MacMadame

Which makes it fake because in a photo, the closer something is to the camera, the bigger it appears. Pushing her back like they are walking side-by-side is just like taking two different pictures, each with a different scale, and pasting them together. Just look at the picture and it's obvious. The shorter girl is supposed to be 5'3" and she's supposed to be 6'5". Well, she sure looks more than 1"2" taller than the shorter girl.

Even if they went by the charts, it would still be fairer to do % of excess weight vs. absolute pounds lost.

I, too, believe there are no bad foods, just bad choices. I think this bad food vs. good food mentality is a by-product of the diet industry's approach to losing weight where they try to teach nutrition as a series of catch phrases and where there are whole diets organized around demonizing one particular food group. Put foods into the Good and Bad buckets is what leads to the attitude that drinking Water with a candy bar is just silly because if you are going to eat a candy bar, you might as well drink soda -- even though a soda and a candy bar is more empty calories than a candy bar alone. Or it leads to not eating the candy bar but eating something else that isn't a particularly good choice either, but it's not a food you've decided is BAD so it seems like you've made a good choice, but you haven't.

My surgeon's practice recommends a yearly visit after the first two years. Obviously, if you need a fill, you need to come in sooner, but if you don't, then once a year is fine for a check-up.

I chose lap band because it's adjustable and reversable. With any WLS, there can be complications. If you have certain complications with gastric bypass, you can end up being sick for the rest of your life because it can't be undone. If you have complications with the lap band, you can -- as a last resort -- take it out. I like the adjustable aspect too. I am not interested in dropping rapid and extreme weight loss. I mainly want to control my hunger so that I have a chance at eating healthy with normal portion sizes. With gastric bypass, you get the pouch you get -- it may be perfect for you but it may be too big so you don't get as good hunger control or too small so that you have trouble maintaining your health. The lap band, otoh, will let me get fills and I get to pick how restricted I am. I plan to pick enough restriction to control my hunger but not so much that I can't eat most foods. That's the right answer for me. Someone else may want even less restriction or even more. We both get to choose what works for us. Finally, the mortality rate of bypass is too high for me. It's 1 in 200. I have young kids and I want to live to see them grow up. Sure, my weight will kill me eventually, but that's the key word -- eventually. I'm not going to do something today that increases my chance of dying today that much.

I think that if you eat healthy food and maintain an active lifestyle and aren't overeating, that whatever weight you are at is the right weight for you. Those charts and the medical pronouncements about what your risk factors are if you are in certain ranges are based on statistics. Statistics describe groups. They are not predicative for an individual. For example, if you are someone who lifts weights and has a lot of muscle, your BMI might say you are overweight. If your BMI says you are overweight, but your cholesterol is low, your resting pulse is low, your blood pressure is low, you have good levels on your sugars, minerals and hormones and your body fat % is under 20, then you are a healthy person and you are not at greater risk of bad health than someone whose BMI says they are normal weight, but their body fat % is over 25 and they have one or more of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, low Calcium values, etc. I have a relative who is thin. But she eats horribly and never exercises. She eats mostly refined sugar, in fact, and is only thin because she eats two meals a day. Back when I was 145 -- overweight on the charts, but had a cholesterol level of 155, blood pressure of 90 over 55 and Iron levels of 14.7, etc. there was no way she was healthier than I was.

I think how you carry your weight matters too. My arms are still kind of skinny and, yeah, I'll have some batwings when I lose weight. But generally not too bad. Now, I'm older this time, so maybe they'll be worse than in the past, but looking at how much fat I have now, I'm thinking I'll be okay, especially 6 months out from goal -- because normally you do get some more tightening for a while after reaching goal.

I gave up diet soda cold turkey about 3 weeks ago. I don't really miss it, but sometimes if someone in the house leaves a can of unfinished soda lying around, I find myself reaching for it without thinking. Usually it's some flavor I don't even like!

I have heard of some insurance companies, BCBS in particular, that will pay for surgery in Mexico. But it depends on the particular policy.

I am required to lose weight using any diet I wish.

It's possible the code doesn't work as well on FireFox as whatever it was tested on, but FireFox is the browser I use when my regular one won't work, so unlikely. OTOH, I just made my window small and if you make it small enough, the ad does cover up Ms. Frisky Apple Lady.

I convinced my dh to switch to brown rice for a while but the entire family bitched so much that we went back to white. I think I found my answer about South Beach then.

That's too bad. I hope it works out for you.

