Jachut

I think any form of tiredness can bring on carb cravings. I know I have to eat really carefully to fuel the exercise I do since a really intense circuit workout tends to make me crave chips and biscuits all the rest of the day. I'm not normally of the protein cures everything persuasion but I need a good post workout protein/carb meal to stop that craving occurring.

However much weight you need to lose is irrelevant to how the band works and how soon you can eat. You had it put on your stomach, if you want it to stay there, you need to follow the post op schedule. That means 4 weeks liquids for you. You can manage your hunger well on liquids if you've clever about it. It doesnt have to be that hard. My doctor said that anythign that goes up a straw is a liquid and I've heard that said many many times on here. So..... if you're hungry, as you're able, blend REAL food up to liquid consistency. Dont try to survive on Water and juice and Protein shakes. Blend things that contain meat and vegetables and good carbs, make some hearty Soups and water them down with broth or a can of tomatoes or whatever and blend them up. You can blend up a roast dinner with broth, I know because I did it. My doc was FINE with that. It only has to be liquid, not calorie free. I lost heaps and heaps of weight in the liquids to mushies phase and I was not hungry. When you're hungry, have something to eat(drink). Have your liquid meals small and often. But stick to the schedule or you'll and up right back in hospital. Or maybe not but down the track you'll have problem. Its simply not worth it. Its only a few weeks and if you were committed enough to losing weight to be banded then you should be committed enough to follow the plan. I dont see that its anyone's business but yours how overweight you are and whether or not it was right to choose a band, mind your own beeswax is what I'd say to those people. But there's SO much information out there on the band, that even if your doctor has been completely and utterly negligent, you should have been able to find out that the band is not a magic cure all.

You're doing so great! Way to go. Still sitting at 70kg, which really, is fantastic since I'm supposed to be maintaining. Nothing like seeing 60 something every now and again though! But I've been doing so well with my circuits and more interval style running than long slow runs and I've REALLY noticed increased muscle definition and a smaller waist measurement lately. All my size 12 pants that were firm at the waist now have an inch to spare.

Or crusty white bread toasted - as in a French Cob loaf or similar - with butter and just a scraping of vegemite, drooooooooooooool

Some bread without problems. You wont get any negative comments from me. I dont agree that low carb is necessary for everyone and I make bread and grain products a part of my diet. I dont eat a LOT of bread though, it is difficult sometimes, so maybe a piece of toast once a week or so and the very occasional sandwich. But I eat Cereal in some form most days, and i eat brown rice and Pasta regularly too.

It does sound like she's not really learned to use her band effectively. These forums are INVALUABLE for learning about banded life and all the stuff that doctors dont tell their patients. Even if she doesnt want to post, she could read read read and nobody would ever know she was lurking in the background. Is she exercising? its really SO important. I feel your concern. I have a 13 year old son who is getting alarmingly fat now. He's gone from normal chldhood skinniness to suddenly being very chunky and he's got NO interest in any exercise. He just wants to lie around playing PS3 all day. And you cant talk to him about it or he'll go nuts at you.

Very similar experience here, only I didnt get to the reflux, unable to keep anything down stage, I was just at the point where EVERYTHING hurt just a little bit to eat, I could barely eat anythign at some meals, I'd resorted to liquid breakfasts and I had constant mucousy stuff in my throat. I got a slight unfill - 0.2ml in a 4ml band, relief pretty much instant. Hunger came back remarkably though, I was quite astonished by what my band had been doing in there! I quickly gained about 3lb but I basically white knuckled it for about 4 months. I didnt gain anymore, I had to try really hard to not overeat and I do LOTS of exercise, which really helps. But after about 4 months I'd had enough, so I decided to get half the fill back in. That made no difference, I had the other .1 put back about five or six weeks ago. The 3lb has gone, but I'm nowhere NEAR as tight at 2.8 as I was the first time round, weird huh? But I think allowing myself to have a good long recovery from being a bit too tight - even MORE important given that youv'e actually had significant problems, where I didnt - and not going for a big fill at the other end has been helpful. I'm a big believer in smaller fills, but then my fills cost me nothing but the time it takes to go to the doctor. Getting a big fill, getting too tight again, getting an unfill - my years on here has taught me that often this kicks off a cycle of not being able to find good restriction, of constantly bouncing between under and over filled. I'd proceed with caution and sneak up on good restriction again.

