Alexandra

Micki, you are in the HEALING phase now and that's why you have to follow your doctor's instructions. If you're hungry, that's a good sign that your healing is progressing well, so you probably didn't hurt anything at all. But please try to stick to liquids for the prescribed period! Why take chances? Don't let yourself get too hungry; there are loads of good Soups and smoothie options to keep your tummy full for the next few days. Relax!! It's almost over.

Welcome to Bandland!!

Thanks for the report, Miss Angel! Glad to hear things went smoothly. Please send her our wishes for a smooth recovery (I hear that's the hardest part).

VQ, you've struck a chord with me too. I wonder what on earth I was thinking I needed to learn in this life???

I can think of a particular skinny-minny who deserves a bit of my lost weight. Great theory!! :cheeky

Once again you're coming up with reasons why something is impossible. I suppose you're right, then.

You may be surprised. Look around! I don't know much about Texas, but you will never know until you try.

My point is that negativity breeds negativity. It is not doing you ANY favors to see the world through such dark glasses. The most successful people put their challenges in perspective and look around them, over them, or through them but they don't let themselves give up. That's what you're doing in your spirit.

But it may, you never know. Acupuncture is a method of pain relief that is rapidly gaining wide acceptance, and lots of insurance plans cover it to some degree (like providing referrals and discounts, for example). It does NOT hurt itself, and can bring immense relief for all kinds of ills. Your knee pain in particular may respond to it. I actually know someone personally who could not find a treatment that worked for her acid reflux disease, for years. She found an acupuncture practitioner and started treatments, and the stress relief she found immensely improved her reflux condition. It's definitely an avenue to explore.

It's Rob Thomas! Tell your mom for me, OK?

Your wants are perfectly understandable, Jodie. No one can fault you for them. I wish there were something any of us could say that could improve any one of the issues you face, but there isn't. Whatever improvements are going to come will have to start with you and your medical providers. A lot of people report success with acupuncture, have you tried that? I wish you the best of everything and especially the strength to see the sunshine through the clouds! It's out there, really and truly.

There may be studies that "prove" what you say, Jodie--there are studies to prove everything. The trick is not letting ourselves be treated like statistics or stereotypes. Statistics aren't what keep any particular individual from achieving his or her goals, and neither is extra weight. What happens to the faceless masses of overweight people who make up these studies has NO BEARING on what happens to you. When you walk into a store expecting to be ignored and treated shabbily, that is exactly what will happen. As we all know, there are exceptions to every rule. So we can work to be the exception, not believe the rule and give up before we start! You might try just having a Protein supplement from time to time, if you can't stomach protein in food form. It's important for everyone to get enough protein, especially people dealing with medical conditions. There are lots of non-dairy types, Protein powder that can be added to other sorts of drinks, for example. Have you met with a nutritionist?

Hey, lady, I'm with you! There is NO DOUBT that being my current weight beats the CRAP out of where I came from, so even if it's not anywhere near an "ideal" weight I'm very happy with it for now. There's no room in our lives for self-hatred, no way, no how.

It's exactly this sort of transition issue that I think makes the band so much healthier, emotionally, than more-rapid methods of weight loss. Imagine if we had these internal barriers set up and in spite of our unwillingness just found ourselves racing forward into ever-smaller sizes before we were ready. Been there, done that, not fun. Butch, you have come a very long way and it's not surprising you need time to adjust. Why not take it? There is no time frame you have to meet, and the journey can only be successful if you are 100% on board with it. It's perfectly OK to stay at one point or another for a while just to take a breather and adjust completely. When you're ready, you'll know it, and you'll have your band there ready too to help you move on.

Trader Joe's is a great specialty food store that has organic and natural foods at AMAZING prices. If there's one anywhere near you, FIND IT.

Jodie, you can get Protein from any meat, fish, or dairy source. Beans are also good. Why would you have trouble finding protein to eat? Quantity isn't all that matters with food--WHAT you eat can be more important than how much. And sure being overweight is difficult in today's society. But if what you say were true, no obese person would ever succeed socially or in any other way. And that's obviously not the case. Plenty of people carrying around more excess weight than you are able to achieve as much as anyone else every single day. Just look around here on the board! Having a scapegoat for our troubles is nice. Having a way out is even better. Looking inward for that way is always the place to start.

