I am going away for a week

I will be off on work-related business to Scotland this morning and I will be back on Saturday. There is a Internet-connected computer at the centre I will be staying at, but it's usually in constant use, so I don't know if I will be able to post on the blog until next Saturday evening. The other thing is, the pc is in a public bar - and I don't want to risk there being people looking over my shoulder while I'm writing!!!!

So, in the event that I don't get to post again before Saturday, I wish you all a good week and will be back in touch again soon.

Theresa

More on meal ideas

I was looking through the list of meal ideas (see yesterday's post) and observed that most of the meals people suggested are smaller than mine!! Take a typical lunch, for example - I commonly have crispbreads (two), Philadelphia or cottage cheese AND tuna, AND a decent sized portion of mixed salad. Now compare that with some of the other lunches suggested - half a jacket potato, the chicken fillet (only) out of a McD, two yoghurts, Slimfast shake and yoghurt, a small bowl of soup..... The same is true for evening meals - mine seem to be bigger than other people's. Having said that, on a 'good' day, despite my relatively large meals, I am able to keep the calorie count down to about 1000/day. This is partly because I choose my food carefully and include things that are low in calories. I also exclude high calorie items such as butter (I only ever use Flora Light and even that is rare), oil, cheese, milk etc. I also have the advantage that I gave up using sugar and milk in my tea and coffee years ago - I have them both black so there are no extra calories there. I noted that one person allowed about 20 calories a day just for tea and coffee. I'm also a fish-eating vegetarian so don't have to worry about eating meat - and fish is generally lower in calories than meat.

Nevertheless, I am intruiged by the fact that my meals seem to be bigger in size than other people's. I can only assume that this is confirmation of the fact that I need another fill. Since my last one, about six weeks ago, I have noticed a definite trend: Immediately after that fill I was hungry a lot and struggled, but after a couple of weeks I was experiencing real restriction for the very first time. That lasted 'on and off' for about two weeks, and then the last two weeks I have just been struggling all the time with hunger - even only a short time after eating a meal.

I did think that I would try some of the meals suggested, but I think I am going to have to wait until after my fill as I know with many of them, I'd just be ravenous within minutes. I just take my hat off to the people who are eating these meals and doing really well with their band. I hope to join you soon!!!

Meal ideas

A few days ago I posted a thread on the UKGastricBand.co.uk forum asking people to say what they had eaten that day. I asked the question because I find to so difficult to come up with ideas as to what to eat - I have no imagination. I end up eating the same things day in and day out and was seeking ideas. So, here's a compilation of the meal ideas that came back (calories, where stated, in brackets).

Breakfast

Cup of tea and a small bowl of Shreddies Fruitful
Readybrek (109)
1 boiled egg (85)
Coffee and a handful of Yoghurt-coated raisins
Few spoons of cottage cheese
Muller light yoghurt
1 slice of nutty/seedy bread with butter
Farleys rusks
Special K
2 cups of tea
All-Bran with dried berries and soya milk, glass of orange juice (240)
1 cup of tea and 1 cup of coffee
1 Special K bar (90)

Mid morning

1 banana (80)
1 cappuccino with a biscuit

Lunch

3 crackerbreads with Flora Light with tuna and salad cream
Sainsbury's prawn and pasta salad, and fruit salad (chopped melon, strawberries etc) (420)
½ a jacket potato with cheese and bacon
The McDonald's chicken filet out of a 99p chicken burger
About 1/3 of a chicken Caesar salad (350)
Salmon with two new potatoes, spinach and tomatoes
2 Muller Light yoghurts (the new ones)
¾ of a small steak pie
Tablespoon each of beetroot, cucumber, tomato, sweetcorn, couscous, chick peas, celery and nuts in mayo, and a chopped boiled egg
Slimfast shake and and yoghurt (212 + 200)
Moroccan couscous with feta cheese and 1 cherry tomato
Small bowl of home made broccoli soup

Dinner

4 slices of ham and 3 cheese slices
Mash potatoes and mince with vegetables
Small bowl of homemade chicken curry with loads of chopped up veg in it, and no rice
Beetroot, cucumber, tomato, 2 slices of pan fried (no oil) halloumi cheese, 2 crispbreads with low-fat sun-ripened tomato cottage cheese (from Tesco or Asda)
Baked potato (210)
Chilli and rice
1 sausage and a fist-size spoon of mash potato
Breaded mozzarella and a bit of mash
Baby new potatoes, mixed veg (broccoli, cauliflower and butternut squash) and boil-in-the-bag cod in parsley sauce (250)
2 bowls of liver casserole with tatties, carrots and onions in it
One piece of BBQ pork and some beetroot
Butternut squash soup with peanut butter in it

Supper / dessert

Low fat yoghurt, two rice cakes with Philadelphia cheese (170)
Yoghurt
Jelly (80)
Ryvita
½ pint of skim milk sugar free instant whip
Few Cadbury's Snaps
Packet of Wotsits
1 WW toffee sundae
2 custard creams and a cup of tea

Struggling with healthy eating

Over the past three days I have been really struggling to eat healthy food. Partly, this is because despite eating good food at breakfast and lunch, I keep getting hungry. Once I'm hungry - that's it - I seem to succumb immediately to poor food choices. I've eaten a fair bit of chocolate and peanuts, and today ate a prawn mushroom curry take-away. I am so glad that I have another fill booked on 7th May - I cannot wait. It amuses me now that only a week or two ago I was debating whether I needed that fill or not. Now I know, absolutely 100%, that I need that fill - more than anything. I am certain now, that although I have glimpsed restriction from time to time (and when I have done so, it has been great), I do not have anything like the right amount of restriction yet - I have not reached my 'sweet spot'.

