phyllser

Centrum Silver Chewables aren't bad. I think they come in two flavors.

Glad you said that... I didn't even HAVE my confirmation #. They never gave it to me. So I got that, but somehow was talking to Hotels.com lady so she called the hotel to ask about the shuttle... No shuttle to train station. We'll figure it out when we get there. AND, she asked me if there was anything else & I forgot about the luggage! But, I think all hotels have a little room where they lock up held luggage, so I'm not going to worry about that. You get on in Williston, right?? At what time?

You got that right.... kids' menu = crap... nothing I ever want to eat! P & B sandwich, chicken nuggets, macaroni & cheese! Forget it! We often have leftovers in our fridge! We went to Mexican after church Sunday. Took me two days to finish the leftovers and now there is Chinese stir fry stuff in there! May end up in the garbage disposal! DH is paranoid about finishing everything before we leave... to the extent that he just had some of your Kashi Go Lite for dinner so he could finish up the skim milk still in there from all my protein drinks last week! I think we might be excited becausie our bags are picked and sitting by the front door! Train doesn't leave for 24 hours! We're ready to go! We have two very full (small) suitcases and a back pack. Only room for shopping is in the back pack! I had a hard time pakcing light! I decided not to bring my laptop. TOo much hassle. I"ll use my sisters when I get to Buffalo and read email on my Blackberry until then.

Chuckling here!! I"m with ya, kid! You & I are in the same boat! DH is not understanding. Plus he's in this mode of... we HAVE to eat this stuff because we're going to be gone for three weeks! He loaded up my omelet with too much cheese this morning. I am being very careful, eating only until I feel full, and then that feeling is staying with me for HOURS. So I'm not drinking enough because I am feeling full all the time. Maybe we can share some meals at M of A!! One time we were out for Chinese food & I thought DH's eyes were going to bug out of his head... I looked at everything on the menu & didn't see anything that looked appropriate or that didn't look like too much food. So I ordered this appetizer sampler! It was mostly meat... I shared the things that weren't & some of the things that were with whomever wanted some... there were about 6 of us. SO, no big deal! I ate right! It looked kind of overwhelming when they put this big two tiered lazy susan thing in front of me, but it was really OKAY!! You have to think "out of the box" when looking at a menu to see what will work.

Steph, I agree with everything you said. I know I have better restriction than I've ever had before since my fill last week. And that means having to be really strict with myself about the "RULES"... I, too, have not been careful enough about SMALL bites, taking my time and eating VERY slowly. Today has been a much better day. Smaller portions, too. Had deviled egg for breakfast, 1 1/2. Then had 1/2 of my Mexican leftovers from yesterday. Tonight... I requested Iron Grill Mongolian (stir fry) for my one year celebration dinner. DD & SIL went with us. They won't let you take home leftovers, (remember this is the place I argued with about that last summer!!) so I told them I wanted to do "takeout". I picked all my stuff, had it stir fried and then they put it in a takeout box for me... it took some persuading on my part, but I think she understood that if she told me "NO", five people were walking back out the door (little foster girl was with us). So I took almost all seafood, some rice noodles & veggie noodles, ate until I started to feel "full" and quit. So, I've done a lot of burping today, but no sliming, no PBing.

One Yr Post-Op vs. Pre-Op -86 lb

Pre-Op vs. One Year Post-Op.....Down 86 lb

Most of us do settle down to a once a week weigh in. I weigh just about every morning with my Wii Fit, but consider my Monday weigh in my "official" weigh in. I know 1300 calories is too many for me... you may have to drop that. I typically stay between 900 - 1100. You might try Papaya tablets.. chewables, Rite Aid sells them under the "Pharmasure" label I didn't have good restriction until the 3rd fill. I just had my 5th.

Breakfast & lunch went okay today. Feeling a little "burpy", but okay other than that. TOPS weigh in... I lost 1 1/2 lb, won the 5th & final week of the "dime jar challenge" and took in another $10.25!! Hey, where'd that extra nickel come from??? It was a DIME challenge! Anyway, I thought I saw a dirty look from one lady.... I won 3 of the 5 weeks for close to $30 total... but none of my losses were big enough that any one of them could've won it!! So DH told me not to feel guilty! I lost over 8 lb over the 5 weeks of the challenge, more than anyone else... so I'm getting a Sears gift card from the lady who started the challenge... I think she said there's $15 on it!! Not a bad take! I adjusted my ticker to reflect today's official TOPS weight. My Wii is a little lower than that. I won't have either for the next three weeks... so no changes until I come home. I'm going to strangle my sisters. Two of them don't get along and they are already making life miserable and we won't even be there for over a week. I'm so glad our DD & family are going to meet us there. If things get ugly we'll go hide out at their hotel with them and play with our grandkids!! Family!!! UGH!!

I'm a little tight, too, but i'm going to tough it out. It's intermittent, though. I did fine with breakfast and lunch today, but dinner was a NO GO!! Since then I've had a Schwann's fudge stick and a boat load of papaya! Don't know what the recommended is, but I've been popping them like they're going out of style. They help me burp and then I feel better. I don't think it's possible to O.D. on them, but there's a lot of sugar in them... and the calories add up. I've gone through the better part of a bottle since my fill on Wed. I think!! Trying to lay off. Thanks.... good to have you drop by! How are you doing?? Thanks, Steph!

You got me!! I've probably been over to RiteAid four times since Wed., too!!

Yeah, they can't seem to make up their minds. And some of them are giving us bypass rules to follow! I think I was told 50-60 gm. Last week when I did the 5 day pouch test, I kept close track & I was WAY over that. My nutritionist and PA contradicted each other on the caffeine issue! I did get one piece of useful info at my 1 yr follow-up the other day. PA was asking me what supplements I was taking. When she asked me if I was taking the B-Complex liquid sub lingual i said, "when I remember". She said B-complex was not that crucial with lapband patients because we don't lose that lower stomach absorption and we probably get enough B vitamins in our diets. However, she said Thiamine is mostly in bread and since we don't tolerate bread well, I should be taking Thiamine. Which reminds me... I haven't remembered to look for some yet! RiteAid is across the street and I'm sure they have some. I have to check.

There's a thought! You'd think co-morbidities would get her through! I just sent my email address. Hope I can offer some suggestions to help.

I miss potatoes!! Boo Hoo!!

THANKS!! I just pb'd AGAIN!! I did fine with breakfast... my usual omelet. No problem with lunch... went out for Mexican with DD & SIL. I had this kind of a stir fry thing with lots of onion, mushroom, green & yellow peppers, shrimp and some rice & cheese. They gave me corn tortillas, but I just ate a piece of a small one. I ate half of my lunch & brought the rest home for tomorrow. Tonight, DH BBQ salmon & gave me 3 oz w/steamed veggies... broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, squash. I mashed everything up good & even mashed the salmon with some fat free miracle whip & catsup... I know, sounds gross. My DIL got me started on that with fish. Anyway, I only ate a few bites before I got that familiar pain and discomfort. Thought I was going to die. Slimed a bit and some of the stuff came back up. Not much, but just enough to relieve the discomfort!! SORRY>>>>TMI!!! Feel better now, but still feel kind of stuck. Never did get my celebratory wine! Can't drink anything now for a while! There is STUFF in my suitcase now. In fact, my train bag is almost done. Just need a change of clothes. And DH found the other bigger suitcase that he wanted. Ohhhhh, that baby EXPANDS!! Nice!! There's me & Steph on our way to the hotel! Where's DH?? Maybe he's sitting with the driver, rolling his eyes! :ohmy::biggrin::blushing::biggrin::biggrin::biggrin::sneaky::biggrin::biggrin::wink::biggrin::wink:

Liked your clothes list..but I didn't see the slinky dress on it! :biggrin: So you're not going to wear that shopping?? DH will be our photographer. Though I"m not impressed with his skills! We'll have to coach him. Today is my ONE YEAR Bandiversary ... he took pictures this morning. He kept taking them with me way over to the left of the picture! Said he didn't want the screen door in the picture. Duh!! I can move! I like that... putting the pictures on coffee mug.

