Jachut

I get it from my doctor! The way my surgeon's practice works, I saw him first, he did the surgery and a follow up visit and I can see him any time I want to, but for fills and general check up, the practice has about six doctors working there. They've changed over the years of course, people come and go. The lady I've been seeing is really one of those pull yourself up by your bootstraps and stop stuffing your face kinda people - never been fat ever i her life, doesnt get it, doesnt understand the issues, but at six years out,, I wasnt that fussed. Anyway, i saw her last year when I went to report that I had rectal cancer and was going to need to be unfilled, and could she just run me through the process, what to expect, when could I refill, basically a vist ot relieve my fears and anxiety, which she did well. I saw her six weeks later, she totally unfilled me at that point. She said to me that most people totally unfilled will gain, she woudlnt recommend removing my band (not that I mentioned this) as regain was likely, that I woudl have to hang on and really try my best but dont worry, we can start refilling you three weeks after your bowel resection. She seemed to understand that I would have an ileostomy (her mother has one) and big swings in body weight would cause me problems with bags fitting and leakage etc. So I get unfilled at 63 kg, BMI 20, go back about four weeks after my surgery at 60kg (BMI 19) - I really knew I didnt need fill that point, was jut touching base and as expected she wouldnt fill me. But over the months, after I finsished chemo and my body returned to healthy, I regained weight back up to 65kg. Great, I needed to, but I knew I wouldnt be hanging round there for long without some fill. That's when she started the "but you're not overweight" routine. Well, der! But I'm not going to manage that for long! I left that time, but came back weeks later, and really threw a major tantrum to get any fill. After that, she was OK about getting me back up to my previous level, but she gave me the lecture each time about how to eat. In the end, I just booked in with another doctor. Stupid woman, the reason I'm not overweight is that I have had a functioning, filled lapband for the past six years!!!!! the other doctor was fabulous and understood my reporting that since unfilling, my band was simply not the same anymore. I have more fill now than I had with less restriction! Its adequate restriction for maintenance, but its less than it was.

Protein shakes and bars give me gas - and horrible, offensive gas at that. I bloat up, get really rumbly and couldnt possibly be in an enclosed space like at the movies! I just avoid them. They are not necessary at any rate, I have managed perfectly well for six years, lost a lot of weight, kept it off and am not "skinny fat" like the so called experts say you will be without mega protein. I just eat normal food! They are expensive, not necessary and if you dont even like them, or they cause you digestive distress, dont drink em.

I had a burst of very good weight loss first up, but overall, I was a slow loser, I lost about 75lb the first year, 25 the next year and another 20 over the following four years - and I can tell you I couldnt care less now how fast I lost it - its gone and that's all that counts. Every stage along the way is enjoyable, so dont worry about how fast its coming off unless you're really not happy with the sort of effort you're putting in and know you could do a lot better.

Indian food can be hideously fattening, and horribly bad unhealthy fats at that. I'm not sure if the sorts of Indian menus we have here translate, but when I dont want to just let go and indulge, I stick with Tandoori chicken - its delish. Tandoori paste is aromatic rather than spicy - generally mixed with plain yogurt, the chicken is marinated in it and baked in a tandoor (special type of oven). Its a fairly healthy, low fat option. There should be a few yogurt based curries - and lots of mild things that arent too hot, and you generally get a choice about how hot and spicy you want it. I dont ever eat the naan bread, its like pita - just too tough for me to handle, but I'll have a spoonful or two of rice. Or have some poppadums instead, they're crunchy and very large but there's nothing to them, very band friendly. Steer clearb of anything labelled korma - about 90% of it will be cream - and dont eat the butter chicken whatever you do - mild and extremely yummy but enough calories and fat for about a week!

It can be just because too. I sometimes find that I thought I was hungry and ready to eat and all I manage is 2 bites and I just know that its going to be ugly if I push it. I'm particularly like that after exercise, but its just random. If it resolves itself and you can eat next meal dont worry about it - sooner or later you'll cautiously try the same foods again and may find that there's no problem. I actually also find that's more likely to happen if I've let myself get really hungry.

