DevilMayKare

Well I'm now waiting for the contractor to come back (& the plumber). The workers the contractor left here are running and running and running the Water (hosing down stuff) which is quite annoying considering what a river was running down the street yesterday and how much it's going to cost me. The driveway guy said the pipe was not to code--by depth or material and they weren't responsible for it breaking because it should have been deeper. Mind you I have lived in this house TWENTY-TWO years with that pipe working just fine. I'm a bit at their mercy while my front yard is hills of dirt, but I will try to get them to at least absorb part of the cost. Times like this I wish DeLarla lived next door to come let them have it. But the WORST part (right now anyway) is the fact that I really don't like the color. It's cobblestone and I like the greys but they mixed in some orange stones that look like hell with my yellow house so my priority now is getting them to switch out those stones. THAT is not going to be easy, but that's the most important thing right now. Sorry to go on about this. You know later it will just be a good story. In this particular moment it is my reality.

Oh Okay--the shock value! I LIKE IT! You don't know how I was wracking my brain trying to come up with uses. (Yes, obviously one could eat the bannana...but...well... nevermind) Anyway, that would be pretty funny. If I ever have someone to shock in my life again I may try it.

At least NOT YET! But you did make me laugh. Thanks everyone. It's 1:30 and I just came home from work so I could shwer & be here for the plumber when he comes back. He is going to be here at 3:00 to give me the bill. It's a BAAAAAD sign when they want to give you the bill in person. Thanks for all your good wishes. I'm afraid I'm feeling way older than fifty right now. But Michelle... do you think you could maybe just LEND me your brother for a night? He doing anything for Valentine's day??? Well... since no man seems to be on the horizon I really think I deserve some chocolate!! chocolate doesn't have calories on Vday, right?

So TODAY I am 50. I've been saying 50 for a few months because I've been getting mentally prepared for it. I'm never crazy about my bday anyway--& doubly not crazy that it's on Vday, which for some reason people think is cute but which is in reality a giant pain since everywhere is too crowded to go on your bday. BUT what REALLY is making this year suck bigtime is the fact that while re-doing my driveway yesterday the contractor BROKE MY WATERMAIN. I came home from work yesterday to a river of Water flooding down my street--my frontyard a pool and 4 municipal water guys gathered around the meter which the contractor's guys broke trying to turn it off. The city actually had to shut water off for the WHOLE BLOCK to fix the meter. I have had no running water since. I bought bottled for my son & I to drink and filled up buckets for spongebaths & to pour in the toilets but it is more than annoying that I can't even take a shower and have to go to work on my bday without washing my hair. Man! This is NOT boding well for this year. Sorry guys, had to VENT. It's 8:00 & neither the contractor or plumber have shown up yet for me to yell at.

Really! Those "toy" threads got pretty wild!! But...um...okay, I don't know if I'm stupid, naive, or just unimaginative but after putting it in place, what do you actually DO with a bannana? (Or what does "He" do?) I'm having problems picturing the practicalities of this invention. (AND Paul--I am not asking YOU!!!)

I can be fine around something all day, but in the night hours--watchout! Fig newtons, crackers, etc... I will eat every one. It didn't seem fair to me to deprive my kids of these "goodies" altogether so I had them in the house for years and often had to run to the store to replace something when I had finished off the bag. Then one day I was sitting in some sort of weightloss meeting listening to some poor dieter who--yet again--succombed to the temptation of goodies they kept around for their kids. It's a VERY common phenomenon. On the way home from that meeting I stopped at Home Depot and bought 2 lockable tool boxes (one small, one big) with locks. I put the small box in the fridge and put the cheese & other cold temptations inside and put the graham crackers, Cookies, Peanut Butter et al in the bigger box, locked them both and gave the keys to my younger son who has no problems resisting food. That was several years ago and it has always been a big help for my night eating. Admittedly, it is a little humiliating to have to lock food away from myself--with my kid as the keeper, but when your mom is 300 pounds the fact that she has a problem with food is hardly a secret. I hate that I'm compulsive and weak about eating sometimes--but I've accepted that reality and this is one way I handle it without depriving everyone else in the household of things that I can't handle.

Hope you don't mind if I take this opportunity to post a pic of my skinny son...

