Hi All, Somebody told me that bandsters that exercise are the exception rather than the rule. I was just wondering how many times per week people exercise? Other thoughts regarding frequency for maximum results would also be good. Susannah

I workout for an hour a day 5 days I try to do more and sometimes I do, but when I don't workout at all because life got in the way, i feel guilty like i let someone down or something.

Morning Everyone!

Wow - since I'm newly banded I am still amazed at people's success, but your before and after photos are beyond amazing. Congratulations! You look fantastic. I know you have been working really hard to get that kind of muscle tone. Very encouraging. Thank you!

You can do this too! I started by walking. I was a 3 - 4 day a week gym goer before banding, so it was easy to stick to that schedule. Just commit to doing something every day. Right after you are banded you should follow your doc's orders regarding activity - he knows your specific situation better than we do. If you have questions about your level of activity, by all means call or email or visit the doc.

I workout for an hour a day 5 days I try to do more and sometimes I do, but when I don't workout at all because life got in the way, i feel guilty like i let someone down or something.

I completely understand and sympathize with that feeling! When I don't do my walk - now my "wog" (walk/jog) - I feel badly. I know I'm letting MYSELF down if I don't get in my activity, and I feel it in the form of decreased energy and sharpness.

Don't be too hard on yourself, though - we've all been 'beat up' enough! Just make the effort to get back on track as soon as you can. For instance - yesterday, I overslept and missed my morning "wog"...it was raining when I arrived at work, so no walk from the train station to my office. It was dry at lunch, so I did walk then, and walked to the train station in the evening. When I got home, I immediately changed clothes, grabbed DDog, and did my "wog". I even ran further yesterday than the day / week before, and while I was tired, I felt great because I buckled down and did it.:juggle:

Hang in there - it's a process, and we all have our ups and downs.

Just wondering how long it might take to see some weight loss results when you exercise. I exercising religiously every day for an hour, but nothing yet (still early).

thanks

I am a slow loser. But I just keep plugging away...For me my body needs time to adjust to something before it clues in that this is the way it is going to be.

I havent really been doing anything different in the past 3 months then I have since surgery...but my body is just now realizing it can get rid of some of that excess fat...and it is dropping off without anything too major or different on my part.

When I started working out my body wanted to hold on to every lb. It just got moved arround to look better and feel better.

That is just my 2 cents

It depends what I do.

Early on, I lost weight steadily, but I would attribute it more to being banded and eating less, because in reality I was running 3kms every second day which is hardly an amount of exercise that will cause weight to fall from your body like magic!

So I saw weight loss right away, I'm sure it helped, but how long before I looked at my body and saw a fit, toned body? At least a year, and a good 2 before I really had changed, and looked really fit. The reason being, you just dont see your muscles till you lose all the fat! You'll never see a sixpack stomach with a body fat percentage of 25 and above. You'll probably first see it on your arms, and many apple shaped women have GREAT legs. Not me, sadly, lol, although my legs are nice and toned now, I am pear shaped and always will be. Oh well, I have great arms and shoulders!

Nowadays - I've been running 3 and a half years, I do have a good, muscular tone and visible stomach muscles - not a sixpack but visible tone to it.

For me, daily long, steady runs of 8kms or so work well. I can trim down and get rid of a pound or two quite quickly with intense interval training, but it never stays away as I dont tend to keep up the really intense stuff.

Morning, everyone! :hurray:

Just wondering how long it might take to see some weight loss results when you exercise. I exercising religiously every day for an hour, but nothing yet (still early).

thanks

Melliecat - I would track both your exercise and your calorie intake. If you are not eating enough and exercising HARD (which it sounds like you are) you could be unwittingly putting your body into 'starvation mode' and it's hanging on to everything for dear life. Exercising every day for an hour sounds like a lot - consider taking a day off every 2 or 3 days. I do walk everyday, but I didn't in the beginning. I started with 15 -20 min 4 days a week and worked up to where I am now.

I am a slow loser. But I just keep plugging away...For me my body needs time to adjust to something before it clues in that this is the way it is going to be.

Isn't it funny how our bodies seem to think "Ok, she's going to stop doing this any time now, just like before" and then when we don't stop, it's like "Guess we better adapt to this, she's not gonna stop"...

I havent really been doing anything different in the past 3 months then I have since surgery...but my body is just now realizing it can get rid of some of that excess fat...and it is dropping off without anything too major or different on my part.

I have similar things going on - my weight hasn't changed much for nearly 2 weeks (couple of pounds down) but my clothing size dropped recently.

When I started working out my body wanted to hold on to every lb. It just got moved arround to look better and feel better.

That is just my 2 cents

I agree - my losses are mostly showing where I want them to, and things are definately shifting around.

