girly831

Wish I could say I weight 142lbs. That would be great!

HI I am 43 years old and weigh 142 lbs. I have gained almost 20 lbs over the last 5 years. I used to weigh 151 when I was 32, but lost 26 lbs just exercising and eating normal. Nothing crazy but not over indulging. After I had my son, I have found it extremely difficult to get back to 120s. I am a runnner, vegetarian and indulge only sometimes. I am fed up with struggling to get my weight down. I just started weightwatchers and realize that I am eating beyond my allowance, but I seem to so tired all the time. As for working out for some reason the pounds dont seem to be coming off like it did 11 years ago:-(. I guess after 40 the efforts need to be doubled. I try hard but sometimes I feel that this cycle will never end !. Sorry for such a long post, but I was looking for some guidance regarding the lap band.

Thanks so much for the info!!!

I hope I've gotten the info to everyone who needs it! I liked it because it has forms and stuff in it so you can track who you talked to at the insurance company, all the diets you've tried, etc. It makes a nice little workbook!

I would definitely give the office a call. Kelley answered right away and genuinely listens. She emailed me the forms within a few minutes and I have faxed off all my info and application this morning. Here is the number 619-656-5251. Good Luck! I will let you know as soon as I hear something. Hopefully good news!

Thanks so much for the info on obesitylaw. I talked to Kelley today, she's so nice and I felt so much better just talking to her. She sent me the papers already and I hope to fax them back to her by tomorrow. I really hope they approve me this time with their help.

I submitted my information on line last week and still haven't heard from them. Looks like you may have gotten a faster response with a telephone call. I guess I should try that in the morning, I'm getting pretty anxious checking my email constantly.

Thanks so much for the info on obesitylaw. I talked to Kelley today, she's so nice and I felt so much better just talking to her. She sent me the papers already and I hope to fax them back to her by tomorrow. I really hope they approve me this time with their help.

Here's the chain of events:

1.20.11 My surgeons insurance coordinator submitted my paperwork

1.28.11 aetna denied me

2.4.11 insurance coordinator had me sign the authorization forms for Walter Lindstroms group at obesitylaw.com to represent me. She faxed it to them.

2.16.11 per aetna, appeal received

3.10.11 Aetna denied my appeal

3.11.11 I faxed denial letter to Kelley Lindstrom at obesitylaw

3.11.11 2nd appeal is sent

3.30.11 2nd appeal overturned - surgery approved!!! But I didn't find out until 4.8.11

4.9.11 the official letter arrived in mail

5.5.11 6am dr. Michaelson changed my life

I hope this helps you!!!

I also have Aetna, and I went thru the same thing. I have boderline BMI of 35, but I also have 3 comorbities and was denied. Already contacted obesitylaw.com for help but have not heard from them yet. I hope they can help me get approved. Who paid for it? I'm not sure who Allergan is. Thanks for any info.

I have Aetna, for me they required 3mo supervised diet and 2 years history of being over 40bmi which I didn't have So i was denied twice. Had to enlist the big boys at obesitylaw.com for help (the surgeon's office told me about them and Allergan footed the bill) They were the nicest folks and after two appeals, I was finally approved! woohoo

Good Luck!!!

I've been denied by Aetna and would appreciate any help-you can email me @ christine_gicking@glic.com. thanks

I bought something online that helps get you through the insurance approval and also helps you keep track of who you spoke to and when, etc. If you want a copy sent to your e-mail, post it and I'd be happy to send it to you. I hate for anyone to have to pay $50 for it, when I bought it and can share the information!!!

[Did you get approval from insurance yet? I'm in the same boat as you, borderline BMI. I've already been denied by Aetna 2 times. I'm still hopeful I will be approved by the end of the year. So frustrating!!!

Thanks for the info on obesitylaw.com. I sent a request to them today to help with my appeal. How long did it take start to finish for you. This will be by second appeal. I just don't understand how they can deny when 2 dr's say this is crucial to my health.

Congratulations to everyone that was approved.