On Monday next week I am going away, to Scotland, for a weeks work. I will be staying in an outdoor centre where all of my meals will be provided for me. I have stayed at this centre several times before and the food quality and volume is very variable. Some days they serve up a large volume of basic food and other days the portion sizes would even leave most bandits going hungry! So, I have no real idea how I am going to fare at all next week. As far as possible I will just have to grin and bear it and do the best I an under the circumstances. I will be getting out and about quite a bit and getting plenty of exercise, so even if the food's not great, I will at least be burning off lots of calories.

Once I return, on Saturday 2nd May, I will only have five days to wait before heading off to Birmingham for my fifth fill. I really cannot wait. As I said, I have had glimpses of real restriction from time to time over the last few weeks and I just wish I felt like that all the time! On those occasions, I couldn't eat all of my meals and felt really satisfied in between meals. I only ate about 900 calories on those days and was losing weight at a good rate. Since then my weight loss has more or less come to a halt and it's very frustrating.

Here's hoping for some better success in May!

Playing hide n' seek with a baguette

You may recall that I posted a few days ago about environmental control. After a support group meeting where we discussed this, I raised the topic with my other half when I got home. In particular, I raised the topic of the fresh, white, crusty baguettes that frequently he buys from Tesco. I cannot resist them! They are so lovely, and every time he buys one I simply have to eat a large chunk of it.......

Anyway, today I got home from work feeling hungry and automatically looked in the bread bin - hopeful that I might find a chunk of baguette to munch on. Alas, there was nothing to be found, so I did what I should always do when I feel hungry, I poured myself a glass of water! A little later I looked in the fridge searching for inspiration on what to cook for dinner tonight. I couldn't help noticing a Tesco bag in the bottom of the fridge that wasn't there yesterday. It turned out to be some new sausages and pork steaks. I asked him "have you been to Tesco?". He said that he had. "How come you didn't buy any baguette then?", I asked. I spotted a flicker of a smile cross his face and immediately knew that he had, in fact, bought a baguette. "You've hidden it?" I questioned, and he confirmed that that was indeed the case!

Well, he's a quicker learner than I anticipated!! All this hide n' seek business makes me feel a bit like a naughty child having their sweets hidden from them, but it did actually work - I didn't attempt to search for the hidden loaf and the thought of baguette for snack was fairly quickly erased from my mind.

Having said that, the thing is more than two foot long - where on earth has he hidden it......?

Channel 4: The Hospital

As you may have seen, last night there was a channel four documentary that purported to be about how the rising demand for gastric banding is creating financial difficulties for the NHS. The preview of the programme indicated that the rising demand for gastric banding by teenagers was of particular concern. In practice, only one of the three people that the programme focussed on was a teenager - and she was 19!

There is a lot I could say about the programme,mainly negative, but I will only summarise here. It was largely crass, shallow, supposedly 'entertaining' nonsense. It explained very little to the general populace what gastric banding is really all about and perpetuated the myth that it is a 'quick fix' and an 'easy option'. The attitude of the surgeon at the centre of the programme, Mr Paul Super, was appalling, rude, arrogant and downright unprofessional at times. In one scene, he plucks at the fatty tissue of an anaesthetised patient and makes jokes, to which the theatre team holler with laughter. It was insensitive, bullying and just horrible.

The programme portrayed gastric band patients as stupid, lazy, irresponsible and entirely at fault for their condition. Nothing was said about restriction, band adjustments, aftercare or the months of to-ing and fro-ing while trying to get restriction levels right. It also said very little about the healthy eating and exercise that band patients are expected to live by post-surgery.

In short, the programme was extremely disappointing. I am not entirely surprised at channel four for this, but was appalled that a top surgeon should choose to behave so. I am not alone in this. The UKgastricBand.co.uk forum has been alive today with three separate active threads, filled with irate messages of banded people, at best disappointed, and at worst, depressed and cancelling appointments. Rather than attempt to reproduce that anger and frustration here, I urge you to read these threads yourself (see at the bottom of this message) and make up your own mind. I have added a new poll asking you, if you watched the programme, what did you think of it? Please vote!

Here are the links to the three threads:

1. Feeling very depressed after tonight's channel four documentary http://www.ukgastricband.co.uk/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=2317

2. Channel four 21st April 9pm http://www.ukgastricband.co.uk/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=2311

3. Mr Paul Super (not) and channel four: http://www.ukgastricband.co.uk/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=2324 - this one was started by me!

Fatties cause global warming

...or at least that's how The Sun put it! A study has been conducted by researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. It suggests that 'obese populations' contribute more to global warming than non-obese populations. The argument is that this is because obese people consume more food, and the production of that food generates more carbon dixoide. In addition, obese people are more likely to use a car, emitting further carbon into atmosphere, than non-obese people - who are more likely to walk.

Now, I haven't seen the details of this research, only the reports in The Sun and The Guardian, but the study wasn't conducted - as you might think - by investigating what obese people eat or how they live their lives, it was based on a theoretical model of such. In fact, the model claims to represent 1 billion non-obese people and 1 billion obese people. While I suspect that some of the broader principles hinted at in these media reports hold some truth, I am also a little concerned at the validity of the model. Why? Because most obese people in the world live in developed, westernised nations. These countries, like the UK and the USA, have a very different lifestyle and standard of living than less developed countries where most non-obese people live. The problem with this is that westernised nations may actually 'use' more food, not only because they are eating more, but also because we waste much more. For example, look at how many restaurants we have, and supermarkets, that throw away huge quantities of 'waste' food on a daily basis. And to what extent do we use our cars more because we are obese (and lazy, by implication), or is it simply that car usage fits in more with typical western lifestyles - with the stresses and strains of modern living, getting the kids to school on time so two parents can go to work, and do the Tesco shopping on the way home?

The point I am making, is that although there may be some grain of truth in what the researchers say, I would argue that a significant proportion of food and car usage are not directly down to obesity, but instead, because of the indirect effects of our modern, westernised lifestyles.

