Jachut

Its not dumping syndrome, but you may need more soluble fibre. Its difficult, because soluble fibre foods are the ones we're taught to stay away from but having spent the past 9 nonths with an ileostomy which has just been reversed, metamucil is BRILLIANT for firming up your bowel motions and slowing down transit. It bulks it up. What you do is mix two teaspoons full of it into a dash of cold Water and skull it, each time you eat, dont take it with a heap of water. Although I would check with your doctor since you're newly banded - it *could* swell up in your pouch and cause you problems, but I get it through my band now with no issues. The other option is to add Benefibre to everythign you can - that's soluble fibre also. Stay away from much insoluble fibre - fruit skins, vegie skins, wholegrain bread, nuts, seeds etc. I'm having the same issue after ileostomy reversal - after a surgery on your digestive system, it can get hypersensitive and I find that I eat and 15 minutes later I need to go, or more commonly I blow up like a puffer fish with gas, and have pain and bloating all afternoon. But the fibre will prevent solve the actual diarrhoea, if not the frequency.

I cant allay your fears about the problems continuing now that you've had an issue, I guess you can only be positive about the fact that the band is in position, and that's one major problem that hasnt occurred. As to success with not gaining whilst unfilled - well that is doable. I was unfilled for over 6 months and then took 3 months to get back to my normal level and I didnt gain weight. Well.... that's not strictly true, but I only regained weight that I lost - about 8 lb - I got way way too skinny from being absolutely ultra careful and exercising like a maniac whilst having chemo. I regained that weight, but I'm still 10lb lighter than when I got unfilled last year. I just continued with what I knew worked and whilst I definitely at more with no fill, I made sure that "more" was made up things like salads, fruit and wholegrain bread - all light, low calorie, no fat kinda foods, and kept my portions of Protein and fat foods at banded size. I lost significant weight doing that as whilst I'd had fill, I'd slipped into a slider food routine and was eating a lot of calorie dense foods like cookied, too much full fat yogurt, Soups which I didnt hesitate to add cream to, all that sort of thing. Once I cut that out and replaced with salads, fruit and bread, I said bye bye to about 20lb remarkably quickly - and I was at a BMI of 22 to begin with! My routine is generally an hour of hard cardio about five days a week and about three strenght sessions (sand bag circuit training or Body Pump classes using pretty heavy weights). Chemo/radiation and a big surgery in which I was given an ileostomy helped to keep that weight down, but a lot of it was my hard work. It can be done! And at the very least, its much better to only gain a little than a lot. Dont just give up whatever you do.

Lol helen, I am in despair over my post rectal cancer/chemo breasts. They're very very sad. But I tell you one thing, I aint trussing them up in an ugly bra. I'm enjoying at leasdt being able to fit into pretty bras!

I never got sea sick before being banded, but now I get very sea sick and sick on amusement park rides, and car sick too! Anyhow, I hate coming home from a holiday and feeling fat and having gained weight! it spoils the entire holiday. I would trade a thousand times over being able to eat anything for the feeling of control and knowing I'm not going home fat. Nothing tastes as good as that feels to me. That's also why you would have seen me running around the ship's perimeter (if you could have gotten me on it in the first place), or in the ship's gym every day.

