Lets do Blurb first... THIS POST has some of the information on how I go about using the blurb book software. For my 365 days books I use the landscape 10x8inch books and I get them in imagewrap which is a hardcover with the photo directly printed onto it, no dust cover. I am seriously considering going digital with my everyday scrapbooking as I find things I put in the book I dont seem to then feel like scrapping, because I have basically already done it. Blurb also have an 11x13inch format but price is holding me back a bit but when i weigh the cost of printing for the big book it is probably less than what I would spend on supplies. Then I can also get 2 books printed, one for each boy.

All about lap banding...

does it hurt? for about a week after the operation and then it is uncomfortable for about another 2 weeks.

Are there things you can't eat? this varies from person to person. I can't eat bread, chicken breast are hard to eat but thighs are ok. Raw carrot was very very painful, scrambled eggs are unpleasant and get stuck but i can eat hard boiled eggs and fried or poached eggs.

I have to eat slowly, anything you eat quickly and don't chew properly is just going to drop down on the band and close it. I mainly eat soup, I can eat crackers, cereal..oh and chocolate, potato chips and icecream!! If you are interested you can see my food diary HERE as it is a public profile I don't think you will have to be a member to see it.

How do you control what you eat? This was really hard. I was still eating the same way just after the operation. I realised after about 3 weeks that I needed to count calories and my buddy Amanda mentioned the calorie king books. I went and looked and found they have an online food diary. This has helped me so so much. I am in total control, I also record every single thing I eat, so if I stand in the pantry and eat an easter egg I write it in. To lose between 800gr and 1kg per week I have set my calories at 1300 and 30 minutes of exercise a day.

I plan my food at the beginning of the day. With the food diary you can save meals, so when I make a soup I input all the ingredients into CK and how many serves it gives and save it, then I delete all that and when I want to add my meal I load it and select the serves I am having.

Where the band comes in, the capacity of the pouch above the band is one cup, so when I make my soup I freeze it in one cup serves in clip seal bags and freeze them flat. All meals come to a cups worth of food. This is my 24th week, 22 weeks since my operation and I have lost 27 kg (59lbs) and I am finding it quiet easy now. It takes discipline I have to think about everything I put in my mouth, do I want a latte or 2 ryvita with cheese.. these are the types of questions I give myself. I still go out, we have been out for a meal and to a few BBQ's and I coped. I am very careful though, if you eat too much, too quickly or the wrong food it will come back up. That has happened to me twice and I would like that to be the only two times.

I could not do this without calorie king or Michael, we have done the lap banding together and it has been a great help.

Do you have to exerice? I do!!! I go for a 50 minute walk every day I can and once a week I play indoor beach volleyball. If I don't exericse I don't lose much weight at all. Michael on the other hand has gone for calorie control and doesn't exercise. Where as I have to drag my bum out the door and power walk. Saying that though I have found exercise such a great thing, I feel better, I am calmer and I am on my way to having great legs!!

This is a life changing thing. It has to be to work. Things that have changed like 4 different meals for 4 different people isn't as hard as I thought it would be and Michael takes care of his own dinner, he has made stews and curry for the freezer and is eating lots of salad and he loves scrambled eggs. I get comments from the girls in the local bakery who see me walking and are amazed at how much weight I have lost, it makes me feel good people are noticing. The best thing of all is my kids are noticing, Alec loves to come and put his arms around me because he can hold his hands now, before he couldn't reach.

At first I was really impatient to lose the weight, it felt like it was going to take all too long and I wanted lots off quickly. Then all of a sudden I fell into a rythm and I was happy to be dropping that one kilo a week. I only weigh myself on weigh in day, yes I still have treats but now sometimes I am just not prepared to spend the calories on it, sometimes a slice of cheese seems like a treat.

So yes I would do this again, things will always be different now, I will always have the band, but I have gained so much more.