lellow

Oh right! Because my implants are tear drop shaped, my surgeon opted to place them in front of the muscle to reduce the chances of them flipping. I don't know how this affects cup sizing but I do remember him saying that it didn't matter about the ccs, because someone could get fewer ccs and still end up a bigger cup size. That's why he couldn't with all honesty tell me exactly what cup size I'd end up. He just could tell me what size implant he thought suited me. And I think he was pretty spot on to be honest. Though mind you, Kimaly, I reckon a DD in a 36 is bigger than a DD in a 30. I still have my old bras in a 38DD and the cups are waaaaaayyyyy bigger than the cups of my 30DDs.

Kimaly,I ended up getting 390cc implants and 4 weeks in, they're a DD. They hang fairly naturally now and the people who know I have had surgery reckon they look natural and not too big at all (and the people who don't know don't stare - much - so I guess they must look natural). I'm fairly broad shouldered and I think that makes a difference. My DH loves them but he thinks I could have gone a cup size up (men!) but I personally am finding it difficult already finding bras to fit (a 30DD isn't easy to find in regular shops here) and clothes shopping isn't always easy, for the reasons Shelley mentioned earlier. I sometimes do wonder if I might have gone slightly bigger but to be honest 99% of the time I'm happy with the way they look and feel, esp dressed, so I think in the end, they were the best choice for me. But I will admit to a bit of boob envy about the size of your implants. But considering I wanted a D cup and ended with a DD, I already got bigger breasts than I had counted on, so can't really complain, can i? lol

I've never received email notifications elcee but I can help you with a couple of things. If you want to see the new posts, go to the right top corner of the forum and click on 'View New Content'. Also if you hover over thread in a list view, a little icon appears on the side of the title and clicking this will allow you to preview the thread. Hope you get answers for the rest of the issues.

My knees don't hurt at all, unless I run (which I still do sometimes despite the soreness). My back problems have also completely resolved. This is not to say that my knee isn't worn and still damaged, because it is. But a lot of the tracking problems stemmed from me being overweight and knock-kneed (as a lot of of overweight people tend to be). As I lost weight, I became less and less knock kneed and my knee started to track correctly. I still get stiffness and soreness if I strain it sometimes, because obviously the wear on the bone exists and will cause problems if aggravated, but other than that, on a day to day basis, I am now pain-free. And an exercise bike basically allows you to cycle. A spin bike has a weighted flywheel on it that makes the workout much more like a road bicycle ride, in my opinion. I now have an exercise bike and not a spin bike any longer and I much preferred the workout I got from the spin bike. But that doesn't mean you will feel the same way. My hubby prefers the exercise bike to a spin bike (which is why we swapped over), so if you are looking at a bike, go down to your gym equipments sales centre and test them out first to see which you'll like.

Only bit of advice I can give you is to think of Christmas dinner in this light: for this one Christmas dinner you'll be forgoing, think of all the amazing Christmases to come where you will look and feel fantastic! Same goes your your son's birthday. I was recovering from my lower body lift when my son turned 4 and had just been refilled after a complete unfill. I told myself to remember how many more birhdays with him I probably have 'bought' myself with no longer being obese, and in the end, we had a ball without it being about eating.

I had a straight lower body lift and my PS wanted me to be at goal when I had my op. My op was scheduled for 2 months from the consult and I still had about 10lbs to lose at the time. He didn't do any fat transfer and very little contouring. I assume that your surgeon is talking about fat transfer - is this what you're after? I wanted as little fat on my body as possible, even if it meant I had no butt! lol! He also explained that by being close to or at goal, my skin would be as taut as possible. I went on to lose further 20+lbs after my LBL and while my skin is still smooth, it's not 'tight' like if I'd had done the surgery once my weight had completely stabilised. I don't have regrets but it's something to think about. There are pics of my tummy in my gallery if you wanted to have a look and see what I mean.

I had knee problems as well - my left knee cap also didn't track right and the bone underneath was worn and caused a lot of pain. I also had back nerve pinching. I did walk as exercise but this often hurt my knee. Water aerobics worked out if I did it low impact, but I needed home exercise. The one thing that seemed to work for me, to be honest, was stationary cycling. I bought a spin bike, invested in a good wide seat and got to it. As I got stronger and lost the weight, the knee and back caused less and less problems and I could increase the intensity. I don't know if it will work in the same way for you, but keeping the weight off my knee helped heaps. My brother is a personal trainer and he suggested that if the bike didn't work, to look for arm exercise cycle. You use your arms to cycle instead of your legs, and it's a great aerobic workout too.

