is basically junk food - custard, jelly, juice. I made Soups with meat and Pasta and vegies too, even blended up spaghetti bolognaise, with lots of extra tinned tomatoes (and only a few pieces of pasta, it was mainly meat sauce). I lost tons of weight in that liquid stage and healed up well.

Bypass and the duodenal switch are not really an option here and there's just no way I would have done either anyway, having a BMI of 36, the risk of the operations and the lifestyle after (the malabsorption mainly) was more risky to me than remaining heavy. the band is the surgery of choice in Australia BUT I think were I to have it over, i would be seriously considering a sleeve. For a couple of reasons. My band has been a text book journey, absolutely perfect, its a tool that I have been able to work with, I have never had problems. But - you have to be prepared to work hard and you have to live with the discomforts of a band - even though I dont overeat, dont vomit often, dont have random tightness, can eat all foods, every single time you eat, there's some amount of discomfort involved - it just doesnt feel like it used to. You're aware of every bite, there's no just enjoying food like you once did, its a lot more than simply getting full quickly. And sometimes its a bit like a dog running on a chain, you reach the end and YANK, you're pulled back very smartly! to be able to get full quickly but not feel every bite squeeze down, to not go out for dinner, eat one bite in front of your friends and think uh oh, I think that isnt going down well, and then you have to play with your food and pretend to take a sip of your drink etc to stall for time, and then perhaps get up and walk to the bathroom, simply to shake something down, only then to go back to the table and suddenly be able to eat as if you had no band - its just a bit bizarre. But I make it sound terrible and really, I find it VERY easy to live with. Its my constant reminder to mind my habits. But a sleeve would be really good, no fills, none of those problems. I'm wondering what the "temporary lactose intolerance" really turns out to be statistically and the MAIN concern I'd have with a sleeve is everyone says you cant stretch the pouch out because of the part of the stomach they use, but if its only the first part of a duodenal switch and you can stretch switches and bypasses out, then I'm not sure I really believe there wont be sleeved patients with stretched out pouches in the same vicinity of numbers as for the bypass and switch. Lots to think about. I personally find the band brilliant and I'm not one bit sorry I did it, and I find it easy enough to live with I wouldnt consider for a moment revising it to a sleeve. But if it ever needs to come out (which with a band, over a long period of time, is likely) then I would seriously consider a sleeve. However, i do worry about old age too. say my band lasted me 25 years. That would put me in my 60's. Would I really even care about losing it by that stage? Surely 25 or 30 years of good eating habits and exercise would stand me in good stead of not turning into Mr Michelin within 6 months.

I'm not a hoarder and I'm not sentimental at all, so all my clothes went out the minute they were too big. I too had a spouse that was overweight, not alarmingly so, but enough that I kind of felt moved to say that I wasnt doing this just so I could be healthy and outlive him by 20 years, if I was going to have great quality of life into old age, then it would be kinda nice if he did too. He did the "I can lose without the band" thing for 2 years before he took the plunge, lol. It was his decision and basically I left him to make it. I was encouraging towards getting banded if the conversation came up, but I didnt nag him to lose weight. Now I would LOVE a running partner, but alas, he's a chronic accountant, it aint never gonna happen.

I think most fat people derive comfort from comparing themselves to others and deciding "I'm not as big as her" or "I may be fatter, but I'm much better looking" and in the same vein, as long as someone else is struggling and failing to lose weight, it gives them some security that they're not the only ones. For someone to lose weight, its a big slap in your face about how YOU cant do it. And we eat up shows like Biggest Loser becuase its fantasy but we dont like to see it in reality. I really do think its that petty. Not that people are overall so nasty and small minded, just that there's a small part of the (especially female) psyche that is competitive and works on that sort of formula. If my girlfriend suddenly lost 100lb, would I be thrilled for her? Yes, but if I'm completely honest I'd also lose one of my sources of feeling good about MYSELF. Now its not so intense for me and I'm adult and rational enough to show NOTHING but unconditional support for someone embarking on such a journey and not even think that thought consciously, but somewhere deep inside myself I'd be thinking that I'd have to find someone else to measure myself off. Gosh, that sounds SO awful! But I think if we're truly honest, that's how women's egos operate.

And then it got nasty because some people dont understand how forums operate and cannot handle being disagreed with. From a personal perspective, my response to this thread was in agreement with the doctor and I dont harbour any disrespect. But nor do I feel that I must agree with everything someone says becuse he's a doctor. Doctors are people too with their own opinions, biases and leanings - As I'm sure Dr Vuong would agree.

