TerriDoodle

OK girlz (no guys, huh?), I'm just gonna ramble here most 'cause I'm bored with nothing better to do. First, confession time: I went out and ate a 1/3 basket-full of tortilla chips and some enchiladas verdes for dinner. I got on the scale this morning and had dropped a couple of pounds, so I figure, "Hey, why not? I'll never get to eat this again." It absolutely IS my favorite dinner in the world, but jeez.... this last supper thing is hard to shake!! The other thing is that earlier in the week DH and I had an argument and we basically haven't spoken to each other since. (It had to do with a long-standing problem about money that I thought was being resolved, but apparently isn't. The problem is that he doesn't share info with me 'cause he's the big $$-winner ...?? doesn't make sense to me...I'm his WIFE). Anyway, I'm wondering if he's feeling a little insecure about my losing weight...he said something about me 'taking 1/2 the money and leaving'. Huh??? Oh, I dunno where I'm going with this. I guess I'm just upset that this issue is never going to go away and I'm all obsessing about the surgery and I guess just trying to tie the two together. I'm loo-loo. I don't know how or when we'll ever start speaking again. Could be days. Lovely, huh? And speaking of telling family and friends....I don't know what to tell my sister and mom. My mom is pretty feeble and I help to take care of her on the weekends (running errands, keeping her company, taking her to lunch, etc.) but obviously I won't be able to do that after my surg (Easter wknd)...so I gotta figure out what to tell them. I don't want to worry mom about this at her age. She wouldn't understand it in her state of mind. No way...she'd confuse it with bypass and would freak out. So I have to tell my sister something so she can cover for me that wknd, but can't tell her the truth either. She DEFINITELY could use the surgery herself, but has always been so....petty...or jealous....or something with me. I dunno. She'll think it's the dumbest thing in the world and tell everyone we know "what an idiot" I am....only because she's so embarrassed about being so FAT herself. She's gonna come unglued when I start losing weight. GAWD I hope I weigh 130 someday!! LOL I've only told my hubby (of course), my 2 kids (sworn to secrecy), and two girlfriends (also sworn to secrecy). I think I can get away with that. I hope. I really don't want to tell anyone else. Wow, can't believe my ticker says 19 days 'til surgery. Yikes. Gotta start seriously getting my ducks in a row!! I am WAY sick of being fat.

I'm sorry, but I canNOT imagine going thru a tummy tuck!!....or whatever! But then again, I'm not there yet. I suppose it's possible....with enough morphine! :success1:

Hey Kimmie -- That's ALL good information....especially about your great weight loss!!! I'm proud of you, girl!!! :success1:

Interesting article about food addictions and obesity.... http://www.lapbandtalk.com/why-am-addicted-t31405.html?p=415992#post415992

