Jachut

Ooh, you must be feeling a bit crappy! Today I did a circuit probably 80% all out effort, bit tired. This more intense training really wears you out. Tomorrow, not sure. Might take another day off - 2 days off per week. See how I feel in the morning. Would like to maybe rest tomorrow, long run on Sunday. Then I plan to drive myself into the ground next week as we're going to a friend's beach house the week after and I will probably do no more than a couple of jogs down there.

Well, your body doesnt change after the surgery in the sense that what is a healthy diet after surgery is also a healthy diet before surgery. So if high Protein low carb is your thing, there's no reason why you have to be banded to do it. Your body's nutritional needs remain exactly the same, banding just tends to change the way you go about meeting them a bit. I would never suggest a non banded person eat as few fruit and veges as bandsters often seem to. I would actually suggest that they fill in the difference in the volume required to satisfy with fruit and veges. Cutting down white carbs, eating good sources of quality protein and plenty of fruit and veg is good for everyone. The drinking rules, the carbonation etc, there's really no reason to do that. I find though that I'm sure the slower eating, as required to chew properly has a LOT to do with why I feel satisfied on smaller volumes of food. Learning to eat slowly would be really helpful.

Hmmm, diet wise, why NOT eat them? It really is better to eat fresh food, but there's a lot worse things you could eat than diet frozen meals. They're calorie counted and low in fat, as long as you choose low salt varieties alos, how are they any worse than say, canned Soup? I'd ignore your surgeon on this one, but that's just me. I do my own thing. I will follow any rule if it makes sense, but this one really doesnt.

I tend to get to about 8 miles before my left knee starts to hurt - I dont in general suffer ANY knee problems until I start to try to run this far. I've tried to train for a half by doing one long run per week, and four shorter of mixed distance gradually increasing it, but have been unable to get past this distance. I believe ITB issues such as what I'm getting have to do with having weak hip muscles, strengthing the glutes of course affects the biomechanics right down the leg, so I'm currently working over our summer on running specific strength training and a lot of interval running to strengthen my hip musculature and give me more speed and then come February or so I will again try for the longer distance - at the moment I do about 5-6 miles for each of my runs. I want to do a 14.2km race in march (have done this one before so am looking to improve my time) and a half marathon next July. Like you say, I could go out and "just do it". I have the cardiovascular fitness to run 21.2km and I'm sure I could stagger through the last part, but I want to do well!

Rather than be jealous of all the male attention I get now, my DH loves it. It really stokes his ego (and other thngs :huh2:) We go walking quite a lot together and he cracks up that EVERY man that drives past gawks so obviously at me. He points every single one out to me. Honestly, I am not anything special, I'm average looking. But I guess seeing a woman who is actually in shape over the age of about 30 is getting more and more unusual? That's all I can put it down to because I think I'm OK looking but definitely not in the gentically blessed category. Everytime I get home from a run, he asks me how many toots I got. Sigh. At least once every run some idiot will yell out NICE TITS or some such and honk their horn. We've got two lots of couples of friends the males of both couples Doug insists have the hots for me. He thinks its hilarious how they monopolise my attention. I hate it. I'm friends with their wives and I dont want them slavering all over me and do my best to avoid them. But Doug thinks its fantastic that I'm all his. I would think that often this sort of thing would lead to conflict within a marriage but it seems DH likes having a trophy wife, lol.

I do similar, but I dont wait an hour :ohmy: lol. I put down my knife and fork and tell myself if I still want it in 15 minutes, I can have it. And of course, who wants their cold dinner remains that have been left sitting out for 15 minutes? I never ever go back to finish. Sometimes though, if its something really delish, I do have to physically remove myself for those 15 minutes and do something else. Cravings are the same. If you can only hold out, they go away. But I dont always do this either.

I know how you feel - its hard to be torn between wanting to encourage someone to take the path you did becuase its working for you. I felt the same way with DH. it took him 3 years but eventually he'd had enough of seeing me get thinner and healthier and then maintain my weight easily whilst he was still the same weight as he was when I got banded. Eventually he did it. But even so, he does not approach being banded the same way as I do. I had fond fantasies of us running togehter, etc, in reality, he's not interested in exercise like I am, he'll walk a bit but that's it. This really is your own journey, there's room for one person on the ride. You have to do it your own way and concentrate on yourself, its a selfish thing. And your wife will have to approach her journey in her own unique way too. Encouragement, support and unconditional love is all you need from your partner, you're doing exactly the right thing.