Personally, I'd introduce some interval training :-) Contrary to popular belief, running or jogging burns more than walking because you have to clear the ground, so jogging the same distance v walking will give you a slightly higher calorie burn. Then of course, there's the fact that you cover more distance in the same time frame, so of course bye bye to more calories. Interval training is thought to really ramp up your calorie burn for a good 24 hours. After even a brisk walk, your body reverts to normal within an hour or two. After pushing yourself till you chuck your body will take much longer to cool down and burn energy at its normal rate. And that's why interval training burns more calories - its the afterburn. There's all sorts of scientific mumbo jumbo about fatty acid releast and human growth hormone etc which is not entirely proven but I just know it really works for me. Light weights will help but they wont up the burn by a huge amount. And you have to be very careful not to injure yourself. Ramping up the incline helps heaps too. I loathe weight training as well. So I sneak it in in snippets - I do the BARE minimum because I only want the benefits such as nice tone, stronger bones and a higher metabolism, I dont particularly aspire to looking muscular. I might run a bit, jump off, do 40 really hard deep fast squats, run a bit more, jump off and do pushups, run a bit more, jump off and do dips, run a bit more, jump off and do crunches and then run a bit more. It makes a gentle treadmill jog into a much more intense workout which of course means more calories burned and it gets that nasty muscle building stuff over and done with. And of course that stuff gives you a good afterburn too. It all sounds hard core and it is, and by no means is it necessary to do it that way to lose weight or keep yourself healthy, but if you really want to up the burn,that's how you do it.

In Australia we're encouraged to follow a normal diet - as in eat Protein, carbs, fats, even have the occasional glass of wine or whatever, but keep portions small - in other words focus on it as a lifestyle, not a restrictive diet. By and large, it works well. I eat and alwasy did eat, bread and carb foods moderately and it hasnt stopped me losing weight and I dont do protein first. But that's not to say that one way is right and one way is wrong. What's right for YOU is what you can follow with the least disruption to your daily routines, your family's lifestyle etc and what suits your body. I run an hour a day so I burn off the carbs I eat.

Actually, I thought I was agreeing with him. Dont chew to liquid. Seems quite obvious to me. Some people are just naturally unhappy and bitter, and the internet is an anonymous way of spewing their venom :wub:

I've had 1 c-section out of 3 births and it was elective - but only in that we discovered at 38 weeks that she was breech. I had an xray pelvimetry and it showed I had enough room to deliver her. But my doc didnt want to try it and I personally am not so pro natural birth that I would want to risk it. I was very tempted because I'm tall and have a wide pelvis but only have average 7 or 8 lb babies and my first 2 births were 3 hours, and 40 minutes respectively, both drug free and I didnt even think labour really hurt THAT much. So it was agonising to have to make the decision which there was a chance that even a breech birth would be easy for me. Anyway, Eliza was delivered and she had a bit of trouble getting breathing, as c-section babies often do, spent a day in a humidicrib etc. And I can tell you, I would NEVER in a gazillion years voluntarily have a spinal or epidural again. It was a revolting experience, the closest feeling to being dead whilst you're still alive (your blood pressure can drop to nothing). Also they knocked the eipidural out of my back at some point after the birth and I had been stitched up but was having uterine contractions (stimulted by medication) and that HURT. And it took hours for anyone to figure it out, my ob was livid, and I never did get a bill from the anaesthetist. But the birth was wonderful, magic, all the things my previous 2 were and I dont sit around six years later lamenting that I missed out on a natural birth. I also found recovering quite easy, although now I have hernias at each end of the scar that will need to be fixed one day. But I wouldnt choose it unless there was a need. Natural birth is indescribable, its not something I would voluntarily miss experiencing. I also FREAKED when I saw my stomach after, lol, yes, it had that little pannus. But for me, that went away entirely. However, I have strong suspicions about my sciatic problem being connected to my c-section. However, I do believe strongly that its a woman's right to choose.

I've never been told to chew the liquid either, just to take small bites and chew well. But my bites are quite "normal' - I just dont wolf food down anymore. And I agree, many things taste quite disgusting if you chew them too much.

Habits aside (we all need to be honest with ourselves there), I tend to think that any doctor who knew anything about lapbands would know first and foremost that everyone's body reacts differently. Therefore no matter what some fluoro screen shows, its the restriction you FEEL that is the reality. Fluoro would have to be the most overrated tool! It encourages overly agressive and large fills (because doctors can SEE Fluid getting through so they then fail to account for how the body may react, rather than take it slow and small and build up cautiously) and now here's an example of it forcing an unfill - all because the doctor thinks he can SEE what the situation is, so that's all the evidence he needs! You know what you feel and that's what you ought to go by. The fact that he thinks that he can tell by looking and doesnt seem to understand that what your body perceives is different would make me question his experience and knowledge. Even though he's probably being cautious, trying to save you problems and basically do the right thing by you.