It depends what I do.

Early on, I lost weight steadily, but I would attribute it more to being banded and eating less, because in reality I was running 3kms every second day which is hardly an amount of exercise that will cause weight to fall from your body like magic!

I agree with you, Jachut - initially, I didn't lose a lot, then it became pretty steady, and now I seem to drop a few, hold for a while, then drop some more. I've passed the 50% mark, so I know things are going to change again...

So I saw weight loss right away, I'm sure it helped, but how long before I looked at my body and saw a fit, toned body? At least a year, and a good 2 before I really had changed, and looked really fit. The reason being, you just dont see your muscles till you lose all the fat!

Again, I agree - I know my stomach is getting flatter (my clothes tell me that) and other things are shifting, but fit and toned is NOT where I am just yet...

You'll never see a sixpack stomach with a body fat percentage of 25 and above. You'll probably first see it on your arms, and many apple shaped women have GREAT legs.

That's kinda where I am - my legs aren't bad (calves are dropping size, thighs getting tighter) but my abs still need a LOT of work, and I know I'm going to need more time to thin out my overall midsection...

Not me, sadly, lol, although my legs are nice and toned now, I am pear shaped and always will be. Oh well, I have great arms and shoulders!

Nowadays - I've been running 3 and a half years, I do have a good, muscular tone and visible stomach muscles - not a sixpack but visible tone to it.

Jachut - do you attribute your visible stomach muscles to all the running you do? I'm hoping now that I've started, I'll see some additional movement in that area...

For me, daily long, steady runs of 8kms or so work well. I can trim down and get rid of a pound or two quite quickly with intense interval training, but it never stays away as I dont tend to keep up the really intense stuff.

I can't yet wrap my head around running 8kms at ONE TIME! I'm just getting in shape to run my first-ever 5k in September...I can tell that the running is changing things for me, though - my legs are getting tighter.

I felt I needed to kick it up a notch after 6 steady months of walking 6 - 7 days a week - I started the couch-to-5k (3 days a week) and now I'm adding a fourth day on the weekend to help build my stamina and strength. The first 55 pounds I lost via walking and the band, I'm hoping running will help get the next 55 off!

I'm quite amazed by how running has changed my body!

I dont do much in the way of strength training, I do a few pushups and dips and planks a few times a week and that's it. I dont have the time, and I like a good hard circuit training session but in the time I have, I have to choose between running of strength training and my body tells me that its running that does the most for my weight.

I know all the theory on strenght training, I just dont find I need to go past running to get the body I want.

My core is very strong, I can do very hard stomach tricks, like holding a plank (you know, where you get in pushup position only on your elbows) for a good 5 minutes. I have also noticed that i can do things like sneeze 15 times and not wet myself, lol, AND i can jump on a trampoline and not make a puddle. I'm 42 and have had 3 big babies, so this is a really good sign that my core and pelvic floor are in good shape, and again, running is what I do and I was *not* in that kind of shape pre weight loss, so you do the math.

I run a straight run for an hour then 30 minutes I walk and jog up hill 4-6 days a week. My problem is that I'm stuck in a plateau and it's making me crazy. I go up I go down, I'm circling waiting for clearance to land lol. I just don't know if I should continue and just keep praying that one day I broke the pattern.

I also have a problem with my lower inside calf area being so sore, I don't know what or why. I have been told it's the muscle using the fat, building def, and bone density. All I know is that it hurts from the time I'm done running on the treadmill until I go to bed at night. When I wake up in the morning I feel fine then a little sore during the run, but by the time I'm almost done with the run I feel fine then it turns sore.

Muscle using fat causing pain? Um, I hope to goodness this didnt come from a medical source! A muscle doesnt "use fat" in that sense, your body breaks fat down and distributes the energy via your bloodstream, so the idea of getting pain in a certain region due to the muscle using fat is rubbish.

Firstly, you're doing a LOT of ambulatory exercise on your feet. You might have a niggling injury that you need to rest - you could try something like spinning or swimming etc for a while, just not quite so much repetitive motion of running and walking. Your body does need rest and particularly when you're overweight, running is HARD on the body, it might be better to space it out with other cross training activities if you're having problems.

Also, how's your shoes? Are they old or worn? Have you had your feet properly assessed and do you KNOW for sure you have a shoe that suits your foot's anatomy and needs? You may be rolling in, or rolling out, a motion that needs correcting or it can cause pain. You may even need an orthotic. I'd see a physio or podiatrist about this.

I've had tremendous results from acupuncture from these kinds of inuries and chronic problems.

It gets sore after your run becuase you cool down. Once you warm up, you can run through some pretty significant pains and injuries and not even realise it.

