Jachut

I often drink milk after a tough run, I tend to crave it - and at most other times, I really dont like milk as a drink. I dont really see any need to spend big money on Protein drinks or sports drinks, Water to rehydrate and milk to recover work just fine for me. And again I think its a case of taking what's maybe appropriate for an Olympic athlete and trying to apply it to the layman going on his daily run - a bit of overkill. You dont in general deplete your body so much during an hour long jog or your average gym workout that you need serious scientifically formulated recovery drinks.

Going by my LEAN body mass, not my total body mass, I need about 60 grams a day. Most people overcalculate becuase they count their fat mass in as well. I can do 60 on real food so I dont supplement protein at all. I hate protein shakes too, they all make me want to hurl. I dont count protein really at all, other than roughly occasionally just for interest sake. I must be getting enough, I'm lean but with muscles, I'm healthy, hair, nails and skin are fine, and I have plenty of energy. I dont think supplementing is really necessary unless you're too tight to get in enough solid food.

I only really had the one weight goal. I made the right noises about having mini goals along the way but that's not how my mind works. I wanted to be 70 kg and no amount of saying lets just get under 100 first does any good for me, 70 is what I wanted and what I focussed on and I didnt consider getting under 100 as reaching any sort of milestone. Its just how I am. I make it hard for myself becuase there's many things in life I didnt achieve because it was such a huge challenge to do it kind of thing - breaking it down into small parts helps some - but I just cant think that way.

I was 5ft 10, about 245, BMI 36. It took me 2 years to lose about a hundred lb, I easily surpassed the top of my healthy weight range and settled at about the middle. I found losing weight quite easy - I ate less and did more exercise and it was as simple as that. I continue to practice the same behaviours to keep the weight off.

I think different strokes for different folks - I have never found it necessary to limit carbs to lose weight, nor fat either really although I do mainly eat good fats from fish and olive oil etc, and very little butter, full cream dairy and the like. For me, its as basic as calories in/calories out. I ate less and upped my exercise and I lost weight - I've never journalled and I've never counted any more than just roughly adding up in my head. I lost well on about 1500 a day.

I have the 10 cm 4 cc band which was in use more commonly when I had mine over three years ago. Its quite quick and easy to get to good restriction with this band as it does not take much - I think my first fill was 1 cc, then I had 2 at .5 cc and since then I've only had .2 and .1 cc fills, and I have 2.8cc in mine now. I actually need just a touch more, as I'm able to eat what is to me alarming amounts, lol, like entire sandwiches at times. My band has been absolutely and utterly trouble free, no reflux, no excessive pbing, no swinging from overfilled to underfilled, just steady and reliable. I must say though, I attend Prof. O'Brien's clinic so I'm quite confident in the skill and knowledge of all the surgeons there. Those fills are inconceivable to me - simply ENORMOUS, and most definitely not proper practice. Something really ought be done before this guy causes somone some real damage - your experience has been bad enough!

Lol, its so easy to forget we have had help and that we couldnt do it on our own either. I can be pretty hard on my growing teenage son, who does have a slight weight problem. He says I make it sound like all you have to do is eat less - when he's likely to be genetically programmmed to be just like Doug and I. Exercise though, I have little tolerance for lazy excuses. No its not always fun, yes it hurts, and yes you have to push yourself to keep getting results. So what? Anything worth having takes work and sooooo many people say "oh, but I cant do that, I have a bad (insert your body part)", or "I have 3 kids", or "I work full time and dont get home till its dark". Pah. You either want it or you dont. I've been called worse than an ex smoker quite a few times over that attitude, lol.

I'm so glad you've taken this step - and I hope you now get the support you need to correct the problems you've been having without further surgery. But even if it DID come to that, at least you now have a doctor who has enough experience to handle it. I've always believed the actual surgery is the easy bit - placing a band is not the most complicated surgery in the scheme of surgeries. The experience required to recognise and treat complications only comes from having treated many though.

