This story concerns me as I have family members and very close friends who have chosen this option to control thier weight and I wish them well. 

I am not an expert on the subject, I am just posting health news, reported by Rachel Brown for 7.30 Report ABC TV.

As the fight against Australia's obesity epidemic continues, more and more people are turning to gastric banding - a procedure commonly known as lap band surgery - to help beat the bulge.

Last year, about 14,000 Australians had lap band surgery and this year's figure is expected to be higher.

View the full report by Rachel Brown :-http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/09/30/2701186.htm

A big filling breakfast of 30 gram of home made cereal mix of refined sugar free rolled oats, wheat bran, corn and rice flakes, with a few raisins, walnuts, served with no fat milk and no fat live culture natural unsweetened yogurt and half a banana.  Calorie value, a little over 300 calories.  
This breakfast also is ideal to split into two or three smaller meals. 1./ cereal and skim milk. 2/ Banana (I eat half and share the other half with Reg. 3/ Yogurt and a few nuts.
If I am going through a time when I desire to eat frequently, I would eat this as three small meals and I do usually split this size breakfast into breakfast and morning tea, eaten when I am hungry. 

Light Lunch 100 mils of calcium fortified, freshly squeezed orange juice with almonds and sunflower seeds. Almost 300 calories  and almost as many calories, as in the big filling breakfast above, yet not as filling, or convincing to the brain that you have eaten a meal. Easy to want to overeat on the nuts and seeds and end up having eaten more calories. Easy to pour out another glass of juice, (I have done that before today), because it is delicious, convenient, there in the fridge.
A healthy enough lunch, protein, carbohydrate and fat, plus vitamins and bone density protecting minerals, however if I had eaten a whole orange including all the fiber and some of the white pith would have been more filling,more nutritious, (assuming I added my calcium magnesium requirement as a supplement) and I might not have eaten extra nuts as my desire to chew, to enjoy the sensation of eating would have been satisfied.

I now try to plan nutritious and satisfying meals ahead of time so I do not repeat what does not work well for me.   My breakfast formula, has always worked and would be hard for me to improve on, I just vary the fruit and usually the cereal is plain, no name,  rolled oats.

Dinner and Wine 600 calorie (the Hollandaise sauce and the oils the highest calorie value items), a better slimming option would be to have added lemon for the garnish on the fish and even skip the wine if I wanted to eat more food.
Dinner is 125 gram of fresh ocean trout, seared in a teaspoon full of ‘good oil’, in a hot non stick pan. Served with a salad of iceberg lettuce,  sun ripened full of flavor tomatoes, celery, parsley, snow peas, beetroot and cooked portabella highly flavorsome, mushroom. A dessertspoon of Hollandaise sauce is served on the side, a teaspoon of balsamic vinegar and olive oil dressing on the salad and ground black pepper.
This made two meals. I ate most of the meal at 6pm and put a little aside to eat around 9pm or 10 pm if I was hungry then as I usually work through until 12 midnight.

By splitting breakfast into 3 small meals, eating lunch and then splitting dinner into a dinner and a supper, I am eating six delicious meals a day today and feeling very satisfied and still have a calorie allowance which I will usually use as 1 cup of skim milk through the day in espresso coffee in the morning and in tea in the afternoon, then I might have another cup of skim milk in the evening, as milk, rarely but occasionally as a cocoa and sometimes as a couple of cups of tea.

Snacks
This nuts and seeds I ate without thinking today, add an extra 200 calories to my energy intake today.
An extra 1 cup of skim milk today used in drinks, 2 espresso coffees in the morning and the rest in tea or as a small milk drink near bed time

Exercise and activity
I walked around Lake Dorothy and the full estate today, did some heavy digging gardening and I'll do some active, housework tonight so I will have had my quota of exercise and tomorrow is my day to do weight training at gym.

The basic nutrition balance of this day's food intake.
In this graph, proteins are green carbohydrates are grey and fat is orange

I eat a slightly higher proportion of protein in my diet than that recommended by Spark People, but it is recommended that seniors do have a higher protein requirement that younger more athletic people so I don’t consider ,my protein intake excessive. I am usually close to the recommended good fats intake and I do include a lot of healthy carbohydrates in my diet but slightly less than that recommended to allow for m slightly higher protein intake.