Food, food, everywhere!!

As I sit here wondering what to write in my blog today, the TV is on and I cannot avoid seeing what's on. I'm watching 'The Devil Wears Prada' -about a young woman who becomes an assistant to a fashion magazine editor (played by Meryl Streep). One thing that's completely missing from this film, is food. All the people who work for this editor are a size zero (whatever that is) and none of them ever eat! They are all skin and bone and their goal in life is simply to look good (or to conform with the acceopted vision of what is looking 'good').

Then the ads come on and there's Jamie Oliver advertising for Sainsbury and making a delicious-looking couscous, red onion and cherry tomato dish - delicious enough to make my mouth water! On the other channel is Hell's Kitchen - a bunch of celebrities cooking up weird and wonderful courdon bleu dishes. I glance at the TV Guide and see that tomorrow, there will be a programme on called 'The Hospital', and it's about the proliferation of gastric band surgery among teenagers. It seems that wherever I look, someone is talking about food, or avoiding food, or dieting, or cooking it, or eating it!! Food, food everywhere - and not a drop to eat!!

Burning calories sat on my bum.....

I reckon I burned 1500 calories today - and all while I was sat on my posterior! How did I perform this miracle? Motorcycling!! I ride a Honda NT Deauville 700 and today, went on a long and beautiful ride from home to Criccieth on the far west coast of North Wales. I went with a group of biker friends and the total ride-time was about six hours. It was a glorious day, the sun shone and there was just a light breeze. Riding over the moors of central North Wales was nothing but spectacular. There were lots of other people out and about but we managed to find some quiet twisty roads. Riding through Betws-y-Coed, on the other hand, was akin to having disturbed an ants nest - there were thousands of people there!

Anyway, I got home about 5.30 pm this evening having started out at 8.54 am this morning. I was, not to put too fine a point on it, absolutely knackered! I thought that despite being very tired, I ought to 'stir my stumps' and try and get out for a short walk - since I hadn't had any 'proper' exercise today - I had been sat on my bum all day. And then I got to thinking, if I have got no exercise all day, how come I am so tired? My muscles were aching all over, my back, arms and legs felt as though they had had a good workout. So, I returned to my favourite 'calories burned for different activities' website (http://www.nutristrategy.com/activitylist4.htm)....

I was surprised to discover that apparently 'passive' activities such as carpentry, plumbing, cooking and car maintenance all burn between 250 and 350 calories per hour. Even fishing burns more than 200 calories an hour! I decided that I ought to put an estimate on calories burned per hour while motorcycling. While riding the twisty roads, I reckon average calorie burn per hour is probably at the upper end of this range, but easier riding on a motorway, for instance, would be at the lower end. In the end, I decided that 250 per hour would be a reasonable, but conservative estimate on calorie burn for the kind of motorcycling I have been doing today. Having ridden solidly for six hours, this equates to a whopping 1500 calories burned all day! This seems about right, as my body feels as though it has done a long hike or a marathon swim.

This is quite a revelation to me and solves a practical problem. I had been a little concerned about getting back on my bike on a regular basis, since weekend ride-outs mean less time for walking and other 'more active' exercise. But now I don't need to worry, ride-outs mean calories burned - sat on my backside!!!!

Environmental control

I went to another support group meeting at Healthier Weight today and the topic was environmental control. No, this is nothing to do with global warming (!), it's about controlling your personal eating and food environment. There has been a lot of research published looking at people's eating habits and food consumption in relation to the eating environment, particularly food packaging, the nature of eating utensils, supermarket 'offers', stockpiling and the visibility and accessibility of food. This research shows, in a nutshell, that if food is there (wherever 'there' is), and it is visible, you are MUCH more likely to eat it - than if it is not there and/or is invisible.

For example, one study showed that people are most likely to eat the portion size provided - if a small portion is provided, they'll eat it, but if the portion is large - they'll eat that too. People are also more likely to eat a larger portion when large plates and food utensils are used. Supermarkets also influence our eating habits - for instance, if something is on special offer and we buy loads of it, the resulting stockpile in our kitchen is more likely to be eaten (especially if it is visible). One study that was particularly interesting concerned the visibility and accessibility of food. Consider a jar of attractive sweets and chocolates: If the jar is close at hand and transparent (so you could see what was in it), the contents are more likely to be consumed than if the jar was opaque and further away. So, in terms of what this all means for us bandits, we need to make the food in our homes invisible and inaccessible.

There may also be occasions when we can remove ourselves from a source of tempting food. For example, avoid eating out too often and avoid celebrations in the early days of banding. I have had a particular problem with the staff canteen at work - it tempts me with all sorts of unhealthy foods and large portions. So, I have simply avoided going there since being banded, except on a couple of occasions when I took my own lunch to eat. Another weakness of mine is eating late in the evening. I have known for some time that there is a simple solution to this - go to bed!! However, I am not always 'good' enough to go to bed, particularly if I am in the middle of watching something on the box - but none of us are perfect!

Thinking about my own home situation, I consider myself lucky to have a husband who is not particularly interested in sweets and chocolate. He does have a weakness for cream crackers and digestive biscuits - but neither are a temptation to me. The only thing that does tempt me are the freshly cooked, white, French bread baguettes that he frequently brings home from Tesco. It's not so easy to 'hide' these away, partly because of their size and partly because they smell so nice! One lady suggested that I adopt her strategy which is to eat a little of the 'banned' food in question but no more than a little. That way, I will feel as though I have had a treat, but not so much that it would do any harm. I'll try this and see how it goes. Funnily enough, when I got home, hubby had been to Tesco and returned with a wholemeal loaf (he won't normally eat brown bread). Apparently Tesco had sold out of his favourite baguettes! I used this as an excuse to raise the topic with him about environmental control and I think he's agreed to get wholemeal bread occasionally instead of the baguetttes!!