My shoes are new about a month old. I was measured and everything. The shoes that I replaced were to small but I ran intervels in them all the time and never had pain like this, so maybe it's the shoes, but they are suppose to be the best running shoes...new balance 1063.

They just keep telling me it's the muscle toning and changing.

On the other hand I love how my stomach is starting to look from all this running.

Sometimes new shoes can take a while to adjust too, particularly a different shoe to your last one.

If you're in a lot of pain though, dont discount that whether you're measured or not, sometimes you can make an expensive and annoying mistake and simply buy the wrong shoes for your foot. I've done this before and I got my money back.

Stretching always helps but its a very hard area to stretch! Massage, particularly stuff like rolling a golf ball round on the area, may hurt a LOT but really loosens things up and gets the good blood flow in there. Ice it after exercise if you need to.

Also, dont ignore your hips, buttocks and back muscles. Tight hip muscles can cause all sorts of foot and knee problems. Stretching out your hip and buttock area is good practice that you should be dedicated too. I've been a VERY lucky runner, I have the most trouble free knees. Knee problems can sideline runners for months so when I started having very mild ITB issues (outside of knee) I was worried. But focussing on core strength and stretching religiously helped me enormously.

It doesnt sound like anything too serious, more annoying?

Edited August 19, 200916 yr by Jachut

Thank for all of the advise about my annoying pain problems.

Can anyone help me with the annoying plateau problem. I want to know if I keep going something will just finally give because I'm tired of waiting for "clearance to land", and I would really like to land in an area that I was once in before my port started leaking and I gained back 10 pounds, and had replacement surgery. I just want off the plateau marry-go-round. Some inches are changing but the weight is in the crapper. Yeah it's a mood.

Thank for all of the advise about my annoying pain problems.

Can anyone help me with the annoying plateau problem. I want to know if I keep going something will just finally give because I'm tired of waiting for "clearance to land", and I would really like to land in an area that I was once in before my port started leaking and I gained back 10 pounds, and had replacement surgery. I just want off the plateau marry-go-round. Some inches are changing but the weight is in the crapper. Yeah it's a mood.

Hi Confused,

The plateau may take a while to resolve - not what you wanted to hear, I know, but it may be the real deal. Since you just had surgery, your body is stressed. Consistency is what's important - just keep doing the right things, eating right, exercising, and getting plenty of rest, and your body will catch up.

I used to do the 'Body for Life' workout plan - involves weights and cardio, and is part of a contest every year. The routine runs 12 weeks, and I always saw messages from women doing the routing that it took 6 - 8 weeks for them to see changes. I used to experience the same thing - 6 - 8 weeks into a new workout routine, I'd start seeing big changes - sometimes every day there would be something different.

Try logging all of your exercise, food and fluid - it may give you some insight as to where things might need adjusting. Switching up your workout, as Jachut said (swimming or spinning) might give your body the "shock" it needs to jump-start your losses again.

When they did your port replacement, did they verify that you had the same amount of fill in your band before and after the surgery? Maybe you lost some fluid due to the leaking port? Just a thought...

Hang in there - you'll start losing again.

I feel sooo bad reading everyones posts about exercise , i was banded June 2008 and so far have only lost 53 pounds. my diet is perfect i follow it to the "T" but i must admit i do not exercise,will i never lose the rest of the weight if i dont exercise? I have no energy most of the time or i guess i just dont like exercise anyways i feel like i am half ass doing this an i am mad at my self but i dont know how to even make myself work out, any tips from you guys would be great! i cant jog because i have a bad knee but any advise to get me motivated would be greatly appreciated! thanks all!

I feel sooo bad reading everyones posts about exercise , i was banded June 2008 and so far have only lost 53 pounds. my diet is perfect i follow it to the "T" but i must admit i do not exercise,will i never lose the rest of the weight if i dont exercise? I have no energy most of the time or i guess i just dont like exercise anyways i feel like i am half ass doing this an i am mad at my self but i dont know how to even make myself work out, any tips from you guys would be great! i cant jog because i have a bad knee but any advise to get me motivated would be greatly appreciated! thanks all!

You can always start out just walking on the treadmill or outside. I started out going to curves for a year, then I felt I need more, so I joined another gym (I call that one a real gym), and was there a year. I then got tired of the drive I had to do plus life was starting to get in the way. So my husband bought us a treadmill and elliptical. I switch off, but I really like jogging/running on the treadmill, that's when I decided that I want to run marathons one day. So you just need to find something that you like doing; dancing, swimming, walking. It's all up to you. Good job though on loosing so much with just diet alone, that's a accomplishment to be proud of. Don't be so hard on yourself.