Ang1982

Hehe, I got what you meant And thanks!

Heh, actually with last weeks Bandster hell slips ... today's my weigh day and I'm actually up to 303 again... couldn't bring myself to update my ticker.

600 Minute March! is great, I love that! Should we start a new thread or do you just want me to rename this one?

Hmm, I was thinking about that and then started poking around on other monthly threads to see how they did that. And I was thinking... for our first exercise challenge should we perhaps set a "minutes" goal rather than a "mileage" one while people figure out they are going to do exercise. So for example, there are 4 weeks and a couple days in March.. what if we set a minimum goal of 600 minutes of exercise for the month of March? That's a minimum of 150 minutes a week (30 minutes, 5 x a week). Let me know what you guys think...

Yay Jenny! Congrats, how awesome you must be feeling. Gogo banding! :biggrin:

You're right, I haven't had my first fill yet- not until March 10. I actually have a MIDBand (Hello and welcome to the MIDBAND™ website). I know that the first fill may not do much but I'm trying to be optimistically hopeful! I hope that your 2nd fill gets you to the restriction that you need and I hope your tooth problems go away that does not sound like fun at all. It's hard not to be discouraged, I know it's not going to be like a "miracle device" that when implanted it automatically makes me start losing 10lbs a week.. hehe, how nice would that be? :biggrin: I just wanna get the ball rolling, I did so good with my post-op diet weightloss and now here I am in regular food and gained 4 lbs!! Argh!

Pardon my ignorance, but I have to ask - where is Auburn? Near Arlington/Everett area? Just curious as when I was checking around the Washington area I didn't come across Auburn. Do you mind if I ask how much you pay for fills? Also, I would like to go on record to state that in case it has previously come off this way - I am not anti-American nor anti-Mexican/Foreign country at all. I actually seriously considered both the US (Denver) and Mexico as possibilities for my surgery. My only concern is for people in B.C. to be SURE that they have their aftercare (fills, etc.) lined up/figured out/arranged before they have their surgery as we do not have many options here in BC. If you are able to find a good after care place that suits you and you can afford to pay for fills (ie: in Washington) then awesome. I personally ended up going with a BC surgeon because of a couple of reasons; a) I could afford it, :biggrin: I found it more convenient and less stressful to have one person that could do everything (surgery, fills, etc.) rather than having to find a fill clinic in Washington and have to deal with border crossing, etc. I will fully support any Canadian that decides to travel abroad whether it be the States or Mexico as long as you have lined up your aftercare BEFORE you go for surgery. We are all here to get healthy and be supported by people who are going through the same things whether we get it done locally, in the same country, in a different country or whatnot. So here's to new health, new happiness and new lives that the Lapband is bringing us!

Awesome!!! I can't wait until we hit warmer weather here and I go to put on my capri's, etc and find they are too big that will be a fun (possibly expensive) day!

Alright folks! Now that everyone is a month or almost a month post-op I think that we need to come up with our own March exercise challenge. I know a few people had expressed interest in this previously and we are knocking on March's door here so let's get something planned! Does anyone have any ideas for what the challenge should be? Let's get our bum's moving and get our exercise groove on!

Hey everyone, I think we need a thread for us January's to share all of our NSV's! We've had a couple separate postings from different people, but I thought I would start a thread dedicated to NSV's. I have always enjoyed going back and reading people's NSV's a few times. So ... let'er rip!

That's great - good luck with your first fill (it's a couple days before mine, let me know how it goes) and good luck with all your finals and projects!

Wow! Look at the Protein in that! I will have to do some scoping out of some of the stores around here to see if I can pick some up. I'm in no rush however as during my post-op diet stages I found like two things I liked and stuck to them the entire period so for full liquids all I ate was yogurt and pudding for like 10 days haha, so I'm not rushing out to buy either any time soon

Holy h-e-double hockey sticks... I am going crazy. Not so much because I'm starving to death because I have no restriction and therefore I'm not eating the best I should. I'm trying to get back on track! I gained 4 lbs this past week! EEEEK. Someone please refresh my memory - 4oz of meat? Time to start measuring my foods again. ARGH.

