Award

Bunny at http://www.weight-loss-expedition.blogspot.com/ sent me this award. Yay, I've never had a blog award before, and I know I don't have a big readership compared to most people in bandster blog-land. According to the rules I have to:

• Thank the person who nominated you for this award (thank you!)
• Copy the award and post it in your blog (done)
• Link to the blog of the person who nominated you (done)
• Tell seven interesting things about yourself
• Nominate seven bloggers
• Post links to the blogs of your nominees

Seven things about me. . . that could be difficult - will have to wait till another post.

Seven bloggers? Most of the banding blogs I read have already got this award, but I'll nominate

one, a new blogger, Julie, in Northern Ireland, http://julie-and-sammy.blogspot.com/ Julie is just back from Belgium with Sammy her band.

And although it is not a blog, I will also nominate WLS Info Forums (http://www.wlsinfo.org.uk/) as a wonderful place in Bandland for support and information, 24/7 (I guess it is similar to the US based Lapband Talk forum (though it covers all types of WLS)

Small defill

I swore after my last fill that I wasn't going to mess with my restriction again for at least six weeks . . .but I did.

I was too tight - and although I like my band on the tight side, it is not going to work to have it where all I can do is drink coffee and eat chocolate! I've been waiting for it to loosen up, but when it didn't I was getting desperate.

And, interesting, you do not lose weight when your band is too tight. Or I don't. I just end up in starvation mode, living on coffee, chocolate and crisps, with no energy to exercise. And it doesn't take a degree in dietetics to work out that that is not a healthy nor sustainable diet.

I had an appointment on Friday to discuss plastic surgery, and en route to London stopped off for lunch with dh. I could only manage to drink half a cup of (thin) soup without pbing. Enough, I decided, is enough. I texted my fill provider since they had a clinic in London to see if they could fit me in, but they said they were full. Plan B was to turn up and plead desperation and sit there and wait (the doctor is only in London every other week, and wouldn't be there again till March 11).

Plan B worked, and I had 0.25mil out. I've never had such a small adjustment and it will be interesting to see if this solves the problem of my having 0.5mils in, then 0.5mils out; rinse and repeat several times (I hate to think what I've spent on that one half mil. . . .)

Picutres

I've never posted personal pics here, not cos I don't want y'all to see what I look like, but cos I don't want certain people from real life reading this and giving me a load of cr*p - and sadly, yes, I do know people who would do that if they recognised me.

But, having been inspired by some amazing before and after pics from fellow bandsters, I'm going to post anonymised pics. Apologies for not showing my real self, but not everyone I know in real life is as kind, accepting or decent as the bandster community.

Stand by for pics. . .!

Breakfast

My new breakfast food. I've never been very good at having breakfast, esp when my band is tight, but have been making and effort to eat yoghurt since it is supposed to be good for my metabolism to eat in the mornings. Not sure that it will do much to my weight, which has been stubbornly plateaued at 9-11 (137 pounds) for some time.

But to be fair last week was a holiday and I didn't go to the gym at all (waiting on the all clear from my GP) and I did eat more chocolate than I should. . . so what do I expect. Note to self, must try harder.

Wrong link

Oops, the link to Bunny's blog in my penultimate post is wrong, it should be www.weightloss-expedition.blogspot.com

Tight band

Talking of capricious bands, mine has been ok since my last fill, but this morning is very tight. I woke up hungry and wanted something filling, so tried to have some home made (fairly well blended) soup. Nope. It is not going down.


To be fair, I guess, my band is always tighter in the morning and maybe that was a daft thing to try to have for breakfast (I normally only have coffee). So I have given up on the soup and am about to have coffee.

I'm not normally hungry in the mornings, I have most of my calories between 4pm and 10pm most days, so maybe my band likes to keep it that way. Do most bandsters eat breakfast?

Sometimes bands don't work

Catherine over at http://www.chroniclesfrombandland.blogspot.com/ was talking about why the statistics for bandster weight loss are so low

Q: Why do the statistics say that people lose only 50-65% of their excess weight with the band when everyone I know seems to be taking off all of it?



A: That statistic is an average, and it factors in the people who don't lose any weight because they do things like not get a fill or drink milkshakes every day. (Meanwhile, I wish that there was a statistic based on people who actually work their band -- I bet it's closer to 85-90%.)

Her gastric surgeon had some answers. But I do wonder if there are people for whom bands just don't seem to work. I have been banded 2+ yrs and have followed a few blogs where people lose 20 or 30 pounds, and then nothing. They stop blogging, and I never know what happens to them.

Bunny at http://www.weightloss-expedition.blogspot.com/ is someone who has struggled with a broken band, *14* fills or unfills, and yet, three years out is finding it hard to make much progress on her weight loss.