Ah, sheesh. Your doctor is bending the truth. A calorie is a calorie is a calorie, no matter where it comes from. If you truly eat 3 teeny serves of carb food a day you will lose weight exactly the same as if you eat three teeny serves of Protein. You will be taking in way less calories than your body needs. Now - if you continually drip feed yourself easy carbs fifteen times a day you will probably not lose. It sounds like you are too tight though - if you cant get solid Proteins down, long term you're not going to do too well with a band. Most people tend to start eating junk like Cookies and ice cream simply to get some energy in. Atkins only with the band? Hmmm. We dont do that in Australia. The band is a lifestyle tool not a device to keep you on a miserable diet forever more.

I did all my research here on this site at first and although I set up appointments, I ended up not attending becuase the post op diet appeared to me to be extremely unhealthy and unappealing. 600-800 calories a day? Lots of deli meat, cheese and Protein shakes? Unable to eat healthy foods like lettuce, wholegrain bread? No thanks. I didnt see the point in having surgery to improve my health only to replace my basically healthy diet with a crappy one. Of course you get the extremes here, because people tend to post about their problems and dissatisfactions. Thankfully, eventually I discovered that the band is approached nothing like that in Australia and eventually I went ahead with it - but definitely after a couple of false starts.

I've heard of it took, but havent known anyone with the problem. I hope you find a way of sorting it.

Ah. bliss. Nice long slow 10km run on fresh legs after a rest day yesterday. Boy it was nice. Weather perfect, not too hot. Only problem encountered, workmen doing new lane along Narre Warren Cranbourne Rd. Oh well, let em look. I couldnt hear their hooting with their ipod going. Although I bet it looked funny, I bounded DOWN the hill looking like a Kenyan Marathoner, I staggered UP the hill an hour later red faced, sweating and a good deal slower! I chose the right music this time. Last time I planned a slower longer run, Doug had put some ACDC on my ipod. I nearly killed myself keeping up with the beat of it - the endorphins kicked in early and I was like greased lightning. Trouble is I puked when i got home :ohmy: 10K in about 45 minutes will do that to you! Especially when your normal time is about an hour!

My band has always worked for me in the way that I get hungry normally but I'm satisfied on far less food. But I generally cant make it between meals five or six hours apart. I get starving. In fact hungrier than I used to becuase a 200 calorie Breakfast is less than I used to eat and it just will not carry me through say, a morning of getting the kids to school with all the bedmaking, lunchmaking breakfast making, dishes, ironing, dressing, doing hair and driving that entails and then a 10km run followed by say some vacuuming and light cleaning. I *NEED* to eat before lunchtime! If you're truly hungry, I think you should eat something small. You might find with more fill you wont get so hungry - a lot of people do. I just dont find what I call "appropriate" hunger to be a problem, you do need to fuel your body and if its telling you it needs food, then that means it does. But head hunger, mild hunger pangs an hour before dinner etc, we need to learn to tolerate and ignore that.

That's how I got fat too. I wasnt my normal, everyday diet that made me fat, that was pretty good. It was the post diet gluttony that piled on the pounds. Every diet would end in a new high, maybe only 3 or 4lb but over the years, that adds up. Then when I *DID* hit a stage in life where its very easy to gain - post pregnancy - that took me into previously unchartered territory - OBESITY. I sometimes feel like I'm bashing my head on a brick wall in here - I have to stop and remember that some people actually like the organisation, ritual and routine of a diet. I know my mother loves it, she lives that way all the time. But for the rest, I just want to scream YOU DONT HAVE TO PUT YOURSELF THROUGH THIS. I think it really pays to be highly sceptical of current and fashionable dietary advice too - and that goes for both the traditional food pyramid that still dominates here and the high Protein low carb advice. You just cant believe everything you see and read. I dont know if anyone saw the other thread Free Nutrition Advice but I reported it because here was a licenced nutritionist with NO idea about basic human physiology, giving advice that was plain incorrect about how the body metabolises its foods. How can you even rely on the professionals if they dont even understand such simple stuff as how human digestion works? That's why I think moderation is the only safe way to go. Not too much or too little of ANYTHING.

