BethFromVA

Ooooh, ditto!

You can do it, Kathy. I'll be joining you soon enough! :sad_smile:

Omg, you are FANTASTIC!! I'm so proud for you! That has got to feel better than ANY food ever did. :sad_smile:

I have (Anthem) BCBS too. They must be the way to go. I only just had my consult about two weeks ago. Had it not been for my vacation last week, I may have gotten an even sooner date. However, since I am running out of time off, I opted for the Friday, November 21st date she had so I at least have the weekend, and then just a short week before Thanksgiving. It will be a TRUE Thanksgiving for me this year. :sad_smile:

My mom is notorious for saying one thing one time and then flip-flopping on it later on. She suggested surgery to me a couple times in the past, but frankly, the only surgery I knew about was gastric bypass which scared the bejeepers out of me and was a huge NO in my book. However, I know if I told her before the surgery that I am doing it, she would probably start talking against it. It also doesn't help that one of her neighbor friends is a very opinionated nurse. You can do the math from there. :sad_smile: Heck, even hubby doesn't know yet, and I just got my surgery date today! I was going to tell him about it last night, but we are still so jet lagged from a trip we got back from on Monday and he was so tired I said I'd tell him today. I wanted to be sure of what I was wanting and getting myself into before I involved anybody else.

I completely understand where you're coming from. However, for me, I am more scared of dying fat -- from heart disease, diabetes, a stroke, cancer, and any number of things. When I look at it that way, for me it makes this surgery a bit less scary.

Looks like I join y'all!! I got a date today from the doc for November 21!! Omg, I can't believe how fast this happened! :sad_smile: I'm dubbing next month "YESvember". hehehe!!

Reality sucks sometimes, doesn't it? :sad_smile: The fact is, many people DO believe all their problems are due to their weight. It's a hard reality when we find out that the weight was just an additional problem to the ones we already had. I know that adjusting to my new body (when it happens) will be exciting and scary at the same time. I know that I must address the issues that made me overeat. Many people replace overeating for overdoing something else: shopping, exercising, gambling, sex addictions... all sorts of things. Which creates all NEW problems. My sister is like that. She was a bulimic. Now I believe she has that under control, but she is (I believe) an alcoholic. And when I saw her this past summer, she was WAY overdoing the exercise thing. It was absolutely manic. So long as we know these things going into this journey, we won't be surprised or potentially even more depressed in our thinner selves. I think it's very important that we heal the mental self as much as we are working so hard to heal the physical self. No matter how great thin feels, there was still something within us that drove us to get fat. Heal that as best you can and you will succeed in the long run, in my humble opinion.

Yeah, ironic, isn't it? I guess I look at it this way: We didn't gain weight because we were happy campers. Losing the weight won't make us happy campers either. We will still be the same people, just in different packaging. Whatever made us react by overeating will still be there. It's up to us to address both issues -- physical and mental.

You make total sense, really. I know that there was at least one time when, after losing 50 pounds and being about 180 a nice guy was paying attention to me. Not leering or nasty, just acting like I was somebody, you know? Nothing happened other than we flirted a teeny bit, but I have a husband who has never been very sexual with me (I don't think it's about the weight, it's just him) and I found the attention flattering. Once I found myself making plans to lie to my husband just to go out and dance with this guy (hubby doesn't dance), I became scared. I didn't go dance, and I wasn't planning an affair, but just the fact that I was willing to lie to go out and have fun freaked me out. Immediately thereafter I gained the weight back just from the stress. And I think I have mentally sabotaged myself when I've lost before too. I realize that I will likely have to address these issues as I lose through therapy. I know a lot of the reasons I gained, so I don't need to research that; I will just need to work on me -- the new me -- as I become this different person on the outside. And hopefully during this process, I will become a different person on the inside too -- one that isn't so mean to myself and self-deprecating.

Hey SPEED, it's sounding as if the extra skin thing will be enough of a deterrent for us to keep our clothes on with strangers, eh? :thumbup:

I like that.

