New breakfast plans

I went shopping this evening after work and stocked up on lots of healthy food. I'm going to try a different strategy for breakfast. During the week I normally take mixed All Bran and muesli to work with me. I don't particularly enjoy this breakfast but I suppose I think it's good for me. However, I've thought for a while that I need to have more protein early in the day. Anyway, my new experiment is to have fresh berries, low fat Greek style yoghurt and muesli. I'm going to take the ingredients to work (we have a kitchen with fridge etc) so that they're always available every day whenever I want them. Day one is tomorrow - watch this space.

Reward or punishment?

At the Healthier Weight support group last weekend, there was a long term bandit there who had some real gems to share with the rest of us. We had got into a discussion where several of us, me included, were sharing our experiences of resisting (or not!), chocolate and other goodies. Lots of people were saying how the distraction techniques that are often recommended don't work for us. Anyway, this lady was suggesting that many of us have, perhaps as children, been brought up to think of chocolate as a treat or reward. Therefore, when we feel a bit down, we are inclined to give ourselves a lift by turning to chocolate. She said that actually we need to change our mind set. To think back to the 'fat days', to the humiliation that we suffered as obese people, the awful practicalities of buying clothes, sitting in an airplane seat, huffing and puffing just getting up a flight of stairs etc. Then , capture all if those bad feelings and associate them with chocolate. Start to see chocolate as one of the root causes of all of that pain. Instead of thinking about it as a reward, begin to think of it as a punishment. She talked about a technique where you pinch together your thumb and finger whenever you think of those negative feelings and then do the same thing whenever you see or desire chocolate. This is similar to many of the behavioural techniques advocated by Paul McKenna.

Another tip from this very wise lady was to 'think thin'. In other words, try to imagine that you are thin when eating - and often this helps curb our excessive food cravings. I'm not sure about thinking thin, but I do find that thinking fit often works for me. When I'm doing well with my exercise regime, I feel good about myself - emotionally stronger and with better self esteem. I find, at these times, that I only crave good quality, healthy food - so it's a self-perpetuating thing.

Despite still working very long hours and being under a lot of pressure at work, I am trying very hard to find time to do some exercise. I know that if I succeed, even if a lot less often than a few months ago, it will have all sorts of positive knock-on effects. Also, in the light of the 'reward or punishment' technique described above, I'm going to read Paul McKenna's book again (I Can Make You Thin) and try put some of his techniques. I need to crack my chocaholic tendencies otherwise I will struggle with my weight for the rest of my life. That said, I'm talking about 'struggling' to lose the last 25lbs - not the kind if struggle I used to have - just day to day life for a 20-stoner - so it's not all bad! Not at all.

Many meetings in Manchester

Hello again! It's been nearly a week since I last posted - the longest it's ever been apart from when I've been on holiday. I've been working very long hours this past week and just too tired to post. I had a very interesting weekend. On Saturday, I travelled into Manchester for a meet-up with others I've 'met' through the UKGastricBand forum. It's been arranged for months and I'd been looking forward to it. Anyway, I arrived at the agreed location, but due to a series of unfortunate misunderstandings, some on my part, I didn't find the group! I was really gutted and decided to drown my sorrows in a pizza lunch! I ordered a really small, thin based veggie pizza and struggled to eat it all. In fact, I'd had enough by the time I got half way through - but I still have a 'fat' brain so pressed on till the end! I went to work for a few hours and then headed home to work some more!

As well as meeting the guys I've been chatting with online for so long, I was really looking forward to eating with some other bandits! I know it might sound daft, but I've never sat down and eaten with someone else who has a band. I'd love to just see some other bandits eat - how much, how quickly, what etc. Still, it was not to be - maybe another time.

On Sunday I headed back into Manchester for the regular Healthier Weight support group. I don't find the presentations as useful as I once did because I've heard them all before. But it's still good reinforcement. However, I really value the opportunity to discuss progress, problems, concerns and successes with other bandits. It's equally great to see long term bandits looking positively skinny, as it is being able to offer advice and encouragement to newbies. There is strong evidence that bandits who maintain contact with a support network gave more success than those who don't. So, come rain or shine, it is my intention to keep going fir the foreseeable future.

Metabolic rate and muscle mass

Heres my response to Yana who commented on my previous post - I tried to post it as a comment but had a temporary glitch. So here it us for everyone!

