cashley

I admit I did it... but I was also self-pay.

The surgeon I went to see first wouldn't even consider doing the surgery (self pay or not) if you weren't 40 BMI or 35 with co-mortalities. He wouldn't even consider high cholesterol or high trygliserides or an immediate family history of diabetes and heart disease. My insurance had an exclusion so it didn't matter what my BMI was they weren't paying for it.

I was desperate because I had struggled for so many years and all the diets and exercise and hard work just got me about 30 pounds more each year. I wanted and needed to stop the weight gain... for my health.

I went to another doctor and he also said the same about the 40 or 35 BMI so I added clothes and rocks and heavy shoes... I was 5 pounds shy of the 40 BMI they needed.

I later found out that my new doctor was way nicer and would have done it without the deception. He made exceptions for self-pay that the other center wouldn’t. I asked them but didn’t ask again because they told me it was the law. (it was a law I was willing to break – kind of like speeding)

I'd do it again in a minute. I couldn't take another day of failing at diets, which really just felt like failing.

It was a daily struggle not to let my weight balloon 100's of pounds out of control.

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Since I was self-pay I don’t feel too bad about it.

I think a new law should be that two people, whether they are sisters, brothers, roommates, lovers, etc. should be able to form a union, partnership, etc. for the purposes of income tax, medical insurance, medical decisions, inheritance, etc. Take religion out of this discussion and some of the arguments against same sex marriages would go away because they wouldn't need to get "married". Why do married people get preferential treatment on income taxes? If IRS recognizes "marriages" it should also recognize other types of unions, with little or no effort on the part of the participants.

Probably not what you were looking for, but this has really been getting to me lately. Barbara is getting off her soap box now.

Amen!!!

Definite tax reform. It burns me to no end that because DH and I have a high income we have to pay a higher percentage of taxes. I have no problems with paying more money, but I have a lot of problem with paying a higher percentage. Because we worked our butts off in school, worked our way up the ladder, had the ambition, drive & motivation to find good paying jobs -- don't penalize us more than someone who does not.

AMEN!!!

New Rules:

1) Complete separation of church & state. Yep, even take the word "God" off the penny.

2) Legalize marijuana and end the pointless "war on drugs."

3) Legalize gay marriage.

4) Tax the hell out of SUVs. And then tax them some more.

5) Gun control.

6) Abolish the death penalty.

AMEN!!! And hell I agree with the above and even own an SUV... (a tiny one though) but I'd be willing to pay more taxes on it if the rest of your laws went into effect.

I use Protein shakes as a substitute for a meal. When I did mushies I was starving so maybe you should try P'nuts trick of bean & bacon Soup pureed. I don't like Beans or I would of tried it but it sounds filling.

I ate a lot of yogart, apple sauce, some oatmeal... Mushies wasn't my favorite time. The doctor told me it was ok to have sugar during the mushies since he wanted me to have enough calories to heal and not to be weak. I think he was kind of wrong since sugar "increases" cravings and maybe that's why I was so hugry.

Isn't it amazing the difference in the pre-band and post-band menu. I can't even imagine the amount of calories that during those preband days since I refused to count calories during my "What the F**K" stages.

I know I did count calories during many diets and would average about 1400 and was always hungry and suprised when I didn't lose.

Now I know... even 1400 is too much for me I guess.

My menu now is about 800 - 1000 caloreis.

Breakfast - Approx 200 calories - Cereal with 1/2 skim milk or Protein shake

lunch - Approx 200 - 300 calories - tuna on salad

dinner - Approx 200 - 300 calories - chicken on salad

snack - Approx 100 calories - 100 calorie snack pack or something close

I knit sometimes too... only the knit stich though, I can't get my hands around the knit / purl stuff. It doesn't flow right when I try it.

I've made a good 20 - 30 scarfs... haven't tried anything where I have to count yet.

I was thinking about how much I used to eat compared to what I eat now and I'm floored by the amount of food I ate and never felt full.

I thought it would be somewhat fun to compare what we ate then. Also, I was on a diet 80% of the time and only eating like the below menu during my "I don't give a f**k" periods. (I had those quite often too)

So here's a sample of menu of what I used to be able to eat...

Breakfast - 2 Breakfast burritos with super size diet coke / sometimes a latte with half & half (16 oz)

snack - Piece of candy or pop-tart

lunch - Happy Meal from McDonalds with extra hamburger plus diet code... some times I'd have a different value meal like the big mac or chicken sandwich

dinner - pizza (at least 5 pieces) sometimes a piece or two of dessert pizza.< /p>

Snack - ice cream or Cookies before bed.

Wow! I'm just amazed that when some people make such drastic changes in their eating that they don't lose faster.

Our body's can be the devil sometimes with this metabolism stuff.