My new friends: Ben and Jerry....

We went to the cinema tonight and saw Marley and Me. Not a bad film, if a bit predictable, but OK if you like dogs! I ate my lunch at about 1.30pm and by 5pm was hungry again. So I ate what I thought of as a light snack - scrambled egg and mushrooms. In practice, this 'light snack' really filled me up so I didn't have any dinner. Determined to right this wrong (!), I decided to treat myself at the cinema. I selected a two scoop Ben and Jerry's ice cream - Berry Berry and Chocolate Fudge Brownie flavours. And it was lovely! I don't feel any guilt at this apparent indiscretion because I had only eaten about 600 calories all day otherwise - so I don't think I have threatened by weight loss progress.

Booked my next fill

After several weeks of prevaricating, I have finally decided to get another fill. It's booked - I'll be acting the pin cushion again on Thursday 7th March at the Birmingham clinic of Healthier Weight. I could have got it done sooner but on 27th April I am going away, to Scotland, for a week on work-related business. I didn't want to get a fill just beforehand as I would have had to somehow manage fluids and mush while away with colleagues. Not only would that have been difficult from a practical perspective, but would also have been rather interesting, shall we say, to try and explain!! So, why another fill? I haven't said too much on here about progress since the last fill because it's so been so variable on a day to day basis. I haven't really sorted out in my mind out whether the last fill 'worked' or not! If I can generalise about my experiences at all, here are the generalisations I would make:

1. Most mornings I have to eat my breakfast carefully and pay particular attention to eating slowly. If I don't, I get lots of burping and gurgling and mild indigestion. I also find that hot drinks go down easier in the morning than cold drinks. I usually drink my tea first and drink the cold orange juice after - otherwise the orange seems to 'stick' somewhat (i.e. it goes down slowly).

2. If any time I completely forget to eat slowly and take small mouthfuls, I get 'slime' (I have previously referred to this as 'saliva-pouring' - but most bandits call it The Slime - sounds like a horror movie!!). I had this quite spectacularly after wolfing a Danish pastry down a week or so ago (probably a good reminder that I shouldn't have been eating such food anyway!) and it was rather unpleasant. I also wolfed some berries down at breakfast yesterday morning and had to sit and wait for five minutes while my oesphagus sorted itself out! I've only had slime twice since my last fill.

3. Occasionally, probably once or twice a week, I get what feels like really good restriction. After eating a meal the size of a 7-inch side plate I feel really full and cannot eat any more - and don't want to eat any more. I feel as though the band should be producing this level of restriction all the time.

4. Most of the time, especially at lunch and evening meals, I can quite easily eat a full side plate of food. I have noticed I can eat slightly larger mouthfuls than I was a couple of months ago and am chewing less than I probably should. But most of the time, that's fine and I suffer no ill-effects. After meals, I can eat a fromage frais or yoghurt and sometimes some fruit too. After lunch, in particular, I often feel hungry again within a couple of hours.

I realise that if now, occasionally (see 3. above), I get good restriction, then having another fill could mean that occasionally I am very tight - or even too tight. In the early days of being a bandit I used to get my knickers in a proverbial twist about this - being too tight, I mean. I used to worry that I wouldn't be able to eat enough or consume enough calories to supply the energy I need to lead a normal life (!). However, I am now experienced enough to know that there are ways around this. For a start, if I was occasionally too tight to eat solids, I could always have a protein shake instead. I have previously made some lovely protein drinks by adding milk, bananas, apples and all sorts to the strawberry powders I get from my provider. Alternately, I could adopt the philosphy of my surgeon - if you're not hungry, don't eat!! Obviously I wouldn't want to be like this all the time. However, if another fill gives me good restriction most of the time and too much restriction occasionally, then I would be very happy with this.

Somebody posted on the UKGstricBand forum that at a fill, their doctor had asked them if they wanted to be comfortable, tight or very tight. I think that most of the time I would describe my current situation as too comfortable, and occasionally as moderately tight. I don't want to be very tight, and never have wanted to be. But too comfortable means I have to put in a lot more effort and willpower than I'd like. After all, if I'd had willpower aplenty I wouldn't have bothered with the band in the first place!

Summits up.....

I went for a walk today - and got home in celebratory mood. The reason? Because my walk was actually a rugged hike up Helvellyn in the English Lake District. For those who are not familiar with this part of the world. Helvellyn is the second highest mountain in England, standing at 950m. The reason for my celebratory mood was because the last time I managed to ascend a mountain of these proportions was about six years ago. Since then, because of my obesity, I have only managed to climb up about 3-400m maximum. More than this has been beyond me. Even climbing up a small hill has previously left me totally breathless, usually with a blinding headache - presumably the effects of lack of oxygen!! Worse than this has been the embarrasment and humiliation I have felt when walking with others. It's just so unbearably awful to be walking with people who are so much fitter than you - you just feel so rubbish, so fat, so slow and such a hindrance.

But today was different. I'm not saying it wasn't an effort, but relatively, I sailed up the mountain - and down again. I did the total walk in a very respectable time and frequently overtook others walking along the same route. This is evidence, not only of the fact that my lighter body requires less effort to move it along, but also of my increasing fitness. I was a little worried about how my knees would behave on the way down - since years of excess weight have weakened them. However, I did not need to be anxious - they were fine and gave me no pain. This is a particularly encouraging sign because it suggests that the damage I have done to them over the 'fat years' may not be permanent. I'm not ready to run a marathon yet (!) but it looks as though there is nothihg stopping me from continuing to work at my fitness levels. Who knows, this time next year I may be tackling bigger mountains! I've always wanted, for example, to have a go at Ben Nevis - the highest mountain in Britain, standing at about 1380m. I have also been inspired by a recent walk that some celebrities did for charity - don't laugh - Mt. Kilimanjaro. Who knows......?!!