I ate "healthy" before too, but I ate way too much and I had way to many treats on top of what was a well balanced healthy diet. If I'd not eaten as many muffins, cakes, Cookies etc on top of good wholesome foods like meats, wholegrains and veggies I wouldnt have been fat. But as far as heading through a drive through for every meal, no I didnt do that. I didnt often eat McDonalds, KFC, I didnt eat out more than once or twice a month, I didnt eat a lot of processed foods for my basic meals. I ate healthy. Its been easier for me not having to learn to cook, learn what healthy food is, learn how to eat healthy foods. I just had to cut out the extras. Dont underestimate portion control and what it can do - for most people it'll turn out to be at least 95% of the equation. You can eat a diet horrifically high in saturated fat and lose weight and you can eat a diet high in processed carbs and lose weight. Weight loss is really only about calories in and calories out no matter where the calories come from. So if you already eat healthy foods - that's great. Portion control will make the difference. But a band is also great at reminding you how many extras you eat because I find when I eat that muffin with a coffee at the shops, I cant eat my dinner. It makes me "remember" I ate it and my body forces me to account for it. And I feel very guilty for having a muffin for dinner! That's NOT healthy. If you truly only eat healthy foods, and dont eat extras, then I'd highly recommend working out just how many calories a day in healthy foods you are taking in - they must be big portions to have gotten you to the stage of needing a band. Or is it possible that you have the usual food amnesia that most of us have and that you certainly fit a fair bit of fat and sugar into that healthy diet to result in enough calorie overload for a weight problem?

You have to be *willing* to make changes, you dont have to be perfect. Very few people get a band and then totally change their lifestyle to some perfect faultless routine. I certainly didnt. What I did do was become really good at some elements of it and suck at others. I am a sugar junkie too - I no longer live on sugary foods and I no longer totally binge on them but I certainly still eat them regularly - probably almost daily. I never could be bothered counting calories or planning meals pedantically, or logging my food intake. I still cant. But - I do like healthy foods, I do like cooking, I do take feeding my family well seriously so I dont eat lots of packaged crappy frozen foods, I feed my family healthy home cooked meals that I make from scratch, and I dont keep junk foods like chips in the house. And I love to exercise, so I do run for an hour a day and I do do several very strenuous weights workouts per week. The balance changed enough that I became thin and have stayed that way. But no way am I perfect, nor do I ever expect to be. Someone else might be willing to do the food side of it better than I do but hates to exercise. Each to their own. But you have to be willing to give something up - you cannot go on as you have been and expect change - and the band will not do that on its own. You can eat around a band easily enough.

If you can go all day without eating and then eat a pizza, I actually dont think you necessarily need a fill, I do think you need to "kick your own ass". If you ate regularly and properly, then the pizza would be MUCH easier to avoid. If you eat properly all day and THEN eat a pizza, that's when you need a fill. Ok, so being able to fit the pizza in may be indicative of suboptimal restriction, for sure. But that's not the real problem in this case is it? This isnt hate mail, god, I'm as prone to this as the next person, I do it too. But no amount of fill is EVER going to totally stop the emotional eating, just limit the damage you can do with it. Eating regularly, sensibly and properly is very important with the band, but sheesh, the occasional breakout will not kill you either. You have a whole life to lead and its not like you'll never pig out again! Dont be too hard on yourself, but examine the reasons why this happened.

I wanted one, I had E cup breasts - which werent SO huge on my frame, but I hated them. Then I lost weight and have C's. For me weight loss accomplished what an expensive surgery would have anyway. But I still need the lift so who knows?

Its the same for everyone - for every molecule of carbohydrate your body stores you also store a couple of water molecules - 2 or 3 (I think). That's also why you drop weight so quickly at first on low carb - its not fat, its water shedding.

Ugh - I HATE that, you've just reminded me to go plug my ipod in to charge for my run.

Didnt they find just recently that those mouth washes give you oral cancer? Anyway, I'm partial to anti plaque whitening mouth wash and of course i brush twice a day but I hardly ever floss. I'm lucky, I've never had even a filling and I'm 41. My teeth are strong as strong. But flossing is important for the health of your gums - and poor gum health can lead to things like cardiovascular disease. I fight tooth and nail to get my kids to even BRUSH, they're digusting. I usually notice Fraser's teeth are yellow and furry and rip through him for it, but he still needs to be reminded every single time - he's 14 for crying out loud!

I've never had results like I've had from doing compound full body moves rather than working one muscle group at a time. I might use a barbell to squat with but otherwise I rely on things like pushups, dips, tricep dips and attempted chin ups - I work out at home so I turn the trampoline upside down and use the legs, and chin up from a sitting position - cant do full body ones. But gyms have assisted chin up machines. I actually usually use a sandbag as my weight - google sandbag workouts. Its incredibly intense, but boy oh boy it gives results and my running speed has increased by about 30% - all for a total of about 25 minutes two or three times a week. Failing that, I'd use free weights in the gym - machines work in one plane only and dont develop your core and synergistic muscles the way lifting a heavy free weight does. I mix my weights into a circuit routine - so I break it up with short treadmill runs. I'd rather dig out my eyeballs with a blunt teaspoon than stand around doing bicep curls, lol. You can easily do that in a gym - simply move from one exercise to the next very quickly, lift heavy and fast (whilst still keeping proper form) and get your heart rate up.

