Not Applicable

I had a banana two days ago! Yes Amy I threw caution to the wind, and ate it.
It was good

I just wanted to take a moment to offer up my prayers and thoughts to those in Boston today.

Kendi Sue, I could not have said it better myself.

Heehee, JJ Fad "Supersonic" great blast from the past!

Yep...now we'll see who really read the whole thread.

I am 100% with you on the fear and the focus on food & food issues. I have always been a great dieter, just crappy at maintaining, and Super at regaining ++ gaining additional weight. I am fearful that with surgery, exercise, Portion Control, supplementation, counseling, and this (& other support groups) I will still struggle to maintain. Sorry to be a downer, just my thinking for today.

I think it's up to each person to make thier own decision on this surgery once they are well informed about all the possible affects it can have on us. I have only been around this forum for a short time and like to hear both sides, but I don't think we should tell anyone they should or shouldn't have this surgery.
What I have noticed is it seems people don't seem to have a clue about what to expect or what to eat or what stage they are at post op. You just have to read the posts and see the questions asked. These are things everyone should know before they have the surgery and from their Doctor.
We are all grown up and have to make the best desision for ourselves, with as much information as possible. This site provides that.

Awesome!! Hot heels are a great NSV!

As far as food addiction or unhealthy relationship with food, it's not just for overweight people. It's just a cultural norm that seems to be associated strictly for those overweight. I have lived the majority of my life as a normal weight or thin person, but let me tell you the obsession with food was always there. Even at my lowest weight of 115lbs I had serious problems with food addictions/obsession. I planned more of my day thinking about food when I was thin, than I did at my highest weight.
At my heaviest it took no planning it was Grab and Go just fill my belly now!! I was going to have a high calorie meal, well that meant I had to plan for that, and restrict my intake to very little or nothing. If I didn't restrict then that meant I was exercising like a fruit cake. Or participate in very unhealthy behaviors that I knew were wrong, but it kept the weight off. I would fast, restrict,exercise,restrict,fast exercise (etc). It was a vicious cycle that was difficult to stop.
For me regardless of the size I was food has always been there, friend or foe is has been my one constant. So I must say where it stands now, I am giving this my all, but I will never convince myself “I'm Cured”. If I ever proclaimed that, I would be giving myself the permission to return to the old me.
And I am no fan of the old me. Thats my 1/2 cent contribution

We unfortunately won't ever be cured. As I said in my long boring post a few pages back, I live every day knowing that it would not take a whole lot to send me back to places that I never want to see again. But I don't fear that nearly as much as I used to. In fact I draw a lot of strength from it. You get a different perspective and seem to see the playing field more than you do when spend days, weeks and years under the influence. Will I ever be cured, no..I will always be an addict, but I can live with it and I can manage it. As I explained earlier, the food side for me is and always has been about choices not addictions. But the upside is that if you just focus on where you want to be and not where you have been, you can accomplish a whole lot. Recognizing your weaknesses and adapting is the best way of accomplishing your goal.

Heehee, JJ Fad "Supersonic" great blast from the past!

Well, Hugh Jackman is - um - easy on the eyes. Whew.
If I were to pick an ideal female figure? Kim Basinger or Faith Hill. I'm 42, so I think that is reasonable. (As Faith Hill does her Monday night football thing, my husband always says - "she is is ALMOST as attractive as you"....love being lied to like that! LOL!)

I would like to have a figure like Salma Hayek or Catherine Zeta-Jones. Maybe Scarlett Johansen. No skin and bones for me. I want curves.

I am not picky about body shape or size-- I don't think a lot of females are to be honest.... my fiance is 6'3'' and 275, and to me he is perfect. I am a sucker for a cute face and a great sense of humor.