Updating labels

I have spent a little time today updating the labels attached to previous posts. I only started using them a couple of months ago so all my early posts are still label-less! However, periodically I go on a label frenzy and edit old post to add labels. I've still a lot more to do but am making steady progress. It means that the list of labels on the right hand side of the main screen can be used to search to find past posts on a wide range of topics. Rather than use a million labels - that would make the exercise a bit pointless - I have used more general labels to indicate a range of topics. So, for example, where I have discussed food, drink, what I ate etc on a particular day, I have attached the label 'Meals' or 'Food'. Or as another example, I have used the label 'Pain' whenever I have spoken about pain, discomfort, skin soreness, aching and the like.

I hope this helps readers navigate around the blog. If you have any suggestions as to how I might improve this site please let me know via a comment. All the best, Theresa.

Offa's Dyke walk

I went for a holiday weekend walk today along a section of the Offa's Dyke trail in north Wales. It was a beautiful day with very warm sunshine and there were loads of people out and about and lots of families out walking. The route followed a well-made path and was generally along a ridge top. There were also some long sections of uphill walking and some steep downhill stretches. There were beautiful views to be had in all directions and it was really enjoyable. I think what made it even more enjoyable for me was that I felt really fit! I stepped out and kept up a pretty fast pace all the way, including on the uphill sections. I actually surprised myself at how fit and healthy I felt. I kept thinking back to pre-surgery times and how a walk like today's would have been really tough - and there's no way on earth I could have kept up the pace I did today.

Back at home now and rested, fed and watered (!), I am conscious that although I have no particular aches in my legs or other muscles, my body as a whole feels, well, sort of empty! A bit drained of energy, I suppose, I guess this is because I am consuming generally less calories. I have attempted to calculate how many calories I have burned today. I went back to the web site I posted about in March (click on the link above to return to my original post) that lists a wide range of activities and their calorie-burning equivalents per hour. This gives a rate of about 520 calories an hour for uphill walking and/or hiking. I did the sums and basically, if you multiply normal steps (i.e. as recorded on a pedometer) by 1.44, you get the equivalent steps if your walking was 'hiking' or uphill. You can then use the equivalent steps figure to determine calories burned - for someone weighing about 200 pounds, one step burns 0.06 calories.

So today, I have walked about 12,500 steps hiking, equivalent to 18,000 normal steps. Multiplying this by 0.06 gives total calories burned of 1080. I will have eaten about 1200 calories by the end of the day, which means that my total effective calorie intake is only 1200-1080 = 120!! Since my basal metabolic rate is about 1650, this means that I have achieved a calorie savings today of about 1530 (1650 - 120) - i.e. nearly half a pound!!! Well, the walk was lovely, but that figure makes it even more enjoyable!

Breakfast disaster

I thought I'd try a slight variation on my breakfast this morning - and it was an unmitigated disaster!!! I thought that if I used yoghurt on my All-Bran instead of milk, it would be more filling, less of a slider food, and stop me from feeling hungry so soon after. So, I put the All-Bran in the bowl, topped it with a low fat yoghurt, and then added some fresh, chopped strawberries on top instead of my usual dried berries. Well, it looked nice......

Unfortunately, ever since I was forced to eat thick, stodgy porridge on a 4-week camping trip to Iceland once, my body has rejected stodgy foods. It does this by heaving and retching - so it's a warning sign that's unmistakable! Well, I got about three spoonfuls of my 'nice' breakfast down and then my body started telling me that it didn't like it..... I started heaving and before long I couldn't even face eating a strawberry! So, I ended up putting it all in the bin. I suppose the 'up' side to this was that I ate very little for breakfast and didn't feel hungry for some hours after - I suppose that means I inadvertently achieved what I set out to achieve when I started this new breakfast thing!

Later in the morning I happened to be in Marks and Spencer and bought myself one of their lovely fresh fruit snacks, mmmm! Ah well, you live and learn. Tomorrow morning? It's All-Bran with MILK and dried berries - as per usual!!

Post-fill restriction update

I can't figure this band out. Since my last fill its behaviour has been variable and unpredictable. Most of the time I feel as though I have some, but limited, restriction. I eat modest portions of food but am looking for food before my next meal time. However, a few times recently I have experienced more definite restriction. A few days ago, for example, I was really full after eating each of my three meals and couldn't manage any additional snacks. This happened two days running. Then yesterday and today, I have been hungry and looking for food all day, but experienced unusual fullness in the evening. Take this evening, for instance, I sat down to eat a very normal meal. It was potato, a vegetable bake and some veggies - all fitting easily on a small side plate and with a total calorie count of about 270. I only got as far as eating about one quarter of it before feeling very full. I hadn't eaten anything before it for at least 5.5 hours. I managed just a little more but have put the rest aside (perhaps to eat for lunch tomorrow?).

I have heard of lots of people who have more restriction in the morning, but only a few who had more in the evening. I remember hearing about one lady who was getting much more restriction in the evening and so decided to 'switch' her lunch and evening meal. She now has her main meal of the day at lunch time, and a smaller 'lunch' type snack in the evening. I am wondering whether I have this too - i.e. more restrition in the evening - though I don't yet have enough evidence to be certain. I guess I will have to monitor the situation for a while longer.

I have been very careful over the last couple of weeks to get the texture of my food right. It is important to avoid slider foods and focus on more crunchy, 'solid' foods. I have been cooking vegetables so that they are quite crunchy and chewy. I've also been doing the same with potatoes, cooking pasta al dente, and eating solid proteins such as chewy salmon and beans. I no longer add gravy to my main meals to avoid them becoming slider foods and try to make my meals with a more dry consistency. So, in this sense, I think I am obeying all the rules as necessary. I haven't yet felt any real restriction in the morning.