Its why i have always, within reason, eaten and drunk together. Now, I'm not breaking *my* doctor's rules - he advises most patients to wait half an hour or so after eating to drink because drinking will flush food faster, leaving you less satisfied. But I honestly find completely the opposite, like you're saying. I like a coffee with lunch and Breakfast and I find that it puts the full stop on my meal for me (or period, as you guys say, lol) I dont feel complete without it, and it definitely fills up my tummy more and lets me eat a much smaller amount of food. I have experimented and it does NOT make me hungrier sooner. So my doc is absolutely fine with me doing that. But he did explain that I shouldnt be looking for stuffed full, nor should i be trying to eat virtually nothing and fill the space with coffee! Drinking a heap and eating at the same time could stretch your pouch. It depends what i"m eating though - I absolutely cannot, for example, eat toast and drink coffee together - the toast swells in my stomach when the coffee hits it and the explosion follows soon after. Nor can I eat cake/muffins etc with coffee - not that I should and not that I do, but I do know from early experience to just avoid that one.

When I look in the mirror, I love my shoulders and arms, my collarbones. I think I look very toned, very fit, but also slim and feminine, no sign of Madonna freak arms but my upper body is way more toned and slender than most people's, even people that are normal weight - simply due to the fact that I'm a classic pear shape and lost a lot of weight very easily from the upper body. When I see a photo, I look freaking skeletal, you just see what you want to see when you look in the mirror, dont you? Nonetheless, my head is goign to remain firmly in the sand and I am going to continue seeing what I want to see and ignoring the photographic evidence! I love that I can move so much more easily now, exercise is an absolute joy and I really really really love that I can wear whatever is currently in fashion and that size 10 shoes will alwasy be guaranteed to fit now, and often I only need a 9. I love that a special night out is not cause of panic and tantrums, I can choose from some lovely dresses I already own or simply buy another one, in any store I fancy. Without having to shop for shapewear and other ugly foundation garments first - I can match my nice dress to some very teeny tiny lingerie!

So I've learned a few things about snacking lately, six years into my journey. I've always been a 3meals, no Snacks kinda dieter, only becuase once I start to snack, I really have trouble stopping. That's because I snack on snack foods, d'oh. Simple, evil, white carbs that leave you wanting more, so you suddenly decide stuff it, I've had 2 Cookies, now I'm gonna eat the rest of the packet. Recently I had an ileostomy reversal, so that now my colon is doing its job again and after nine months, I'm back to doing number 2's the regular way. This is not an easy surgery and it takes a long long time for the body to recover and adjust, I have no rectum anymore. What I've found is that my insides are just so messed up through chemotherapy, radiation and havign to adjust to working again that I simply cannot even think about eating a regular sized meal - even a regular sized bandster meal. First up, I was forced to live on white carbs - white bread, rice, Pasta, mashed potato, rice bubbles and other cereals were all I could manage, with some chicken, tuna etc and I couldnt even think about fruit and veg and yeah, I actually had trouble keeping my weight stable despite eating hardly anything - those foods pack the fat on faster than you can blink. So now I've managed to transition to healthier foods again, but in order to avoid awful bouts of gas, bloating, flatulence that would fell a horse and diarrhoea/urgency, I need to eat six small mini meals, rather than anything approaching a normal sized meal. What I've found is that it is MUCH easier to not overeat, with this constant input, I'm having trouble reaching 1200 calories a day! I'm a bit gobsmacked, but I guess the moral of the story is that if you're a snacker and want to eat this way - then you need to abandon the idea of "meals". For me, Breakfast, lunch and dinner would be too large to allow the calories for snacks as well even though I mean large by bandster definitions. So, I had a half a cup of greek yogurt with a few teaspoons of muesli for breakfast - a teeny serve of nuts and dried fruit at mid morning - a small tin of tuna, 4 crackers and some sliced cucumber for lunch, I'm planning a puree apple snackpack and babybel cheese for the afternoon and then I have whatever the family's having for dinner, but just the amount that will fit on a saucer. There's not a cookie or traditional "snack" to be seen in that plan, which is how it needs to be for me, nor is there really a "meal" which I define as containing some sort of carbohydrate. If you can do that, snacking's great. If you still want "meals" and simply add snacks, then its not so great.

