Donna113

_{Hello everyone! It will be my 4th anniversary in 3 days! I can't believe it's been that long. I'm getting close to my goal -- this last year I made better progress than I had in the years 2 and 3 combined.}

On a more positive note, if I lose 7 more pounds I will finally get out of the obese category and simply be considered overweight.

I had such a horrible band day yesterday. I accidentally sucked up a lemon seed through my straw at lunch and I think it must have gotten stuck. I PB'd right after lunch and felt a little better but then an hour later in the middle of a very important meeting with executives I had to run out of the conference room to PB again. After that I thought everything was fine until I tried to eat dinner. I had a couple of bites and got stuck again and PB'd for the next hour. In the 3 years I've had the band I've only PB'd 3 time previous to yesterday. Here's to hoping I can eat today without incident.

Hey Tina and Banded Friends,

Tina - I just made a contribution to support you in the Komen Walk - I admire you SO much for doing the walk and while I have not been directly affected by breast cancer, I support survivors like yourself and those who are struggling with this disease.

I'm also glad to hear you are doing well - don't worry about the weight, Celebrate the fact that you have BEATEN cancer! Big kudos to you, my friend.

Keep on taking good care of yourself and your boys...big hugs all around!

Hey Ebony Rose -- one can always count on you to be friend. It's been ages since we last chatted. Can you send me your Facebook name so I can friend you there? I don't hardly get on here anymore.

Just dropping by to say hello. Hope everyone had a good July and are off to a good August.

I know how you are feeling. One girl I know has gone on Phenteramine and joined WW to get a jump start. She is doing really well considering she had to have her band removed. I took Phenteramine when I was on the last six weeks of my liquid diet last year. It really cuts your appetite. Of course you have to do the work because I have gained back 20 of the 30 I lost. Now, I am waiting for approval of a sleeve.

I don't really have appetite problems (as in getting really hungry and overeating). I do feel hunger from time to time but after a few bites of solid food I feel satisifed and ame fine. It's more the habits that is stopping the rest. For instance, I can eat a whole bag of microwave popcorn at night watching TV right before I go to bed. Usually that's 1/2 my caloric input for the day. I need to change those bad habits to lose the rest of the weight.

Has anyone seen/heard from Orea?

I am back from my trip and happy to see that everyone seems to be doing well. I was correct in thinking that I wouldn't get any formal exercise in, but we walked soooo much that I actually lost 2 lbs! My NSV from the trip was that on the plane ride I no longer require the seatbelt extender like I did on my flight 4 years ago. Not only do I not need the extender, but there is quite a bit of excess that it can fold back a little! I don't really lose or gain much any more. I stay between 95-100 lbs gone from surgery. I gained some when my mom was dying, but lost that soon after her death. I will begin exercising at the gym again tonight. Oh, and I went for my checkup and my doc did bloodwork and it seems that I am HEALTHY. I have the horrible family history of heart disease, but my blood pressure, cholesterol and all blood work suggest that I don't have anything to worry about, so I guess if I have a heart attack I get to call him a liar and punch him...right? seems only fair!

Cynthia, keep you butt moving, girl. Don't stop!

Hey, Donna, Good to see you check in. I just came back myself. I am active on a different website, because I hate the format of this one now.

Hi Kimaly. Congrats on your weight loss journey. You've done great. I hate this format too. Has anyone told Alex it's terrible and he needs to return it to be more user friendly?

Hi Donna! How is it going? Well, I am up and down.....only lost 55lb.....then went on a liquid diet last year.....lost 30.....gained all of that back except for about 5lbs. So, I am waiting on approval for a sleeve. Dr. Davis said that the band did all it is going to do. I have a very slow metabolism...1100 calories a day to maintain so it is obvious I have been eating much more than that.

Are you please with your weight loss journey?

I wouldn't say pleased -- more resigned to realism. I don't think I'm even consuming a 1,000 calories a day but can't seem to really lose the weight. Overall since my lapband surgery I've lost approximately 40 lbs. I don't really fluctuate much so I'm maintaining the loss. I am hoping to lose 40 more lbs but my doc said the band has done all it's going to do and the rest is up to me. I think I need to start back on the exercise program.

How have the rest of the Butterflies been doing on their journey now that it's been 3 years?

Hi everyone--I thought I'd listen to some advice from one of the other monthly groups and start one master thread in which we have an ongoing discussion/updates. I don't know about you all but I certainly spend most of my time on these boards on the pre-op forum and the general forum, not here. It would be nice to have just one thread to go to once in this forum.

We can maybe start out with introductions?