I have been thinking about whether I need to get another small fill. I guess my current thinking is that at the moment, most of the time I don't have enough restriction, but I do have the right amount on a rare occasions. If I get another small fill, this should mean that on rare occasions I have too much restriction, and get the right amount of restriction most of the time. I think I could cope with this. Having too much restriction on rare occasions could be overcome by using protein shakes instead of food. I've read about quite a few people who regularly don't eat breakfast because of restriction, but have a protein shake or other drinks instead. In fact, the handbook given me by my provider says exactly this: "People often say that their band feels more restricted in the morning" and "Many people don't feel like breakfast...... The general rule is that if you don't feel like eating, don't bother". Now, it may be that in my case, it is not breakfast that is the problem, but evening meal - but I can cope with that in exactly thre same way.

For now, I think I need to monitor the situation for a while longer and see what happens before making a decision about my next fill.

Life 'on hold' for 15 years

In Khaliah Ali's book (see earlier post), she talks about how she sometimes felt her life was on hold while she was overweight. That really struck home for me. For about fifteen years there have been numerous occasions when I have promised myself that I would do x, or y, "when I lose weight". It was as though losing weight was an inevitability - something that was just around the corner - it was just a matter of actually getting off the starting blocks. Of course, that corner was a long one that went on forever. The reality was that, that time, "when I lose weight" just never came. I think that perhaps the eventual realisation that it was never going to come was what finally convinced me to opt for gastric surgery.

I had a wardrobe full of clothes that I was going to wear "when I lost weight". Clothes that wouldn't even fit when I bought them, but that I was convinced I would be able to wear in a week or two, or a month or three! There have been so many things that I wanted to do too, "when I lost weight". I wanted to walk The Pennine Way, there were mountains I wanted to climb, I wanted to take up running again and get serious about playing badminton. I wanted to go walking with others and be able to keep up and I wanted NOT to hold my husband back when we went for walks together. I have been doing this for years, constantly asking him to slow down because I was so out of breath and unable to keep up the pace. Now he is getting older (he's quite a bit older than me) and I fear I have robbed him of those years together when we could have done more adventurous things but couldn't because of my lack of fitness.

It's a weird feeling when part of your brain lives in reality and part of it lives in some fantasy land. The reality-conscious brain knew I wasn't going to lose weight (i.e. permanently) and got totally and utterly depressed. The fantasy-land brain was always hopeful, perhaps even in denial, and did all the silly stuff of buying smaller clothes that wouldn't fit etc. There was even a sense of it being OK when I ate tonnes of chocolate - because I would lose the weight tomorrow. Fat chance.

I guess being a bandit means that I am no longer in denial - and that's a step forward I suppose. I am still very hopeful that I will lose all the weight that I want to and eventually reach my target weight. I am gradually becoming accustomed to the idea that I won't necessarily like the way my body looks when I get there but I will at least have no excuse for not getting fit and staying healthy any more. I am hopeful, at last, that I no longer have to live in that fantasy-land, that my age-old fantasy might actually become reality after all. I have lost 5.5 stones (78 pounds) but stilll have about 4 stones (56 pounds) to go. My target is still such a long way off but I am no longer going to live for tomorrow - I'm living for today.

Today's eating and activity

I thought it might be helpful to relate what I ate today - a typical working day (calories in brackets).

Breakfast: All Bran (40g) with soya milk and dried berries, 100ml orange juice (245).

Lunch: Salmon (100g), potatoes (100g), spinach and green beans (as per last night's dinner) (271).

Afternoon snack: Ribena, small banana and low fat fromage frais and a few mints (175).

Dinner: Wholewheat pasta (25g), cod in parsley sauce (boil-in-the-bag), butternut squash and leeks (241).

Dessert: Handful of red grapes and low fat fromage frais (125).

Total calories = 1057

Oddly enough, I was hungry for much of the day, until I ate the grapes and fromage frais this evening - which really filled me up!

I didn't do much walking at work today but did some stepping when I got home. Here's my total calories burnt and calorie 'savings' for the day:

Calories in = 1057
Calories burned = 690
Balance = 367
Total steps = 11,500
Basal metabolic rate = 1660
Calorie savings = 1660 - 367 = 1293

This is equivalent to about one third of a pound, so if I 'saved' this many calories every day I would lose about 2.5 pounds a week.

A wardrobe overhaul

I spent a little time today sorting out my wardrobe. I now have two large piles of clothes, one for chucking in the bin, and the other for presenting to a charity shop. Honestly, some of the clothes I will be giving away have never been worn and still bear the original labels! So why did I buy them in the first place? Well, mainly out of desperation. When you are a size 24, going on 26, there isn't a great deal of choice in the shops. It takes a mountainous effort just to find something that fits, so I haven't had the luxury for about ten years of being able to buy clothes that I actually liked. The result is, that I would buy stuff - because it fit - then get it home and decide that I simply wouldn't, or couldn't, be seen dead in it, even if this meant continuing to wear my old, worn out clothes.

I also found quite a few items of clothing that I had never worn because they were too small..... I used to have a habit of buying things that nearly fit - in the hope that when I lost weight I would be able to wear them. In reality, I never did lose the weight - and they never got worn. Of course I have lost a lot of weight recently but so rapidly that I passed the point of being able to wear these clothes before I realised they were there!

I must confess that I baulked a little at getting rid of so many 'large' clothes. I haven't kept anything, except one pair of my largest trousers - so that when I'm thin I can have a laugh about how big I used to be.... In the back of my mind all the time though, I was thinking, what if I gain weight and need these clothes again? What if the band doesn't work and I go back to being a size 26? But you know what? I am done with that life - that's the old me and I don't want her back, ever. Period. Goodbye and good riddance.

I'm no sinner.....