You need to be creative to get Protein and carbs in though - so that you hve some substance to what you're eating. You're right, you cant live on Jello. Nor is it a healthy food. For instance - choose a Soup that has some meat and Pasta in it and blend it down. Blend it to a consistency suitable to what you can handle at your stage with extra broth or milk (great for more protein). Have THAT instead of rubbish like jello or pudding and flavoured Water and you will probably feel loads better and less hungry. You can make it as liquidy as you need to, just sip it as often as you can without inducing a stuffed full feeling.

Hmmm, its impossible to say. What *might* happen is that you're not left with a hanging tummy, becuase you are young, havent had babies. But you probably wont have a bikini model stomach either. The likelihood of a sixpack stomach covered with smooth, tight skin is rather low since most normal weight people dont have that either. At 22, your standards will be higher than us old bags who've birthed a few babies and compare ourselves to our friends in the same boat. To me, my stomach is OK, to a thin 20 year old it would be a nightmare. One thing is for sure, your chances are pretty good for bouncing back. You're young, you've had no babies, and in the scheme of things you're not that heavy. Good luck!

No, I dont think that. Its physiologically senseless - a pound lost is a pound lost and you're doing it the same way - by eating less. The only difference with the band is that you can keep losing way past the point you do with WW or JC. Is the consistency that makes the difference.

You know, it seems to be a phenomenon that occurs when people are just ABOUT to hit a normal BMI. Looking at your ticker, your BMI is 28. That looks normal to people. Its not fat like you used to be. Its probably a more "normal" BMI amongst the general population than something under 25 is. Suddenly, you're a bit of a "threat"? It seems to make people slightly uncomfortable that someone who was invisible before is suddenly coming into her own. They feel a need to put the breaks on. But its about them, not you. Of course, it is also true that people are just plain used to seeing you fat and it can be alarming to see you thin. They think you've gone too far. But they do adjust. I had a problem with this with my mum, she wouldnt stop going on about me getting anorexic - like anorexia is just about what weight you happen to be! Now she says I look normal to her, she's used to it.

I think its a great preventative measure and of course, if you've never had a BMI of 40 and 30 is the heaviest you've hit, then you feel just as fat and out of control of the next person. Everyone who has a BMI of 40 had one of 30 at some stage. There's loads of evidence that the band works best for low BMI patients and tends to be more difficult for heavier ones. But you probably wont have the spectacular initial losses some people have. Then again you're light enough to do some serious exercise right form the start. Good luck!

Maybe its just me but I think being secretive about it has its pitfalls as well - like you're sending the message it is something to be ashamed of if your daughters find out. And going on some extreme liquid diet is hardly modelling healthy eating behaviour - its being done for a surgical reason and personally I would be up front about it. I think taking a positive step and getting your weight under control for once and all is healthy for children to see. I dont see why you should hide it. The best thing to do is never get fat in the first place, which none of us have managed, so I see taking a positive, decisive step and losing the weight as a lot better than them spending their adolescence seeing you on a round of failed fad diets. There are so many influences on body image and esteem and you as a parent are only one of many. So be proud of what you're doing for yourself, making it obvious that excess weight has bad health implications is as important as letting them know they're loved no matter what their shape or size.

I cant imagine how tight you'd have to be to be full on 1/4 a cup - I really dont think the band was designed to work that way. 1/2 a cup is more the normal amount you hear bandied about but its fine to eat more if you're losing.

Come here, have a big whinge about it, get it off your chest and ignore dickheads like that. He isnt worth the argument, nothing you say will change his mind. I've had an argument once with a guy who actually insisted it hurts more to break your leg than have a baby. Now I've done both and I actually agree with him, lol, but how the frig would he KNOW? So the argument is pointless because its not based on knowledge.

I've never eaten that little and I've been at goal for a good 18 months now. My intake at a meal if I havent snacked is more like a cup. Actually lately I can eat even more, I think I need a tiny top up. I'd starve to death on 1/4 cup unless I ate every hour. Realistically though, for the health of my band and to avoid pouch stretching and other nasties, I try to eat small amounts more often. The hard part about that is thinking of it as snacking and thus reaching for the Cookies instead of proper food that you would eat at meals. But 1/4 cup 3 x a day? No way, I'd pass out. I eat about 1800 calories a day, even 2000.