Yay! Keep up the NSV's so exciting

Hmm, I've only been to a couple baby showers and have to host one myself in a couple months for my best girl friend. I would say that you need to talk to her about location - generally the mommy to be doesn't do anything for the shower so having it at her place might make that a bit harder and make her feel like she should pitch in. Is your place a viable option? If not, you may want to talk to her about having it at her place but you taking care of things. Invitation wise, do you know a lot of the same people? I would ask her to put together a list of people who she would like to attend and then if you can think of others go ahead and invite them. As for food - tea, coffee, punch, and then finger food type Snacks, sausage rolls, veggies, whatnot. Keep it simple. Games - if you want to have any little games to pass the time and have some fun, there is a game where you get a bunch of really really really long pieces of string and you have the people cut them to guess how big mommy's belly is (ie: wrapping a string around your waist type of guess) and whoever guesses closest could get a small cheapo prize. Another game is you get a small tray or platter and pick easy to remember items (about 15-20 of them).. ie: paper clip, tweezers, nail clippers, spoon, etc and you go around the room and people only get a short time to look at them and try to remember them. Then you have to write down as many as you can remember, and the person who remembers the most wins. Presents - when the mommy to be opens the presents someone (if you're organizing it I would guess it would be you, but whoever) sits beside her and takes the cards and writes the item received on the back of the card so that she can send out thank you cards later that are more personal. Hmmm, I'm out of other suggestions. Hope this has helped a bit. Good luck!

*giggle* I too was curious/nosey about what happened lol.

Heheh, you're so funny.

*sigh* You know, when I made the decision to change my life and get everything in order to get the Band, I knew it would a life long commitment and journey. I knew that there would be good days and there would be bad days, and there have been but I don't think I prepared myself for the "in betwen stages" days. I had days during my first couple of weeks post op where the food demon in my head consumed me. I followed my post op diet 100% and it wasn't easy. I healed quickly and was hungry through most of my post op diet healing time. So here I am past the post op healing diet, pre fill and NO, ZERO, NILCH, NADA, (insert other adjective here) restriction. Over the past few days I have definitely not made some of the smartest food choices (not horrible though, no fast food, etc) more along the lines of just not eating the 1/2-1cup amounts. Example, today our friends had an Oscar party - and everyone was to bring appy type foods. So I basically grazed on food all afternoon and evening. I drank (water) during the times I was grazing (I realize that this is bad once you have restriction but currently I have zero so I was doing it anyways). And I've been lazy on the exercise - nothing for at least the past 4 days. Am I officially in Bandster hell? What's the best way to get past this part until my first fill (Mar 10)? Cooking is not my thing, frankly I down right hate it so it's going to be a struggle for cooking when I have restriction but it's even worse right now because... it's like I've had nothing done. I feel the same as how I felt before my surgery. Pretty sure I'll be gaining a few lbs this week's weigh in. GRRR.

Awww thanks so much, what a great compliment. In all of the pictures I've posted I can't tell exactly what the I weighed but the range would be between 290 and 315 (my weight range variance for the past 5 or so years).

These pics are about 2-3 years old, but this is the shortest that I have ever gone. Sorry the one pic is kinda fuzzy.

Thanks guys, the pics arent even the greatest, it's hard to snap a good one of yourself but I really do like it and the colours aren't even shown justice in the house light, I'll try to get one taken outdoors in the sun soon! I'm glad I cut it because my hair was just getting too boring. The pic in my signature is from the summer time as well (early september) so there was considerably more boring, drab looking length to it. My stylist (first time going to her) was fantastic and I will be going back to her from now on out. To cut the length off she put my hair in a low pony tail, wrapped an elastic around and snipped that way it can be donated to Locks for Love (I believe that's what it's called, the place that makes wigs for kids, etc. battling cancer). Thanks! And I'm hoping as I lose more weight in my face it will look even better You should definitely investigate that with your stylist, because thick hair or not, if she thinks that cut would work they do have techniques to "thin out" really thick hair. I've even had that done to mine before on certain styles and I don't really have thick hair. I have fine, super straight hair but I have a LOT of it.

Against some peoples better advice, I couldnt not do anything, I had to cut it, I hated the style. I've never been one to be afraid to do things like short spikey at back/top and dark purple, or shoulder length with blonde underneath, or shoulder length with bright red racing stripes... however, without more a do... Here it is.. sorry they were just fast snapped pics and the lighting in our house does not do the copper justice like the sun...

I too use fitday and enjoy it. When I signed up they give you the option to buy the computer program for like $20 so that you can use it as a program on your PC rather than an online program. I quite enjoy it.

Oh my, I'm "Sugar Silver Thong"

I wasn't sure between something like caramel or maybe something kinda reddy. My hair has a hard time holding certain colours tho - so red could end up caramel in the long run lol