Hi Yana,

You are absolutely correct with your figures - as we lose weight we need less calories. However, muscle needs more calories per gramme to function than the equivalent weight in fat or other body tissues. This means that if, as you lose weight, you do a lot of exercise and build up muscle mass, your metabolic rate increases a little. Using your hypothetical numbers, if you lose weight from 300 to 200lbs and your metabolic rate drops from 3000 to 2000 - you then do loads of exercise over a period of months and increase muscle mass. Assuming your weight stays at 200lbs, your metabolic rate increases to, say, 2300 calories. If you still continue to consume the same amount of calories as you did before increasing muscle mass, then you will lose weight at a slightly faster rate. This was what I meant when I said I was using my calories more effectively - sorry it wasn't that clear but sometimes my head kind of tips out ideas onto the screen before they've been thought through properly!! Hope that helps!

Trees x

Why I've not gained weight

I recently responded to a post on the UKGastricBand forum to someone who was asking how to get the self control needed to overcome the desire to eat chocolate and other unhealthy things. I've copied some of my response below. Some of these things I have said on here before, but thinking about it helped me put into perspective exactly why I hadn't gained weight during some of the bad times I've experienced in recent months.

"I am a self-confessed emotional eater and complete chocaholic and yet I've lost nearly 8 stone (if I can do it - anyone can!!!). When things in life are going well, my desire to eat chocolate and other bad stuff just goes - and if anything, I crave good, nutritious, healthy foods. During these times I lose weight. However, when life is difficult, as it has been for me over the past 2-3 months (work pressures), I utterly crave chocolate. Over the past 2-3 months I have regularly (i.e. every 2-3 days) binged on chocolate. By that, I mean, I've gone out and bought 6-7 bars of chocolate and eaten my way through all of them in an evening. On top of that I've eaten cheese sandwiches (cheese comes second to chocolate in my head), muffins, iced buns and all sorts of other rubbish.

HOWEVER (this is the good bit) - during these times I have NOT GAINED any weight! This is because:

1. My metabolism has speeded up because I've lost weight so my body uses calories more effectively,
2. I do more exercise (though nothing like as much as I do when life is going well),
3. The portion sizes of my main meals is much smaller than it ever used to be - because of the band,
4. In between the bad days I have relatively good days where I have a negative calorie balance (i.e. I use more than I put in).

So, if you still find you can't keep off the chocolate (and incidentally, I never keep any in the house), it's not all doom and gloom - stick to good eating habits as much as you can and this should mean that at least you won't gain any more weight. On good days, and at good times in your life, you should be able to lose with the band - and keep it off during the bad times".

ONE YEAR TODAY!

It's my bandiversary today! One year ago I was recovering in hospital after my early morning surgery. In fact, at this precise time, I was sitting in the chair watching TV and trying to take my mind off the discomfort and general fuzziness that was my head. Reading back over my blog post the day after surgery, I am reminded that on the evening of my surgery I watched the X Factor before getting a nurse to help me back into bed for the night. Well nothing new there a year on then, because I'll be glued to it again this evening!

So how has the last year been? Well, on the plus side, I am 110 pounds lighter than I was a year ago, I am MUCH fitter and healthier, and can now fit into size 16 clothes. I still have 25 pounds to lose and a couple more clothes sizes to drop, but even if I don't lose another pound, I would still consider my band journey to be a success. On the minus side, it hasn't been easy. There have been some low points as well as highs and it has been a complete pain the bum having to keep a daily food diary! That said, it will be the last habit I break becuase it has been enormously valuable and I wouldn't have achieved what I have had I not kept it religously. I've had a long route to finding my sweet spot, including seven fills and two de-fills. I've spent 48 days of the last year on fluids and a further 48 on mush!

This blog was started on day one of my pre-op diet, on 10th Novemeber 2008. Since that time there have been more than 6,000 visits to the site and about 350 posts. I have communicated with hundreds of fellow bandits through the blog and through the UKGastricBand forum (and other similar sites) and feel I have made some firm friends, albeit virtually, for life. In fact I will be meeting up with a group of bandits in Manchester next weekend - we've never met before but have all shared the ups and downs of band-life on a regular basis and Im sooo looking forward to it.

