Jachut

In my opinion, Brooks is the BEST shoe out there for anyone who overly supinates OR pronates (dictates which style of course) and anyone who is heavier - and by that I'd include myself since at 154 lb and 5ft 10 for a runner, I qualify as "heavy". I'm no gazelle, at any rate! I am on my fourth pair of Brookes Adrenalines (I'm a pronator) and although I try different shoes each time I buy, I always end up with them again. They're sturdy, quality shoes well designed for each foot problem.

I agree with most of the above. But I differ a bit with diet, I've always been a carb eater and I've still been successful. But key is, that however you do it, you make a permanent lifestyle change that results in a better diet containing fewer calories. Exercise is a biggie. Serious exercise! Flexibility and an ability to realise the band is a tool, people are fallible and that there's no point panicking about falling off the wagon on hitting a plateau. Its the ability to dig in and keep going when these things happen that's important, some people are in a tizz at the slightest disruption to their textbook 2lb per week and let it throw them. You WILL plateau and you MAY be a slow loser. I was a slow loser, so what? My weight is just as gone as anyone else's.

Me either. Its pockes of fat. I have one on the centre of my upper abdomen, lovehandles, and the dreaded saddlebags on the outer thighs. The actual loose skin I have I can live with. I'd be a US size 6 but for those areas, and try as I might, my body does not want to loet go of any more weight. Nor do I really want to because I can see what will happen - gaunt face, bony chest but STILL fat thighs.

Hope you're feeling better now Nigel and that you're thrilled with the results. I'm glad you stayed in Australia, the thougth of what could go wrong is horrendous. Breast implants are a pretty simple procedure compared to major body reconstruction and you need good aftercare.

Hips and thighs, although my boobs really need a lift, I have a nice upper body, its well shaped and shows really lovely muscle definition. I have well defined collarbones and a long neck. I'm not as vain as I sound, lol, I've just learned over these past years to take note of what is GOOD about me. Lower body, hmmm. I'm hardly the worst afflicted woman or on my own here, but I find it unfair that I will never show the muscle definition and tone I deserve to for all my hard hard work, there's a stubborn layer of fat that ruins it. I have moderate cellulite on the backs of my thighs, and a bit of loose inner thigh skin. My stomach is ironing board flat, there's no pouchy pot belly but its squishy with just a bit of remaining fat that wont budge. Whilest I do have *some* loose skin its not too bad, I think lower body lipo could work absolute wonders on me as i have the muscle shape below the fat to support it. Its not come without hard hard work though, sigh. I am naturally pear shaped and will always carry a bit below the waist.

Wow, there are SO many surgeons doing this surgery who are just failing miserably to support their patients. I'm glad you're finally feeling that you can work with your band. It does take a certain degree of understanding and commitment - nothing that is beyond the average person, but when your doctor doesnt provide you with the basics it makes it very hard!

I'd say the risk isnt really that high, I mean you can get seriously injured anyway kind of thing..... the band doesnt put you at any more risk than that. I played three games of basketball last year to fill in, but I wont join the team as I've been invited to do. At 41, I'm waaaaaaay too afraid of an ankle or knee injury and not being able to run. I really dont think its worth the risk, I dont bounce quite like I did when I was 15. But if I loved and was dedicated to the sport I would do it, for sure.

I can understand why women like it. It hurts like HELL to me, and it just feels a bit too depraved and yucky, but pain is the main factor. But I like to be touched there and I will go off like a firecracker every time I am.

Same here. I dont live a life full of discomfort, vomiting and food obsession. I do think that my approach was useful for me, though, and taht was that I was NEVER going to diet again. I eat anything I want to. But certain foods are harder than others and if they are uncomfortable to eat then they do fall off the radar eventually. I would never WANT to eat a whopper anymore, the mere thought is revolting. Then again, I used to like a nice garden salad, now I loathe it, precisely because it feels quite awful for me to eat. Everyone is different there though. I dont have any problems with my band, its the best thing I ever did. No, it doesnt make me exercise like I do but anything that helped me to find that ability in myself is worthwhile!

when I eat high quality nutritious food and include wholegrains like top quality bread, I average around 1500. if I eat any rubbish, I find it easy to top 2000. I'm on maintenance though and I'm extremely active, I have no problem maintaining my weight on that many calories.

Its a low carb diet which depletes your body totally of glycogen, weakness is an expected side affect. You've got no energy becuase you're taking in no carbs and its not at all surprising if you cant exercise at your normal levels. Its for a reason though, to shrink your liver, and whislt its not a healthy way to lose weight long term, it wont hurt you in the short term. Its horrible though.

I tend to use cheap several use containers like the gladware ones mainly. I dont get tupperware, I just dont understand why you'd want to spend a fortune on stuff like that when the stuff in the supermarket is just as good. Plus anything party plan annoys the crap out of me, I refuse to buy it just because of the way its sold. I do like Pyrex containers though. I have quite a few of those. We'd empty maybe one butter tub a YEAR, we just dont eat it in our family. Nor do I buy ice cream more than once or twice a year. We dont eat microwave or prepackaged meals either, so I dont have a lot of containers like that that I could save.

Really true. The first 3kms of any run, I'm always having this internal dialogue - "you need a rest, go home, dont overtrain, your'e obviously tired". Then the legs and lungs get in sync and suddenly I'm grinning like an idiot. Running and trying to dance and sing at the same time to whatever's on my ipod does get a bit embarrassing, I get some strange looks. And if you've ever doubted the ability of music to motivate, I took DH's ipod the other day because mine needed charging. he had the best of ACDC on it. I swear my heart rate hit 250 that day. I was running like a mad thing, dripping sweat, gasping for breath, lol. ACDC would definitely get you a personal best in any race!