Beki at http://bekisgastricband.blogspot.com/ is someone I followed early on and who was influential in my decision to go to Belgium, but she hasn't moved much since her last post (she's on a forum I'm on and has had regain)

Melondrama is another bandster who seems to have stopped half way: www.melondramas.blogspot.com

And I have another blogger friend who has not lost more than 20 pounds since beeing banded in october 2007 - but her blog is private so I can't link to it.

I realise that people might stop blogging and still have sucess with their bands, but there are a scarily high number of bandsters on http://www.wlsinfo.org.uk/forums/index.php who are really struggling or going for revision to gastric bypass.

What makes the band sucessful for some people, while others struggle? I don't know the answer to that, but I realise that for everyone who does lose most of their excess weight with a band there are others who don't. Which may be why the overall statistics are as low as they are.

One problem which seems to hit the non-losing bandsters (I am trying not to use the word sucessful, since that implies some people have failed, while in reality it may be that the band has failed them, or that it simply wasn't the right thing for them in the first place, or that their "head issues" are too great for a band to work) is that they (and there are a lot of people with this problem on WLSInfo) are either so tight they can barely eat or even drink coffee some days, yet other days they can eat for England without restriction.

Other people don't tolerate restriction; in the sense that they can't accept the limitations a band places on eating.

I guess some people make bad food choices - ultimately, if you can swallow liquids, you can gain weight if you have high calories drinks (or alcohol) too often.

And some people have been plain unlucky and had band slippage, erosion or leaks.

Even with a working band, it is always going to be hard work to maintain my weight loss. I am scared that a year or two down the road I might be in the "no longer losing" category.

Would be interested in anyone's thoughts on this.. . .

Edited to add more links; and to give Catherine's surgeon his correct title.

Slow going

I am not losing weight very fast - sigh. Down to 9 stone 11 and kind of stuck there. I have been snacking on high calorie foods in the evenings, which alas, will go through my band no matter how tight it is, and have stayed stubbornly at the same weight for a week.

Need to try harder.

But I am feeling reasonably positive and hope to shift the scales this week. At least I'm not going upwards :-)

I guess I will always have to battle with my weight - if I blink I'll be back up to 15+ stone !

Sending hugs to the bandsters who are facing possible cancer diagnoses, hope your fears are blown away and that everything is benign.

Major NSV

Well, it was for me. I woke up today feeling miles better, and I wonder if I do need to go to see this surgeon at all, maybe the antibiotics did the trick. .

So I carried on with day two of week three of C25K. And I did it. I managed to run 3 minutes without stopping. I could breath!

I don't think I've done that since I was a pre-teen. Even when I've been on the thinner side of fat, I've never been great with cardio-vascular exercise. 30 yrs since I last comfortably ran like that.

Maybe there is hope for this couch potato yet.!

Official: Exercise if bad for you

Grin, well, bad for me. After the gym last night I was feeling very rough, and by this morning had to make an emergency GP appointment and I have been referred to a gynaecologist for a possible bladder prolapse. Or it could be an aggressive UTI. .

Hope that is not TMI!

The doctor did said it was probably waiting to happen and had not been exactly brought on my running. I am glad I am not obese, since being overweight is one of the things that make this worse.

And I'm glad to have an excuse not to get back to running for a while, but we will see how I get on with the consultant. I haven't seen him since. . for five years. Grin. I hope he doesn't recognise me :-)

This is not my photo :-) Made it to the gym, and struggled through day 1 of week 3 of C25k. I was not having a very good Monday and (don't ask) (I had changed before going out, then got sidetracked thinking I'd packed my bag but hadn't) got to the gym and discovered I had forgotten to pack my bra. I am too self conscious to exercise without it, (it would be dangerous) so I all but packed up and went home.

But instead I rang home and one of the children popped into the gym a few minutes later with one for me.

I was tired working out and glad to finish a fairly brief routine. I have back exercises (you do them on the floor) that I had meant to do, but I was too tired, so I'll do them before bed.

(They are from the Egoscue method, and I've found them quite effective before; when I was heavier. But I do need to do them)

(http://www.bodybalancefunction.co.uk/media/Cycling%20weekly%20September.ex.pdf)

But the cheerful news is that I was 9-13 (or 139lbs) today, so I was happy with that.

Got to keep chipping away.

In case anyone hasn't seen Catherine's blog, she is soooo near goal - I am so excited for her http://chroniclesfrombandland.blogspot.com/)

Monday

This is how I feel. Mondays are never a good day. Work work work housework, work, I'm tired and I need carbohydrates. Or coffee. Or something. Ok I'm a wuss. I have had a horrible bitty sort of day not doing anything properly, and half the time getting nothing done, while getting further behind all the time in the things I am meant to do.



Off to the gym shortly - can't believe I am on week three of the c25k program. Not sure that I'll get past it (and week four looks positively terrifiying) but I suppose I can try. . . The scales at the gym are working again so I get to weigh in tonight and print a little ticket with my weight.