I have two sons who were different from the moment they were born. The oldest was a chubby baby on breastmilk (exclusively for 10 mos) and could never get enough of it. I did not even let him have chocolate until finally pressured into it when he was FOUR. He is 21 and chubby now. My younger son was also BF a long time but never cared less about eating and still does not. He is skinny as a rail. He just does NOT CARE about food!! I was always chubby, my brother was always skinny. My dad was chubby, his brother was skinny. My Grandmother & her brother were chubby and their sister skinny. There is NO QUESTION in my mind that the tendency towards poundage is in our genes. As are many other things. Both my sons are very intelligent and I think they inherited that as well! But my cat... oh she's dumb and very, very fat. She's a 16-yr-old fat, happy cat and lucky to live in a world where the other cats don't make fun of her.

Wow. I can't thank you enough for sharing all that! I have really been wanting to hear from someone who has been banded for more than 2 years. Since so many of the erosion problems happen at around 18months I think all our experiences and statistics before that are fairly worthless (as far as that goes). Of all your many problems, erosion doesn't seem to be one. I know it took you a long time to type all that and I appreciate that you did it. I have no idea where you live, but if you are open to a MX doc, Dr Ortiz would probably help you. I live in OC CA--two hours from his office in TJ and if you need a place to stay while exploring that option I have an extra room to lend. I'm really serious about that. You fly into OC & I'll pick you up at the airport. Then it's an easy train down to San Diego & trolly into Tj. Any help you need, PM me.

Hey--I'm going DANCING tonight! A Sweetheart's Ball from 6-11:00 with my lindy buddy (but sadly not my sweetheart... since he's 15 years younger than me) so I should burn lotsa cals! There's something I sure wouldn't have done 40 pounds ago!

You know what Ann? I think I just figured out what's going on! I think the confrontational tone and all the "sensitivity" lately became acute right after the big new membership PUSH at the beginning of the year. We had a lot of new people join all at once and I think some of us had gotten to "know" each other and therefore had some background knowledge that made the posts more in context with the person who wrote them. I think it's a combination of new membership and erosions of some of our most active members that has skewed the environment a bit. I know the SHEAR VOLUME of posts is now overwhelming to me and it didn't used to be. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with the above, I'm just suggesting its causiality. But OMILORD! there are already sooooo MANY thread headings to wade thru! I think we need to use a little common sense with this and enjoy some of the offshoots to topic. We usually seem to get back into it. (Moderation in all things?) Hmmm... I musta missed that. But then after my initial introduction to the person I barely glance at the sig line because I'm trying to scroll thru. In that regard, I wish we could cut down a little bit on the SPACE used in sig lines. I'm on a laptop and scrolling is really a pain and it takes a lot of time to get thru these threads just because of all the space at the bottom of every single message. The bannas are cute and I like to use the smilies as much as the next person, but how many times do we need to see rows and rows of the same thing for pages and pages of messages? If only there were someway to have the sig paraphernalia only show up in the first post per thread! And toward that end... I'm gonna go edit my info so it's on as few lines as possible. What do you think? Anyone else like that idea?

Thanks John! It is funny how we seem to think we need all the fancy stuff when it's pretty hard to beat the benefits of a good, brisk walk. Currently it's just my dog, Ipod and me, but when I've had a friend committed to walking together it has been VERY helpful for staying on track and making the time go quickly. It just occurred to me with all the TIME I have spent on this forum the past week--if I could have spent it visiting with you all in person while out walking we ALL would have probably dropped 10 pounds!!! Just a thought...

Spending $10,000 to undergo anesthesia, be cut into and have a foreign body placed in my gut with whatever unknown future complications became "right" for me when I felt I had nothing to lose. After decades and decades of yo-yo-ing up and down 50 and 100 pounds I had NO HOPE and just could not get motivated to do start another program. From my sig it looks like I was a low BMI bandster, but I was on my way back up to the 312 pounds I took off in 2002 and I just could not stop myself. When I was sitting on that train to Mexico it was out of pure desperation. If I died on an opeating table in Tia Juana then that was that--it was better than the pain & fear I was living with. For me it was not a question of being the right thing to do, it felt like the only thing I could do. If I had felt that something less drastic than surgery would work I would have done that. Well, I had done that... many times. I would suggest you really try everything you can before doing this. You are not that old and you are not THAT overweight. You can work your ass off to lose with a personal trainer or any of the other methods and keep yourself down for awhile. You can ALWAYS have surgery later. Please note, this surgery is NOT a slam-dunk. There are many slow and no losers. CHeck out Jonathon's threads. I think his stats are similar to yours and his outcome was about 30 measly pounds for a heck of a lot of money and trouble. I'm sorry to sound negative. This was a good thing for me---but hardly a sure thing. It gave me HOPE and motivated me to start back down again, but it's a lot harder than I thought it would be and I honestly thought I would be closer to my goal by now. Hmmm... wish I could sound more positive. That's the problem with opinions, sometimes they're negative ones.