I have Aetna and was denied. the denial was uphelp in the first and second level appeal by Aetna. It was so stressful.

The final appeal is an independent external review process. This is where the decision goes out to an independent doctor not associated with the insurance company who will decide based upon the information provided if the patient meets the standards published by NIH and other medical groups. Mine did and the decision by Aetna was overturned. The entire process took almost 10 months and was SO stressful.

All of my appeals were done with the help of http://www.obesitylaw.com

It cost me nothing and Kelley is the BEST !! She called me 2 days before I was going to Disney to tell me the good news. She even offered to give me passes to Disneyland that they use to take out the employees in the office each year. Unfortunately I was going to Disney World in FL so I couldn't use the passes. She was so nice I decided I would tell everyone who was having issues with approval about them. They provide an awesome service to people who could really use help. I believe her husband Walter had both Gastric bypass and a Lapband revision later on.

Good Luck to anyone having to deal with Aetna.

I also have Aetna, but was denied. I am appealing, but wasn't told anything about a nurse handling my case. When I call the reps are not helpful at all. I faxed my appeal to the expedited line and left a message 3 times now with no response. They are supposed to let you know within 72 hrs. This is really stressful and I am praying they approve me. I was scheduled for August 10.

Approved!!! I'm so excited. It only took 5 days! I wish the same for everyone else that is WAITING.... So stressful!

Has anyone been denied by Aetna, filed an appeal and they approved the surgery? Just wondering how good my chances are of getting approved after denial. I've already started the ball rolling with asking my Dr to submit a Medical Necessity statement.

I found this great stuff...powdered Peanut Butter. It's called PB2, you can only order it online. Try Lindasdietdelites.com, they have it for $3.99. It has about 80% less fat, sugar and calories per serving. It tastes great and you can you it for lots of recipes including in shakes.

Any shake combos you have come up with? Partial to Peanut Butter and bananas here.

Read a coffee one on the boards here that sounds delish....looking for any ideas~

Appreciate any you can post....THANKS!

So have I! I'm glad to have found other people from this area.

My surgeon is Dr. Boorse's associate Dr. Harrison. My surgery is scheduled for August 16. I have heard very good things about both Boorse and Harrison, so we should be in good hands :-)

Hello! He is my surgeon too. I already met with him in April, but my surgery date is August 10. There are alot of appointments, but I too feel confident that I am very prepared and there is alot on the internet so do your research. Good Luck to you. Let me know how you are doing.

I have begun the journey with Lehigh Valley Bariatric. There are so many appointments I can't keep track. I must say they cover all the bases and I feel confident that I will be well prepared when the time comes for me to get my band. I was just wondering if anyone has used Dr. Boorse? I will not get a chance to meet him until two weeks before my file goes to the review board for approval (July 12) so when they asked me to pick a surgeon I had to go by reputation alone.

Thanks for all the great tips. I'm getting banded in August and could use all the advice I can get. Thank you!!!

How I lost 102 pounds

8 Easy Secrets of My 102-Pound Weight-Loss Success

I was banded in February of 2009 and just shy of 2 years later, in December of 2011, I reached my goal weight! I started at 225 pounds, a size 22/24. In December I reached 123 pounds and a size 2/4. I wrote this little excerpt in the hopes of helping some newly-banded people as they start their journey. I hope this doesn't seem too cheesy! Please let me know if any of you have any questions of need any help.

It's hard not to compare my weight loss this time versus all the attempts at weight loss that I've made in the past. What am I doing differently this time versus previous times? What's working? What tips do I have for others that want to lose weight? This post explains exactly what I've learned so far, and why this is working for me and other attempts have not.

I want to preface this list with a quick comment about weight loss surgery. Two+ years ago I had the gastric banding surgery. Yes, the surgery has helped me lose weight, but NO the surgery is not necessarily a magic tool that has enabled my weight loss. In fact, my surgeon told me that most people who have weight loss surgery aren't successful at all! Why not? Because some people don't change their habits, or learn to "eat around the band," meaning that they are gobbling up ice cream and milk shakes, which may be "easy" to eat, but are smothered in calories. No, the surgery isn't magic cure-all, but it has helped.