Eat so much that you have to do it or else you'll get fat again. Works for me.

You've got to start somewhere sweetie. Its taken me 3 years of dedicated work to be able to work like i do now. When I first started running it was 3km - 2 miles or so - and it took a good half an hour at least. I was staggering by the end of it. I didnt do any weight training because running/shuffling took all my energy. Building real fitness takes a long long time and any step towards that is a positive one that you should be applauded for. Plus it hardly sounds like you're doiing nothing! It wasnt "me" either, you know. The enthusiasm and desire to really push myself came later, when pushing didnt make me puke or leave me injured exhausted for a week. I can only do running intervals effectively now with three years of running behind me as a base, and with the strenght in my legs and core to make it safe, otherwise, I'd do a hamstring in the first five minutes. And lets not forget, I'm normal weight now. This intensity is possible because I'm not carrying extra weight. All you need to do is push YOUR boundaries and challenge YOURSELF. I think I've crossed the line though. I can now be called an obsessive insane exercise lunatic, due to my made up playground circuit this morning, lol. To think I would ever do such things in public, wearing shorts no less :biggrin: I was debating whether to go for a run this a.m. I am usually happy to leave Eliza (5) in the care of her older brothers (11 and 13) for 40 minutes. However she was asleep and Fraser (13) has gone off to play golf with his grandad. Ewan was still snoring, so I sort of was unsure. Anyway she woke while I was dithering. So she got her shoes on and her bike out and we jogged down to the playground, where I proceeded to do my circuit using the playground equipment PLUS I could add a few of my dream ambition exercises (dips and pullups) which involved a lot more leg assistance than they should, lol. My upper body is weak. For the jogging intervals, there's a 400 metre path around the perimeter of the reserve. For the things I usually use my stability ball for - hamstring curls and stomach pikes, I used a swing, which was quite a difficult variation. I took a towel to lie on. And today I did ten proper pushups :thumbup:, not girlie bent knee ones. I also added the spider, where you go between a full plank and elbow plank, what a killer. I had the quivers by the end this outdoor circuit really UPPED the intensity. It was a gorgeous morning too. Eliza had a ball too!

My instinct is to say no, I have no trouble with this. I drink alchohol regularly but I'm a moderate drinker, usually a glass of wine five days of the week or so. OK, so I love exercise. I love my running and circuit training and i do work out vigorously for 45 minutes to an hour six days a week. I even continue it when we go on holidays if its practical. But I wouldnt call myself "addicted" to it. But you know what I cant give up and have even gotten worse at? Obsessing about my body and my appearance. I feel like I've done a 95% good job but that the 5% I havent achieved is driving me crazy. I want those six pack abs and sprinters butt and i'm never going to have it, I'm a 41 year old woman who has had 3 babies and has been overweight. The results I've had and the condition of my body and skin for my history is remarkable and I ought to be pleased as punch with it. But I continue to focus on the minor negatives.

Well, like kiz's doctor, I *do* find overchewing will mean I can eat way more. It does slide through more. Its a balance between chewing enough to prevent problems and overdoing it, lol. But I agree, its one of those unanswerable questions - my big one is if food is supposed to sit in your pouch for a couple of hours, how come things get stuck right away?