A low GI diet can be condensed into a fairly simple rule - stay away from white carbs! It is basically a diet that lets you have your carbs and eat them too! It separates the science from the quackery in the high Protein game and directs you to choose foods which will not send your insulin levels through the roof. You dont need to cut out carbs, you just need to choose ones that are good for you and your blood sugar and at the same time, you're not exposing yourself to the risks believed to be associated with low carb high protein diets - too much saturated fat, not enough fibre etc. But you dont have to know it inside out to do it, stear clear of sugar, white bread, white rice, cakes, pastries, Cookies etc. The other thing that people forget with a low GI diet too is that that white bread for example may send your blood sugar levels soaring if you eat it ON ITS OWN. If you combine a slice of white toast with 2 scrambled eggs then its an entirely different matter. Its the overall GI load of a meal that's really important, not the individual foods its made up of. But of course, if you pick low gi foods, the overall load will be lower too. They've done quite a bit of research on this in Australia and its quite popular here, it is supposed to have all the benefits of the low carb high protein diet without the risks. But who knows really? Moderation in all things, probably the safest way to go. Just for your reference too - we dont get presented with so many "rules" for banded life here in Australia either. No you MUST stick to half a cup, no you MUST NOT drink with meals, no protein first, none of it. So dont think your doc is completely negligent for not giving you a list of Iron clad rules, they are just one way of approaching the band, not the only way.

Mine were entirely vain and about all the great clothes I would wear. Funny, they never included how badly I'd break the budget and how much I'd fight with DH over all those clothes I bought! Nobody else in the family has had anything for ages, lol. If you could see inside my head when I'm running, you would die laughing, honestly. The reality of my 41 year old bod, not built to be a gifted runner by any stretch of the imagination, sweating, red faced, awkward gait, compared with the fluent, graceful athelete that I am in my mind is like night and day, lol. In my head I poetry in motion, in reality I just trod in dog poo or tripped down the gutter. And my nose running drives me nuts.

Lol, no she doesnt. She could always just shut up.

I was very lucky, easily lost on 1500 calories a day - but I'm 5ft 10 and often burn 700 calories or so one exercise in a day, not to mention running around all day. the charts alway said I shoudl be able to eat 2500 and maintain a normal weight but it wasnt so. I maintain on 1500 to 1800 now, people cannot believe I'm not a skeleton for how much I eat vs what i do. But I guess at least I can eat 1800 right? And it goes to show that although the charts also say my exercise choices burn 700 calories, that's not necessarily what's really happening either, or I would be skeletal.

Beth, erosion is a RARE complication. It happens in a teeny number of cases - the stats vary but they're uniformly low. But alarmingly, lower for some doctors than others, so you would want to speak to your own doctor about this and get a clear picture of it. You are absolutely correct - you have more chance of dying of an obesity related disease than of having major complications with this surgery. Complications when they do occur are not nice, and they can be very serious and they CAN leave lasting damage to your body. But of those small number of erosions that occur, people dont always end up damaged and unable to have further surgery either - people also heal completely and get rebanded several months down the track, or convert to toher surgeries. The way it is being discussed here makes it sound like a common, everyday event which is not the case. However, these things should be known by people considering the band. Put in perspective there can be complications or unexpected outcomes for ANY surgery.

I had a BMI of 36 and I think it took me about 30lb to go down the first size. Now of course it would take about 8.

If you're exercising too much for what you're able to consume, you will feel it. You'll either get the signs of overtraining - run down, getting sick, sleeping poorly, unable to perform your activity - or you'll be starving and your body will direct you to eat. I have several very hard sessions of interval running in a week and my body tells me LOUD AND CLEAR afterwards that it needs refuelling - usually in the form of carb cravings - it drives me nuts. I can short circuit that by eating right by my body is saying it needs instant energy and it wants it NOW! That said though, there really is no need to spend more than an hour a day. You simply dont need to do more than an hour of cardio at a time, although if you want to do it, it wont hurt you. What you're finding though is that exercise must be combined with diet to see really good results. On its own, it just doesnt make you lose that much weight unfortunately. Get your fill back and continue with your dedication and there'll be no stopping you! However, if its tips you want - I've been a runner for 3 years now. My body has really adapted to it, and I'd been doing lots of long slow runs, 10kms or so. I'm lucky I plateaued out finally at a healthy weight but I'd still like to lose just a bit more - no luck in 18 months. I've gotten back into interval training and strength training and really UPPED the intensity, for slightly shorter sessions. so in a run I might jog, have a couple of 3 minute long level 3 sprints (8o-85% max heart rate) with recovery jogs in between and then five 1 minute level 4 sprints (90% max heart rate) with 1 ninute recovery jogs etc. Its a killer, I'm nearly dead when I get home, having done 10kms in not my normal an hour five, an hour 10 but in about 45 minutes! I've replaced my runs with the following schedule - 2 circuit training schedules, 2 interval runs, and as my reward, a nice long slow enjoyable run. The other two days I might just go for a walk with DH. Talk about blasting my body back into weight loss mode. Actually scale hasnt moved, but all those tight clothes in my wardrobe are fitting nicely now. I didnt interval training at the start of my journey too, as I got to be a better runner and started focussing on distance races I kind of forgot about it, but it really works. I use cardio coach - www.cardiocoach.com - to give me structure.