From PSYCHOLOGY TODAY Addiction: Pay Attention Heroin and chocolate cake have a nasty way of crowding out the rest of the universe. The country's chief addiction expert argues that the propensity to drink, overeat and take drugs is a matter of attention gone awry. By:Kathleen McGowan Meeting her now, it is hard to believe that the Mexican-Russian great-granddaughter of the revolutionary Leon Trotsky ever felt the need to impress her friends. But the universal teenage urge to look more glamorous drove a young Nora Volkow, then in high school, to smoke her first cigarette. It could have been the first step toward a nasty habit, but something in her neurochemistry rebelled. She hated it. Volkow, now one of the country's most prominent drug addiction researchers and the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), doesn't think that her disgust for cigarettes had anything to do with morals or self-control. She says she's just naturally intense; the additional stimulation provided by the nicotine was simply too much for her. "I like coffee, but I cannot even drink it because I get so wired," she says. "I was probably born like that. I'm very protected against drugs. It's my neurobiology, and I'm lucky." Listening to her explain her theories about addiction and the brain, her self-diagnosis sounds right on target. Even though she's petite, with a jogger's lean physique, she dominates the room. She speaks very fast, with a Spanish accent that rounds her vowels, and ideas tumble out one after the other so quickly that it's almost impossible to keep up. She's a fast-moving example of one of her most interesting theories: that addiction may be a malfunction of the normal human craving for stimulation. Volkow thinks that drugs and other addictive habits tap into some of the deepest forces within us—our lust for newness, our yearning for vitality and the deep-down thrill of being alive. "We all seek that intensity," she says. "There's something very powerful about that." This idea is based on a new understanding of dopamine, the brain chemical involved in motivation, pleasure and learning. Because addictive drugs like cocaine and nicotine cause a flood of dopamine in the brain, researchers once thought that the neurochemical was a simple pleasure switch, the body's own "reward" button. Yet something didn't add up. If dopamine delivers the pleasure message, addicts should be in a continual state of bliss—but most of them get very little pleasure from the drug, despite the surge of neurochemicals. "I've seen hundreds of addicted people, and never have I come across one who wanted to be addicted," says Volkow. As she began doing brain-imaging studies with drug addicts, that contradiction haunted her. In response, Volkow and other researchers are developing a new understanding of addiction. Rather than just telling us to feel good, dopamine tells us what's salient—the unexpected bits of new information we need to pay attention to in order to survive, like alerts about sex, food and pleasure, as well as danger and pain. If you are hungry and you get a whiff of a bacon cheeseburger, Volkow's research team has shown, your dopamine skyrockets. But the chemical will also surge if a lion leaps into your cubicle. Dopamine's role is to shout: "Hey! Pay attention to this!" Only as an afterthought might it whisper "Wow, this feels great." So maybe addicts aren't just chasing a good time. Perhaps their brains have somehow mistakenly learned that drugs are the most important thing to pay attention to, as crucial to survival as food or sex. The salience theory of dopamine also provides new explanations for other self-destructive human tendencies, from binge eating to gambling. It may explain why we crave the stimulation of new information. The experiments that Volkow and her team are conducting may also reveal some of the most powerful behavioral machinery in our brains, the equipment that motivates and inspires us. If they are right, dopamine is more than a joyride. It's more like the drug of life. Its mission is more profound and philosophical: to connect us to the world and supply us with the will to stay alive. Nora Volkow has science in her blood. Her father is a chemist, her grandfather and her great-grandfather were physicists. But her family, which emigrated from Russia to Mexico in the 1930s, has another intellectual legacy. One of her great-grandfathers was the brilliant Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky, and Volkow grew up in the Mexico City home where he spent the last days of his life—and where he was killed on Stalin's orders in 1940. Parts of the house became a museum of Trotsky's life, and when Volkow was a child, people like the Nobel Prize-winning novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez would stop by. Volkow, though, was more interested in psychiatry than in politics. She graduated at the top of her medical school class at the National University of Mexico, then came to the United States to pursue the new science of brain imaging. During the 1980s, at New York University and then at University of Texas, Austin, she used brain imaging techniques to study schizophrenia and cocaine addiction—and established herself as a leader in the field. She then moved to Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York, where she won a reputation as an intellectual powerhouse, respected for her creativity as well as for her productivity. "Nora has that enthusiasm, that spark," says NYU Medical Center psychiatry chair Robert Cancro, who worked with her early in her career. "She'd get excited about things, talk 160 words a minute—and that was in English!" Her colleagues say she is a bold and unconventional thinker. Early on, she demonstrated that cocaine physically damaged the brain. It took years before this controversial finding was accepted, but other research eventually proved her right. She was also an early champion of the idea that drug addiction is a medical problem, rather than a lack of willpower or moral Fiber. That formerly radical view is now considered mainstream. Since she was chosen to direct NIDA, Volkow has brought new visibility to the controversial theory about dopamine that has percolated in the scientific community for approximately the past decade. According to the salience theory of dopamine, the neurochemical is released when something surprisingly important happens, whether that's an unexpected reward or accidentally stepping on a nail. Since dopamine is also involved in learning, memory and