1. Weight-Loss should be easy. I can't stress this enough, and I know you're probably sitting there looking at me like I'm off my rocker. I'm serious though. I'm devoting far less effort and energy into losing weight this time around than last time. Sure, this may be due in part to the weight-loss surgery, but not entirely. You see, prior to my recent loss, I was: counting calories, measuring food. I was going out of my way to eat healthfully. I exercised a minimum of an hour a day, six days a week. I worked hard to find the perfect combination of cardio vs. weight training. I paid for a personal trainer. I paid for weight watchers. I obsessed over the scale. I tried Atkins, South Beach, Zone, Master Cleanser, and a zillion other fad diets. And you know what? Those fad diets are HARD because they force you to live dissimilarly than your usual lifestyle. Fad diets are hard work. Let me repeat this: weight loss should be easy. If you're spending hours and hours a day actively "working on losing weight" then you need to take a step back and re-evaluate how you're going about your weight loss. This time around I try hard to make good eating choices, but I don't always get it right. (In the past, I'd be 100% diligent to my plans, but with ZERO success on the scale.) I try to get some exercise in, but I don't always succeed. The point is, I'm just trying to live well and do the best I can, but I'm not obsessing and going nuts over trying to lose weight, and you shouldn't either. After all, don't we have families and careers and more important things that we should be spending the better part of our time on?
2. It's 80% about the food and 20% about the exercise. When I first started out losing weight, I had all but given up on exercise. I don't like working out. I don't like going to the gym. At the start of my current journey, I had given so much blood, sweat, and tears at the gym with ZERO reward that I flat-out burnt myself out. So when this new weight loss journey began, I wasn't exercising at all. It didn't matter. I'm no scientist, but just an observation of mine: the more weight you have to lose, the less your weight loss is about the exercise. Instead, focus your attention on getting your eating under control, picking healthy options, eating often (more about that below). As you start to lose weight, you'll naturally have more energy and will pick up the exercise factor, as it fits into your life. As you inch closer to your goal weight, you should exercise more and more. Exercise is crucial to weight maintenance, but not so much about weight loss. Because I'm so close to my goal weight, I exercise perhaps 3-4 times a week, but I don't freak out about it if I miss a gym session.
3. Eat small meals, and eat often. I realized about 30 pounds into my weight loss journey that I was no longer eating "meals" at all. Instead, I was grazing. Snacking. All day long. I'd nibble on this, and I'd nibble on that. This is entirely due to the band, and without the gastric band I never would have discovered this important aspect of weight loss. So this is what my prior-to-weight-loss dieting attempts would look like: I'd either skip Breakfast or have some oatmeal. For lunch I'd have a 6 inch sub from subway, with vinegar as dressing. For dinner I'd have some steamed veggies and grilled chicken. Period. The end. The food choices were seemingly good, but I was eating too much, and only at two sittings. Your body apparently doesn't like this. Today, I eat 5-6 times a day, but only 150-200 calories of food at any given sitting. I never eat a "meal" anymore. The great thing about eating small portions of food is that I can pretty much eat whatever I want, and I think the variety is really healthy for my body. I'm less obsessed over eating "diet food" and allow myself to eat "real food" during these mini-meals. (I eat a lot of Soup these days, especially at restaurants, because it's the perfect portion size!)
4. Pay attention to your body, not the USDA. Okay, do a little math now. If I'm only eating 150 calories per meal, 6 times a day…that means I'm eating….900 calories a day? Say what? Are you crazy? No I'm not! So in my Quest to lose weight, I scrutinized how many calories a typical woman should be eating, according to the USDA. They say 2,000 for a sedentary female 19 to 30 years old. BMR calculators told me I should eat 1,774 calories. Well, no wonder I wasn't losing weight! I was either trying to eat "just right" and follow one of those crazy guidelines, or pretty much starving myself trying to save as many calories as humanly possible.Now look. I'm not going to tell you to eat only 900 calories a day. I also don't think you should listen to the USDA. Instead, listen to your own body. I truly believe that every person has their own calorie setpoint that they like to be at. For me, I think that my weight-stabilizing point is around 1000-1100 calories. To lose about a pound or two a week, I need to target 800-900 calories per day. This is the point that works for me, but it may not work for you. You need to experiment a little bit to figure out what your calorie setpoint is, but the only way you can do that is to pay close attention to your body.
5. Avoid carbs, but don't eliminate them entirely. I mostly eat whatever I want these days, but there are a few nit-picky little trends that I've identified. I don't know if these really contribute to weight loss or not, but I figure they were worth mentioning. Because of my gastric band, I avoid carbs. They get stuck in my stomach and it's quite uncomfortable. Consequently, I just avoid eating bread products, pastries, Pasta of any kind, French fries, rice, and things like that. That means no pizza!! Boohoo!! My favorite food is forevermore off limits to me! On the other hand, I don't completely cut out the carbs. My opinion is that if you're going to eat carbs, take them from real living plants: rice, potatoes, quinoa, etc. Stay away from things that are mixed with man-made products (bread, pasta) and are refined, processed, and look nothing like their main ingredient anymore.
6. Eat real food. Quit feeding yourself "fat-free" and "sugar-free" and "low-calorie" garbage. Look, the stuff is gross and for good reason: it's not real food. Treat yourself to real food, and yes, please eat foods that are rich in fat. I'm talking about real cheese. Avocados. Almonds. eggs. Even indulge in real ice cream on rare occasions, and butter, and olive oil. (You know that candy bars and potato chips aren't "real food," so let's not even go there.) Stay away from foods that are processed and refined and look for food that has real flavor. Now, remember that I only eat 150 calories at any given sitting, so 150 calories of butter or cheese is not going to go very far. I might eat some hummus with 1 Tbs of feta cheese on Tomato wedges. Or Peanut Butter on an apple slice. Watch your portion sizes carefully, but ahead and eat the real stuff.
7. Stay away from soda, even diet soda. For that matter, avoid anything with man-made sweeteners, carbonated fizziness (which only helps to EXPAND your stomach), corn Syrup, or processed crap. Okay, I'll have a beer maybe once a week, which I probably shouldn't, but as a general rule I don't consume sodas anymore. I used to drink Diet Pepsi like it was going out of style. No more!
8. Drink Water, but do so carefully. This is a little trick that my weight loss surgeon taught me. One hour prior to eating, chug a ****-ton of Water. Then while you are eating your meal and for one hour following your meal, don't drink anything. The theory behind this is: (1) the water prior to your meal fills you up, and (2) avoiding water during your meal means that you are not physically flushing the food out of your stomach. Because the food remains in your stomach (3) you end up feeling fuller, for longer. It really does work. Try it sometime.