If you're fasting for 12 hours or so before you'll be fine, but you can be extra sure by doing liquids - they wont stick around. Not only will your stomach be empty, but most likely your entire digestive tract.

You're entirely normal. I hate to be blunt, but I've found that my particular problematic eating behaviours - eating when I'm bored, or eating without thinking like you're describing, or needing a snack, and instead of choosing something good, caving in and eating six Cookies, then thinking the day's a write off, so may as well continue to be bad - those behaviours have all remained for me, six years after banding. But its not as bad as it sounds. I have way better control. Every day is work, yes, every single day I have to think about my approach, plan to be sensible, and most days I achieve it without having to actually white knuckle it. I find I'm OK so long as I"m busy. But you know, you dont have to be perfect, I still lost 120lb, got almost TOO thin and have kept it off for years now. and yes, more fills will help.

Early on hunger felt similar to that for me too - no longer an almost pleasant emptiness and rumbling (pleasant because satisfying it was just round the corner) but crampy and painful. Nowadays (six years out), I will get mild hunger that feels like ordinary tummy growling, but if I dont eat and I get really hungry, I start to get really bad heartburn. Its the only time I get heartburn with my band. Once that's happened, eating can actually be unpleasant - acidy and painful, so I try to avoid it. Which, given I've always been a strict 3 meals, no Snacks kinda eater since banding, is not always easy, coz I do tend to go long periods without eating.

I still cant get my head around that, I'm always feeling guilty that I've overdone it, becuase I'm so satisfied! In the previous 35 years of my life before I was banded, the only "successful" days were the ones where I felt deprived all day and went to bed hungry. Now I eat the same amount that I might have eaten on one of those days and I feel like I've cheated, I cant have done well enough because I'm not starving.

More than ever, I think. Since being banded, I'm not afraid of food - I know I'm not going to eat so much that I gain weight. I can go out and enjoy good food, even enjoy eating to the point of being full, have a drink and yet, I'll still have only eaten a quarter of whatever I've ordered and its simply not going to do much harm. I can eat rich food for the same reason - I was making salmon mornay for dinner, and the recipe calls for milk and cream combined. Normally I would substitute the cream, but I couldnt be bothered going out to buy evaporated milk, but I had cream in the fridge. I thought "you know, I"m only going to eat like 1/2 a cup of this, what does it really matter". So I enjoyed the flavour of the recipe as it was meant to be without substituting a lesser product. For the same reason, I enjoy full fat yogurt, and sweet things with real sugar not artificial chemical crap. It tastes much much better, is therefore more satisfying and I only eat small quantities, what's the point of depriving yourself of flavour to save 40 calories?

That's a very good point - eat slowly. It really took me a year for brain and eyes to truly connect. Before that I served myself way too much food every single time becuase I simply couldnt believe it would be enough. You are not really looking to feel full, just not hungry anymore, satisfication takes a while to recognise but you will get there. Till then, what you are doing, measuring, is the sensible option. It just takes time. One day you will be absolutely amazed and probably disgusted by what other people put on their plates. the half cup is not crazy talk - at this point, where it's so important not to put your stomach under strain. As you heal, it probably wont be enough and personally, since the early days I've never been able to get by on a scant half cup and I've never needed to. And in truth, if you're losing weight eating more like two cups at a time and you're not stuffing yourself to get that in, them what's the problem? The more you can eat, and still lose weight, the better nourished you will be. I find mosst of my meals are about three quarters to a cup at a time

I had a BMI of 35 I think, I only just scraped in, but thankfully my doc is of the view that why wait till I got even fatter? And I live in Australia so none of those insane insurance companies - here, if the doc will do it, insurance will cover it. I lost about 40lb too in the first few months, the band has worked brilliantly for me. I went on to lose 120lb whereas I really only "needed" to lose about 80 but I've gotten down to a BMI of 20.