37 here... but heading back to 28 as soon as possible!

I'm married without children... 2 cats and a lab.

Banded Feb 8th 2006, lost 31 pounds so far.

Edited - Things I forgot to tell about myself

I'm in Software Consulting and I travel a lot for my job to help really nice customers set-up and use Payroll and HR software. I work from home unless at client sites so I have a some what flexible schedule. Dieting and even the band have been a bit hard because of the eating junk on the run or eating in nice restruants with clients can be unhealthy. I'm happy to say I don't reward myself for a long hard day with food anymore and I feel satisfied with what I get to eat and how much.

Don't you go to mushies next before regular foods? Most people here do

x # of days on Clear Liquids (I think normally 3 days)

x # of days or weeks on full liquids (I think normally 2 weeks)

x# of weeks on mushies (I think normally 2 more weeks)

solid food not until 4 weeks at least.

I work for a company out of Knoxville TN (I'm in KY but my company is in TN) that participates in a program called "Technology for Success". We take donated computers from local companies that are upgrading and refurbuish them and donate them to schools.

Here's a link if you are in the East TN area or if you would like more information.

http://www.discoveret.org/tfs/

I see that you are not in East TN now after re-reading this post. I would contact local Hardware and Software companies to see if any of their clients have extra or old PC's. Show them our website and tell them we are a computer hardward software company that does this on the side to assist the schools. Maybe one of them would be willing to head a project like ours.

Discriminated against someone because of their weight?

I've seen this question many times here the other way around but I'm wondering...

Have you ever see someone quite a bit heavier then yourself and thought of them as lazy or other negative thoughts?

Have you ever "judged or disliked" someone just because they were tiny or had a perfect body?

I'm actually asking this question because I'm "Guilty" of thinking nasty thoughts some times and then have to KICK myself because I'm not in thier shoes, I don't know their circumstances and I don't have the right to be judgemental.

The main thing I think when I see someone who is very very obese is "Why Doesn't that person do something about it?" Especially since I've had surgery I think... "Wonder if they are considering surgery" I guess that's not a nasty thought but I feel judgemental when I think it.

I realize I can't have perfect thoughts in my head all the time but sometimes I just don't know how my brain can be so hyprcritical when my heart isn't.

So anyhow I thought this could be interesting conversation. You always hear how X-smokers are more critical then non-smokers. Is it the same for X-obese people?

Cashley, if your last post was to me... I was agreeing with ya! :girl_hug:

No not toward you... I got that you were agreeing. I was just afraid I wasn't being clear because of some of the other post I read.

And I do feel blessed and rich in gods love... I don't think we get rewarded with "possessions or good / bad luck"

And by the way... don't you all feel how blessed we all are here that we can have an intelligent discussion about religion of all things and not "fight"

Does anyone remember the Sex and The City episode where the hostess of a party asked all of her guests to remove their shoes - and Carrie's shoes got stolen?

LOL This thread just made me remember that episode.

For what it's worth, I think it's kind of tacky to ask people to remove their shoes when coming into my home. I have a doormat for them to wipe their feet on. If I didn't want people walking on my carpet, I would have had it installed on the ceiling.

That is so funny about the carpet on the ceiling...

I totally thought about that Sex in the City episode and her Malano's got stolen.. I think that's why I have that attidute about it was because that women on there was so nasty.

I've actually never been asked to remove my shoes before entering someones home. I think I'd be pissy if someone did though but I guess it depends on how it's addressed.

I didn't say that their weren't lessons in tragedy’s...

Let me clarify what I said... if a preacher talks about gods blessings here on earth as rewarding the people that are good, then he is basically saying that "if you're not good then you either don’t get rewarded or you are punished"... I feel that is wrong!

So my point isn't that there isn't love or learning from the bad stuff but a sane person doesn't tell someone "Because you are faithful then you will prosper and to another person who has pain and suffering that they must not be faithful".....

4 months out and pretty happy - no regrets!

I'm still thinking and thinking about this and just can't believe that people believe that god makes them rich.... it's very very sad!

To every person from every chruch that wouldn't imply that when you know there are people in the congregation that have cancer, or sickness or all kinds of problems... If god rewards one person with riches then are they also saying that god is punshing those with disease?

Uggg! This is hard to get my head around. I'm also catholic and I just think that god wants us to do good and right but that doesn't mean we'll live a charmed life here are earth.... but I do believe we'll be rewarded in heaven!

What I would like, is for a "favorites" button to be added. So I can quickly go to the threads I read daily. Now maybe there is already one, and I can get started right away!!!

Kat

Don't you have that in your UserCP under subscribed threads?

If anyone thinks that "GOD REWARDS GOOD" (weather it is riches or a good life) then what do you say to people who have tragedy?