The biggest thing I have learned is that now I'm at goal, I cant stop doing what I did to lose weight. My calore intake has not increased, I still have to "diet" (meaning I cant just eat what I want when I want) and I still run five times a week for an hour and do two or three hour long circuit training sessions. Maintaining a healthy weight is a big and time consuming job, jsut the same as losing it. If you think you can go on a diet, lose weight and then not have to think about it so much, you're doomed! People who "dont have to think about their weight" do not suffer from the disease that is obesity. Those of us who do will always have to work at it consistently to not become obese again. And I definitely need a tool like the band to help me do that.

We do this ALL the time to use up leftover ham. I just use it instead of bacon when making soup. I cook it up with olive oil and onion and garlic, and then add the soup ingredients. So I dont see why you couldnt just puree it into soup. I'm a bit over hame though, ugh. I made this the other day Jamie Oliver - recipes - jamie (after seeing it on TV) and it was amazing, but a whole ham goes a darn long way in a family of five where the 2 adults are both banded!

Funnily enough, I have wondered a few times lately how LA Madam is doing.

The only way coffee could stretch your pouch is if you drank 10 cups at a time or drank tons of it on top of eating food. Whether or not caffeine is bad for you is like everything else - there's good and bad in it. It actually has a protective effect against diabetes for example. Its jsut another case of moderation being the best way to go. Somethign I dont practice myself. I love my coffee. But thankfully we have decent instant coffee here so I dont guzzle huge quantities of high caffeine brewed stuff. My doctor is fine with coffee.

I think that if you believe you arent sick enough or large enough to justify a bypass, then that's not the surgery for you. I would never ever have considered it for my situation either.

This happens to me sometimes too, who knows why? All I can say is thank goodness we dont have that Hershey's chocolate here anymore, it came out on the market briefly but bombed here becuase nobody liked it. We have Cadbury's. That's even HARDER to give up! Occasionally, if I have a day like this, I will just go with it. Nine times out of ten, its becuase I'm premenstrual. but when it stretches into days, its a problem, its really just a matter of dig in your heels, resist and fill yourself up with good foods instead. After a few days the urge tends to lessen if you can avoid the trigger foods.

All the factors are unique for you. You're right, as an ex smoker, you've done damage to your skin but you may naturally have better skin than the next person. There's just nothing but time will tell how your skin is going to react to weight loss. One thing's for sure. Nothing you put on it will stop loose skin, but there's nothing but good to come of keeping your skin in great condition.

My weight loss petered out and just stopped eventually so I called that goal! There's a couple of ways to look at it for me. My original goal was 79kg which was a normal BMI of 25. I went past that. In truth, I always knew i considered that still fat for me becuase it was a long held weight, right through my 20's and i was never happy there. So I didnt worry when I went past. But I always wanted to be about 65kg. So am I past goal or not at goal yet? Lol. This is just where I stopped. I didnt have to unfill or anything, but I do eat a bit more than I did, not a lot more though. And of course, I still exercise.

Only eating once per day will kill your metabolism, its much better to eat five or six small meals. You sound like you MAY be too tight, hence the choking (I assume you mean getting food stuck?) but that weight loss is poor a) because you eat hardly anything and :huh2: because you're not getting an awful lot of exercise. To lose weight I needed to run for an hour five times a week and do strength training. Good steady weight loss takes a LOT of exercise. I *STILL* need to do that now to maintain my weight loss. You may not be a runner, or want to be a runner, but some form of reasonably challenging cardio is a must and some strength training on top of that. If you could do that much exercise, you could have your band a bit looser and hopefully stop the problems. But you must eat regularly and well to lose weight well, once a day simply wont cut it. Almost without exception ALL the really successful long term banders on this board have eaten well and exercised heaps. The ones posting questions about failing to lose, having long plateaus etc are ALWAYS people who eat hardly anything. It goes against your intuition, but you really do have to fuel your bodyb to move it and it is the only way you will ever burn the fat, rather than just shrinking yourself a way to a bag of toneless loose skin. Throwing up every now and then is quite normal, everyone gets things stuck occasionally, but it shouldnt be an every day thing. Even weekly is too much if it can be avoided (some are more sensitive than others)! I have maybe thrown up ten times in three years.

I tried it just now. It was delicious! A new fave definitely. I wouldnt ever have thought to do something like this with a humble bowl of porridge.

I've just passed my third bandiversary. Life is pretty much normal now. I'm used to my restrictions and limitations, I've changed a lot of bad habits. I think close contact with your doc and the ability to have fills whenever requried is key. I think part of the reason we have so much success with the band in Australia is that our medical system is amenable to that. My doc is a few suburbs away and I can go whenever I please without it costing me anything. The band is something that requires proper aftercare and I would recommend strongly that you have a doctor nearby. Group support? Not my thing. I'm a loner like that. This site functions like that for me, but face to face stuff I dont really feel I need. But I went to see my doc probably four or five times last year. Exercise would be my biggest tip for being successful.

One of the biggest perks post band for me was better sleep. I hadnt realised how uncomfortable I was at night, now I dont wake up from a sore hip or a sore shoulder and I really do bound out of bed in the morning. But yes, exercise makes you sleep better. I dont notice it with strength training per se, just execise in general, I work pretty darn hard and at night, by about 9.30 I'm tired. I'm out like a light the minute my head hits the pillow. Its not like if I dont exercise I cant fall asleep but I do notice the nights I'm less physically tired.