If only it were that easy. But there are a few mistakes that people make, and only YOU can know if you make them. Firstly, look around any gym and half the people are wasting their time completely. Working in their "fat burning zone" meaning that their heart rate is low enough that they can talk while they walk on the treadmill or do the elliptical. Forget that for starters unless you're just starting out or are very out of condition. You want a heart rate closer to 75% of your max, and you can throw in intervals of higher if you're fit enough to do it. You want to be sweating, and really getting hot and talking should not be an option. Standing round between weights machines and taking long breaks between sets, unless you're specifically doing a super specialised heavy gaining program is also not achieving a lot. You want lots and lots of compound exercises that use more than one muscle group at a time to really torch calories not waste your time on the inner/outer thigh machine or any other machine that works only one muscle group at a time. A barbell and some squats will always be better. Do you remain active for the REST of the day? So many people exercise an hour a day and then do nothing else for the rest of the day. You need to remain active (which gets easier as you get fitter, because at first, workouts like that will exhaust you). And you need lots of cardio, a few hour long sessions of cardio a week will work wonders, especially combined with strength training. But an hour consisting of 20 minutes on the treadmill and then using various one muscle group machines with lots of standing round and resting is an hour that could be spent better. Bandsters dont tend to fall into the trap of increasing calorie consumption unconsciously to make up for the exercise so much as unbanded people, but I know I'm prone to this myself. And I agree, no exercise will work miracles unless your diet is really good, log your food, keep the calories low etc. I'm not sure on the Protein part of the equation, I dont do high protein myself. Before I was banded, I did gym sporadically, but I did the type of workouts I'm describing and they never helped me control my weight. Once I started running, doing interval training and circuit training, I cannot believe how my body has responded to it. You spend a good amount of time exercising but perhaps it could be better structured? I dont know what you do, but perhaps your trainer will have some pointers to you. And I find that five sessions over three makes a big difference for me, so do try to keep to the most you can do. In some ways i agree, if I had done this before being banded, I never ever would have been as fat as I got, but I think I still would have had a weight problem, it just probably would have stayed to the 30lb it always was before I had babies.

I swing a bit on this issue. We had a huge argument on here about a plus sized girl who was in one of those model competions on the TV in England. She *was* a beautiful girl, way beyond the norm. She was comfortable in her own skin. I dont see anythign wrong at all with her being a model, being photographed or winning the competition over the other models. She is representative of a large portion of young women the world over. However, she was being held up as some sort of icon, a poster girl for healthy living and body acceptance. Body acceptance maybe, but if you're obese, you're OBESE. You dont get that way by living a healthy lifestyle and encouraging acceptance of obesity is not going to do a lot for the health of western nations is it? Body acceptance is one thing and there's plenty of ugly skinny people around just as there is beautiful obese ones. Beauty is beauty in any form. So if someone wants photos of themselves and wants to show them, I applaud her confidence and acceptance of herself. However, failing to acknowledge that fat is unhealthy is simply living in denial. The crazy thing is though that many "plus sized models" are actually perfectly healthy weights, its the "regular sized models" who are dangerously underweight. There's plus sized as defined by the media and fashion industry, which definitely can be very healthy and then there's plus sized. I'm afraid that overall I'm just too brainwashed though. I see a photo of a heavier naked woman and think YUCK. It jsut doesnt look "right" to me after 40 years of opening magazines to see perfect airbrushed images.

Its a learning curve. I would walk it off if possible.

Third day in a row on the peanut butter/maple routine here, lol. I've made it with vanilla Protein powder before too and that was Okish, but we dont have a lot of great tasting powders here, most of them taste that horribly gritty dirt taste. I need carbs at Breakfast time, or I wont get through the day but beefing it up with protein definitely kills the tendency to nibble during the day.

I was always more pear shaped and could feel my port from the word go. Nowadays it actually sticks out, you can see it.

Feel and fill is the norm here in Australia.

I kid you not, I met a woman at my last fill appointment who had been on the Optifast diet for 15 months. She was on the public list, which in Australia means youc an get called anytime. The operation wont cost you anything, but you can wait for years. So she had to start Optifast and do it until she was called. She was cancelled about four times, and in the end lost 60kg (well over 130lb). She was about 450lb to start. When she finally got banded, she promptly got a port infection and was 4 months into her banded life with NO fill. She'd regained 35kg in that 4 months. So, lol, you can do that liquid diet for an awful long time and not die from it. It only feels that way. Its generally 2 weeks. My DH failed miserably at it, as did I 3 years earlier. Doc gave him a knuckle rapping but said its less than 1% of patients who actually have livers too big to allow the surgery to go ahead anyway. dont be too afraid. Do your very very best, it'll be had but its only a few weeks out of your life, for a very good cause.

Even years down the track I sometimes freak over this. It is really hard when you're trying to lose weight to give yourself permission not to be hungry. Its even harder to give up dieting in favour of maintenance. I was just thinking about this now. I had a good Breakfast of oatmeal and fruit, a hot chocolate and some strawberries mid morning, a small meal of baked salmon, wholegrain Pasta salad (like 1/4 of a cup) and broccolini for lunch and I just ate some sugarpeas because they were there. I was thinking "oh boy, I've really blown it today". Why? because I'm not hungry and I feel to have a *good* day, I *should* be hungry. Sorting this issue out from truly having overeaten is hard. If youv'e overeaten beyond your band's capacity you will know it, its very uncomfortable. If its going down then you might notice it in lack of weight loss but you wont hurt your band because its not backing up, if that makes sense.