As for me, I'm going the "online privacy" route for now (paranoid that people I haven't told about this will somehow stumble across me on this site I guess, which is crazy, I know) but I can give you the big picture:

You can call me Penny, I'm 27, single and live in the Washington, DC area. I have a background in politics (which is why I live in DC) but now I'm a librarian which is much cooler and way more fun (trust me on that). Oh, and there's no "Marion the Librarian" thing with me either. One of the things I hear most frequently (besides the cliche "you have such a pretty face") is "but you don't LOOK like a librarian", which is another one of those bizarre backhanded compliments that you never really know how to take.

Personality wise, I'm kind of dorky, big into public radio and books and popular science. Oh, I'm also a little on the paranoid side (as you may be able to tell from earlier in this post). Beyond that I'm just kind of silly and friendly, VERY much so into traveling and I'm an aspiring "green" domestic diva (but that's not going so well).

It's been almost 2 years since I was last on. How has everyone been?

Just doing a drive-by to say hello!

Ebony/Beth -- sorry about your current/past work situations. Hopefully you'll both get into better situations soon. I had an inept, incompetent boss once for 6 weeks. That was all I could take before I told her Buh Bye and walked out.

Beth and CC -- WTG! I've been on a complete stall for the past month or so. *sigh*

G'nite all.

I've been spending a lot more time on Facebook lately. Everything is good here. My weight loss on the other hand has been at a stall for 3+ weeks.

I really wanted Tara to win *pout*.

Helen did a great job, but I have to agree....she looked too thin for her age.

Tara looked so beautiful and healthy!

Mike looked good too. I hope he can help his brother lose weight now...

Ditto to everything you said.

Jerry looks -sick-, like a cancer patient

Yes. He looked like he was at least 75.

No real surprise that Joelle and (I already forgot her name) didn't do well.

Actually, I thought they did well considering they did this in 16 weeks (most of it at home). Joelle lost 82lbs and Carla lost in excess of 100 lbs. Even though I'm not a fan of Joelle, I thought she looked very lovely tonight.

Damn! Tara fades at the end :thumbup:

I was so disappointed she didn't win. She so deserved to win.

Fanny, your pics are amazing as usual.

Hello everyone. Sorry I've been MIA for a while. I will try to check in more often.

Hey hey...had my son take some pics even though I still have one drain...here goes nothing...

Wow! You look amazing!

Just driving by to say I'm still alive. I'm not even going to attempt to catch up on all th postings.

ColoradoChick -- sorry to hear about the cutback. I hope once things improve, they remember to reward you for the cut back and the lost Fridays.

Omg, Tina, how HORRIBLE!! I'm SO sorry you had to go through this now that you've found your freedom. If this is an isolated incident and not indicative of your neighborhood, then I hope you can find it within yourself to return soon so your life can get back to normal.

(((HUGS))), my friend.

Yeah, what she said!

Just dropping by to say hello to my butterflies. Like some of you, I've been on a sugar/chocolate kick lately and consequently have been stalled on my weight loss. I am just fluctuating back and for with 2-4 lbs.

And, where have you been? (Need I ask... Mob wars?)

Actually I did technology free weekend starting Thursday evening. It was great and I really needed to do it because it helped me break the strangle hold of FB addiction. It still has a hold, but it's not strangling me so much. :drool:

Susan - glad to hear the health issues are starting to get diagnosed properly and treatment plan going into action.

I really don't have a good answer for you, fanny, but I'll tell you this: You're not alone. I figured out a while ago that I'm way more a "reward" eater than a "stress" or "depression" eater.

I'm definitely a "reward" eater. Lately, I've been on a chocolate kick with the consequence of complete stall on the weight loss. *sigh*

damn! damn! damn!

I knew they'd vote for Felipe because he's the bigger threat, but still! damn! damn! damn! :drool:

Kirstin's gone, yay! I dislike her much less now that I don't have to watch her ugly facial tics and listen to her whiny voice every week.

As for Mike jumping on his dad for being fat and not doing anything about it to help the kids -- c'mon, why did we all get fat and why weren't we able to get thin? There's no acceptable answer -- we got fat because we ate more calories than we burned and if your children are fat, it's because they ate more calories than they burned. Is it the parents' fault? Yes. Is there any answer that will make a difference? No. The past is the past and you can only work on the now and take it one meal, one day at a time. As much as I dislike Ron, his answer is truly irrelevant.

Hello Monday....

I didn't catch up on all the posts, just skimmed it enough to realize that Slim had a major breakthrough. Yay, Slim!

Glouc, if you haven't gotten the Excel thing figured out by this weekend, my DH can help you when you come by. He can practically write software programs with it. I know just enough to get by.

thelonedaisy, where have you been? I still adore your avi. Is that just one you picked out somewhere or is it a pic of someone in your family?