Mine is routinely that low and my heart rate usually 48 or 50 beats a minute. Its not a big deal but whilst i had my ileostomy it was even lower due to dehydration, which can be chronic with an ileostomy.

Mine is routinely that low and my heart rate usually 48 or 50 beats a minute. Its not a big deal but whilst i had my ileostomy it was even lower due to dehydration, which can be chronic with an ileostomy.

I think the thing is people get frustrated. You're right, if you really could control your eating you wouldnt have needed the surgery. But if surgery and the possiblility of mucking it up isnt enough to keep you on the straight and narrow, I really dont know what anyone can say to you. Everyone goes through it, true, but really, how committed were you? Were you ready for this? That's not judgemental but for heaven's sake, pick yourself up, dust yourself off and get back on the program. Support is not going to come in the guise of people validating what you're doing. That does you absolutely not good. Support comes from people suggesting what you can do to make this easier. Just becuase you're on liquids is no reason you have to starve. Liquids can be calorific, contain fat and Protein and keep your body going. Make yourself some Soup with real meat and some Pasta in it, for example, blend it up really well, thin it out with broth to a consistency you can handle now, and have as much of it as you can handle at a time, as often as you need not to be hungry. Make a real smoothie with real fruit, yogurt and milk rather than a Protein shake, get some fibre into yourself to feel some satisfaction. You can even blend up family dinners with broth to get the flavour or real food - NO food is off limits, just in solid form! There. There is no reason to go hungry. And as for "wanting to chew something" as so many people say, you just have to suck it up. Its only a couple of weeks.

Well, I havent ever regained weight - I've not given up the exercise and I believe that's the secret. I continue to challenge myself, change it up and work really really hard. I will never stop doing that. However, I know what you mean about motivation dropping off, I dont have the same focus I had, but then in lots of ways that's good, eating has taken a back seat in my life, like for normal people! I do keep in touch with my clinic and have had a small fill about once a year since year 3 - I'm six years out. I need to keep that fill where it is, or I do notice over time I eat more/faster. Its just about staying focussed on it, not as much as we were in the early phase, but dont just leave it in there and forget about it. Maintaining your weight involves keeping organised and sensible about what you eat and continuing to exercise. And there's no secret to getting that back, you just have to do it.

Tiny bites, and yeah, it falls apart when you eat it so slowly. I dont do that well with anything like that that you trditionally eat with your hands, as you tend to need to take large fast bites before it falls apart.

I adore greek food, particularly becuase I love lamb, and its probably the most popular red meat in Australia, we Aussies love it. I love greek flavourings but my kids call it "armpit meat", lol. My brother in law is greek and man, does he know how to makea souvlaki - mmmmm, lamb, authentic greek pita, olives, red onion, home grown tomato and feta topped with tzasiki, droooooooooool.

Metameucil can help you if you're constipated too - it bulks up and softens stools. It acts like a sponge to soak up liquid and form a gel. If you have diarrhoe and its all moving through too fast and your colon isnt absorbing the Water, metameucil taken with as little water as possible will soak up the Fluid in your digestive tract, bulk it all up and make it soft and mushy - which makes it firmer than the diarrhoea and gives you more control and less urgency. If on the other hand you're constipated because its all sitting around in your colon too long, and too much water is being absorbed, then taking metameucil with a lot fo fluid will provide a bulkier digestive system content, that's larger and softer and less likely to sit there. Which prevents so much water being asorbed from the waste by your colon and thus eases constiipation. But in that case, you also need lots of INsoluble fibre - fruit and vegie skins,seeds, nuts, wholegrains - those will woosh it all through fast before it can dry out too much and cause you problems. Other foods to eat if you've got diarrhoe are the ones which contain a lot of soluble fibre, which is what metameucil is - white bread, white rice, crackers, plain pureed apple, bananas and Pasta. Which is going against what most Americans with lapbands are told to eat and certainly goes against what we're told for general health so its probably better just to take metameucil,

