JSF Lifecycle and Design Question

[j2ee Developer <j2...@gmail.com>]

I have JSF lifecycle and design question. I am building a prototype, porting
an existing Struts based application to JSF. The issue I am facing is I
believe related to the JSF lifecycle, I need input from you folks as to
whether what I am doing is the right way.

Here is the scenario of my application -

I have a page with a form with values populated from the database. The end
user makes changes to the fields, and presses the commandbutton save. The
values are saved to the database and the same page presented again with the
new saved values.

Here is how I have implemented it -

The constructor of the backing bean makes the call to the model layer (
eventually EJB's), gets the initial data and displays it to the page. After
user makes the changes, on pressing the commandbutton, the event handler,
makes a call to the modellayer for saving the new data. After the save I
populate the backing bean attributes with the new values, and display the
same page again. All my backing beans are request scope ( and that's how I
want them). I am using Myfaces implementation, and myfaces components.

Here is the problem I face -

The issue I am facing is that on calling save, or any other event, the
constructor is called again . So eventually it ends up that there are double
calls to the modellayer/database than what is required.

Is the way I am populating my backing beans wrong? Or is this the only way
JSF handles things. Any input would be appreciated.