Keep it to a drizzle of oil - something with healthy fat like olive oil or macadamia oil. We actually absorb more of the Vitamins and minerals in raw veg when there's some fat eaten at the same time. I usually use olive oil and some salt and pepper, but even that these days doesnt excite me, lol. I've come to quite dislike salad (as in raw veg - lettuce, carrot, cucumber, tomato) and I'm not sure why.

Ooh, good luck!

I can so understand this. I had a figure in my head and it drives me nuts that I never got there, even though my BMI is only 22 now. I guess I want to look like a fitness model, lol. I want muscles and no flab at all and its just not realistic and I know it. But I cant stop trying to better myself, and sometimes its a fine line between exercising diligently to maintain my weight and trying to achieve a body I'll never ever have. I resist any follow up plastic surgery because instinctively I know it will only open the floodgates. Once I fix say my saddlebags, I'm going to obsess over something else. So I'm working very hard to try to realise that I'm in great shape, I'm very healthy and that's what really counts. I did one of those what's your real age tests today (only an online one, just some fun) and my real age came out at 32. Given I'm 41 I should be thrilled with that. That's where my focus needs to be - health, not appearance. the other thing that pulls me up on the liposuction fantasies is that I'm 41. I *AM* going to get old. Everything *IS* going to sag. I cannot be 20 again no matter what I do. The people I admire are not perfect, and the people I think look stunning are always quirky, interesting and stylish in their own way, never that awful blonde bimbo white teeth big tits look, so what am I trying to achieve exactly? I could solve all my bikini stomach angst by one simple action - wearing a one piece! Its so hard, isnt it? But I find it IS getting better for me the longer I'm at goal.

This is an interesting little article, very true. http://www.personalbestpersonaltraining.com/health-fitness-truth-blog/ Mr Jachut struggles mightily with the exercise but sedentary all day thing. Its work dictated and personality driven for him, as it is for many, desk jobs are killers but he doesnt like exercise (he didnt even need a lapband for his eating habits, he's a great eater. But due to his chronic lack of activity he needs to eat very very little and he couldnt do it alone) . But it always amazes me how many people say I'm not losing weight but I walk for half an hour a day. Everyone has to start somewhere, but for exercise to really be effective, you have to get serious about it. And I think one of the biggest challenges with WLS is not to become a skinny fat person. Fast fast weight loss is not good. You're losing muscle. If you ever want that curvy, fit look, you need to take it slower and work on keeping your muscles.

Well, he's impressive and well spoken and i thought it was all very amazing and a moment in history to take note off, whether you're an American or not. I've still got the giggles over the Bushisms that were on TV the other night... "rarely is the question asked... is our children being educated". oh boy. tee hee.

I dont gain a lot of pregnancy weight either - less than 20lb in my first two pregnancies and nothing at all in my third, in all three pregnancies I left the hospital lighter than when I'd conceived. My third pregnancy, I'd lost nearly 30lb of my own body fat. Too bad for me that breastfeeding makes me blow up very quickly, I gained it all back all 3 times within 4 months. During my third pregnancy, I was over 200lb when I conceived. I wanted to keep my weight down, having ahd blood pressure problems the first 2 times. My doctor said to do Weight Watchers, with 25 points per day. So I did. I ate really well, better than I'd been eating and I had a perfectly healthy 8lb baby girl. The whole pregnancy gain thing is based on averages only, it is not a given that everyone MUST gain weight. Like my doctor said, pregnancy requires very few extra calories, its mainly nutrients that are important and as long as those are going in, there's not a problem in the world if you lose a bit of body fat in the process, it wont affect the baby. Everyone's different. Committed as I am to exercise, I cannot imagine how people did stuff like spin classes at 30 weeks pregnant, I would jsut about faint trying to walk up a hill. Medical supervision will continue to reassure you that your baby is healthy and growing, as long as that is happening, dont worry about losing some fat yourself.