My name is Kendi and I definitely have an addictive personality.
I am addicted to food and have to watch my alcohol intake. I could easily choose to go down the wrong paths, but instead I work at staying vigilant & supplement my addictive tendencies with healthier options.
By that I mean that when I sense that my emotions are in a place where I could easily cave into my addictions, I have to consciously choose to replace my addictive behaviors with healthier activities. {Alas I have not reached the place of love & devotion to exercise as some of you have (I still have to FORCE myself to exercise Every da@n day)}, but I have learned to supplement my unhealthy desires into more positive activities like reading a book, doing some sort of art / creative work, sewing, etc. The latter activities help me unwind without harmful consequences (of course with the exception of possibly creating UGLY fashion but that's a different issue)...
in reality, I am waiting for the day that I don't have to feel the struggle. I wish my brain would automatically choose healthy behaviors vs. addictive ones. I dislike feeling like I have to fight myself in order to overcome my automatic & initial tendencies...
I guess what I am wondering is when do our new habits become the permanent lifestyle change we are all working towards?

Get a hat and sunscreen on girl.. You're going to age before your time.

I had a private room, nurses in to visit at least every hour. Frankly, I was only there for one night and all I wanted to do was sleep. It was a very nice place but I was too sleepy to care.

Vampire Academy is series. I liked it. I loved the Hunger Games. I thought 50 Shades sucked! Horrible writing.
Stephen King's 11/22/63 was AMAZING!

Yeah! That means I wi be thinner AND taller 

Since Laura posted this yesterday, I’ve been thinking about a response. It has made me think a lot about addiction and food in terms that I hadn't bisected. I personally don’t feel that I had a food addiction. The main reason I say this is I was chemically dependent for about 15 years. I literally missed the entire decade of the 80’s. I don’t think that I am a food addict because I never have stolen to eat, I’ve never cheated to eat, and I’ve never committed class 1 felonies to eat. I never sat in a room alone, eating hoping that the next cheeseburger would kill me. In my state of dependency I went through all of that. I really don’t have an answer for my obesity other than so many bad choices. I took a look at some pictures when I was a kid; I was skinny then until about the 3rd grade. I don’t know what changed in my world, but from then on I lived my life as the fat kid. I dropped the weight between my Jr. and Sr. year of High School, but then discovered something different, something way more powerful than food. While my weight was pretty good, because I worked some pretty physical jobs, I chased other demons. My addictions had nothing at all to do with food. As the years went by that fat 3rd grader re-appeared and got bigger and bigger. A couple of failed attempts at rehab came in went before I finally was able to get the demons under control. That was 21 years ago, but there isn’t a day that doesn’t go by that I don’t think that I couldn’t go back to that life with a snap of finger. It is something that I live with every day, but am able to keep the demon in its box. When I got my daughters, I decided to again drop the weight. I did it the blunt force way, I ate less and exercised more. I dropped about 60 lbs. and took up running, I also got my diabetes diagnosis the very day I hit my goal weight. Unfortunately going to culinary school and trying to launch a business without any type of support net, brought the weight back. Tapping into my vast knowledge of pharmaceuticals, I discovered Ephedra, specifically a cocktail of Ephedra, Yohimbe and Caffeine, known as the ECY stack. Did I know that it was dangerous? Absolutely, but I also knew it wasn’t the worst thing that I had put in my body and I lived through that so why not this. I dropped 70 pound in about 4 months. It’s kind of ironic that people actually thought that I had surgery. The only person that guessed was my Tae Kwan Do instructor. He was an Iron head and pretty much knew the drill. The stress of running a busy café (again without any significant help), working on a master’s degree and a couple of other personal issues along with being a parent and keeping up a house, just flat out took its tool. I didn’t binge it, didn’t sneak food, and didn’t sit at home with a bag of Oreos and a 2 liter. But I ate badly and ate a lot. Portions got out of control, choices sucked. I drank more booze and ate more crap and kept the cycle going. It was only when it started to take a toll on my health that I really started paying attention to what I was doing. That path led me to the sleeve and where I am today. Hopefully, I’m chasing the last of the demons….
I’m John and I AM an addict, but not necessarily a food addict…..

Kendi you are silly but I soooo get it!