I aim for 1,500 mg of Calcium a day and I supplement if I do not meet this with my food choices. 

Please don't fear or deprive yourself of food.

Less than three years ago I was morbidly obese, size 22 to 24. Today I am a size 12 to 14, even fit into a few size 10's.  I just controlled the portion sizes I ate, cut out the small amount of junk food I occasionally ate and said, 'just his once doesn't matter' and realized that for some people, including me, that all those, ‘just this once’, times, do matter. I also became a more active person.
I am also learning to take care of my emotional needs in ways that do not necessarily involve food.  It will always be a work in progress, never finished, like the garden, getting easier to work and even I, like that garden look heaps better for the work I've put in over the last two and 2/3 years.  

I write this healthy life and slimming blog, not to preach at you, but to keep me motivated, informed and conscious of my actions and if I can help one person overcome an eating disorder and being stuck in a sedentary lifestyle, like i once had, then that will be the only icing on the cake J I'll ever need. :-). 

Lots of love,

Kathy xxx

For expert nutrition advice look no further than an
Accredited Practising Dietician.

For expert information to help you eat healthier and feel better, you can find an Accredited Practicing Dietician )APD) at www.daa.asn.au, or call toll free on 1900 812 942

Nice easy meals, pre prepared in my freezer, ready to heat and eat after a busy day and an outing.

My new gaols

I am back with a weight loss goal, in order to bring my blood pressure down a notch,( a 'how I feel', reason ), as I am happy with how I look, even if I am still technically on the plump side.  This will be a healthy, loving myself, goal and action plan. :-)

My action plan is to focusing on when I eat, (when hungry), and how much eat,  (eat until satisfied, don’t overeat), and what I eat, (foods my body thrives on, self love is not eating junk) and nurturing my emotional needs in a healthy way (not with self abusive,  comfort eating), and becoming a little fitter and more active each day, knowing that protecting and building muscle increases my resting metabolism and makes losing fat, easier.

Emotionally I will surround myself with supporting people, reading and create my own supportive environment that includes those who want to lose weight by loving themselves enough to do so in a healthy way.  Sorry, no poor nutrition, starvation or restrictive diet will be mentioned in my blog and if I get excited about food, it will not be the latest saturated fat and sugar biscuit or spread on the market, it will be that my favourite fruit or vegetables are back in season or I bought a beautiful looking fresh salmon steak.  LOL, I did exactly that, while shopping last night.  I chose a small perfect looking piece of salmon and some barramundi. At the fresh fish shop.

I might make a fresh garden salad, using some of my own home grown garden greens and cook the salmon in a hot non stick pan in one teaspoon per person of good oil, and serve it for lunch. I tell you, my diet is a LIVEIT J/ you too can become the weight your body is meant to be, not by dieting, but by loving yourself slim. Take the time to love yourself, just as I'm going to focus intently on doing during these busy months that lead up to Christmas. We have time (if we have a weight loss goal), to treat ourselves to a one size smaller outfit, as our Christmas gift to our self.

Some healthy, slimming, eating tips.

If you are struggling to lose weight, try spending most of your food money in on fresh produce.

Love yourself and your family enough to break the addiction to the processed and junk food, it hasn’t got you to where you want to be, has its?

Eat when you are hungry, eat and eat foods you love and enjoy. Experiment and broaden the range of healthy foods you may not have previously tried.  If you do avoided buying fresh food, because it is  expensive, then consider buying a 100 gram per person serving, that costs less for a beautiful lunch than many people are spending on the junk food in their trolley and I am not adverse to trying some of the cheaper cuts of fish and I buy trays of tinned salmon from the factory at only $1. per  tin.  Good food is affordable.

Junk food is too expensive for my budget, to give to any member of my family, in terms f it’s long term effect on health. 

Will you love yourself more if you buy the latest white chocolate Tim tams and iSnack?