kagoscuba

I go for the Wendy's plain baked potato three times a week. It only costs $1.06, and contrary to popular belief potatos are actually quite healthy in moderation.

"If it is so easy why don't they do it?????????" Most people who are insensitive enough to say things like that are at least aware enough not to say it, if they are overweight. So, they get to preach from on high, without the experience of having to do it themselves. That's why, if I was Catholic, I'd laugh if a priest gave me marriage advice.

Very nice!!! Way to go!

In the best NJ tradition, I am now totally at ease with saying, "Kiss my ass," whenever someone starts going on about the ease of the surgery. I then follow up with such gems as, "If you are so worried about cheating in life and doing it the old-fashioned way, please feel free to sell your car, grow your own veggies, slaughter your own meat, and go back to church every Sunday, until you hear the sermon about judging people." Jeez, I'm only 38 and I'm already turning into a curmudgeon. I think getting older is part losing your physical abilities and part losing your physical ability to not to tell people to shut their pie-hole.

Hey there New Me 2008 Just curious...are you filled while utilizing a flouroscope, or is it a "blind" fill?

"Hey how did your wife convince you to do the laundry?" It wasn't her, it was my mom. My mom got sick (almost literally) of washing my football uniforms, so she mandated I learn how to do my own laundry. Between her and the military I learned perfectly how to do my own laundry and cook for myself. Truth be told, I actually now prefer I do both for myself. It works for my wife, as she does the kids and her laundry (enough of a job) and she doesn't have to worry about cooking for me, especially since I get home about 2 hours after the kids eat dinner. Thanks everyone for the kind words!

Oh, and just another fact from the Delaware Constitution: §2. Religious test for office not required. Section 2. No religious test shall be required as a qualification to any office, or public trust, under this State. I got this from the text of the official Delaware Constitution Frisky...where did you get your unconstitutional piece from?

"In God We Trust" That means in God we trust, not in the Trinity, or in the fallibility of man. I have no trouble trusting in God; I do have trouble in trusting in a Presidential candidate who believes the Earth is 6,000 years old. Oh, and by "trusting in God" I do not mean blindly trusting to the point of delusion. If faced with a perilous situation you can trust or you can act. The truster will normally not survive.

I eat about 2000 calories a day and am now averaging a weight loss of 2 pounds per week. In addition I am doing .5 hour cardio 5 days a week and lifting weights for an hour 5 days a week. I can literally feel my body morphing.

So, yesterday I was doing my laundry (yes, ladies, some married men do their own) and while I was picking some up out of the basket, my wedding ring fell off my finger. It didn't get pulled off; it just fell off. So, now I have a new errand of getting my ring resized. That is a great errand to have. :woot:

The yogurt is the Dannon Light & Fit. The fruit is blended, so you do not have to worry about being stuck. However, once you are optimally filled, you cannot eat it too quickly, or you will get that uncomfortable, "Oh this is going to take a while to get down" feel.

"I think my biggest problem will be when I go back to work next week. What will I eat for lunch? In the past, I would just hit a fast food place or Subway." I was in the same boat as you. KFC 6 piece dinner, Subway Cold Cut Combo: foot long of course (with chips and bucket of soda), a whole Papa John's medium pizza with pepperoni, extra-cheese, and some onions and peppers for being healthy. Oh, and I could always go for Mickey D's. Now, I pack Breakfast, lunch, and afternoon snack and bring it to work every day, and I rarely deviate. Here is a typical sample: Breakfast (may take a couple of hours to eat all of this): 1 Yogurt 1 Hard Boiled Egg 1 coffee 1 Bottle of Water with Crystal Light 1 small can Diet Red Bull Lunch: Protein shake sugar free pudding 1 bottle of water with crystal light Afternoon Snack: Muscle Milk - Protein Pudding Bottle of water with Crystal light 1 coffee (long ride home) Dinner can be Soup or tuna or any of a myriad of other protein rich foods. I hope this helps.

I have a beer or two occasionaly. Two is pretty much my limit, and it takes FOREVER to drink one, due to the carbonation. It's a lot better than the 6-12 I would have typically drank for a long football Saturday or Sunday.

You give up caffeine to stop possible dehydration. I never did and never will give up caffeine, unless my ticker is in trouble.

Once you are optimally filled, pizza won't be an option, so you won't have to worry about a stretched pouch. I was eating small amounts of pretty much whatever I wanted to after my first fill and lots of weight loss. When I went in for fill #2, my band was wide open, and I asked why, since I had seen it dramatically smaller during the first fill. My doctor explained to me the saline and body-fat work together to keep the band at a certain diameter. If rapid weight loss occurs, then the opening of the band can become larger without an unfill. That is what happened to me. Now that I have the second fill, I am eating the cup to 2 cups of food per meal I am supposed to. I'd be lucky to force down 1.5 pieces of pizza in a day, much less one meal. Not to mention it wouldn't even be worth it because I'd feel partially stuck and waiting for a PB all of the time. Unless you are geting stuck and PB'ing a lot, you are not stretching your pouch. Your band is probably just too wide open.

"My Dr forbids NSAIDS, smoking, soda pop, and caffeine" The first two are medical necessities (smoking can cause ulcers for some reason, with the band). The next two are purely lifestyle changes packaged with the medical necessities to have the appearance of being "required." Personally, I used to drink 3-6 sodas a day, and I haven't touched one since being banded. The carbonation wouldn't feel good, and by being off of them for three months now, I do not miss them. Even being next to someone drinking one, I could care less. Now, steak I miss. The caffeine I never dropped. I have three kids under age 5, an 80 minute commute each way, and I work as a project manager. Caffeine is the only way I function most days. Diet Red Bull has only 10 calories as well.

The biggest Protein myth is that you can only digest 30 grams of protein at one time. Find out what's wrong with this belief and just how much protein you need. This is a common question. I also get variations such as, how much protein can you digest at one time? There are two ways to answer this, because there really two questions being asked. 1) How much protein can the digestive system physically absorb into the bloodstream from a meal? And the MORE IMPORTANT QUESTION... 2) How much protein can you body actually utilize? The answers... 1) About 95% and higher, unless you have some type of digestive system malfunction. So if you get convinced by supplement companies to drink a 42g Protein shake in 5 minutes, you'll still probably absorb at 38 or more grams of that protein. Your muscle growth is not limited by the amount of protein you can DIGEST or ABSORB. Your muscle growth IS LIMITED by the amount of protein that your body can utilize for protein synthesis. So the answer to #2... 2) A lot less than you think. You really don't need 40, or 30, or probably even 20g of protein per meal to keep your protein synthesis humming along. See Nutrition Help Expert Brad Pilon's post on "How Much Protein Do We Really Need" Any protein that your body can't use for growth will be shuttled into a process where it is broken down (de-aminated: meaning the nitrogen is removed from the molecule and it becomes a carbon skeleton) to be used in energy pathways. Now, there are benefits for eating extra protein (in my opinion) when dieting, mainly that it helps to suppress appetite. But the bottom line to the question I am asked almost everyday is... a) Your body can digest and absorb almost all of the protein you eat without problem. Your muscles can only do so much with protein...the muscle growth process is RARELY, if ever limited by the amount of protein we consume. Almost all of us can easily get enough protein for maximum muscle growth without the need for eating 50g of protein 6 times per day. Ronnie Coleman, Jay Cutler, and Gunter Schlerkcamp excluded, of course. Overall, I'd think twice about the need to slam down a 40-50g protein shake...just think of the children and puppies you'll save by not gassing them out with protein farts. Real food should cover all your protein needs. Craig Ballantyne is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and writes for Men's Health and Oxygen magazines. His trademarked Turbulence Training for Fat Loss Nutrition Guidelines have helped thousands of men and women with weight loss and fat burning in less than 45 minutes three times per week. More nutrition help and fat loss workouts show you how to burn fat without long, slow cardio sessions or fancy equipment. Craig's bodyweight for abs exercises help you lose fat without any equipment at all.

my gun-lovnig buddy thinks I am a facist, but here was my suggestion: 1. Let people buy ANY gun they want to up to .50 caliber, including automatics, if they can pass class III muster. 2. Every gun must be registered (just like now), and EVERY gun sold or transferred ownership (like parent to child) must be witnessed by a certified gun-shop owner or something like a gun-notary. 3. Any person caught in possession of an unregistered firearm is considered a domestic terrorist and will be punished severely to include the death penalty, if they commit a felony while in possession of an illegal firearm. 4. Any person caught selling or importing unregistered firearms will be classified a domestic terrorist and will suffer severe penalties. 5. Right to carry permits must be allowed in all 50 states and this includes NJ too. In addition, if states refuse to offer right to carry permits (without stupid rules like NJ), there will be a stipulation that any person who is killed by an illegal firearm in that state and they did not have the right to protect themselves, the state is required to pay the estate of the deceased $10m. If common sense won't make them do the right thing, money certainly will.

Read a nice little tidbit this morning where the two factions who control the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem got into a fist-fight yesterday, because somebody from the Greek Orthodox faction accidently stepped into the Armenian section. Nice. There's nothing that says we love Jesus like fighting inside the church built in his name, at his birthplace. No wonder I have no use for organized religion.

I was seriously wanting some refreshment, took four sips of Isopure and threw it in the garbage. It tasted horrible to me. I was much better off with Myoplex RTD shakes and making shakes myself. During my clear liquid stage (only a week) I was told not to worry about Protein, as it takes awhile for protein deficiency to start to bother you. It's all relative though to what you personally like. I would advise against buying a lot of anything until you are sure you like it. I made that mistake with the protein bullets, and they are still sitting in my house.

"SO??? WE'RE SUPPOSE TO EAT THREE MEALS AND HAVE 60 GRAMS OF PROTEIN?" Yep. That's actually fairly easy to do. I get 20 grams from my protein pudding, 47 from my protein drink, and an additional 20-30 from tuna. My doctor also allows a protein snack, in addition to the three meals. 100+ grams a day of protein is not uncommon for a lot of us.

The story is still somewhat in doubt, but the Zoo officials in San Francisco believe the fatality "victim" of the tiger "attack" may have actually caused it himself by dangling his leg over the wall of the tiger pen. They think the tiger may have been unable to jump 20 feet over the wall, but it was capable of jumping 18 feet and using the guy's body as a climbing apparatus, then decided to munch on him a little. If this turns out to be true, it is another case of Stupidity in Motion, and our gene pool is a little cleaner today. Sorry for the crassness, but I'm all out of sniffles for a dee-dee-dee who teases a tiger and becomes a snack. Now, the two guys chilling out in the cafe who got attacked? I do feel sorry for them. Zoos should get the idea that humans will continue to be stupid (this is far from the first case of this) and provide security for the animals FROM THE HUMANS. Normal fences obviously don't do the trick, so how about electric ones or razor-wire? Pure craziness...:faint:

"'The state' here in sunny Orygun made the life of a neighbor miserable for years, when they were insisting he pay taxes YEARLY on the estimated market value of his 20 acres of timber..." While I think this is absurd, this is no different than the IRS making the new owners of a special home-run baseball pay taxes on it, right? The guy that had Barry Bonds' record breaking ball sold it because he was facing a huge tax bill and could not afford it.

I agree with spanking, as long as the woman spanking me is smoking hot.

Real restriction can be a bit tricky too. Treat every new food or even food you've successfully eaten elsewhere carefully. Case in point...I can eat a couple of dumplings from my local chinese place no problem...went to another place where they were a bit more doughy and almost PB'd on my first one. The rest of the meal was, "Ok, Kurt, small bite, chew, chew, chew, chew a little more, small bite, ect." There is not much more of a hopeless feeling than sitting in a restaurant thinking to yourself, "so, where am I going to spew?" In a bar, ok, I'd be typically tipsy, and I can't be embarrassed of what I remember fuzzily. Stone-cold sober, with my wife and kids, on Christmas Day, having a nice public lunch...not so nice.