motivation, the chemical helps us pay attention to the information we need to survive, act upon it, and remember it for the future. But drugs hijack that machinery, sending 5 to ten times as much dopamine surging through the nucleus accumbens and forcing the brain's motivational and attentional mechanisms to focus purely on the drug. It becomes the most interesting and important thing in the world. "In any addicted person, what's salient is the drug," says Volkow. "There's no competition." Over time, the addict's brain adapts to the torrent of dopamine by dampening the system down. Imaging experiments show that cocaine addicts' brains don't react to the things that turn on the rest of us, whether that's romantic passion, food or cold, hard cash. Volkow's research has also shown that addicts have fewer dopamine D2 receptors, which are found in parts of the brain involved in motivation and reward behavior. With fewer receptors, the dopamine system is desensitized, and the now-understimulated addict needs more and more of the drug to feel anything at all. Meanwhile, pathways associated with other interesting stimuli are left idle and lose strength. The prefrontal cortex—the part of the brain associated with judgment and inhibitory control—also stops functioning normally. It's a neurological recipe for disaster. "You have enhanced motivation for the drug, and you have impaired prefrontal cortical systems. So you want the drugs pathologically, and you have reduced control of behavior, and what you've got is an addict," says University of Michigan, Ann Arbor psychology professor Terry Robinson, who pioneered this new way of thinking about dopamine with his University of Michigan colleague Kent Berridge. Some people are apparently born with fewer dopamine receptors, and they are more likely to enjoy the rush of addictive drugs. In one imaging experiment, Volkow gave Ritalin, which gently lifts dopamine levels, to a group of ordinary volunteers. Some loved the feeling of the drug, but others hated it so much that they threatened to drop out of the study. Volkow was puzzled until she imaged their brains. She found that those who liked the rush from the drug had fewer dopamine D2 receptors than those who hated it. Volkow thinks that some people have a sensitive dopamine circuitry; they can't take the additional stimulation of drugs. Obesity may involve similar malfunctions in the dopamine system. Volkow's longtime Brookhaven collaborator Gene-Jack Wang has discovered that the brains of seriously obese people seem to be tuned toward food. Even when they are lying quietly in the scanning machine, the sensory cortex of their mouth, tongue and lips is more active than it is in normal-weight people, he says: "They are putting out their antennae." Yet he also found that the dopamine circuitry of heavy people is less responsive, with fewer dopamine D2 receptors. Even among the obese, there are dopamine differences. The heaviest people in his study had fewer dopamine receptors than the lightest. Like addicts, overeaters may be compensating for a sluggish dopamine system by turning to the one thing that gets their neurons pumping. It's a mark of changing times—and more sophisticated science—that the head of the National Institute on Drug Abuse is thinking about doughnuts as well as heroin. Just as blaming drug addiction on moral weakness was a shortsighted and unscientific way of framing a social problem, Volkow believes that focusing solely on metabolism, or blaming fat people for overindulgence and gluttony, are intellectual dead ends. "What motivates us to eat is clearly much more than hunger," she says. "We need to expand the way we think about eating." Wang and Volkow suggest that dopamine may provide a new window into weight loss: Animal studies have shown, for example, that exercise elevates dopamine release and increases dopamine D2 receptors. Volkow and the other champions of the new view of dopamine don't deny that the chemical helps us register pleasure. But they think that pleasure is just part of a set of interconnected dopamine-related behaviors. Volkow recently found that adults with attention deficit disorder who took dopamine-boosting Ritalin before taking a math test found it easier to concentrate, in part, because the task seemed more interesting, so they felt more motivated to do the problem. From this angle, it makes sense that the cognitive process of absorbing new information is closely tied to the brain's pleasure mechanisms. You might say that what the brain really "wants" is new information, suggests Gregory Berns, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory University in Atlanta. "Neurons really exist to process information. That's what neurons do. If you want to anthropomorphize neurons, you can say that they are happiest when they are processing information." This urge to connect to the world and learn from it is more important than mere pleasure, says Volkow. It's part of the most basic force in behavior: the will to live. It's not automatic, she points out. Seriously ill or very depressed people can lose the will to survive. "What is the motivation we all have to be alive, to do things?" she asks. "It's not pleasure. Our lives would be so much simpler if we were motivated just for the sake of pleasure." But dopamine sensitivity and addiction aren't genetically determined or inevitable. One experiment with monkeys showed that the dopamine system may be influenced by social interactions: Animals that lost social status also lost D2 receptors. Context is also crucial. Obviously, it's easier to get hooked if drugs are easy to get in your neighborhood, but it's not just a question of supply and demand. People who grow up in stimulating, engaging surroundings are protected against addiction, Volkow believes, even if they don't have a naturally responsive dopamine system. If you connect to the world in a meaningful way, and have more chances to get excited about natural stimuli, you're less likely to need an artificial boost. "If you don't get excited by everyday things in life, if things look gray, and the drug makes things look extraordinary, that puts you at risk," she says. "But if you get great excitement out of a great multiplicity of things, and intensely enjoy these things—seeing a movie, or climbing a mountain—and then you try a drug, you'll think: What's the big deal?" For those lucky enough to grow up as Volkow did, surrounded by sharp minds and fascinating history, drugs are just nowhere near as interesting as everyday life.