I never had a problem with this with my doc, he filled me every time I requested with only a little discussion about how I'd been doing. If I'd lost well, but felt I had done so with supreme sacrifice and willpower, then he filled me. Over the years, the practice has changed and doctors come and go and my surgeon has a whole lot of different doctors working for him now. Since I went back last year to be unfilled for my bowel resection, I've had a lot of trouble with this doc. She gave me a spiel to calm my anxiety about being refilled, about how everyone needs their fill and I could fill back up three weeks after the surgery and we'd get me back to a comfortable spot and to just hang on till then and hope that with the big surgery I had to go through, I wouldnt gain. I didnt gain, but when I went back, she wouldnt fill me! She kept saying I wasnt overweight, I didnt need fill. I had to gain 10lb before I coudl talk her into one - even then she said "but you've just gotten back to wehre you were, you havent gained real weight". I had to stand on my head, scream and shout and throw a damn tantrum about how hard it was to maintain this weight with no fill at all, how month by month I was slowly losing the battle as a pound went on here and there. Once I got her to give me a fill, she wasnt so difficult about filling me to just shy of my previous level but she wouldnt let me go back to where I was - I've no idea why. Last week *I'd had enough, I am really fighting to stay at this weight, I'm so darn hungry all the time and can eat anything as if I have no fill at all, so I made an appointment with a different doctor instead. She was great when I explained how I was feeling and I've even got an appointment for two weeks time in case THIS last fill back to my previous level isnt enough. What I'm finding is that being refilled after being emptied, my band doesnt quite feel the same, its not giving me the same restriction and this second doctor said that can happen, whereas the first was so pig headed about it, and wasnt listening to MY experience of things. The moral of the story is that all doctors have different attitudes to this. Its not so easy for you guys to chop and change docs like we can here, so be prepared to really state your case if you want that fill. Explain how hard you're workign to lose that weight, and how you're getting hungrier between meals, how you can eat anything etc.

There's nothing wrong with a treat occasionally - there's nothing wrong with frozen yogurt OR ice cream OR chocolate even, if you dont eat it all the time. I'm everlastingly grateful that ice cream and frozen yogurt just dont interest me. I had a tub of ice cream in my freezer for the entire four years that I lived in one place! Its one diet killer that assails you at every corner and thankfully one I never even stop to consider giving into. I'm also extremely glad that since Krispy Kremes opened here, those things absolutely STINK when they're cooking, they taste foul and bland and they're not even what an Aussie would call a real donut - that has to be piping hot, with 3rd degree burn inducing jam in the middle that spurts all over you when you bite it and rolled in sugar and cinnamon mmmmmmmm And oh! those fresh baked Cookies in the shopping centre, the aroma, the choc chips still all melty, mmmmmmmm sorry to start a food porn thread, lol. Any of those things is absolutely fine as a very occasional treat.

I think this is a real phenomenon, as is pregnancy brain and as I've discovered recently, so is chemo brain. After a couple of surgeries, three pregnancies and six months of chemo, I dont think I have much brain left! I lost my car at the shopping centre yesterday. I was seriously ready to go and report it stolen. I couldnt even retrace my steps because I had absolutely and utterly no memory of arriving at the mall, which door I'd gone in, etc. I just stood there stupidly turning around in circles. It took me about 40 minutes to walk up and down every single level and aisle. Then I remembered I'd left it to be hand washed and cleaned out - D'oh!

I set my own goal, my surgeon never even mentioned one. The focus was more losing weight to get healthy. At 5ft 10, I have spent a lot of my adult life at about 180 and I know for me that's pretty beefy, its definitely plus size territory and I was so unhappy with that weight that I dieted myself fat over a period of about ten years. I'd reached 160 once or twice and knew that was okaaaaaaay, not brilliant, still a bit plump, so I aimed for 150. I got there pretty easily and maintained that easily. Post chemo I was as low as 130, pretty darn skinny, now I'm sitting around 140 and its perfect for me. I love this weight, I've definitely been called slim and thin lately and to be honest, that's what I wanted - to be slim. I wasnt happy with 150, great as an achievement as it was, I'm a perfectionist. So..... yeah, I set my own goal and decided where I liked beign the most. I've seen my lapband doc quite a lot this year to refill from my big surgery last November and I think she thinks I should be heavier because I've had to argue long and hard to get my band refilled at ALL, so I've changed to a different doctor in the clinic, one who's a bit more on my page. This is my body, my band and within the limits of healthy attitudes to food and exercise, I think I should be able to use it the way I want to. Not filling me because I wasnt overweight is ridiculous.