If I had a dollar for everytime I've heard the glycaemic index manipulated and misrepresented like that I'd be wealthy. It the glycaemic index of the entire meal that counts - not the individual glycaemic index of something (unless you eat it on its own). If you eat a Protein source with your meal and by and large avoid really high GI foods - white bread, rice, sugar basically, then the glycaemic load will be moderate and it will be a slowly digested energy providing meal that doesnt give you a big high. But you can in fact eat sonething like white rice and as long as you eat it with low GI foods, it balances out the entire load. And that's why many people dont believe high protein diets are necessary at all. You can achieve similar blood sugar effects with an overall low GI diet - one that is not focussed only on protein. Especially with a band. food sits in the pouch, its not even in the main part of your stomach being digested for a while. People must think their bodies are magic. I mean a few months back we had a so called nutritionist who had it completely arse about and insisted that your body digests Proteins for energy first and in preference to carbs and that's why carbs are fattening. Um, okaaaaaaaay. I'd suggest nobody visits HER! Now this - do you really believe your food drops neatly from your pouch into your stomach in exact order of the mouthfuls you ate it, to be digested in that order? It all gets churned up, mixed around and digested as a mass. Your stomach cant pick out which bits are which!

DH and I are both banded, but we were dont about 2.5 years apart. I was already at goal when he was banded, so it hasnt really made much difference to me one way or another. I dont know that we "support" each other that much - talk each other into eating chocolate is more like it hehehe. We're having entirely different journeys. DH is much more the "I just want to get healthy, no matter what weight that is" type and I'm the more Type A driven I'm going to get REALLY skinny and REALLY fit type. Consequently DH talks a lot about exercise and I actually do it. I tried to be supportive of him and fit my running in in the mornings to walk with him in the evenings but he kept letting me down, makign excuses not to go. I'd get dressed to run on a Saturday morning and he'd say "oh, I thought we were going to walk" which would infuriate me because he had piked all week and then suddenly he'd make me feel bad for running coz he'd planned to walk! So I no longer consider him in my exercise plans, apart from the odd walk. If he wants to keep up with me, travel to do runs with me etc then he is going to have to get HIMSELF up to that stage first. Its not my responsibility to baby and cajole him into fitness. We also have completely different eating styles. He was always the type that if he was going to eat poorly it'd be ten beers and a huge bag of McDonalds poor whereas I would never have pigged out on McDonalds, ever! I'm more the if you sneak a bit of chocolate in standing looking into the pantry it doesnt count coz you werent sitting down and nobody saw you do it type of eater. Lol. I just did that 1000 times a day and that's how I got fat. Eating gutloads of Maccas was never my thing. But nonetheless, we do give each other some emotional support in that we both know what its like to be banded, and we work our family around it. And we're both cheering each other on of course. I wont say we're rooting for each other because that means something ENTIRELY differnet in australia, lol.

I can remember it was new years eve and I was exactly 104kg, which was a long held weight (I stalled at every long held weight on the way down, weird huh?). That was 22 days after I was banded on Dec 9 2005 - so 11kg in 3 weeks. The next time I saw those same people was 3 of march and i had lost exactly 17kg at that stage, I remember that. So that was 6 kg more over the next 9 weeks or so - it slowed down obviously. By the end of that first year I'd lost 30kg, then I lost about 10 the following entire YEAR and then 1 or 2 more after that. So I had a nice, encouraging burst of pretty fast weight loss - I mean I'd gotten half of my excess off inside about 6 months - but it took me another 18 months tolose the reast. I steadied out into being a fairly slow loser overal - 2 years to lose 45kg which was 120% of my excess.

3 words. Cardio. Cardio. and.... Cardio. You cant spot reduce. You need to burn fat all over to lose stomach fat. And the best way to do that is lots of cardio. Strength training helps a LOT too, but it wont spot reduce. A good program combining cardio and strength training is your best bet for all your problem areas. If you have a bad back too, then you also need to really focus heavily on your core strength. Pilates based moves are very effective, as is fitball work. I was having quite a deal of trouble with sciatic pain, and also with a recurring knee injury with running, the key to which is usually weak hip muscles. I've been doing the following faithfully for about a year now, and my back is remarkably better, I never get pain and I was to the point where I had a numb and dead feeling right leg. No more niggly knee either: Planks: - front planks, and planks where you start on hands and move down to elbows, back and forth (killer, lol). side planks Hamstring curls: - fitball on floor, lying on back, legs on fitball, heels digging in. Raise hips so you're in a bridge position, and bending legs roll the fitball towards your bottom and roll it back out again. This will make your hammies SCREAM, but it requires very intense stabilising and balancing from all your core muscles. I also use a sandbag instead of weights for strength training, this has meant I get the benefit of the muscle group I'm working but it works the core remarkably because so much stabilisation etc is needed. Result: perfectly flat tummy (but I was lucky to have no large excess skin issues and never had a huge stomach in the first place) and much healthier, happier back. Hope that helps.