Does anyone know why these gas pains settle in the shoulder area? That seems very strange to me. Betsyjane - I'm so glad to hear that you enjoyed your meeting!! I wish I could go but it's impossible for me on Tuesday nights . I think this board will have to serve as only my support system....but hopefully that will be more than enough.

Sheila -- Don't you realize that each and every one of us are 'beating ourselves up' because we don't have the 'willpower'? Yes, I feel quite sure that we are all doing that. For me to do what it takes I literally would have to stay hungry 80% of the day and exercise my butt off 5-6x a week. Do I have the 'willpower' to stay hungry 80% of my waking hours for the rest of my life?? Hell NO. Who does??? My genetic makeup is what it is...yours is too....and we are just lucky that we have this tool to help us. Do I wish I didn't have to do this? Yes. Am I absolutely GRATEFUL that this solution is available to me??? Oh, GAWD YES!!! Am I concerned that I won't be able to stay on the LB food plan? Yes, a little....I'm sure we all are. It's a big, big change. But, for me, I know that if a plan succeeds for me and I'm losing even 5#...I'm on a ROLL baby and I stay motivated like crazy. It still doesn't get me to the gym like I should, but I stick to the plan otherwise. My BIG thing is avoiding hunger and the band should help with that. I think I will do alright. I don't think I'll be losing 20# in 2 weeks like so many do, but I think I'll lose enough to keep me moving in the right direction....slowly but surely....moving toward my goal. And look at ALL THIS SUPPORT!! We're all going to be doing this together and that is going to be a huge help. Tracy - That list is surely not updated for all those users, right? So what I'm saying is that only reflects the loss for the last time those users 'checked in'...and in reality their total losses at one year could be much higher! Wooo hooo!!! :biggrin1: Terry

....on Atkins or other low carb plan, fruit is avoided, with the exception of a few berries 3-4x a week. I mix them with cottage cheese and splenda and have that for breakfast! My favorite! I'm eating lunch at my desk right now...low carb...and I have zucchini, cauliflower and chicken breast that is smothered in a cajun creole sauce. :hungry: No roll, no rice!! You want to keep your carbs below 40-50/day. Atkins starts out at 20g/day, but that's tough to do. I like to use www.fitday.com for counting carbs and calories. Good luck to ya!!

Here ya go. This website appears to contain very comprehensive information: http://www.leakygut.co.uk/index.htm Best of luck to you. I do hope the band will help you in lots of ways! :clap2:

Well Jenn, it certainly sounds like you are on the right track. It is such a healthy thing that you are doing!!! I am sure it is painful for you (whatever it is) but you're OK now. You're safe and you're taking care of yourself and that is probably a HUGE step for you. KEEP GOING!! We're here for you.

I've been a b*tch all week, feeling down and wondered if it had anything to do with my upcoming surgery. I can't put my finger on it. And yes, I feel like crawling into bed, too. :phanvan Guysis, thanks for checking up on us and for your insight. Do you mind holding our hands just a few more weeks?? C'mon guys.... GROUP HUG!!! :eek:

Well, I'm glad I don't have your doctor!! I know I couldn't do that. No way. that's precisely why I'm getting the BAND!!

Leaky Gut is a very interesting "theory"...I don't know if it's recognized formally in the medical field but in the natural medicine field it most certainly is. I think you'd be amazed at seeing yourself in the profile. If you'd like me to find you some links, I'd be happy to do that. If you're a carb addict and have leaky gut....you surely will have those problems. Maybe after you get banded and stay away from bread & Pasta, you'll see some improvement. Although I think it's recommended to avoid ALL wheat gluten...period. Best of luck to you.

Well, I guess I'll just cross that bridge when I get to it!! Thanks everyone.