I've regained a little too but I think its a combination of a simple return to health and the result of all my efforts at Body Pump. I knew I was skeletal after chemo finished and I wanted to make sure that I put muscle back on, not fat. But overall I'm still much lighter than I was this time last year and pretty thin, I just feel fat because I did buy some size six clothes whilst I was so light and now they give me a muffin top :-( 10lb on my body is a LOT of weight now, I can feel it, but I'm still a good 10lb lighter than I was before cancer struck. I'm finding the biggest challenge this far out (six years) is that I really think my body has adapted to my band and it doesnt work the way it once does, possibly because I've been totally unfilled and then refilled (for surgery) int he past nine months. I am finding more and more that its just plain hard work to keep the weight away, its my hard work. I still exercise, more than ever in fact and every single day is a "diet". Every day I say no to foods I want to eat and fight cravings. I'm not sure if just another tiny fill would solve that, because its rather tiring. I can do it, I'm not afraid of weight gain but I have this tool, am I not using it to full potential? Even this far out, I dont really know.

And we actually have laughing cow cheese here, lol! I love the stuff.

It can take a long time. I "only" had a BMI of 36 and I had to lose over 40 lb before anyone really noticed and before I reliably went down a clothing size! I was pretty astounded about the clothing size thing I must say. It was really 60lb before people were saying all over the place wow youv'e lost weight. Early on you probably look a bit different to people but they're not sure enough to say something. To get what I'd call thin - ie. no big fat rolls on the gut, no muffin top, able to wear whatever I pleased and not shop in the plus sized stores, I had to get well under a BMI of 25. People are different, I'm very tall so I remained a plus size for a very long time, the top of my healthy weight range is still plus sized (which starts in Australiai afrom your size 12) for me. All those things amazed me because I had in my head that to be say 20lb overweight was "not that ft" but really, it is! That's the other thing, people often post here that they're disappointed, they've lost 50lb and they still look fat. Well, if you've got 100 to lose, of course you do, you're 50lb overweight. You need to get your mind set to enjoy your achievements regardless of appearance because that reward really only comes late in the picture.

To me, it kind of is. I mean someone said above and I agree that you get satisfied before you get full - for me, I get the same warm, full tummy kind of pleasure. But you have to learn to recognize it becuase it often comes way way before your eyes and your head are satisfied. And one bite, one tiny bite can tip that over into real pain and discomfort. This comes with time. It took me literally two years to be able to serve myself a teeny tiny meal and think that it would be enough. Now I've gone too much the other way and really have to remember not to starve my poor teenage sons, who can eat literally four times what I put on their plates. I serve them tiny dinners and then yell at them for getting into the snack foods after dinner.

It seems outrageous to me now, but i was put on Duromine as a teenager, when I was a whopping 180lb at 5ft 10. Not even obese! Overweight, yeah, but not obese. For me personally, having a lapband is nothing like that. It was similar for the first eight to ten weeks, where I forgot to eat, took no real pleasure in or had no interest in food. That was fantastic, the weight literally melted off me. But over time, my appetite returned. Six years later, I have a normal appetite, it just takes a smaller meal to satisfy it. But I have the same between meal cravings, the eating for inappropriate reasons, the same responses that I ever had. I have simply learned to tip the balance so that I give into them less often, but ever day is work for me. So its important to realise that you wont have a lot of physical hunger - i can go all day without eating and not feel particularly "hungry" but you will have an appetite, which is a different thing. I often think my band is doing nothing, but if I"m working and therefore busy, a 1000 calorie day's eating is easy for me and brings absolutely no hunger with it, if I"m at home, I want to eat all darn day because its there and I can. I also rely a lot more on heavy exercise for weight control than you have to when you eat virtually nothing. I wouldnt swap it. Duromine made me completely mental, hyper, it was awful stuff and its absolutely diabolical for your health too. Its dangerous and addictive and I wouldnt touch anything like that. A lapband, assuming its properly functioning, does not otherwise affect your body's functioning and its long term, so you dont get weight regain. But you do have to take responsibility for your choices and actions, it wont work that well if you dont work it well.