The tattoo cost me just over $1500 (it goes alll the way around body and up my lower back) and it took 12 hours and 4 sessions to complete. The lilies alone took nearly 5 hours and are very detailed. I needed time between sessions for the work to heal too so all in all it took about 3 months from start to finish. But it's finished now finally!

if you can drink cold drinks, then there's nothing wrong with it. It's just some banders find that it affects their band adversely. When I was well restricted, drinking anything cold made me tight and uncomfortable. But if it doesn't affect you, then it's all good.

I can drink cold drinks now in maintenance. So it's not forever. Or you can try sipping?...

Thanks I'm really pleased with how it's all turned out. My body lift surgeon, my BA surgeon and my tattooist are all geniuses in their own rights!

I'm glad that my story 'spoke' to some of you. Three girls at my workplace have been banded in the last 6 months and I repeated what I considered to be my change of mindset so many times to them that I thought perhaps I should write it all down! I wondered even if I wrote it if it would make sense. I'm glad it did!

Ok, I had to wait til the server migration was complete before I gave posting the pic anther go. Let me know if you still can't see it!

Miine was not exactly the same situation but I'll tell you my story nonetheless. My husband met me when I weighed a lot. My weight ballooned while we were married but he always seemed perfectly content with that. Then in 2005, he and I did IVF to have our son and our sex life started to suffer from that time. Things took a huge turn for the worse when I got lapbanded in 2008 and started to lose weight. It was also about this time that my career took off and for the first time, I started earning more than my husband. My new job required me to be quite assertive (project manager) so not only was I becoming more confident professionally but with the weight loss, more confident emotionally and physically. The dynamics of our relationship changed so much the cracks in our marriage started becoming gaping chasms. He constantly found fault with me, he seemed to have little patience for me. I began to doubt that he loved me - he wouldn't even touch me - and we drifted apart more and more. I eventually left him 6 months ago. We barely spoke for 5 of those 6 months. I dated, learnt to love the person I am now and enjoyed my single life. I had no intention of reconciling, even though I never stopped loving him, and I went about making a new life for myself. Then a month ago, I told him about my breast augmentation (something he was always dead against) and that he needed to look after our son while I was recovering. He then asked me why I didn't get it done sooner, while we were together, and I told him it was because he was so against it. That opened his eyes, I believe, as to how much I had been compromising my happiness to be with him. From that day, he starting calling me again. I was honest with him. I told him that I was dating other men, I told him about the travelling I had done, told him about the new tattoos (lol) and I was brutally honest about how damaging I thought our relationship was to me. He admitted that seeing me change made him insecure, and his way of dealing with it was to try (knowingly or unknowlngly) to manipluate me into behaving a certain way. But the bigger fool him, coz now I had left, and living the life of a confident, free, financially secure person, he actually found me more attractive than ever. 3 weeks ago, he asked me out on a date (he was sooo scared I'd say no!) and that night, we decided to give our marriage another go. He admits that he needed me to walk away, for him to appreciate me. He doesn't live with me yet, we're dating and taking it slow, but he cannot keep his hands off me (and yes, he LOVES the new breasts!!). He admits that the changes in me were difficult for him to take up close, but watching me from afar, he realises that the person I am is what he desires more than anything. I'm not saying this is my happy ending. There is a long way to go. But I stopped the vicious cycle that our marriage seemed to be on and the rut we couldn't seem to get out of by leaving (and at the time, it was one of the hardest things I'd ever had to do). And now, thanks to the stars aligning, we're attempting a fresh start. Don't sell yourself short. You are worth his respect and his love. If he won't give it to you, you need to find a way to either fix it (and he must want to too) or you need to find some self-preservation and take yourself out of such a damaging situation. It's not easy and I feel for you so much. But know that you're worth more than the way you're being treated right now.

Variations of a lb can happen at anytime. You retain Water, you bloat and you gain a lb. If you'd gained 4 lbs I would say you might have just cause to be worried. Don't be discouraged by a one lb gain. Unless you keep gaining. Good luck for your surgery!

