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i am a overweight woman who has just done the Intragastric balloon system....my weight is 78 kg and having the balloon inserted in my stomach will help me to control what i eat. With the balloon inside, if i eat too much, i will puke.....the rationale is that with the balloon being in me for 6 mths, i will slowly modify my eating behaviors, & lose weight...

ever since i had the balloon (1 month ago), i also started my own exercise regime (signed up with a personal trainer at a gym) doing weights training & cardio 2 to 3 times a week....so that when i eventually lose weight, it won't be muscles or water that i am losing.....hopefully, it be fats that i am losing....but there is one major issue here...

since i can only eat abt 1000-1200 calories per day, will i become a case of "starvation" effect" which is defined as the inability to lose weight when one's caloric intake is too low...

In short, yes. If for whatever reason you can't stop overeating and eating junk food, this extreme measure may be used to prevent or postpone someones death due to obesity. I assume that is the case with you? Try to eat every couple hours. This will get your calories up. Please don't eat junk food. Look at labels and stay away from trans-fat, sugars, white flower and other starches. How much is your life worth? Do you have children? Family? Think about that when you want to eat junk. How do you go to work in the morning, or do housework or anything you don't want to do? That is how you eat right.

You have to make a chnge in lifestyle. It is something you decide. I know what I can eat and what I can't. I make the hard choices. I have decided to never be fat again. I have decided I will not get diabetes even though I was right on the brink. I have decided I would rather not suffer through medical problems for then next 20 years or so until premature death. Life is full of choices. You have to decide what you want to do.

Good advice from the previous poster, but to get to the question on kcal intake being 1000-1200, will it cause a catabolic (muscle cannibalization) effect? Yes, to a degree. But that's why you are doing weightsseeral times/week, to offset that effect. You Kcal input depends on lots of factors, but at 78 KG, your projected inputs of 1000-1200/day may be a bit on the low side, but I don't think they would set off a major "starvation effet", especially if you do as the previous poster says, and that is to keep your meals small, but spread them out a few hours apart. You may have to play with that number and go a touch higher, but when sone sensibly, in conjunction with weights, your lean mass should be OK
Good training.
Tim

i know...that's why i did the balloon system despite objections that i am not heavy enough and that i dun have complications like diabetes & high blood pressure yet...of cos, i won't deny that there is only the vanity reason on why i had the balloon......i have had the balloon inside me for a month already and i think this is the best time for me to start on a lifetime exercise program as well....as well as to learn how to eat right...

thing is that most of the healthy foods that fitness books always recommend are things i can't eat.....for e.g, oatmeal & wholemeal bread is good but i can't eat that bcos i will feel too full due to the balloon inside me...so i try to substitute with things like low fat milk & 1 hard boiled egg white for breakfast so at least i get nutrients as well.....i mean, i do want badly to become a size 8 but i dun want my health to be sacrificed as a result....

i appreciate your advice & i think u are perfectly right....thanks.

thanks for hitting the nail on the exact spot....lol....ya, at 1200 cal, they seem low...i will gradually try & increase my cal intake a bit more so as to accomodate my exercises...the thing is that like my prev post, i try to find foods that deliver nutrients but doesn't fill up my stomach too much.....those super healthy foods like oatmeal & wholemeal is too difficult to digest considering i have a balloon in me...

wish me luck dear...^_^

Hi Greenday. Good luck. You won't get any lectures from me on baloons, etc. Glad you didn't go with the bypass route though. That has inherent dangers.
On nutrient intake, well I'm not a firm believer in high calorie diets, and have seen many studies suggesting lower caloric diets tend to lead to a longer life. For instance, I'm about 85 KG, and rarely go over 16-1700kcal day, and am doing just fine. What does surprize me though, is that somewhere in this or another thread you stated you were in Asia. Well I've spent alot of time all over the mid and far east, and from what I saw (granted, this was 10-20 years ago), the Asians had a much healthier approach to nutrition than Americans. I was never at a loss to find some type of meal with mostly vegetables combined with a little meat, chicken, fish, tofu , etc with some rice on the side Yep, I saw the McDonalds and KFC sprouting up over there, but for the most part it was based on fruits and vegetables. Not being able to concentrate on oatmeal and whole grain bread, well I wouldn't worry about it. They're good, sure, but I think the quantities recommended over here in the US are based mostly on the food industry lobby. Here are two links you might want to look at. Not based on any of the popular diets, but rather on common sense and some science.
http://www.johnberardi.com/articles/nut ... habits.htm
http://www.johnberardi.com/articles/nut ... ting_2.htm
Good luck
Tim

HI hi Tim ^_^
It must have been a while since u visited asia...have u been to singapore? that's where i live and basically, unhealthy food are just swarming all over the place....lol...ok ok i know i am exaggerating but i seriously think that a lot of my sporean friends eat the most unhealthy food....even though most of them are very slim at the range of 45kg to 55kg which i think is probably petite in your eyes.....lol..but it's scary to see the things that they consume on a daily basis....and imagine the kind of damage that it does to the body....i have never really been a health conscious person but a few months before i did the balloon, i started to be more conscious of the ingredients that goes into a food...i'm clueless on why i suddenly noticed all these stuff but i think it's a good thing though......being aware is the first thing towards success...haha....quoted by Me, me & me...

I won't consider the bypass cos it is really for much heavier people...in fact, my doctor didn't even want to consider me for the balloon initially cos he thinks i am not heavy enough but i managed to persuade him otherwise...

now all i need to do is to make sure that i slowly learn and re-program my eating habits

Hi Greenday. Yep, it's been a while since I was in Singapore. 1979. The name "Cliffords pier" rings a bell. What I do remember, was going downtown, there way a huge indoor shopping area, loaded with restuarants, stores, etc. Then we went outside, and there was a square, and at around 6 PM this square was lined with family booths, each one with a couple of Woks going, and you could get just about any type of food imagineable, plus some good cold Singha beer. Thats where I first tried Chili Crabs. I expected a chili sauce similar to that in Mexico. Boy, was I wrong. Thought I was going to burn my face off.
Tim

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