You absolutely cant tell, its very frustrating, but I thought it was at the 20 week ultrasound that they can really only just start being a bit more convinced about dating the pregnancy. Early on you can have a smaller or bigger bub that throws the dates out. Its all a bit hazy for me now, lol. Actually on second thoughts, I do have that arse about, its after 20 weeks that baby's growth starts to be different between different babies. BUT - weird things can occur. I fell pregnant with my first baby and was able to be relatively sure of the conception date - as Doug went away on a business trip to New Zealand the next day - so it cannot have occurred any later than what it did. However, this was on the day my period finished, so no way should I have ovulated for at least a week - longer because I have only 2 day long periods. Sperm ostensibly can only last 24 hours or so in the body. Well, ah, it lasted a good 7 to 12 days in MINE! You can be sure of when the actual act took place, lol, but you cannot be sure of when the actual conception did. And even when you are you can go weeks overdue anyway, or the baby can come early. So I guess just being happy to know he/she is in there and growing normally has to be enough to content us.

Thanks Moderators for clarifying. Guys I agree that any exercise is good exercise and that when you have special needs such as arthritis you find what works for you. I had special needs too - I hated strength training, roflmao! So I just ran. I think we have a really bad tendency to overcomplicate this weight loss and exercise thing. You can in fact lose weight knowing NOTHING about it, if you just eat less and move more. Yet we like to know the science behind absolutely everything. yet so many times, our own experience blows science out of the Water. I know for me, I dont do a high Protein diet, and I didnt do any strength trianing coz I just plain didnt want to. I have built a very nice body on a carb based diet (low GI of course) and running. I dont care what anyone says, I *HAVE* built muscle from running. You know what, I think we take what applies to professional body builders and try to apply it to laymen. True if you're trying to pack on 40lb of muscle, cardio is detrimental to that process. True if you're trying to pack on 40lb of muscle, you need massive protein supplementation and LOTS of calories. But if you're the average Joe, you can get away with a much easier regime. Losing weight whilst maintaining your lean body mass and building a huge competition body are two different processes. I've got to the point where running will do no more, that was when I introduced some strength training, some interval training and a bit more careful eating and post exercise supplmentation, to take my body that extra mile. But when you've got loads of fat to lose, it really doesnt take anything that scientific or complicated to do it, just eating less and moving more will work. Some people love all the science and the regimes, others find it intimidating. Like anything else, its personality dependent, but the best plan is what works for YOU.

Me too, I'm a tad recalcitrant :smile2:

Yes, that's what I thought too - blood carbs first, then your body will burn its muscle glycogen and when that's gone, stored fat. I was taught at uni that burning Protein is a last resort for the body because its depleted of all else. However, I'm not fussed by who's right or wrong and no doubt thinking has changed since I was doing a physio degree. I was more alarmed that such unclear information is contained in a thread called Free Nutrition Advice. I dont believe the thread itself is framed in an appropriate way for a discussion forum. The OP's advice and opinion is much appreciated and very helpful, however I dont think its really right to say I'm a nutritionist and can answer all your questions and then speak matter of factly on several highly contentious issues. The OP has EVERY right to express them but they should be more as opinions not facts.

:smile2: :biggrin: :glare: Yes, she DOES have more to answer for than just dissing WLS. Oh god how I *LOATHE* Dr Phil. Actually I have a real problem with anyone who tells me what to think, say or feel. I never read child rearing books, I wont follow what a nutritionist says, I dont have a personal trainer because I'm sceptical of their qualifcations and think I know more, I only *just* listen to my doctor, lol. i have a real problem with authority I think. Thus anyone like Oprah who purports to speak for the masses, you can guarantee I'll hate them.