Yeah, I know what you mean. It makes me sad - not that I lost all this weight and am not perfect, but that I'm actually getting old! I dont have that lush young body anymore. I've been through hell and back in the last year with cancer too, I've lost my rectum - weird thing to be attached to but I will never ever be normal again in that sense, its made me menopausal, my knees, hips and shoulders hurt still (probably a side effect of chemo) so that when I set out for a run or get up int he morning, I creak and limp like an old person. Add to that the (pretty minor really) sagging and excess skin from weight loss and many days, I just feel overwhelmingly sad when I see myself naked. Sadly, we cant remain perfect forever. I've got nothing against plastic surgery, but I know that the way I feel, I coudl give myself perfect boobs or whatever and I'd still feel kinda weird, like time and gravity is going to win in the end anyway, so my personal approach is to work hard to come to terms with that and accept it.

If my metric waist size was half my height, I would fall into the category of being high risk for heart disease, as it would be over 80cm! And if I had a waist size as large as 80cm, I would also have a double chin, a fat arse and cellulite. Healthy shmealth!!!y. I wanted to look good. And I dont look good at 180lb! I'm 5ft 10 and 140lb at the moment and I like that MUCH better. The stupid nutritionist I saw told me I'd never get to 154, I was being totally unrealistic. My doctor never mentioned a goal. I guess your goal depends whether you're a "I just want to be healthy" type or a "I want to be hot" type. I was/am way more the second type and I dont believe age has anything to do it, as I'm 44. The only thing I noticed, I got a bit thinner after chemo, and was down to a BMI of 19/20. This is not actually underweight, its the very bottom of my healthy range though. My fill doctor (not my surgeon) was really funny about it, she wouldnt give me my fill back after being totally empty for the surgery, she really wanted me to gain weight. WTF is with everyone being so afraid of not having meat on your bones? If I'd dropped even lower, sure, once you're underweight you do need to gain. But what was wrong with wanting to stay at a BMI of 20? I couldnt by the way, once chemo finished and I regained some health, I gained 10lb pretty quick even WITH Fluid in my band. Let your doctor set you a goal if you like, then if you're anythign like me, just ignore it and do whatever the hell you want. I know the difference between medical advice I need to listen to and medical "opinion" that I can ignore if I choose. You can weigh whatever you want. Dont be afraid to shoot for a low weight if you really want to, you dont know till you get there whether its maintainable, or whether it will look good. I feel a bit yuck because I've gone back to 140lb from 130 - but heck, I'm 5ft 10, it was pretty darn skinny. But I'd rather feel a bit fat and flabby from having gained so much weight, lol, than to have never experienced it. I know now its not maintainable for me, its too hard and takes sacrifices I'm not willing to make. And that $300 pair of jeans in my cupboard that fit me for 5 minutes can go on ebay where they wont mock me! Likewise if you want to remain a bit heavier in the technically overweight cateogory, then remember there's a lot more to health than your actual weight. You've added years and years onto your life and improved your quality of life by losing the bulk of that weight. You may not feel the need to wear a bikini or designer jeans. You may think you look better a bit heavier and believe me, I look older at this low weight than I did when I had more padding on my face. To make my bum the size I want it, I have such a scrawny chest and shoulders that those shoestring tops I always wanted to wear dont look that great on me, I tend to cover and disguise THAT part of me now. So getting thin is not the be all and end all of anything either and trying to stay at a BMI of 20 for me was getting scarily into eating disorder category. It was all I thought about, obsessed about, I was pushing my body to run for hours whilst undergoing chemo, it was truly stupid. Your mental healt and ease with your lifestyle is every bit as important as what you actually weigh.

there's a couple of things that bug me about this. Firstly, this sort of card would depend entirely upon the discretion of the restaurant, there is no way it could be legally enforced, so you might find even with a card, you're refused child's price. I agree though, my eight year old can eat more than me at a buffet. Secondly, in a lot of places, you'll find you then have to order off the child's menu. Which is such crap food that I dont even let my children order it. They order from the adult menu and just dont eat it all. Thirdly, going out to eat is about more than getting your money's worth out of food. I think this is a "fat" way of thinking. Going out to eat is also about spending time with friends or loved ones, and if it costs $25 versus $12, then so what? If you could afford to eat off the adult menu before, then you can now, go and enjoy a small amount of food and focus instead on socialising. Forget getting dollar value for what you eat.