My daily life isn't hugely different from what it was. I don't eat breakfast before I leave for work any more - I eat it later in the morning. I also don't eat in the staff canteen any more. I don't eat 'on the go' any more - my daily eating is carefully planned out, prepared in advance, weighed, measured and written down! The contents of the food cupboards in our house are different - there's no chocolate, very rarely any cheese in the fridge (except Rosemary Conley's low fat cheese sometimes), and no biscuits or cakes. I still eat out occasionally, but I'm always the last person to finish now. I can still eat anything. I very rarely take the lift at work and can now take the stairs up to my fourth floor office two at a time. I do a bit of jogging, visit the gym, swim and do lots of walking. I get much less sweaty than I used to!

My wardrobe is completely different. There is now nothing left in my wardrobe that I wore before getting banded. There are relatively few clothes in there because I don't want to buy too many before I reach my final target weight. What has surprised me is the fact that most of my shoes are now too big and my wedding ring now fits!

Looking back to the days before I had surgery, I know that I had a number of concerns - not least of which was 'would the band work?'. But there were other things too, like, would I still be able to eat out? I had visions that I would never again be able to go out for a meal with my family. Anyway, to celebrate my 'coming of age' today, I have decided to start a short series of posts (starting later this week) where I will explore some of these pre-op qualms and look at how they have panned out, how I have dealt with them, was I right to be anxious about x, y and z, or were they empty fears?

If you have any pre-op fears that you'd like me to focus on, please leave a comment and I'll do my best!

Putting things into perspective

I'm feeling positive today! I've been making healthy food choices for a few days and am experiencing good restriction. In fact I had a bit of a shock yesterday - it just struck me that this restriction, chewing, eating slowly and eating small meals is with me for life!!!! It's so easy to think in terms if the short run - focussing on a target weight, where I want to be next week, next month, six months time etc. But I had a realisation yesterday that actually, the band and all the habits and paraphernalia that come with it will feature with me for the rest of my life. It puts things into perspective when I have a few bad days - or even a bad month or two!

Today I ate a slice of cheesy beans on toast for breakfast and was really full afterwards. For lunch I ate half a pot of Innocent veggie curry. It was packed with veggies and low in fat. Lovely, but again, left me feeling really full. This evening, I prepared a fishcake, rice, green beans and courgettes. I got half way through it and had to put the rest aside for a couple of hours! I'm going to tuck into the rest right now! It's this kind of thing that makes me feel so optimistic about the future.

Some reassurance

As far as my healthy eating goes, I've had a fairly wretched few weeks. Just in the last week I've had about three or four fairly serious chocolate binges. HOWEVER, for any new or inexperienced bandits out there I can offer you some great reassurance. Despite my poor eating habits of late, largely down to work-related stress, I haven't gained an ounce!! I haven't even been doing much exercise at all but gave managed to keep my weight stable. I think it's partly because the band has controlled my portion sizes (apart from the chocolate!), and partly because I suspect my metabolism has speeded up with the muscle I've added over the last few months.

This is all very reassuring to me because it suggests that the long term outcome if my band will be favourable even if I'm not as 'good' as I should be. It has also really emphasised to me just how effective my band us when I make good food choices. I'm glad things are stable at the moment because my bandiversary is coming up in two days.....!

Diet pills?

Just watching Supersize versus Superskinny where they are looking at diet pills. Apparently there are more than 40 different types. In the UK, 50% of women have tried them! Some suppress your appetite while others make you feel full. They have a very wide range of ingredients. The lady in the programme tries some - she finds that one of them takes away her appetite when you try to eat. Another one actually turns your fat into poo! One lady explained how she seemed to spend several weeks on the loo - and how she had to be careful not to fart! There are lots of unlicensed pills available over the Internet. One of these is based on amphetamine - a fairly serious steroid! Madness! The downside of this drug is a fairly serious impact on bowel movements. It also leads to difficulty sleeping - you have to take them with caffeine, then take magnesium to counteract the drug to allow sleep.....

The presenter found that one day she only needed a banana, and the next day, just a cup of tea! Perhaps I should try some? Oh, hang on, they're just getting to the bit about diet pills causing heart attacks..... There is a particular problem with pills that are unlicensed and available over the Internet. Many over the counter pills are safe enough, but when they limit your food intake to one banana in a day, they will severely affect nutritional input and energy levels.

Oh well. I guess I'll have to stick to relying on my band!

