Bea Amaya

My PhD will be from Texas Tech University in Technical Communication and Rhetoric (English department). I am hoping to be finished with my dissertation by May, but it may take me a little longer. I have been invited to go to Doha, Qatar (next to Saudi Arabia) at the end of January to present on a panel at the Texas A&M University campus there. I will be on a panel with four others and am really looking forward to the adventure. Up until a year and a half ago, I lived overseas (for 3 years) and did the travel thing A LOT. As an obese woman ("class III obesity"), that was something I did because I had to, but never, NEVER enjoyed. Although I'm only half way to my goal, and still technically obese, I am so looking forward to the TRIP as well as the adventure on the other end. That will be a real FIRST for me! There is also a slight chance that I can cross over from "obesity I" to merely being "overweight" by my travel date. That would be ABSOLUTE HEAVEN for me! I'm LOVING reading about everyone just a bit here. Thanks to ALL for posting!!!

I've gotten to "know" many of you just by reading your online interactions and have to say this is the greatest support group ever. As a group, people are informative, supportive, open, caring, and just plain fun to be around. It takes a bit of time to search through profiles and get a peek at who you are and what's going on with you. So, I was wondering if we might want to take a minute to introduce ourselves, post a photo, or do something a bit "more" here in this topic thread. My name is Bea and I am a mother of 4, grandmother of 7, and great-grandmother of 1. At 53 that may sound a bit of a stretch, but a couple of those in the mix are steps. Anyway, I'm not a fast loser but have been consistent. Here I am at the halfway mark on my journey (68 down, 64 to go) and I find things slowing considerably. Still, I'm doing just fine in my journey I think. I have a high stress job (Marketing Manager at a $50 million company) and have an extra stressor in that I'm currently working on my PhD. I also keep an apartment in the city (Houston) while I go to my home in the country, where hubby is, on the weekends. I have to say I am LOVING my sleeve (and so is my sweetie!) and what it has done for me already. Thanks so much to all of you for being here for me since, even when I don't interact a lot, I READ READ READ postings here every single day and find them to be incredibly helpful! Here's a recent picture of me so you'll have an idea about what I look like:

Welcome to the group, and it looks like you're off to an AWESOME start! Nicely done!

You're definitely welcome to join in on the fun. Just post your weight here now and your goal weight for New Year's Day. Then drop by every Wednesday and let us know how you're doing. Welcome to the Challenge!

Oops! I'll go back and correct it now. Thanks!

With a little over half reporting in so far this week, this looks like a GREAT start to the Challenge! 9 people report a 3 lbs loss or greater (AWESOME!) and 2 of those lost a whopping 6 lbs! 28 people report a total loss of 57 lbs (an average of 2 lbs per person) several people are within a few pounds of a major break pointChellemetime - 1.1 lbs to go BELOW 150! Coachdk - 1.1 lbs to go BELOW 260! HardWork 13 - .1 lbs to go BELOW 240! Hunter - 1.1 lbs to go BELOW 260! Irs - .1 lbs to go BELOW 210! julia7665 - 1.1 lbs to go BELOW 140! livvsmum - .1 lbs to go BELOW 220! nsharrah - .2 lbs to go BELOW 180! and MORE Woo Hoo! Happy Holidays, indeed!

After a 6-day stall, I came back like gangbusters...I'm thrilled to report a loss of 2.6 lbs! Yippee! CSW 227.0 CW 224.4 CGW 215.0

We're doing this one until New Year's since it is just 7 days after Christmas. Still, some people have been listing a Christmas goal, so, it's really up to you. Welcome aboard and good luck!!!

Thanksgiving Stats (so far): Only 27 (of 41) reporting in so far, but that's not really a surprise. Hopefully more will report their final numbers. 14 of the 27 (52%) met or exceeded their goal! An additional 7 (for a total of 21/27 or 78%) were within 2 lbs of their goal! The group lost somewhere in the neighborhood of 323 lbs total for an average of 7.8 lbs per person! WOW! And that's still with a handful not reporting in yet. That's really AWESOME. You know, I think that doing the challenges helps me (and perhaps "us") in a lot of ways. First of all, I really look forward to weigh-in day and might even work a little harder that last day (walk further, exercise longer, eat more carefully, etc.) just in anticipation of the weigh-in. Second, I absolutely LOVE to see people reporting in on their successes, and struggles, as that makes me feel like I "belong" here with you all. Third, I think that this kind of tracking makes me more attune to my body and what it's doing. I don't believe I've gotten better at meeting my goals so much as I've gotten better at estimating what a 4- or 5-week run will look like. And finally, I have so much fun signing in, reading everyone's posts, and seeing everyone report in once a week that it's BOUND to help me stay excited about the challenge. So, thank you all for participating, once again, in an AWESOME holiday challenge!