She's probably going to want to wear that dress shopping at the M of A, ya know!!!

I'm a retired RN & worked in health insurance doing pre-cert for 5 years. Don't know about the specifics of your policy, or your state laws, but do know you are entitled to appeal their decision, usually at two levels. So, just wondering if in your letter you stated that you wished to appeal their decision. You must use those words, that you want to appeal. Usually there is first an "in house" review, and then, the way ours worked, an independent review by an unbiased physician or physician team.

I finally started packing for real. DH is trying to tell me we need one more suitcase or a bigger suitcase! I can't believe that is him talking! So may have to go to DD's & see what suitcases we have in their barn. I want one suitcase and my wheeled backpack for the train & one more to check. We get on the train at 5:45 pm Wed. We went over to the train station and watched one of the northbound trains come in just to get familiar with the process. They're in the station no more than 5 minutes! Gotta be ready! I'm not too tight, but definitely tighter and need to be careful. PB'd yesterday, which is very unusual for me & only happened once before, and one other almost. Only thing that came up was a few sips of latte! It was strange that what I'd just eaten didn't come up. Yes, I know... NONO... I bought a latte right after eating something. Then could only take a few sips, and 1/2 hour later, the few sips came up. I was bad. I paid!

Good advice, Joann!! You're talkin' like a bandster pro!!

Sure wish you could join us. Sounds like you're not too far away. I just looked at the map to see where Port Huron & Muskegon are. Boy!! Candice has a LONG drive!! I am not having a good food day. Our Primetimers group had a "country breakfast" at someone's home this morning. There were about 60 of us there. We had to sit in sort of an awkward location and nothing was getting passed to us. So I started with what was in front of me.... biscuit and gravy! I only put a little gravy on one half of a small biscuit. It was after 10 a.m. and I was starving. Then I had some (cold) scrambled eggs and a small sausage patty. I tried a bite of cantelope then and it almost came up... didn't agree with me, and it set the scene for the rest of the day! Several hours later I was getting hungry for lunch so I had 1/2 a deviled egg. Felt stuck again. And it's just been kind of a miserable day stomach wise. DH gave me a 3 oz glass of wine a couple of hours ago and it's still sitting next to me. I look at it every now and then, but do desire to drink it or anything else! Had a small piece of fish and an ear of corn tonight. Tight day, I guess.

You're off to a GREAT start!!!

Fabulous, Dahling, Fabulous!!!!

Thanks so much for the compliments!! For the pouch test, start here: Surgical Weight Loss 5 Day Pouch Test But, all those reasons they give for doing it are really not why I decided to do it. For me it was more of a desire to renew my committment, reinforce my determination, etc. That's the intro page. Then go to this page for the complete instructions, etc.: Surgical Weight Loss 5 Day Pouch Test

Being vain?? No... sounds like your main motivation is improving your health!! We've all had those doubts, reservations and fears, but after one year, I still firmly believe I did the right thing for me. I feel better than I have in years, the weight is coming off and I'm physically in a much better place. My primary care doc has eliminated one of my cholesterol meds and cut the strength of one of my BP pills in half! Hey!! FIFTY POUNDS is a lot. You just have to keep plugging along! You'll get it off. I'm not sure if you need a fill though if starches get stuck. Do you know where you are at calorie intake? Pool exercise is great. Sounds like you're doing everything right. May have to adjust your calorie intake. I just did that five day pouch test and it gave me a boost psychologically and seemed like it gave me a renewed committment and fresh insight in to my hunger level, my calorie intake, etc. You might consider doing that. You can google it to read more. I second that!! Bravo!!