Good veggies for restriction

Over the past weeks I've been keeping a mental note of what foods, and veggies in particular, make me feel full and work best with my band. I eat quite a wide range of vegetables and have noticed that while some slip down relatively easily, others rake a lot more chewing and leave me feeling full. The best ones include sprouts, mushrooms, spinach (raw or lightly steamed), chunky and lightly cooked broccoli and cauliflower. The vegetables that slip down more easily include onions, soft courgettes, aubergine (unless with skin on - then it can be quite tough), tomatoes, and anything that can be mashed - like butternut squash.

In terms of other foods, bearing in mind I don't eat meat, the main tricks to ensure foods don't slip down too easily are (a) don't overcook food - keep it crunchy and solid and chewy, (b) avoid washing food down by using gravy, sauces or accompaniments that are high in fat. This evening, for example, I couldn't eat all my dinner because it just filled me up. Here's what I had:

Wholegrain (brown) rice
Olive tofu
Mixed broccoli, shitake and oyster mushrooms, and courgettes

I added a little light soy sauce and loads of black pepper for extra flavour and a hint of moistness - otherwise this was a fairly dry meal.

Other good foods are lightly cooked unpeeled baby new potatoes, pasta al dente, any fish that isn't too oily and doesn't come in a sauce, quorn in most forms, various types of beans (e.g. adzuki, black-eye). Sometimes a meal just needs some moisture - a good way to get this without loading on lots of calories is to add some Philadelphia Extra Light (very low fat soft cheese).

Recipe: Olive tofu and pasta

Here's a favourite vegetarian 'recipe' of mine:

Olive tofu (available from The Eighth Day in Manchester and other specialist vegetarian shops), with spinach, mushroom-stuffed pasta and mixed shitake and chestnut mushrooms. I lightly boil the pasta and the rest is steamed in the microwave with plenty of black pepper and a splash of light soy. The edginess of the olives tastes wonderful against the subtle tastes of mushrooms and spinach. Mmmmm! The whole meal is about 350 calories and takes only 15 minutes to prepare. The meal is well balanced - you should end up with a side plate with 25% carbs (the pasta), 25% protein (tofu), and 50% veggies.

A funny ol' day

Yeah, it's been a funny old day. I've gradually developed a splitting headache and have variously been starving and stuffed. I've also had a slime episode and binged on chocolate! I discovered that it 'that time of month' which probably explains the headache, odd cravings and weird stomach feelings. I put the slime episode down to the fact that I was working at my computer while eating my lunch - a recipe for getting distracted and eating too much or too fast - or both.

Anyway, I'm home now, and feeling rather full after munching my way through several Kitkats on the way home. It wasn't helped by the fact that there was some sort of special offer on, and when I went to pay for my one Kitkat and bag of Maltesers, the guy behind the counter gave me another free Kitkat! I almost gave it away to a complete stranger as I left the garage forecourt - but I simply couldn't do it - so I ate it instead.

I think I'll just put today down to an odd one and not worry too much about it.

Back to the gym

I kept my resolve today (just) and trudged off to the gym after work. I did about half an hour of aerobic activity on the treadmill including some gentle jogging, and spent another half hour doing some light weights for upper and lower toning and strength. I asked my dietician at the last support group meeting, how soon should one begin doing weight training? I asked this because he had previously said people losing weight should do calorie burning activity initially and not lift weights - this us to avoid building up muscle too early on (it can counteract weight loss and may turn fat bulk into muscle bulk). Anyway, he reckoned that we should move onto some light weights work once we have lost about 75% of our excess weight. I'm a little past that point now (closer to 80%) so the time us definitely right for this kind of workout.

I didn't overdo it though because it's been a few weeks since I last went. Even so, I am expecting to be aching in the morning!

Time for re-commitment

Two weeks to go till my bandiversary! I'm struggling a bit the last couple of days to 'contain' my eating. I think it's partly because I have less structure to my time at the weekends and so am more tempted to graze and get bored. Also, it's because after my very stressful period at work, I haven't really got back into a regular exercise habit. I'm still working quite long hours which doesn't help, but I am determined to get back to the gym and swimming this week

A year ago I promised myself that for the first time in my life, I would make my health and diet and well-being my top priority in life - ahead of work! With my one year anniversary coming up soon it is timely to re-affirm this as a commitment in my life. At the end of the day, success with the band is largely down to exactly that - to what extent are we prepared to make it No. 1 priority? If it gets top spot then there's every chance of success.