I mean a family who loses a child, a person in a natural disaster, your neightbor who's house burns down...

I personally don't believe god rewards anything in this life and the reward for faith will be waiting for us in the after life....

if I believed that being good now would get me "MORE HAPPINESS" now then I'd also have to believe that being bad now would get me "MORE SADNESS"... If that were true how could I face that mother who lost her child and say... "I guess you weren't faithful enough" - I COULDN"T

So I just have to believe that we make our own with what we have here on earth and if we lead a good faithful life we will get rewarded in our after life.

2 - This one is a generally good guideline, but really hard for me to work under. My proclivity to exception is part of what makes this process so confusing and uncertain for me. I'm a sporatic loser, which (fortunately for them) most people here don't seem to be. I have not lost anything this week. In the past 2 weeks I lost nearly 20 lbs. For 3 weeks before that I didn't lose anything. In the week before that I lost 11 lbs. For nearly 5 weeks before that I lost nothing... (and my 2nd fill came in the middle of those 5 weeks). So -- on average I have lost more than 1 - 2 lbs per week, but on a weekly basis -- I have no reliable information. I could stall for 5 weeks and think I need a fill, only to lose 15 lbs the next week.

That's kind of how I lose also... it's never a steady 1 - 2 pounds per week but like 5 pounds and then nothing for three weeks... I've never been fourtunated enough to lose 20 in 2 weeks... that's a lot!

My doctor said it's all about the average and not the weekly amount. Is it averaging out to 1 - 2 pounds per week... Sometimes your body has to just catch up.

So it looks like you are at about 14 weeks which is an average of 5.14 pounds per week.

Well it's been 18 weeks and that is 1.5 per week. That's way better then I've done in the past.

Thanks!

L It is sooo hard to go back to fills and PBs and stomach snot after 3 years of not having to deal with that stuff.

Hahaha!! I've never heard that term "Stomach Snot" but uck... it's so true! That's not a side effect I'm crazy about.

I'd personally say "Are you still losing on what you are eating?" I don't think we should have to guage our fill level based upon the 2 - 4 oz's per setting but based upon if we are comfortable with the amount we are eating and are we losing weight?

If we are comfortable with what we are eating but not losing then maybe it's too much... I'd say the goal is to keep losing with the least amount of fill and to use the fill more when you stall or have a platau (spelling again - seriously I went to college but I believe spelling was covered in grade school and I must have been paying attention to boys that year - anyway I'm a math girl)

This is a great thread... it is something that people who are considering the band really need to see...

I'll admit I didn't visit this site prior to banding. I researched the Inmed (spelling) site and my doctor's site and several other of the big "doctors" sites. But somehow I missed this place until after I was about 3 days from being banded.

Would I change my mind had I read here? No! But I wouldn't have been so stupid about thinking it was a $17,000 mircle cure. I would have known that there would still be hard times, and I would have known that it doesn't always work (if there are other medical issues)...

I'd still do it but would have come to the table less "dumb"

I don't agree with giving up carbs to the extreme of atkins... first veggies are carbs so you really don't want to give them up to be healthy. Second... I believe to make something work for your entire life you shouldn't give up anything you still like. If your taste change and your not interested in Junk that is one thing, but if you still crave junk then I "personally" feel that you will sabatgoge yourself if you make it completely off limits.

I'd rather lose weight more slowly but eat what normal people eat. A well balanced diet full of real food (not diet crap), real veggies, limited processed foods and limited junk.

The thing is... with the band it's easier to eat a bit of junk and not the entire bag or stop at a fast food rest. and order something on the healthier side because the junk doesn't seem so "good".

I don't know about you all but I think that this is possible... that you can still lose weight and not have to be on a "Low- Whatever DIET" (diet foods, fake foods, saying no to every dessert marter) for the rest of your life.

I say "Amen" to a balanced "small portion" diet...

Yep... Occassionaly a few of us go there in the evenings too. Though it's not a big group it's fun to chat with some of the names you see here.

Well I struggled with the band in the beginning because things didn't feel different to me. I didn't have restriction prior to my second fill and since I've always ate somewhat healthy (just too much) and love exercise - nothing was really different.

I do think now that I have restriction that this has helped me with the emotional eating because I'm not that "turned on" by food any longer. I kind of have this nasty 'ucky' feeling toward it.

I eat a lot of salads with fresh dark greens and spinach.... and I actually like them. I eat more veggies and wasn't a huge veggie eater before and for the most part "fatty junk" isn't that attractive.

I still like "regular" dressing on my salads, occassional chips and some sweets but not really much. An applesause to me is just about as good and refreshing as eating a piece of cake or pie. In fact, I like it better. (now)

So... I know this is just a tool but since I have restriction it feels so much better then before. I actually feel I will suceed and before I was a "doubter".