Grrr...(Bea doesn't like it when links don't work and stuff is unavailable to folks!) I'm not sure what the problem is, Seela, so I'm hoping someone else will jump in and let us know if they are having the same problems or not. Here's how things are supposed to work... Instead of posting an updated spreadsheet that people will have to download all the time, I have found that by posting a spreadsheet on my "SkyDrive" and sharing the link, people can generally click on the link, have the spreadsheet open inside of a browser page, and not have to download copies over and over. The main drawback is that you have to know something about Excel to try the different pages, change the charts and graphs, or do things like sort and filter. You problem seems different, however, since it seems you don't get the embedded spreadsheet when you click on the link. Could someone else chime in and let us know if this is a general problem or something perhaps specific to Seela? Big thanks for helping out!

Hi Linda, I reposted the item with the Christmas - New Year Challenge link in it. It should be close to this post. I'll be looking for you there! Happy Thanksgiving! (And congrats for making your challenge goal!)

I'm "quoting" this post again to give people an easy link to the new challenge. Let me know if the link doesn't work for you and we'll find another way to get you there.

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Looks like a great start to this challenge! We've had 17 report in today and I expect more to join over the next couple of days as well. Lots of NEW faces, which is always exciting. For me, the other challenges have been a whole lot of fun, but this one takes us right into the new year, and that over the often difficult "holiday gluttony period". So I'm very excited to see us all here encouraging each other and reporting in--good and bad--making us accountable for our choices and giving us access to others who truly understand how we feel. There's something powerful to be said for that, even if we are only "virtual friends"! Good luck to everyone over the next few weeks, and have a SAFE, HAPPY, and HEALTH Thanksgiving!!!

I'll take care of it. I usually make an update in the mornings (before work) and another in the evenings when I get home. You'll know I've updated your data if you see my "Like" on your posting. Welcome to the challenge, and good luck!!

Just put your starting weight for today and the goal weight you want to be at for new years. Bea will "like" your post and that means she updated the spread sheet. each week she will like your post and add your current weight to the sheet. hope that helps Oops! Thanks for this, Sophie. It looks like I posted a response without noticing that you already had. Thanks so much anyway. And good luck in the challenge!

Do you add my info to the Excel sheet, or am I supposed to? Hi Dana, I usually go in once or twice a day to make updates to the sheet. The way you'll know if I've already updated it with your new information is that you'll see a "Like" by me on the topic posting where you entered your data. Good luck and welcome to the group!

Up a bit from my low for the week, I'm still weighing in at a respectable 227.0 for today and aiming for 215.0 on NYD. Good luck to everyone!

Awesome! Congrats for making your goal! Happy Thanksgiving!

Surgery on 7/30, I will be 17 weeks out tomorrow and 4 months out on Saturday. Today I reached my goal of 50% extra weight lost! I'm so thrilled! I had a total of 132 lbs to lose and today I reached the 66 lbs down mark. LOVE my sleeve!!! SW 292 CW 226 GW 160

Yeah, while it works on my screen, I kinda worried that it might not work for others. Um...my next suggestion is to search for "Christmas - New" in the forums. This should be a unique string and only come up with our new forum topic. If you can't find it that way, I think you can click on my image, then click on the "Activity" link on the left and look for the topic in the list that comes up. Good luck!

Yes, please. We'll close out the Thanksgiving Challenge on Thursday and post the follow up stats. I figure people will be reporting here on both Wednesday and Thursday that first week, but that's okay. Good luck!!!

I've gone ahead and set up a new challenge. It is set up to report in on WEDNESDAYS and begins the day before Thanksgiving and ends on New Year's Day. Everyone is doing SO GREAT in this challenge, I can't wait to see some of the big changes that go on as we move into the new year! Hope you'll all join us! http://www.bariatricpal.com/topic/288843-christmas-new-year-challenge/

Congrats on reaching your TDay goal! Awesome! And yes, I've already set up a new one. I'll post a separate description and link here so everyone can find it. (I find this new site to be a little more challenging in easily seeing what topics are being discussed in the VSG group.)

BIG YAY for meeting your Thanksgiving goal this week! AWESOME!