lizrbit

Hi Annabelle! When is your surgery scheduled? Do you know if there is a support group in your area? I leave in one week to go back down to south texas for the entire winter, so my timing sucks...but i'll be back and would love to at least email or pm to keep in touch with your progress and stuff? are you excited? Where are you at in the whole thing? have you done any of the preop tests yet?

righton. I just want to bump the thread up a bit. I am trying not to gain at this point. Ive not been to the gym in a month because of stuff going on with jobs etc...and ive been a bit depressed. im trying to watch what im eating, and its helped. usually this would have been a horrible gaining time but at least with my band and some restriction, i havent (yay) and thats somethign to be hopeful about i suppose! i gotta get on the right track!

unfortunately ive been increasing the amount of weight my legs has to carry as well. :confused: not too bad though. i'll be glad when im out of this funk and get back on track. last night i fell off again. Damn butterfingers.

rag, what is 'heavylegs'?

ive lost the worlds largest ball of tape so far, but i have a newborn calf to go. lol

Happy Brithday Stacy!

Nope, i dont think they will do that at all.

Hey! Nice to meet you, im a Dr St. Laurent (aka dr delicious) fan. I liked him so much i let him band me twice! In all seriousness, hes a fantastic surgeon and ive really enjoyed being his patient.

o i almost forgot too..Lapbandit. would love to meet that person.

Thanks Derrick! I feel famous, even if your the only one whod like to meet me id like to meet you too, as well as Jack (the jack rocks), badonkadonkbutt, imedina, bjean, losinjustme, chickie, 2bthinagain, hoosierpoms, smatyas, Wheetin, Tracyks (what a great supportive person. I think shes fantastic), Alexandra, and really there are a handful more im blanking on their screenames right now. I fly across the US a couple of times a year, its not out of the question if someone wanted to catch coffee or lunch at an airport sometime...

lmao... ive decided that all things aside, there is a remote control in my dr's office that he lets the interns play with which explains why one day you can eat an egg and the next day you cant.

hi mrs jones. what happened? how has your progress been so far? did you lose and regain or just didnt lose? do you have fills? Im very interested in hearing.

oh..i forgot... when you spray him with the ammonia Water mixture you have to smak his bottom with a rolled up newspaper and scream "NO bobby, BAD bobby!" as you do it. (replace his name with bobby when screaming directions)

keep rubber bands closeby and when he says it again, shoot three of them at him in a row. If this doesnt stop the comments, then mix one part ammonia to three parts Water in a spray bottle. Next time makes the comments then spray him vigorously (as you would potty train a puppy). I hope these two ideas work for you because the next step is to throw staplers, or tape dispensers directly aimed at his forhead.

im going to go back and start doing FitDay - Free Weight Loss and Diet Journal again. i have an ongoing account with them (its free) and it does help me keep realistic account of my intake. also knowing that im listing everything keeps my head in the right direction. I knowwhere my biggest problem is though: lets say it together shall we? ready? ::::: excercise ::::::::: my activity levels since coming back to maine a month ago have been NIL. nada, none, zero, zip. ive tried doing the dr recommended thirty minute walk a day, for a couple of days, and i cant find enough layers of clothing to make it warm enough to go out there. Thats my excuse. i cant get around that one little excuse. its cold. too cold. my house is even cold. i have a small bubble of warmth in my living room that i wont circulate out of. so..its me and my fat dog stuck on the couch of perpetual lethargy in our bubble of warmth. i leave in NINE DAYS to go to galveston island for the entire winter. nine. 9. one more after eight, and one less than ten. Niiiiine...tomorrow itwill be eight. day after that, it will be SEVEN...

my surgeons office billed my insurance for the same amount as the first surgery. He replaced the old band in the same surgery, i didnt have to wait for later rebanding or anything like that. I went with the same surgeon because his stats are solid and hes truely fantastic. It boiled down to me having to ask myself weather i trusted him or not, and i do. My recovery was extremely smooth. It looks like you will be self pay if you have it redone. You are forty lbs away from goal. If it were me, id self pay. On my own my weight goes up and down in drastic leaps, then just goes on and stays on. Id reinvest. Given your job, and your knowledge of procedures, it must make it difficult to decide. Are you going to sue Allergen? Can you pursue self pay and going ahead with the surgery ELSEWHERE, and then attempt to retrieve your initial investment back through allergen in a separate suit? Its a hard call. What direction are you leaning towards?

i cant do bread. I can do a half a piece of very dry wheat toast. I can eat roasted turkey, and love the stuff, but cant do chicken in any form or fashion except mechanicly processed nuggets. cant do eggs well at all but its off and on again with those, depending if someone at my dr's office is playing with the remote control again.....