This thread is really hitting something within me. I am still pre-op, but I know the issues discussed here are a reality -- more for some, less for some. Years ago I used to have visions of returning to my pre-fat, 120 pound range. Not just the range, but the body as well. Then a few years ago I lost 70 pounds (which has re-found me, by the way... :grouphug:) and I noticed my big belly was turning into an apron. I remember back then thinking, WTF?? All this work and this is my reward?? So now I'm going into this procedure knowing those days of being a tight 120-pound raven-haired beauty are gone. After reading these replies, I now realize I may look older too (I am 42 and can pass for early 30's easy). I had said for years that I figured if I lost the weight, all the fat that was pushing out my wrinkles would be gone and then what? Right now I say I would rather be healthy and not worry about the fact I will never be a hardbody. I say I would rather be able to tie my shoes without sounding like a bull in heat than worrying about extra wrinkles. I say I would rather be able to walk up my 14 stairs and not sound like an overheating VW Bug than regaining my apron. I say I would rather not risk the diabetes that is knocking at my door than potentially losing some hair. I tell myself now that the realism is my weight loss is needed -- desperately needed -- for my very life and, just as important, my quality of life. I too was one who was blessed with having a nice body for some time. I don't know which is worse -- those who were always overweight who lose or those who remember when they looked fantastic and seem to have it in their minds that that is what they will regain with the lost weight. The thought of hair loss, wrinkles, and looking like a flying squirrel do not appeal to me in the least. However, being thisclose to 300 pounds is, for me, worse. Right now I say I will gladly choose the lesser of two evils. One hundred pounds from now I may also feel the bittersweet tang of what that loss means, but for now, I would take 100 pounds lost over anything else in this world. I hope that when I hit the century mark, I will look at the sagging skin and even my wrinkles as a testament to a job well done rather than a punishment. For me, the punishment is being the weight I am and the life I am losing as a result of it.

I know when I lost weight in the past it certainly did that to me too (the hornier part, not the threesome/couples part, lol)! :biggrin:

So true. I have the reverse problem: Though I know I am fat, I don't see just how FAT I am until I see myself in a pic. :biggrin:

Got that right! I just don't understand people who walk into an X-rated store and then complain about all the dirty stuff. :biggrin:

Oh wow, that's WONDERFUL!!! Congratulations!! I have lost a lot of weight before, but never enough to not be heavy. Once I lost 50 pounds, from 230 to 180, and I felt pretty good then. Another time a couple years ago I lost 70 pounds, from 289 to 220; and though I felt good, I wasn't what you would call thin-ish. I am trying to imagine being in the mid 100's, which I haven't been for nearly 20 years. I know some people can't "see" with their eyes what they really look like because the mind can't let go of the weight. That is -- not worrisome to me, per se, but... I don't know what to call it.

This may be dealt with here, but there are SO MANY topics, I just thought I'd ask. How many have or had issues with your brain and eyes catching up with your weight loss? In other words, what was your experience with body image? Granted, I know my skin won't look great, and I can be okay with that now as it's more important to be healthy, but after being fat for so long, I wonder how my brain will handle a large weight loss. How did y'all do with that, and was it hard? Easy? Did you see what others saw? I can't help but wonder what that will be like.

Look, this isn't my bag of tea either (something I want to do), but it IS an off-topic board that you chose to come onto. If you don't like the non-lap band topic, move elsewhere.

I guess my doctor's office is pretty good about the pay up front. At my initial visit they said the non-covered expenses were about $2500 and all they ask for is $1000 up front and I can pay the balance interest free. But then again, my doc's office sounds much nicer all the way around than yours. :Dancing_biggrin:

My then-boyfriend's rule was I couldn't kiss the other guy. Go figger. LOL

Was in Hawaii this past week and my doctor's office called me (approximately 1 week post initial visit). Seems I am one of the fortunate ones with insurance that only requires a psych eval before approving the procedure! Granted, I will have the other poking and prodding tests, but I don't have to do a dog and pony show to get this thing rolling! I could potentially be a November bandster! At the worst, it should be December. Omg!!!

Oh wow, I used to live on the Houston/Spring border (I-45 and 1960)!! Welcome. I am new too. I will have my psych eval on Thursday which, thankfully, is the ONLY thing my insurance company requires of me to get this thing started!

Sounds like many of these experiences are one guy with two girls. I don't mean this to sound as snide as I know it will in print, but how many of these "giving" men are willing to have a second man in the bed rather than a second woman? I've tried it twice with the same partners -- my then long-time boyfriend, and my best male friend. I was fortunate that the issue wasn't ONLY a two-woman-one-man recommendation. And for the record, for me it was much better as a fantasy than the real thing.

Wow, that totally sucks. I guess it makes sense, but still... wow. What about a cooler left in the car with his lunch? I know, I'm grasping here. :eek: