JanetC

Or the cigarette & Diet Coke diet -- heard it works wonders! :Banane04: (Actually have a couple of friends that did this, ugh. Their skin looks horrible!)

If you use children's plates, bowls, cups & utensils for every meal... you might be a Bandster!

http://www.tops.org/ TOPS (Taking Off Pounds Sensibly) is a weight loss support organization. It's cheaper then Weight Watchers (I think)... and doesn't have a set diet. $24 for a year + monthly dues (depends on your chapter, but about $3 / month) There are chapters all over the place. Search for one... if you live near a large city, you'll have a bunch to choose from! There's online stuff too, so even if you can't get to a meeting you can hang out with cool folks!

If you map out "bathroom exit strategies" before you sit down in a restaurant... you might be a Bandster! If PB no longer means "peanut butter"... you might be a Bandster! If you need a stopwatch to eat dinner... you might be a Bandster! If slime enters your life without turning on Nickelodeon... you might be a Bandster!

There are quite a few different band sizes. Some doctors prefer one size over another, but for larger patients, they sometimes have to use the larger band in order to get it around the stomach. So a lot depends on your size going in. Most doctors are conservative about fills. They'd rather fill a little & have you wait & see how it goes then fill a lot & have you get an unfill. You decide if you want the fill... and if you want an unfill. There are folks that have decided both ways on the board... keep reading & you'll find them. :Banane04: Maybe do a search on "fills" or "unfill". Most of the time the need for an unfill occurs when you're getting close to the "perfect" restriction. At that point, even .1 over is too much, so you might have to get a touch out. But they often will know that before you even leave the doc's office. I had 1.5 put in, then he took out .3 before I left (I couldn't get Water down easily enough for him). It really is individual, though. You have to decide if you're losing between 1-2 pounds a week, if you're having to fight "real" hunger all the time (versus "head" hunger) & if you're willing to pay for the fill. For us, the program we chose has a nutritionist visit every 2 weeks & doctor visits every month, so it's easy to skip a fill if we want to... we can catch it the next month. And the nutritionist helps us determine if we really need a fill. Good luck!

That's so awesome, congrats!!

LOL, sounds like a great plan, loving the pjs! I'm off to church & practice (praise team). Wed are long ones!

Oh, and Donna (and anyone else that wants to), feel free to give up something in support of us! The only hitch... you have to tell us you're doing it! Heh! (Sometimes, I'm just evil!!! Mwahahahahaha!!!)

Welcome Lisa!! We're glad you're here!! :clap2: Krispy Kreme is the Debil!!!! (And we all know how tempting a bad boy is! LOL. I can only eat 3 at a time... they give me a headache, lol, but give me all day, I'll eat that dozen!! I'm so proud of you Tammy!! Thanks for hanging with me on the no chocolate!! Another evening coming up... drink a ton of water & do something to take your mind off it!! We don't have kids yet, so I've had to do the getting myself! *cry* Which pretty much meant that things didn't get got, lol. For names: I like "Hope" or "Patience"... cuz our bands give us hope & teach us patience. Plus, they have patience with us when we eat the wrong thing, lol. They just keep teaching us the same lesson over & over. Stacey, lol, I love Lucy! And skinny bitch! Mikey's been calling me Skinny Butt, lol. I call him Tiny Hiney. Hang in there, Michele! Nanster went a month with no loss... make sure you're getting enough calories. If you're sitting at 800 or less, you may be getting too few. (Speaking off the cuff, I don't know your weight or height or other stuff.) If you have access to a nutritionist, make an appt! And make super-duper sure that you're drinking your water & moving your bod! LOL Donna! I'm so glad you're hanging with us! And you're welcome for fitday, LOL. I'm choosing to think I blessed you, not cursed you, rofl. Bummer that Mike didn't like DDR! We'll have to plan a DDR event with the DFW Bandsters! One of the newer versions has the possibility of playing online... we should look into it, then we could work out together! My secret for catching up with everyone, lol: I keep notepad open & write my message to each person as I read their post. I start with my last post & go to the end. It makes my posts super long, lol, but I try not to miss anyone! I only do it on this thread... I'm a mess on other threads! But you folks are my buds! I count on your support! (( Hugs to the Feb bandsters! And honorary Feb bandsters! :guess))

Yeah, it's sponsored by our lap-band surgeon. He's actually a laproscopic surgeon that does lap-bands, rather then a bariatric surgeon. He really feels that there's more then 1 leg to our food addiction & just getting a band won't cut it. So he has a psychologist come in every other week. We paid for a year's worth of it. We have about 15-20 people every time. Our psychologist (Dr Miller) is an addiction specialist. He'd quit working with overweight folks, because he didn't think a food addiction could ever be broken (he mostly works with drugs & alchohol addicts). Dr Sewell talked him into trying again, with the help of the band. Dr Miller is a hoot, lol, to put it mildly. We talk about head issues, mostly. Why we're addicted, how to break the addiction, how to change our self-talk, etc. The biggest thing I've gotten from him is to change "I have to" to be "it's smart to" or "it's in my best interest to". I can't say that I do it all the time, but WHEN I do, I'm a lot less angry about good choices, lol.

Congrats Kenny!! Glad to hear you're on your way!! I don't think it could hurt you to do a pre-op diet if your doc doesn't require it. Most require it because it shrinks the liver, making it easier to lift out of the way for the surgery. So you'd just be doing him a favor! Our pre-op wasn't all liquid... it was a modified Atkins (low carb AND low fat, ugh). Good luck & keep us updated!

Go Penni! I like the emotional food diary idea. I sorta do it with Fitday, though I tend to fudge & say it's meal time instead of depression, lol. I'm praying for your scale, lol. Amazing that you can still PB! Glad it's painless at least! I'm sure I'd be a non-chewer again if given half a chance, I'm still REALLY angry about it, lol. I do believe I'm a masochist, paying for this anger!

Wow, LSasha!! You've rocked in that 6 months!! I'm sure you're just adjusting this week... you'll see it again! Penni, we'll miss you tons while you're gone... and you'd better make good choices & walk a lot, lol, or sarge is gonna YELL! **duck** We have group therapy tomorrow night at the doc's office... I'll try to sneak into the scale room & report, lol.

Oh Tammy, lol, were your ears burning last night? Cuz I was swearing at you!! Heh, j/k, but MAN!! I wanted chocolate! I owe you a debt I can't repay! When I lose weight this week, it will be because of you, so thanks! DDR = dance dance revolution... a video game (PS2 or Xbox). Basically you have "dance pads", big ol' pads that you stand on that have forward, back, left & right arrows. You "dance" in the direction they tell you & it keeps score. Mikey HAS to beat me, pft! It keeps us moving... and was easier for us to start then walking (we started with 1 song -- 2 min). Our psychologist says that breaking an alchohol or drug addiction takes about 18 months, cold turkey. Food is tougher, because you still have to eat. But he hopes to have our behaviors changed within 2 years. I'm crossing my fingers! Every time I cheat I reinforce the old habits... it takes time to build up a new habit to combat that. Man I'm impatient!

PBs do seem to go up with more restriction... but you may just be a lucky person who eats slowly & small enough portions & chews well, etc, etc. My PB's happen under different circumstances: 1. Too large a bite 2. Didn't chew well enough 3. Too many bites too close together 4. Too much food (upper stomach is full, lol) The things that I've found that help: SMALL bites -- baby-size! Pretend you don't have teeth! CHEW to goo (as Vines says. ) WAIT between bites!! 30-60 seconds!!!! (This is the one that gets me.) LISTEN to your body! That burp or hiccup might just be your body telling you to stop! And any sort of sternum pain, definitely stop! Spit anything in your mouth out! Don't swallow it... you'll just have to PB it too! Hope you never have to experience one!

Wow, that's awesome news, Alex! Well, lol, ok, not the HBP, but the fact that now they'll really look at why & quit looking at your weight as a factor. I can't imagine not feeling guilty when I'm walking into a doctor's office! Congrats!

I think maybe Simon couldn't figure out the non-smiling, rear-end-kickin' Paris, lol. She was INTO it! When she did pop a smile in the middle, it looked all wrong! LOL.

I'm getting really, really tired of chewing. **sigh** Do you still chew like a bandster Penni? I have this theory that bandsters lose weight simply because there's not enough time in the day to chew enough calories! Oh, I forgot my NSV, lol! One ENTIRE day with ZERO food incidents! No golf-ball, slime, or PB! First day in a LONG time!

11-APR-2006 Vitamins — check Water — super-duper check (100+ oz, really, really thirsty) Protein — check (barely) Exercise — check (moved our time up to 25 min!!) food journal — check Good choices — no check (better then last week, lol, but still need work here) Calorie difference 1000+ — check (1217, thank goodness for exercise!) Daily affirmations 3 times — no check (1 out of 3, lol. I say them when I post here.) TODAY I will make a difference! TODAY I will create the me of tomorrow! TODAY I will conquer my addictions! TODAY I will practice my new habits! TODAY I will get all things checked! I am in control of my diet & exericse. I make good food choices daily. I move my body daily. I am patient with myself & my weight loss. I follow my plan so that I can triumph!

I can't speak for Mikey, lol. We're normally very similar in taste, but boy do we split on Idol! I'll try to get him to post on here later, lol. Thank goodness I'm not a judge! I'd be more syrupy then Miss Abdul, if that's possible! Bucky: I was surprised, pleasantly. Better then I expected. Ace : I didn't think he did that bad. I was actually surprised he had the pipes to rock. The end got weak, but he'd really put it all out there. Kellie: She really surprised me. She was in tune, which I normally don't find to be true (imo). Her gyrating left something to be desired, but oh well, she was definitely into her role! (Did anyone else think she'd definitely worn high heels a LOT in the past? Heh.) Chris: Didn't know the song, which counted off in my book. Yeah, his vibrato gets to me. He's such a good guy... he really could have been amazing. I think Bo was better (though I'm working off year-old memories, so who knows). He did keep it in tune (I think, lol)... and it had some amazing jumps. Impressive, but blah. Katharine: Man, the lighting was amazing!! And I LOVE that song. I really thought they should have dropped it a step. Her low voice is HOT... but she was shouting for all she was worth at the high end. I really have to wonder about the band... why on earth don't they just say, "Drop that a half-step & try it again" & get it in a better range!! They're the pro's after all! Elliott: My opinion of Elliott should not be taken seriously. He reminds me of someone from my past... and I dislike him strongly, lol. Poor thing! I can't seem to get past it! I think he did a good job last night, but for the life of me at the moment I can't remember what he sang! Oh, but I remember that the band should have taken his UP a step... I prefer his high voice. The song got too low for him (imo)... he had to "talk" those notes, or change the melody line to be higher. Taylor: I was SOOOO glad to see him have fun again! I think he's the best entertainer. If you closed your eyes & just listened to his vocals, I'm not sure they'd be on every note, but with my eyes open, I don't care! I'm just having fun with him. He makes me smile, dance & shout out to him, lol. Paris: Anyone watch "The Unit"? For some reason, with her hair long, she reminded me of the head wife. I love that she changes it up every week, lol, I think it helps her get into her role. I think she did really well & I was glad to see the band give her props. She really is scary good for a 16-year-old. I think if they'd coach her more she'd give them exactly what they ask for. (It really bugs me that the kids are thrown out there on their own. They really should be coached & given direction... and having Queen tell them it's hard to fill Freddy's shoes is NOT coaching. Did anyone watch "Making the Band" way back when? Now that was coaching!) Man, I appear to be opinionated this week! The stylists went overboard on the black, lol, but I guess black = rock... so there ya go. I'm betting the bottom 3 are Paris, Tayler & Katharine... for no other reason then that they're my favs. I started out voting for 8 people... I'm down to 3, lol. Easier on my fingers! Now back to your regularly scheduled program...

Glad you got some more fill, Stacey! Hope it does the trick for you! Tammy, I put the food you listed into fitday... but this is just a rough estimate (they have all sorts of options & I'm making up your answers). But the list you had (pork, fried (4oz); sweet & sour chicken (1C), broccoli with garlic sauce (1C), egg roll) is about 900 calories. So not as awful as you thought! You made a great choice, leaving the rice out -- my nutritionist would say that rice is empty carbs that she doesn't care if we ever eat again. (Wish I lived by that, lol!) I had a victory yesterday, lol. I went the ENTIRE day without a single golf-ball, slime or PB, woohoooo!!! First time in over a week! And I've got to brag on Mikey. We just increased our DDR time by FIVE MINUTES!!! It HURT! But he hung in there the entire 25 minutes like a champ! He may not be walking today, lol, but it was worth it!

Wow Teresa, that rocks!! Congrats! Bet you can taste that 399, huh! Go, go, go, go, go!! Yesterday I made it a day without ANY food incidents! (Golf-ball, slime, PB) Woohoooo!!!! Yep, marked it on my calendar! AND... we're finally up to 25 minutes of DDR! Woot! We're getting there!

Man, Becky, you're our star exerciser! 45 minutes, wow!!! And lunch without pain, woohooooo!!!! Congrats!

Heh, I use www.fitday.com... DonnaB uses it too. Nanster is trying it, not sure she likes it. Someone else just started using www.myfooddiary.com ... I don't think it matters what you use, as long as you use something! I found it really empowering. I still make poor choices, but now I know what it's doing to me & why I might not have lost weight this week. And it gives me a goal to work towards... getting my calories out to be bigger then my calories in by 1000 per day (that's my goal).

Woot! Sorry, didn't mean to bruise! Start with the Water... and the rest falls in line (works for me, anyway, lol). Probably cuz I don't have time to shove food in!