A fun before pic!

Me now:

My surgeon is Dr. Boorse at LVH. Good Luck!!![

I am from Allentown! Who's your surgeon??? I don't have a date yet...I meet with my surgeon next Thursday, so I'm hoping to get a tentative date then. I'm hoping for mid-July-early August for my surgery so I have enough time to recover before school starts back up!

Good to hear!

Omg...I was a wreck prior to surgery, almost cried even though I knew I was doing the right thing....it's just the thought of voluntarily going under, I was definitely a big weenie. I have never had a broken bone or any type of surgery, so it was a big step for me. But I truly believe that is what we are all here for, we are all taking that big step. or have taken it. It's over before you know it though, and I came home today with my stomach staples looking like a lil mini Frankenstein down there, but it is all good, they will be removed in one week and from what I understand, you won't be able to see them before long. All in all things went well I feel ok, just really tired which is to be expected and really sore which is to expected as well. Get to take a shower tonight , which Im excited about! My surgeon and P.A. stated that my stomach and intestines had large fat deposits around them and that it would probably cause me to have more fills to get to my sweet spot because as I lose that fat, it would loosen more and the restriction would go away, so I would need another fill possiblly sooner. Apparently is was a rather large fat deposit around some of my organs so my P.A. looked at me and stated, well this just confirms that you have done the right thing with this surgery.....WOW....what a statement. And she was right, I knew anyway, but what a confirmation from someone that was in the OR and seen what your organs look like. Anyway, I just wanted to give some quick shout outs to everyone for some quick updates on how everything went. I will keep everyone updated!!