I didn't get the impression that his pre-op diet requirements are very strict, did you? I mean, Brenda basically said, "Here's the diet but don't worry about it too much...a lot of people don't follow it." And since I am self-pay I could schedule my surgery anytime I wanted to. I could have had the surgery within 4 days if I wanted...so how would that have allowed for any kind of pre-op diet? I don't mind going low-carb, but I can't go low-carb and low-fat at the same time!!! My hypoglycemia would give me FITS! What were your impressions?

I have back problems from time to time...I can tell you that Tyelnol is NOT going to cut it next time my back goes out. I wonder what my alternatives will be??

I'm just curious...have you ever done a low=carb diet? When I was die-hard LC, I knew a lot of people who had your symptoms and were helped when they cut out wheat products. Have you ever tried that? You may also want to look up "leaky gut syndrome" and see if anything rings a bell for you. Just my 2 cents.

:bump: Bumpin' on up!

I am really surprised by the sheer number of people over the age of 40....or even 50....on this board. I think it demonstrates that, by this age, we know what works and what doesn't. I've been limiting my calories to about 1500 since for the last couple of weeks and have lost a grand total of 1#! And I already know that by the time my surgery comes around that number won't change much. Been there, done that. Diets just don't work anymore. Period. I need HELP, serious HELP, in getting my calories any lower and am counting on the band. After 48 years (38 of those spent dieting) I know what I am capable of....if I don't have the "willpower" to do it in the customary way, so be it. I don't have any desire to spend the rest of my life HUNGRY in order to be at a healthy weight. No, thank you. It is unfortunate that the general public doesn't realize what it's like to be us....or understand that this is a deeply personal and well-researched decision on our parts. Do they (the 'unbelievers') really think we'd prefer to be restricted in this way if there wasn't a damn good reason for it? I personally don't have the energy or the will to explain this to every single person who wants justification for my decision and for this reason I just have to keep it as private a possible....strictly on a need-to-know basis. Anyway, it's a beautiful day here in Houston and I think I'll go out for a walk!! Hope ya'll have a nice Sunday!

Well the April bandwagon is getting full!! Welcome to all you newcomers!! I think that's a good idea to visit the April 2006 bandsters...that'll keep me motivated and excited!

I went thru this for about a week after I scheduled my surgery but quickly realized 3 things: 1) I'm not eating these things for the last time....I will be able to eat all my favorite foods again, it will just be a matter of time, and they'll be in smaller portions. 2) I am not serving ANY good purpose by eating this way. I'm only getting that much farther away from goal. 3) If I'm getting ready to voluntarily alter the way I eat forever, I had better at least be prepared to make a few changes before the surgery. I wanted to use this time to make sure I'm mentally prepared to make sacrifices...and if not, perhaps I should postpone it until I am. Having said all this, I do still have a bit of the 'last supper mentality'....like I had two slices of thin crust pizza last night...and justified it somehow. But I'm not eating everything in sight like I was for that first week. I think the thing to keep in mind is: Don't panic.

I am pretty confident that I'll be a good LB patient but I am a bit concerned about the unexpected things that may come up. I mean, for instance, I don't consider myself an emotional eater, a grazer, or anything like that....but what if I am and I just don't realize it? ...and then I figure out after I'm banded that I depended on food for lots of things!? Know what I mean? From time to time I'm reading about people who had a huge lunch or grazed all day on brownies and fried chicken....YIKES! How does that happen??? Surely not good for the band or pouch! For those of you that faced this, did you find help in any particular book? I'm not good at keeping therapy appts. so I could, at least, read a book or two on the issue. It may turn out after all that I need years and years of therapy!! :heh:

Well, I guess it's healthy to get a little nervous--prepares you for the realistic possibilities, right? It'll be ok. It'll be ok. It'll be ok. It'll be ok.

Well, I guess it's healthy to get a little nervous--prepares you for the realistic possibilities, right? It'll be ok. It'll be ok. It'll be ok. It'll be ok.

Hmmm...that's a new one! I haven't heard of that before?! What happens if you move or something? I do understand the logic, though....they want to make sure you follow-up thoroughly for 5 years. So that $6000 is on TOP of your surgery fees? Yikes! I'm glad my surgeon doesn't require that...it would make it impossible for me to do it. But, after all, you DO live in Palm Springs! :heh: Lucky dog!!