When I started, I could easily walk as fast as I could run, but the actual act of running, no matter how slow, over walking is important. It builds up your stamina, and develops the muscles and connective tissue in your legs way better than walking does, so that you can cope with running more/faster later on. I'm still as slow as anything though, its a real achievement for me to run 10kms in an hour, an hour and five minutes. I just dont have any speed, wont ever be talented as a runner, but I love it anyway. But I disagree about not needing to get sweaty. Even if its just walking, it should be somewhat hard. If you can walk along, talk easily and not sweat, you're not getting great fat burning exercise. You might, just starting out, at a very heavy weight, burn enough calories to help with weight loss, but that wont last, and you would get better results if you worked hard enough to sweat. And at first, of course, its important not to make exercise unpleasant to the point where you give up. But you cant just amble along right through this journey, eventually you'll need to be taking the dogs for a walk in the park and STILL feeling the need to get an exercise session in as well - active leisure wont cut it for very long. That's not to be negative or put down anyone's routines and what they enjoy doing, and its not to say people cant lose without exercise. But its simple fact that effective fat burning exercise involves real effort.

Sad to say yes, they lost perkiness. Not that I was ever blessed with perky breasts anyway, I've always had downward facing nipples. But now I dont, they face upwards, but the actual breast, I lost all the volume on the top of the breast, they are long and floppy. I have that pear shaped sort of body type, so I've gotten extremely skinny up top and retained more shape below, but my breasts need help. They look fine when I'm dressed, and they are also fine in the right bathing suite - ie. an expensive, well sewn and supportive one - so I'm not too bothered by it. The advice given to me by a plastic surgeon was that I'd need not only a lift but fair sized inmplants as well, so I'm not going to do anything. I dont want bigger breasts again, I'm happy with smaller ones. So, yes, they do suffer but you can fix them with good results if you want to.

Please get yourself to a doctor and get it checked out again - it could be so many things other than appendicits and blood in your stool is NEVER ok. I ignored blood in my stool for months (not in any pain) and had cancer, I was extremely lucky that I didnt ignore it any longer as it was rather advanced, and its a miracle that it was not into my lymph nodes yet. It had almost completely blocked my rectum, and I was also ignoring symptoms like frequency and very skinny stools, thinking I was constipated. Now, that's frightening and its of course my story, not yours but you really have to follow this up until you have an answer, dont leave it. Remember they would certainly have seen a large tumour on the CT scan, so dont panic, but blood in your stool means there's something wrong and it needs to be treated. The last thing you want is some sort of intestinal injury which will result much more serious problems and surgery. It could be any number of serious but not cancer kind of problems - they may indeed not have diagnosed appendicits, you could have diverticulitis, crohns disease, colitis, all problems that can be treated satisfactorily but if you dont know they're there, they can do a lot of damage, and you certainly dont want to end up needing an ileostomy. One thing to tell the doctor - is it red blood or not? If its red and only when you wipe, its coming from relatively near the opening - like from haemorrhoids or something, but what I had was a funny smelling stool - kind of metallic, and it was very dark in colour, sometimes maroon when I finally realised it. I dont know about you but I dont spend a lot of time looking at my poo, and I noticed it didnt smell right, but attributed that to eating something or whatever. That smell and dark colour means you're bleeing significantly deeper into your digestive tract. I wont apologise for being dramatic and frightening you if it gets you to a doctor!