I was banded originally feb 13. i live in maine and fly to houston each month for fills. On my third fill and at a wieght of 285, they found a leak in the top of my band, and replaced it with a new small ap band. I love my surgeon. i hate my nutritionalist. shes very nice, dont get me wrong, but she told me to do fitday.com for our visits and so she can see what im eating and we were only to meet six months. SHE WAITED until the FIFTH month to finally download and even LOOK at my files. she also has been the most expensive of the whole thing. She initially said that my insurance had a deductable of 250 and that they would cover everything after that for six months. NOW its "o you owe me fifty dollars per session and YOU gotta worry about your own insurance". Im pissed and i havent said anything to her about it. yet. anyway. im a slow loser and much of the problem is my activity levels. during the winters i cant function, which is one reason i got to this place in the first place. i love the support on this board. its refreshing to read about people going through much the same things. ive been battling a fairly serious depression this past month. I havent had hardly ANY activity at all since returning to maine early october. I leave again in ten days to go down south to galveston and i cant wait. I have an apartment there and im MUCH more active there than i am here. i dont know WHY thats the case, other than the temps. I really cant stand the cold. Im going to be in galveston from november to april. (yay) HOpefully i will experience a great deal of weight loss then. So far, ive only lost twenty five lbs since being rebanded. I have around ninety to go.

I was banded originally feb 13. i live in maine and fly to houston each month for fills. On my third fill and at a wieght of 285, they found a leak in the top of my band, and replaced it with a new small ap band. I love my surgeon. i hate my nutritionalist. shes very nice, dont get me wrong, but she told me to do fitday.com for our visits and so she can see what im eating and we were only to meet six months. SHE WAITED until the FIFTH month to finally download and even LOOK at my files. she also has been the most expensive of the whole thing. She initially said that my insurance had a deductable of 250 and that they would cover everything after that for six months. NOW its "o you owe me fifty dollars per session and YOU gotta worry about your own insurance". Im pissed and i havent said anything to her about it. yet. anyway. im a slow loser and much of the problem is my activity levels. during the winters i cant function, which is one reason i got to this place in the first place. i love the support on this board. its refreshing to read about people going through much the same things. ive been battling a fairly serious depression this past month. I havent had hardly ANY activity at all since returning to maine early october. I leave again in ten days to go down south to galveston and i cant wait. I have an apartment there and im MUCH more active there than i am here. i dont know WHY thats the case, other than the temps. I really cant stand the cold. Im going to be in galveston from november to april. (yay) HOpefully i will experience a great deal of weight loss then. So far, ive only lost twenty five lbs since being rebanded. I have around ninety to go.

Phyl, i can totally relate to being more active when your 'away' for the winter. I do the SAME. When im down south, i dont have a car, i have to rent one to get to houston for my appointments but the rest of the time i use a bike to get around the island. I start at sunrise on the ferry! i often dont get home until after sunset. I dont want to lose online altogether or this board, i love it...but maybe if i only sign on before morning coffee, and again after dinner. leaving the bulk of the day for the day....im going to give it some attention. i get hopeless sometimes too with the progress/process. It comes n goes, you know? I look at the journey ahead sometimes and all the changes and i think "why bother", then i see people like losingjustme and think, "because she bothers", and people like chickie and think, "and she started from where we are standing". I worry that i wont lose all of it, or even most of it, im a very slow loser. i think though, that as long as we fight those feelings and still find a reason to keep trying, we will get there. I do believe that. Sometimes those steps are little.

::raises hand::: i belong here too. i have a thing about specific sugar foods. Birthday cake, and sugar cookie dough specifically but there are a handful of foods that i really struggle with. when im 'on the program' and by that i mean, exercising regularly, eating three planned meals with two low carb snacks in between, its not so bad and i can usually satisfy the sweet tooth with the occasional wieght watchers dessert (love those, 150 cals and just the right portion) . I find when im sick or depressed, its easier to reach for the cookie dough or bake a cake. I was on atkins for two years prior to being banded. i can get off sugar for short periods of time. but long term? i dont know. it is a struggle for me. That part, and getting in adequate exercise, are the hardest parts for me for all of it.

phyll, i am doing the snowbird thing in 11 days! i LOVE this part. regarding yesterday: i found myself checking alot and i realized something. ALL the time that ive spent online, i could have been outside, and i wasnt even then. I had a dinner date and i loved getting out. it really was fantastic to get with other people and talk face to face! These were friends ive had since before i was even at my heaviest, and i revealed to them at dinner about my band. It felt good. they were very supportive. i was thinking in the car on the way home though, about the board, about a recent ridiculous online quibble with one of the members and their sidekick, and how im doing these days offline, about our thread, and i was wondering...and its a personal question really... how much time to you guys spend online during a regular day? I find im spending more time here and while i feel i NEED YOU GUYS and your support, i wonder if i would be any more active if i would just sign off and only allow myself on twice a day? Am i the only person that wonders that? Yesterday, while the board was down, i realized how often ive been reading it. but i wasnt any more active than usual. what do you think? Do you guys think about this at all, wanna share any insights?

i get filled in my surgeons office each month, no flouro, he sticks once and its good.

coolness metal! my most recent nsv was NOT having to ask a stewardess for a seatbelt extender the last time i flew down to houston from maine. that rocked, as well as being SIGNIFICANTLY more comfortable in the little tunacans they label as coach seating. another nsv had last night. went over to friends house for dinner and drinks. i sat down in a chair i never would have dreamed sitting in six months ago. i would have broken it. not this time. not even a squeek.

initially i got isopure, but then just got the whey protien my grocery store was alot cheaper, but ewww. finally i resolved, and still use premixed low carb slimfast (20 prot, 2carb, 180 calories) or atkins shakes, or musclemilk and use them as meal replacesments when im too tight. i usually wind up working two of these in a day for breakfast and snack in between lunch and dinner so i can get in the protein. When i get around sixty grams of protein in a day i FEEL significantly better and hardly any hunger.