Hot chocolate made with skim milk.

food is still my friend. But instead of lots of high calorie foods, cakes, chocolates etc, my love of food has changed to high quality meats, luscious fruits like mango, lovely risottos and spicy curries. I can't eat much of those things, but I savour every bite. Don't mourn the loss of a friend, that friend will still be there, but in a different form. I still love food, I just don't have to eat a lot of it to appreciate it.

When I'm properly restricted, I didn't notice I was hungry either. I would sometimes get home and find myself shaking and then realise I hadn't eaten all day. I didn't get that straight out mind you, only after about 6 or 7 fills. But my band isn't that tight anymore and I do experience hunger now. Like Jachut, I don't want to change that because I'm maintaining easily and don't want to lose anymore.

I had a full body lift and got a tattoo like SueHam mentioned. No one looks at my scars much anymore lol. I had loads of loose skin. Even without the tattoo, the scar was preferable. And I'm Asian so they were quite dark and noticeable. I am about 18 months post body lift surgery and about 3 weeks post breast augmentation. Here's a pic of my belly taken two days ago...

No one I meet nowadays knows I'm banded unless I tell them. I eat like a small, kinda picky eater. No one bats an eyelid lol. And I still love eating good food - I go to good restaurants and make great dinners all the time. I figure that when you're only eating a little bit, why waste that space on anything less than great food?? I think my appreciation of good food has actually increased! :blushing:

I'm 5'4" and my Dr set my goal weight at 154lbs. I got to that goal in 7 months, then stopped trying to lose and lost another 20lbs anyway over the next 12 months. I am now steady at 123-125lbs and that's pretty much where my body wants to be, I reckon.

I had surgery to remove my excess skin after an 80lb weight loss. Why? Coz I couldn't live with it. Some can and some can't. No one will force you to have plastic surgery. it's a very personal choice. There's a member here - Jachut - she's older than me (not by much though) and her skin bounced back much better than mine ever did. I had an 'overhang' after my 2nd child that never went away, and I had him at 22. I exercised, I toned, I did all that. My skin was shot in my stomach area completely. It was never going to bounce back. But my thighs and arms did, so I didn't get surgery on those areas. I recently had breast augmentation. Again, it's something I wanted. Simple as that. I lived with empty sacks for 18 months after I got to goal, then decided I didn't want empty sacks anymore. Was it more about vanity than health? Oh hell yeah. But if you get to goal and don't want anything else but having got to goal, why, that's an excellent outcome no matter how you look at it!

When I got some restriction, this happened to me too. I was usually tummy-growling hungry when I ate, but when I actually did eat, I'd eat only a little, be unable to eat anymore, but not feel that 'oh I'm so full' satisfied feeling. But if I waited 15 - 30 mins, the food started moving through the band and I'd stop feeling hungry. And that's what I started looking to, stopping the feeling of hunger as opposed to the feeling of being satisfied. Because I think part of the way I used to eat, feeling 'satisfied' took a helluva lot of food. And if you're getting hungry within 2 hours of eating, you're just not at your sweet spot yet. That's all. But ask yourself too, when you say you're hungry again, are you really hungry or are you looking to obtain that satisfied feeling again? I don't even know if I'm making sense to anyone, but I get what you're saying and I'm trying to explain that with the band, there needs to be some change in mindset as to how much we need to actually eat as opposed to how much we want to eat. Please feel free to PM me if I'm not making sense (I feel like I'm not! lol) but I struggled with this too and changing my mindset helped me cope with it heaps.

Most days I know I'm thin now. I have stopped picking up the bigger sizes of clothes when I go shopping only to find them swimming on me when I get to the fitting room. I can usually tell now just buy looking at something if it's going to fit. But even at the size I am now (a US size 2 - 4), I have days when I feel like the fat girl in the room. But those days are getting fewer and fewer. I remember refusing to go shopping in Singapore a month ago because I was absolutely convinced nothing would fit, because from previous experience, nothing ever did, and the humiliation of it stayed with me. It took me ages to feel comfortable in a swimsuit because all I saw were the lumps and bumps, and not what other people saw. But Mimi is right in that what really worked for me is seeing myself in pictures. I used to have 2 photos in FB prior to my weight loss and in the last year, that's swelled to over 500. It's helped me train my mind as to how I REALLY look as opposed to how I think I look. I guess the mindset that we carried for so many years will just take time to shift.

She's entitled to her opinion, and that's all it is - an opinion. The proof is in the pudding as far as I'm concerned, so the opinions of people like her mean absolute jack to me.