I dont low carb at all, I lost 120lb which was about 130% of my excess weight - so i got right down to a BMI of 20 and I've kept it off for over three years now. I do do a lot of exercise, but I've never counted carbs. I've always watched the type of carbs - I'm more into the no white type of diet. I've been a wholegrain carb eater, good stoneground bread, rolled oats, fruit and vegies. However at the moment, becuase I've just had an ileostomy reversal, I'm living on simple white carbs. I am having huge digestive issues, I cant handle much fat or Protein at the moment and I'd certainly not risk baked Beans or wholegrain bread, I've got a really irritable gut, and I suffer majorly if I eat anything other than cardboard. So my daily intake is things like rice bubbles, crackers, plain sweet biscuits, yogurt and not much else. Its a low carbers nightmare and the unhealthiness of it does bother me a lot, but unless I want to be isolated in a smell proof room and never go to work or socialise, its how it is at the moment. I may have scurvey and ricketts by Christmas Time, but I havent gained any weight. I really believe for most people its simply calories in, calories out and low carbing is an unecessary strain - not necessarily unhealthy, depending on what you eat, but not entirely necessary.

Its much harder years out - your body has already given up its easy weight loss, your metabolism and system settles to having the band in place, your mental attitude adjusts, its no longer new and exciting so the easy motivation isnt there, your body is used to and efficient at the exercise you've been doing, I could go on and on. If I gain a pound or two now, it takes an enormous amount of work to get it off. I just cant lose weight quickly and easily anymore - mainly because I've got so little on me anyway, but also probably because I'm 6 years older and am now menopausal. After chemo, I also cant handle quite the same amount of exercise either - knees and hips hurt, even my elbows hurt from Body Pump, lol. Its hard slog at this stage, no doubt about it. I also find that my band works, but not in the same way it used to. I think because the foods I choose have changed so much, I've figured out what I can eat easily and my tastes tend towards those things - when I was continuously still trying to eat things like sandwiches, toast, steaks etc I ate much much less because the more solid foods filled me up. Now I'll always choose a yogurt and a granola bar for lunch instead and I actually ingest more calories that way - its kind of a natural process that you need to be aware of to stay on top of. I try to make a point to eat what I actually DONT feel like eating - because usually what I dont feel like eating is a more difficult food that will fill me up faster with less calories than the slider type foods I'd naturally choose. This is a constant battle for me - if I didnt work at it, I'd graze on slider foods all day long and never eat a proper meal. I've also learned at this stage for me, it does no good really to get another fill, tighter isnt the answer for me, its mental.

I was like that for a good 12 weeks after surgery and in that time, the weight literally fell off me. It wasnt only lack of hunger, but absolutel lack of appetite or interest in food - that forgetting to eat feeling. It did subside and I've never been able to get it back sad to say, but I still went on to be very successful.

I also absolutely must eat soup on its own - add even a half a cracker and I'll see it all again.

Often i'm the same, not for a whole hour but i always like to finish lunch with a cuppa ( i have never found drinking right after I eat tp wash food quicker, if anything it adds to satiety for me amd lets me eat less) but there's been many cups of coffee gone cold coz i just cant drink it or it will all come back up

Not to mention the pure physiology of the weight loss on this sort of pre op diet. Nobody but nobody can live on shakes forever. And that sort of low carb weight loss is SO much about Water and lean body tissue loss and very much less so about real fat loss. Carbohydrate molecules bind to water in the body so cut carbs and you shed a trolley load of water weight, sniff a slice of bread and you put 10lb back on overnight. Even if you could survive on this sort of diet long enough to get to a normal weight, even if you were happy to look like a bag of skin held up with sticks, the minute you begin to eat normally, even low calorie normally, you would gain weight like crazy. Enjoy this fast weight loss, you get banded, you go onto the post op routine and for once in your life, all your hard work pre op wont be lost in the space of a week. The weight will continue to come off - but it will be slower and more steady, much healthier and with your band it will STAY lost. Dont worry, your willpower wont be wasted - you will still need it with a band.