Re raincoats and such... I guess the V thing is out of the question?

And as for sending her to this board, don't forget there are a few things you might NOT want her to read! There are more than a few threads (erosion et al) that might give one pause. At the very least, you have to find some way to put a block on all DeLarla's postings!!

Your mother could have handled it differently, but I think it is unrealistic to think anyone is going to loan/give you $10,000 without ANY strings attached. There have been plenty of threads dealing w/ "Mom" issues when there wasn't a cent involved. My parents are great in many ways and I'm probably closer to my family than most people, but guess what? THEY DO NOT EVEN KNOW ABOUT MY BAND! And I have NO intention of EVER telling them. So please don't think it's just about the money. Money is often about something else anyway. Also Velvet, I have no idea from this post how old you are. Although the band has been a good thing for me at my age (50), if my 21-yr-old son (who is about 50# over) wanted to get a lapband at his age I would not be supportive of it. He has far from exhausted his options to lose weight. I would not loan nor would I co-sign for him to get the $ for the band at this point in his life. If he were 150# overweight and 30 or 40 years old I would probably feel differently. I, personally, think SURGERY should be one of your LAST options. The lapband is NOT without complications. And we all don't even know what some of them may be 10 years from now. I've lost over 100# twice during my life and kept it off for more than 2 years at a time. It's a bitch, but can be done and is certainly easier the younger you are. Maybe you SHOULD take your mother up on Nutrisystem offer. Try that first and give it your best shot with the knowledge that the band will still be there. And while you are doing Nutrisystems you can be working on your credit. I'm just trying to see it from your Mother's possible point of view--and it is a valid one.

Well, there are a lot of things that just don't blend that well--and twinkies would be one of them. Of course you can still drink milkshakes and I did create something like cheese sauce. I think the staple of my diet when I did that was tuna fish blended in white sauce. One time when I pb'd after eating tuna it SO reminded me of that concoction when I PB'd it up. BUt all 'n all when you're walking around with your mouth wired shut you feel like such a stupid idiot that you "cheat" less than one would think.

I had my jaw wired shut for 12 weeks one time. Seriously. Well, they basically put braces on your back molars and wire your mouth shut. The grossest part is not being able to brush your teeth but you can get pretty good with a waterpik. Talking is a bit tough--but you can double as a ventriloquist. Really--I am NOT making this up! I lost about 50 pounds in those 12 weeks tho. Pretty unbelievable, uh? Oh yeah... maybe not as unbelievable as spending $10,000 and having major surgery to wrap a plastic band around one's stomach... The things we do...

I didn't find Gas-X to help at all--nor did chiropractic. A hot shower & hot jaquizzi helped some. I'd say it took about 10 days total and the 5th day was about the worst so you are probably in the midst of the worst of it. It will get better. Go soak.

Glad ya'll liked it! Best Me you reminded me of an experience I had a decade or so ago. During one of my "lose weight get super-fit" phases I determined to run a 10K. I'd never run a mile in my life before but within 6 mos I worked up to 5 miles a night. I was building up for an event they hold every Spring on Catalina Island. It's a big Marathon Run with a 10K for those not up to the Marathon. Well, I did that 10K (up and down some pretty monster hills!) and let me tell you I was shocked and delighted to find that The WHOLE TOWN of Avalon comes out and lines the city streets and corners and for almost the whole 10K people are high fiving and cheering you on. :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: It was one of the most JOYFULL experiences of my life! I'd really never experienced anything like that & it made me understand races and sports competition in a way I never had before. Anyway, it's a good memory. Thought I'd share.

Okay everybody, take a moment and go here: (I promise it will give you a smile) http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~geoffo/humour/flattery.html

I can understand you being shocked. If I hadn't already paid I probably would have just said "Go to hell" and walked out. Not very eloquent, but gets the point across.

Yes, I agree with that. I think we all DO need help beyond the surgery. That help may or may not include the surgeon's office. There are so many variations among individuals it's really impossible to predict what will be the best, most motivating help for someone. We all need to be vigilant in finding what works best for us. Gosh Paul, I sure WISH potatoes helped!! (with butter, mmmmmmm.....)

Oh yeah and best of all--a dog will eat anything you have left over because you couldn't eat anymore w/o PBing... Well, except the vegies. "Hijack over" --not! (grin)

WHAT an INSPIRATION!!!! John, I wish I could print that whole article out to read every night before I even start to THINK of grazing. My head has been telling me "You can't do it" lately and I soooooo appreciate your example that I CAN! JOHN DID IT AND SO CAN WE!! Hip, Hip HOORAY FOR JOHN!!! :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: