MacMadame

I think you look great too. But I don't think you look like someone who is too thin and on the verge of an eating disorder either. So people saying that you are taking it too far are off-base IMO.

The formula for BMI is based on your height and weight. That means if two people have the same height and weight, they have the same BMI. But they don't necessarily have the same body fat %. In fact, most likely, they don't -- one is bound to have more or less muscle than the other. You can't know your body fat % from a chart either. It has to be measured just for you. Some machines that measure it are more accurate than others. My scale measures it by shooting electrical current through my body via my feet. This is considered reasonably accurate though it's not the most accurate. (The most accurate method requires a a swimming pool -- not something I keep in my bathroom. :biggrin: ) The caliper method is the least accurate. What is considered a healthy body fat % varies. But for adult women, it's usually 18-22%. Mine is 74% :thumbup:

Some insurance companies will accept high blood pressure as a co-morbidity but others want you to have high blood pressure that requires serious medication and/or can't be controlled by medication. Some accept one co-morbidity, some want two. You really need to check with your insurance company to find out what their policy is in general and also what your particular policy covers under what conditions. It really varies quite a bit and even someone else with Empire BCBS might not have your exact policy.

They don't do that after you've been working for a while. Once you have job experience, that's much more important than what grades you made in college. I know this because not only have I been working for 30 years, I interview and hire people. :thumbup:

Thanks, I need that! :smile2:

My message is very important! (Not really. It's just big.)

At a minimum, I'd take out the hyphen so it was two words. That would make it more generic looking and less like LapBand®.

I posted that just to post, actually.

I found the page about the EasyBand study!! EasyBand GOAL Trial - Full Text View - ClinicalTrials.gov It looks like they are looking for 300 patients but they aren't actively recruiting yet.

I think you can still get him to listen if you play it right. I worked at a small company, 80 people, and a similar situation happened with the owner/president. He hired someone not qualified to be a VP and many didn't like her because of how she acted and treated people but he thought she was the cat's meow. For a while people were talking about how maybe they were doing each other, etc. Finally another VP, who he was friends with, took him aside and told him flat out that his behavior was unbecoming and hurting the company and he shaped up really fast. Sometimes when a guy is thinking with his little brain instead of his big brain, you can't deal with it logically -- it's bad for moral, good people are quitting, etc. Instead you have to be brutal and tell them they are making a fool of themselves. That will cool the little brain down real fast. But it has to be the right person and they have to mean it. If you aren't the right person, then your best bet is to stay out of it so that when it all blows up in their faces, you don't get hit with shrapnel.

I think you have fallen into the Dieter Mentality. Certain food is Good and if you eat it, YOU are good. Certain food is bad and you eat it, YOU ARE BAD. It's the same thing with exercise. Exercise is something you do because you HAVE to. Again, if you do it, you are good, but when you don't, you are bad. I believe that if you change your mindset, I think it will be less of a struggle and you'll find yourself making better choices because the emotion and the judgement will be gone. Feeling ashamed, beating yourself up for being a Bad Girl is not productive. It leads to a cycle of extremes -- being a model citizen followed by falling off the wagon and feeling despair and hopelessness. First, there is no such thing as good or bad food. It's just food. There are good and bad choices, but they have to be evaluated in the context of your entire food intake. Did those oreos and pb cups put you over your calorie intake for the day? Then eat less today. If they didn't, then look at your overall nutrition. Did they make your diet have too much fat or sugar that day? Eat something with less fat and more Fiber today. You have nothing to beat yourself up for if you made one bad choice one day if your week was full of good choices and your overall intake is balanced and healthy. Also look at what you define as treats. I don't want the fact that my kids have no weight problems today lead me to teach them habits and ways of thinking that will lead to weight problems tomorrow. Therefore, I try not teach my kids that only junk is a treat. Why aren't strawberries treats? My kids go nuts when I buy strawberries. They are expensive and only in season for a short time, so they see them as a big treat. They feel the same about cantalope. We don't buy it that often so when we do, it's a big treat. Sure, we buy ice cream and chips and other things too. But we don't act like junk is a treat and good food is something you have to eat because it's good for you and I think that's an important distinction. Anything you love is a treat. Finally, we get to exercise. I never "exercise". Exercise is something you do because you have to. Instead, I have "active hobbies". These are things that I like to do because I like them, but they also involve moving my body. I never think of them as exercise and I never think of them as things I HAVE to do in order to be "good." Your active hobby can be anything, too. It doesn't have to be going to the gym or taking up marathon running. It can be gardening. It can be bowling. It can be ballroom dancing. Ice skating. Joining a 'just for fun' softball league. Whatever you LIKE to do. And don't worry about whether or not it's "good" exercise. People get so focused on doing things perfectly, that they won't do "good enough" stuff because it's not perfect. Sure training for a marathon burns way more calories than bowling. But bowling burns way more than sitting at home watching tv or typing on the computer or reading. You say you haven't got a sedentary lifestyle so you probably already have active hobbies. Instead of beating yourself up for not going to the gym (or whatever you think of as "exercise"), congratulate yourself for not being a couch potato.

In my case, my surgeon's office recommends them as an occasional Breakfast item. It's because a lot of people are tight in the morning and want to skip breakfast and also because most fast breakfasts are carb heavy. Since I'm trying to eat like a banded person, pre-band, I thought I'd give it a shot. They recommend that the bars have less than 25g of carbs, less than 15g of sugar, over 10g of Protein, less than 250 calories over all. So far, only the Atkin Advantage bars meet that criteria. Maybe there are similar bars in the "health" food stores, but I don't shop there. The main problem I have with *all* the bars, aside from the sugar in some of them, is that they have a lot of fat and a lot of sodium. Oh, and they taste like crap. I almost forgot that one.

I've been told that my sweet tooth may be a problem for me with the band. But chips (which I can't stand) are band friendly too. I think what really kills bandsters is not dealing with emotional eating. If you eat when your body tells you it's not hungry, the band isn't going to help you. Likewise, if you aren't ready to make lifestyle changes. If you are ready to deal with your head hunger and make lifestyle changes, there are plenty of sweet and savory options that will help you lose weight. If you aren't, then you'll find a way to eat around the band.

You're right, it will get out. But if you aren't talking about it, that will stop a LOT of people from bringing it up. Not everyone ... but at least it will stop the non-rude ones who understand boundaries. :smile2:

My dh takes FOREVER to finish a meal. I was hoping that when I get the band I'll finally take as long he does. :smile2:

I don't like fish either. Or people who post just to post. :smile2:

Maybe there is there is another guy there around his level who can take him aside and explain that it doesn't look good ... that people are wondering if they are "doing it" and that he's not behaving professionally? He may just be flattered by her attention and thinking with his little brain and not his big one.

So I went back to Target and I realized why I hadn't found the Atkins or South Beach bars ... they don't sell them individually. I was in the individual section because I wanted to get one bar of each kind to see if I liked the taste before buying an entire box. Most of the ones that were sold individually had 15g of sugar. I think these are bars that were originally marketed as "energy" bars. Even the Balance bar and the Zone bars were like that. I bet there are people eating those things like crazy thinking they are eating healthy when they aren't.

IMO part of it is that the bypass has been approved for us in the US for longer than the band. For a while, insurance wouldn't cover the band in many cases even though it would cover bypass. Lap band was considered experimental at first. The weird thing is that you'd think insurance companies would jump all over lap band since it's cheaper than RnY and would cover it and only cover RnY under special circumstances.

How did you get on the waiting list? I've been looking at the clinical trial web sites weekly and haven't seen anything. I want to sign up!

There are definitely tons of them out there that have nutritional labels that read like a candy bar with some Protein powder mixed in. That's not healthy AT ALL imo. Which is why I didn't buy them. :smile2: I am a big believer that there are no bad foods or good foods though. It's really about choices in the context of your entire diet. If you are deciding between a Milky Way bar or a South Beach chocolate Bar, I think the SB bar is clearly a better choice. If you are snacking on protein bars between meals instead of having a piece of fruit, some carrot sticks or a yogurt, then maybe it's not such a good choice.

Well, one difference is that the Realize band is made from a softer plastic and is wider than the Lap band AP. This is supposed to help with erosion and slippage. In fact, the AP band was made wider for the same reason. Another difference is with the port. The Realize port has these little claws that make it stick to the stomach muscles instead of being stitched in. (However, the surgeon can choose to stitch it instead.) This is supposed to help with port flipping. It is also a "low profile" port so when you lose your weight, it won't stick out as much. The Lap Band has a low profile port option but you have to ask for it. The buckle is different too. I have no idea if it matters though. I just noticed that watching lap band surgery videos. :smile2: The Realize buckle is big and it scared me a bit. The Lap Band AP has its reservoir divided up into sections ... it's like it's pre-creased. The Realize band does not. It does crease when it's filled with liquid, but ends up with less creases. The sections in the Lap Band AP are supposed to help with slippage. The older lap bands had a reservoir that did not go 360 around while Realize does. That's why the AP band was changed. 360 around is better. The Realize band is not put in pre-filled with saline. Sometimes the Lap Band is. From what I've seen here, it's completely variable how soon and how easily someone gets to restriction so I don't see that it matters much. So there are some differences just off the top of my head.

I swear the South Beach and Atkins bars I picked up had a lot of sugar. But the nutritional info on the web says no. Maybe I just picked up the wrong ones. I guess I'll have to try again.

This is what I want from the band. I am sure if I can cut out the between meal snacks and eat smaller portions that I will get to goal. Most of my unhealthy eating is snacking. My meals are actually decent.

I have a 3 pronged approach. First, I have lost tons of weight in my life. So when they say if you just eat right and exercise, you'll lose weight, I say "oh, losing weight isn't the problem. It's keeping it off." Then I blind them with science.... I tell them about the studies that show that yo-yo dieting changes your body so it fights to keep you fat by telling you that you're hungry all the time. I also tell them about the study where they measured the brain waves in the part of the brain that recognizes satiety and how morbidly obese people have weaker brain waves and so often don't feel "full". Then I explain how the lap band works to combat these things so that once you lose the weight, you have a fighting chance to keep it off. If that doesn't work (and it works 99.9% of the time), I say "then I guess you still are driving a horse and buggy to work and cooking your dinner on a wood stove" ... doing things in an easier way is SMART, if you ask me. Doing it the "hard" way just to say you did seems pretty pointless.