My husband said he heard a song on the radio today that went something like this: "I'm no saint, I'm no sinner, it's all cool, if I get thinner". As well as fitting in well with the title of yesterday's blog post, I also thought it sounded like an excellent anthem for all bandits!!

I haven't been quite as much of a glutton as yesterday but have still eaten some 'forbidden fruits' today. This afternoon I ate a Danish pastry - and paid for it. I was enjoying it so much that I forgot my good habits and ate it too fast. Soon, I was experiencing the familiar feeling of indigestion and an intense burning in my upper chest (good job it didn't happen on the first aid course I had just finished or I might have had some well-meaning first aiders thinking I was having a heart attack!!). This then developed into the build-up of saliva in my mouth and I was back to some fairly serious 'saliva-pouring' that went on for ages.

I have never read anything about this phenomenon but I imagine it is the body's way of helping the blocked food to get down. By producing excessive amounts of saliva, it helps the food to turn to mush and go through the stoma into the stomach. However, until the blocked food starts moving, the excess saliva has only one way to go - and that is up! It seemed to go on for about 20 minutes - I think the longest period I have experienced this - and it left me feeling knackered!

Anyway, I have decided I am not a complete waste of space - I'm going swimming this evening and expect to burn off quite a few calories, including that darned Danish pastry!!!

I'm no saint

Right now I am feeling incredibly sick. Is this the effects of over-doing the exercise regime? Or is it an adverse reaction to too much healthy food? Answer - neither. It's because I have engaged, this evening, in a systematic binge, through two iced buns, a packet of Maltesers, a Twirl, a packet of chocolate buttons and two large glasses of Diet Coke. Proof that my fat gene is still very much alive and kicking. Why the self-sabotage? Who knows! The day I manage to understand the why's and wherefore's of my emotional psyche, the day I will deserve a Nobel Prize! I have a period (sorry guys!) and have generally been feeling a bit 'down' and tired all day. I have no idea whether this is related to the binge-behaviour or if it's just coincidence. I noticed that despite having a lunch that was identical to the evening meal I had yestersday (and that filled me up), I was still hungry all afternoon. I was hungry when I got home from work and had some soup but was still hungry and then ate a cheese toastie (really the the start of my binge evening).

Having thought only yesterday that maybe I have the right amount of restriction at long last - now I am wondering whether that is, indeed the case!! Who knows with this band - it seems to have a mind of its own. Having said that, the band is infinitely more reliable than my brain. Now I am off to bed to sleep off my huge, fat, stuffed stomach. Hopefully I've not done any lasting damage - and tomorrow's a new day.

Portion sizes

I have been working really hard at getting my portion sizes right - but I rarely get it right. Take the other day. I was preparing my evening meal and I took on a new determination to get my portion size right. So, first to the veg. I cut off a couple of cauliflower stalks, then thought, that doesn't look much so I'll add another one. Then I stopped myself, and said no, even though it looks like very little food, I am not going to have the third piece. I also cut off and chopped up what seemed to be a tiny piece of butternut squash. Then to pasta. Previously I have weighed out about 35 to 40g but this has always been too much. Determined to get my portion size right this time, I weighed out just 30g instead. Proud of myself up to this point, I turned to the main protein element of my meal, scallops. I don't have these very often because they're so expensive, but they are high in protein and low in fat so ideal for bandits. There were five left in the pack. I think if there had been twenty in the pack I would probably have selected four - but since there were only five, I didn't want to leave one on its own (it might get lonely!!) - so I had five.......

Anyway, I cooked it all - then came the acid test - to put it on my 7-inch side plate and see whether I had got the volume right for the first time. Well, basically, no, I hadn't. First of all, it wouldn't all fit on the plate (!) so I had to remove some (about half) of the butternut squash and cauliflower and put them in a dish in the microwave - for eating later or the next day. What I had left fit on the plate, just, and was approximately in the right proportions (one quarter scallops, one quarter pasta, one half veg). However, I couldn't eat it all - in fact I left half the pasta and a little of the veg. The next day I found the dish of 'overflow' veg that I had left in the microwave and chucked it in the bin.

So the result is, that despite a really strenuous and determined effort to get my portion size right, I made about twice as much pasta and veggies as I needed and could have easily done without the fifth scallop!! I was really trying, honest!

This evening I have been much more successful - it did all fit on the plate and I did manage to eat it all. The total calorific value was about 250. However, it was clearly still too much because I am absolutely stuffed - and I ate it more than an hour and a half ago. It's a long process this brain re-training, this change from thinking obese to thinking thin. My next plan is to prepare a meal in my normal way, and whatever I think is the 'right' amount, I am going to halve it!!! I'll see how that goes and let you know.

Tears from the Amazon

I received a parcel through the post from Amazon this morning, and within minutes of opening it, found tears streaming down my cheeks. What was it? A book I ordered called "Fighting Weight: How I Achieved Healthy Weight Loss with 'Banding', a New Procedure that Eliminates Hunger Forever" written by Khaliah Ali - daughter of the famous Mohammed. Why the tears? Well, I did what I always do when I get a new book, I scanned the inside covers, the back page and the contents list - to get a feel for what is in the book and how it is structured. I also had a sneak preview of the first couple of pages of the introduction.

Just from this brief scan I had already got a glimpse of the physical and emotional trauma that this lady went through as a morbidly obese person (325 pounds) and it just rang very true, and so close to home. I could identify with everything she said. On the back page, for instance, she describes how she unexpectedly bumped into her father at a fund-raising event and saw the very sad, concerned look on his face when he looked at her. She talks about her sense of shame and loss of dignity and the way that no-one who hasn't experienced this can really understand. She also talks about the way that being overweight became part and parcel of every waking moment of her life. I know just how she felt.

In the introduction Khaliah begins by referring to the practicalities of being obese in America - how 20 million Americans "cannot pull an airplane seatbelt across their laps", can't run for a bus or train, have to engage in advance planning just to get into a bath and never sit on fragile garden furniture for fear of breaking it. This inevitably leads to a huge sense of shame, loss of dignity and vulnerability.

It was at about that point that my tear ducts started working overtime. I think it was to do with the enormous anticipation that I was going to read a book about a person, who I don't know, with whom I share so much. So many emotions, fears and frustrations. I am going to read about a lifetime that shares so much in common with my own, of the practicalities of obesity, the looks and stares, the shame and the sheer hopelessness of it all. And then, I am gong to read about someone who has already completed the journey that I am still on - about their success, the weight loss, the great triumph of beating this disease - and I anticipate it will be a sad, sometimes heartrending, informative, optimistic and eventually, triumphant journey.

I am going to set aside some serious time to read this book. I can't wait to start. As always, I will report back.....

Port Pain and Pilates

I had a half-hour Pilates session today - my first ever. I did it to a DVD with two colleagues of mine. We found a quiet room at work and locked ourselves in so no-one could walk in on us! It was hilarious! The woman delivering the DVD was very muscular and really made everything look like a piece of cake. She would tell us to get into a particular position and we were all laughing our heads off crawling around on the floor and trying to copy her!!

If you don't know much about Pilates (I had no idea what it was - I thought it was some sort of Japanese Tai Chi sort of thing!), it's basically a whole series of slow, stretching and strengthening exercises designed to tone muscle. Most of the exercises are done sitting or lying on the floor and by the end of the session I had sore pelvic bones! I've ordered an exercise mat to avoid this problem in the future. We've decided to sign up for an 8-week course run at our local sports centre - it starts after Easter and I'm already looking forward to it in a masochistic sort of way!

The woman on the DVD made it look easy but it is actually really hard! My two colleagues had already done a session yesterday as well and were both aching today - I guess I've got that to come...

Anyway, it didn't all go smoothly. One of the exercises involved lying down on my left side with my arm stretched out above my head. I then had to raise my right leg up and down and then make circles in the air with it. Now, when I did this on the other side (my right side), I had no problems. But when doing it on my left side, the side my port is on, I got quite nasty pain around my port. It felt as though if I tried to carry on I might do some serious damage (like strain the muscle or tear the tissue or something) - so I stopped. I have experienced very minor, occasional niggles from my port area on and off since I was banded in November. But I've never experienced pain like this before. I wondered if I would get any port pain when I started swimming again, but I haven't - it's been fine.

So, I'm left wondering what this is all about. Will it be like this forever? Was this just a one-off? Next time I try that particular move I expect I will be a little nervous. I have posted a question about this on the UKGastricBand forum and will let you know if I get any insightful responses. Failing that, I am going to ask about it when I next go to a support group meeting (that's about three weeks off) and see what my Doctor says. If I get any recurrence of pain (i.e. without doing Pilates), I may even give my nurse a call and see what she says.

Protein boost

I've decided that I need to eat more protein. I'm taking a leaf out of the American's book and trying to boost my protein intake, partly just to make sure I get enough bone and muscle-supporting vitamins and minerals, but also because protein makes you feel full for longer compared with carbohydrate and veggies. Since my last fill I have had some restriction but it seems to be quite variable. I have noticed that I am often getting hungry early afternoon but not in the evening. So, I am going to boost the size of my lunches and include more protein, in the hope that I will be able to keep going till my evening meal without too much trouble.

I tried this strategy yesterday and today. Today, for example, I ate salmon with Philadelphia cheese on it, boiled potatoes and sprouts. This was incredibly filling and my 'full' feeling lasted from lunch time (about 12.30pm) till 8pm this evening when I ate my dinner! Yesterday, I ate vegetable chilli (packed with loads of protein-rich beans) and prawns (also high in protein). That also made me quite full until I had my evening meal.

I am going to continue to make a concerted effort to boost my protein intake and the size of my lunch over the next week or so and monitor how it goes. I am cautiously optimistic that with this sort of regime, I may have achieved a decent amount of restriction at long last.

Jane knows....

I told you I would let you know what happened with Jane - well, she now knows. Early afternoon today we went for a coffee to the cafe-bar across the road from where we work and sat in a quiet corner for a general chit-chat. In fact we both got cold drinks because it was a warm day. By the time I had finished my first orange juice with lemonade I still hadn't got the conversation going in the right direction. I wasn't about to give up on this though so I suggested seconds. As our drinks arrived I mulled over the volume of the glass and Jane asked why? "Well, I need to know how much of this I am drinking so I can count my calories", I responded. What a stroke of genius I though to myself, as I realised I had inadvertently got the conversation around to talking about diet, and weight, and.....!!

Well, as expected, Jane did ask about my 'diet'. I said that it wasn't actually a 'diet' as such, but that I was getting some help..... "You haven't got a gastric band, have you?" she blurted out, and "did you hear about that lady who died last week during surgery for a gastric band?". Well no, I hadn't heard, but I explained that most people who die during this sort of surgery are probably people who have other complicating medical conditions such as heart disease, diabetes etc - and simply don't survive the anaesthetic. Anyway, after swearing her to secrecy, I confirmed that her intuition had been correct, and that yes, I had a gastric band.

She didn't seem that interested in the details, gory and otherwise, though I was anxious to explain that I had done most of the work up till now, and that only recently has the wretched thing offered me any assistance! However, she was generous in her praise, saying "well done you" repeatedly. A few more things were said about clothes and dress sizes and then we moved off the topic onto other work-related things. [As an aside, why do we call them dress sizes - I haven't worn a dress since I was about ten!].

So that, was that. We finished our drinks and headed back to work. It remains to be seen whether Jane (a) tells anyone else, (b) nags me about what I am or am not eating (I don't think she will actually), (c) ever mentions it again..........