I think we should have people at all stages of band-life. There are some gorgeous people on here who haven't gotten to goal yet. They've still lost a ton of weight and are inspirational.

Have you considered WW? I tried them too. I prefer JC because they tell you want to do and you do it and you lose weight. But WW is more "for life" because you eat real food and you can eat anything you like as long as your points are below your daily limit. So you have to learn how to make good choices. My surgeon requires weight loss before surgery so I need to think about this too. I am thinking I might do something like The Zone or South Beach because, even though I think those sorts of diets are kind of a gimmick, I think the eating is more like post-band eating with the emphasis on cutting out carbs and getting in more Protein. What do you guys think? Are those diets reasonable and doable for 3-6 months?

I felt dumb but I put in 2 min. 1 min to go down them in the morning and 1 min. to go up them at the end of the day. I haven't done anything since though. I think I will make a pledge to pack a gym back tomorrow to take to work. I've said I'm going to do it every week and every week I never get around to it!

I can relate to where you are coming from skinny4life because I was there just a few weeks ago. I did some research and read about how effective the band was, how few complications, almost no deaths, etc. and was sold. Then I came here and read about erosions and slips. I knew they happened but if you go to the complications section, it can seem like *everyone* gets a slip eventually. On top of that, there are a lot of people in their first year who are really into rapid weight loss and are willing to suffer quite a bit to get it. Sometimes those voices can drown out the others. But those others are here. If you continue reading, you will see the people who manage their bands in a way similar to how you want to manage yours -- however that may be! I want hunger control and portion control from my band. I don't want to PB or slime much at all -- only when I eat too fast and/or don't chew (i.e., when it's my own damn fault). I want to be able to eat pretty much everything I eat now, just in smaller portions and better overall combinations. I won't cry if I can't ever eat rice or a slice of untoasted bread again, but I would be upset if I couldn't eat meat, raw fruits and vegetables, etc. I also plan to "only" work out/exercise for 45min-1 hr 2-3 days a week. There are enough people on here who manage to do this and lose weight to give me confidence that my plan for how I handle the band is reasonable and that I will be successful. P.S. I wish the band did give erections to guys. I bet if it did, not only would WLS be socially acceptable, but EVERY INSURANCE WOULD COVER IT!!

When I had my gallbladder out, they called it an elective surgery and so I couldn't get in until about 6 weeks after the initial diagnosis. Gallbladder surgery is NOT a cosmetic procedure! I say, even if you are getting a boob job, you are still going under the knife and it's still scary and there still could be complications. If they have a club to give something to people who are out sick in the hospital, they should be consistent and not make judgement calls as to who "really" needs it and who doesn't.

I plan to slump when my height gets measured. I was, as a 20-something, 5' 1.75" and then after my first kid I was 5' 1.25" and then after the second kid I was 5" .75" which would always get written down as 5" but about 6 months ago I got my height measured at the doctor's office and I was back to 5' 1.25" and they now write it down as 5' 1" and that is JUST NOT FAIR!

Is your screen size small? Is your browser not opened up to full screen? What browser are you using? I've seen the lady using IE 7.0 and Safari 3.0.

I tried it back in 1988-1989 and lost 70 lb. when I had only been planning on losing 50. I don't remember eating any dog food though. :thumbup: After that they went into Chapter 11 and came back reorganized. So I switched to Jenny Craig.

Well, I went to put the stairs exercise into my Daily Plate and it asked me how many minutes I had climbed stairs. I felt silly putting in 1 minute but I'll be damned if I was going to leave it out. I huffed and puffed up those freaking stairs and I want my credit! :thumbup:

Or we can cut the background out in Photoshop. That's what I did for the banner on top of my web site: http://www.reactionphotography.com/assets/logo_web.jpg I also faded the kids down so that my logo (and the name of my company) would be the focus. I think "The Lady at the Top" definitely needs to be faded... She's stronger visually than the LapbandTalk.com logo and LBT.com is much more important than her and her silly apple!

My experience with weight loss is that slower is better. You have more time to make your new choices into habits and your skin will adjust better too.

That's true. Even across some peer-reviewed studies you can see a big fluctuation. My surgeon's practice quotes a 77+% success rate. That's all their patients across all the different WLS they do, not just bands. It's higher than most of the studies and I think it's because of their approach-- both their pre-op requirements and the follow-up care they provide. With stats like that, I doubt they are going to see a big difference between their Realize patients and their Lap-band patients.