Carpe Diem!!

It is overwhelming with all the appointments. I do think it will be worth the trouble to lose this weight that has been hanging around for way too long! Good luck to you

So am I!!!!! My surgery date was orginally set for july 28, but I am going to have to push it to Aug. I am in NJ. I am feeling overwhelmed with all the appointments needed before surgery. I know in the end its well worth it, but Jeez!!!! Its not easy working full time and having two kids. I was wondering if you ere feeling the same way?

Only 60 pounds!!! Do you have any comorbidities like diabetes, high blood pressure? I too only need to lose about 65lbs. I say only very loosely! I am scheduled for lap band August 10, 2011.

I noticed that most people's weight ticker on here say they need to lose 100 or so pounds. Even though I do meet the BMI to have this done, I only have to lose about 60 pounds. Are there people, that anyone knows of, that get the band when they only have 60 pounds to lose? Please let me know.

Thanks~Lisa

I'd say that is too much after having any surgery!

I just got the call!!!!!!!

I am so excited and scared and every other emotion that goes along with that So my question is....I can suppose to have surgery on May 24th however my husband and I have tickets for a baseball game that is about 5 hours away from where I live, so we will drive there and back and spend the weekend in the City. So I would have surgery on Tuesday and then leave for the game on Saturday morning....Do you think that is too much to do after having the lap band surgery????

Thanks so much!!

Lehigh Valley Hospital- Dr. Richard Boorse He is with General Surgical Associates, ph 610 439 4055.

I went for a consultation at the Barix clinics in Langhorne PA. The doctor I saw keeps pushing the gastric bypass, but I know I definately want the band. He said that they will have someone from Lap band come and put it in since that's not what he does. I want to know more about the doctor who will be doing it even if he is from Lap band.

I am thinking about looking for another doctor just in case. I am waiting for a call back from the Clinic about the doctor but haven't heard anything. Does anyone have any recommendations for a doctor they used in Pa or NJ? I have started with my doctor superivised 6 month weight loss plan, and hope to be ready by the begining of October to be banded. Any help would be really appreciated!

Thanks!

That is fantastic. Hope I have the same success to lose 65!!! Keep up the good work.

100 pounds are gone forever!!! This morning I dragged my unmotivated butt onto the scale thinking, "tomorrow is my surgiversary and I will not have met my 100 pound goal because my weightloss has slowed to a near STOP" whoa is me.... well instead I got on one day before my surgiversary and voila!!! 100.5 pounds are gone. :success1:

I think that I floated off the scale but I am not sure, I cant really remember clearly because I think I momentarily got hysterical,lol. I just wanted to post my unending happiness on here so others can be given the hope that yes it is possible. We all do the best we can and still have days that we feel that the end is never going to be in sight, well it can happen!

This has been one of the hardest things I have done in my life. I didnt take the "EASY" road as some like to think and judge, but, I did get the tool I needed to take my life back.

Congratulations to all of us who have had the nerve to demand that we deserve better than to just settle for being overweight and unhealthy.! You all have given me many days of motivation and I want to do the same for those starting out, feeling stuck or just having a bad day. YOU CAN DO IT TOO!!!

THANK YOU SO MUCH LBT, you are so wonderful!!! :thankyou: :thankyou: :thankyou:

Can you tell me how to add the weight tracker to my profile?

I'm also being banded by Dr Boorse but in August. Glad to find someone else on here from the area. How are you doing so far? I'm down 5.5lbs so far, only 65 more to go.