Good day to ask! It was Fathers Day here in Australia, so we went out for Breakfast. I didnt order a meal, I shared DH's (he's banded to) and had a few tastes of the cheese kransky (sausages that in general, you may as well just shove down your aorta and get your heart attack over and down with right there on the spot), some of his eggs, and I cleaned up my son's half grilled tomato and some of his mushrooms. I had a skinny latte and about 1/4 of a piece of the yummy ciabatta toast. All in all, a tiny meal if you put it all on a plate, but I was very full! But did I come home, wait till it had gone down a bit and then think "well I've blown it today, I'll help DH with his father's day choccies? No, I didnt. That feeling of having had a big meal (even though it really wasnt, and would do no damage at all to my diet) really derails me, I still do that I've blown it now I may as well really have some fun thing. But in the end we were busy and I didnt eat again till late afternoon, when I had a little tub of fruit right before I went to the gym. There I did 25 minutes of really hard intervals on the elliptical, 25 minutes of easier interevals on the treadmill and a body pump class. Had a healthy dinner and when DH bought out more choccies and a bottle of Baileys later that night, I said no to both.

OMG I've done this and will never ever do it again. Mine was one Saturday morning, my daughter had a swimming lesson, we were running late (slept in), I just grabbed a similar thing, little weetbix bites which are like little pillows and ate about six of them in the car on the way. When we got to swimming, she got in the pool, DH and I settled to watch and DH bought me a coffee. Well! That coffee hit the dry cereal and it all swelled up and before I knew it, I was spending the entire half hour lesson bent over the toilet, with little kids going "what is wrong with that lady mummy?" And mummy saying "she's just pregnant darling". Lol. Thank goodness it was only a five minute drive home, so I could get to my own bathroom and continue throwing up for another 2 hours. for the same reason, although i can eat bread quite easily, I never ever ever eat it with soup!

For me, snacking comes the minute I sit down and start mucking around on the computer or have any other "down time" like that. So I stay busy. At the moment, I'm not working full time as I was unable to apply for any teaching contracts because I had to have chemo - it was impossible to work around. I orginally got fat in large part from being at home with my kids and this year again my eating habits were sliding with all the time at home on my own. I actually ended up getting myself a job coaching gymnastics a day a week whilst still having chemo, and also some relief teaching work (I was going to wait till chemo had finished). I was sick, had diarrhoea and an ileostomy but I really needed to work - both for my mental health and to get out of the house and away from the cookie jar. I have 3 kids so there's always plenty to do in the house. I make it a point never to sit down, pure and simple. I potter around and make myself keep up to date with ironing, cleaning out cupboards, keeping the bathrooms spotless, whatever, just throughout the danger part of the day which to me is after lunch through till dinner, I just keep moving and busy. The days when I dont get a call for relief teaching I go out, stay out of the house as long as possible, see a movie, visit someone, window shop, whatever. I go to the gym, and spend hours there. Whatever it takes, I just avoid my trigger situation - sitting around. I also took up knitting, lol, so at least when I do sit, I am keepign my hands busy. I dont have a problem with after dinner snacking unless hubby derails me and brings out a bottle of liqueur or something like that. But if you're going to snack - plan it. My biggest downfall is snacking on snack foods - there's really no reason in the world not to have a bowl of Soup or somethign healthy like that that will actually fill you -whereas I can eat chips like I could pre band. Recently, I have had to break my three meals no Snacks rule - since I had my ileostomy closed six weeks ago, my digestive system is in tatters, it is so sensitive. I cannot handle a "meal" anymore, I cant eat that much at one time. Even with a band, a band size meal causes me bloating, foul gas and a lot of pain and discomfort. So I'm a six times a day eater. I've never been an advocate of this, becuase I tend to overeat when I do it, but I've created myself a good stock of healthy 200 calorie mini meals and I've actually lost weight - not really the aim. And my guts are much calmer. So I've planned out mini meals that contain good nutrients and continue to mentally do this with whatever's in the fridge and the house. I never ever just grab.