This is an area where I've had to be brutally honest with myself. Anything I try to do "religiously" is something I will not do for long. So I don't make any promises or set any high bars. But it was important that I get some exercise in my life, rather than just chasing my kids. So my family joined the Y. Over the past year I've gone to their cardio room and worked out on the treadmill or elliptical three times a week, most weeks. Once in a while I'll do four, but many times it's only twice since life intervenes. Saturday mornings are the one truly regular time that I go; every other day it's an "if I make it after work" kind of thing. I'd love to go in the mornings but my schedule just won't permit. As it is, if I can get there three times a week I feel very virtuous. My workout these days consists of as much time on the treadmill or elliptical as I can get in, usually 30-45 minutes. For about half of last year I worked with a personal trainer on weight training, which was terrific. But I just can't afford to keep that up at $40 a pop, so it ended. Now I have the weights at home, but of course I don't take them out very often. I figure ANY exercise is better than none, so I just keep on plugging away. It is a lot more fun than it used to be, and I'm not ambitious and I'm not trying to win anything. Just trying to keep myself moving.

I'm cool. :D

Next week I'm heading out to San Diego to see my brother. We have always had a problematic relationship; he's just a year older than I but is one of those delayed-maturity types who still thinks fart jokes are hilarious. Nothing makes him happier than pushing my buttons, and the only way we're still friends is that 3000 miles separates us. We have not seen one another in 5 years, just because we both have small children and scheduling (and affording) cross-continental trips is hard. I said to him on the phone that now that I'm coming, as much as I'm looking forward to seeing him, I don't want the five days to be one long aggravating conversation (in other words, I mean, don't be yourself). His response was: "Well, you're not fat anymore, right? So I'll have to come up with new ways to tease you." Great. Anyway, you get the idea. When we see one another a major underpinning of our relationship will have changed. I've sent him photos but even I think they don't tell the whole story. He's going to be really rocked by the change in my shape. It will be interesting to see what his response is, and I'm actually a bit nervous about it.

I am getting excited about going, once I can get over the guilt of leaving my kids behind. It just wasn't in the cards to bring them ($$$$$$$) so I'm going alone. Vera, I LOVE the SD zoo, have been there several times. It'll be so weird having no one but myself to please, but I'm sure I can manage. PERFECT!! What a great, great idea, Karen!! Ohhhh, baby, you've got me thinking up some great old memories now...

I think it has something to do with Fluid collecting in certain places while we're horizontal. Remember, your body is essentially a big squishy bag of Water and things redistribute when you're laying down for 8 hours. A sage I know of says that the band should be adjusted to control the evening meal. If you're too tight in the mornings to eat much, well, just go with that flow. The band should be restricting your portion of solid food in the evening. If you're able to eat without restraint in the evenings, you may need a fill. That said, another theory is that it's sort of a vicious cycle. If you eat in the evening your stomach may be, as VQ said, a little irritated causing tightness in the morning. But then you get hungrier later on because you haven't had Breakfast, so the tendency is increased to eat more later in the day. I have found that eating LESS in the evening really helps me be able to eat a better breakfast, which in turn helps me eat a smaller and/or later lunch, which carries through to an early supper. A few days of this and the cycle has evened itself out, with the result being that I'm eating less all the time. Good luck!!

Your doctor will tell you where it is done. You certainly don't want just anyone messing around with your band, though. I just said "radiology lab" because if your doctor uses fluoroscopy for fills that's where it will be done, probably in a hospital setting. But it will be the one HE uses, no other.

Just eat more foods with protein. Especially if you're eating very little, it becomes even more important to eat foods that are protein rich. Why can't you eat more protein? I know someone in my own life who does this too. He is convinced that no matter what, his life is worse than anyone else's. And of course it's not. His wife is currently having chemo for breast cancer. Guess what? I tell him. HER life is worse than yours. I truly believe attitude affects how we see the world and that's a good thing, because we can always adjust our attitudes. I truly hope you can find some solutions for your pain, whether it's banding surgery or something else. Peace.

Oh, Sonnie, I'm so sorry to hear of your troubles. But you said it best...you're healthy and that's all that really matters. All the best to you for continued health and a sunny outlook!!

Wow, what an unpleasant situation! Did you know your conversations were being monitored by people responsible for your healthcare? It's hard to call it a violation of "privacy" when there is nothing really private on the net, but it certainly seems like a huge violation of something and not very professional behavior.