BJean

Boy you're right: Brooke and Carly couldn't be more different and they're both really good! I have a feeling that David A.'s sweet, coy little boy persona is going to get a little tiresome. His voice is awesome but he sounds a little hoarse when he talks so I'm wondering if he's going to run out of gas somewhere along the line. Did anyone else notice the Aussie's sweat last week?

If your hair is falling out, everyone says to take Biotin. That's what I started taking and it definitely worked. Those pills are smallish, slender and easy to get down.

Georgia you are so right! I actually agreed all the way around with the eliminiations last night. Did you? I really find Luke attractive and if he had the right song, I'd love his singing, but he was not the best singer and the other guy has a good voice, but his stage presence was lacking. Both of the girls that were elminated have good voices, but their performances and stage presence were lacking too. I think we have the best group of final 12 that they've ever had. Unlike some people here, I don't think that the guys are a lot better than the girls. I think they're pretty even at this point. Now things are going to get fun!

Paula definitely knows how to get press. It was embarrassing for some of the contestants last night though. Can you imagine being a contestant and trying to carry the momentum through the performance and critique session so that when they show the number to vote, you'll want to vote for her. I thought Simon and Paula were quite the distractors and incredibly rude to a couple of the girls. On the other hand, it's what we seem to like. It's entertainment and it's one of the most popular shows on TV. They are not stupid and the judges behavior last night makes me wonder if it was by design not only to be entertaining, but to have a very specific influence on the voting.Whatdaya think?

That's cool. I'll bet you have to deal with the other stuff partially because you have to plow through all that to get to the bones - at least on some of us! :-) I've never been to a chiropractic physician but my acupuncturist (who is also a medical doctor) had a brother who was a chiropractic physician and he had a thriving practice and was very well-respected in our town. I'm sure you are too. I know you are at LBT! By the way... my neck has been bothering me a lot... can you tell me.... uh?? Just kidding! :thumbup:

Oh yeah, Orlando Bloom, definitely!! Whoo-hoo!

Zoe- are you selling products or recommending products? Or both? It makes a big difference in how "helpful" a post is considered to be.

Is Luke the gorgeous one with the very high voice? He's really made some bad song choices. His voice is really unique though and I'd like to hear him do something that is well suited to his voice. I do think that he's in peril of being kicked off. I thought Chakeezie was good last night. I'm not sure he'll make it through tonight either though. I usually agree with Simon's constructive criticism, but he's sure said some insulting stuff with this group. I'm not sure that hurling mind-numbing insults is very constructive. Or then again, maybe it is. Maybe that's what it takes to get the very best performances out of 'em. It's painful to watch though.

Jack, are you a doctor or medical professional of some kind?

Oops, I mean tomorrow night?

Who's gonna go tonight?

I found some Omega 3 Fish Oil capsules that are pretty tiny. You have to take 2 of them twice a day, but if you're concerned about the size of the regular ones, I got them at Walgreen's. I figured out that the large ones, although they looked formidable, aren't really that hard to get down. The outer coating is slick. And I am not one who likes to take pills of any kind and I sometimes have problems getting pills down. Not because of the band... I've been this way since I was a child. My mom used to have to crush baby aspirin! Then they invented liquid Tylenol. Oops. I think that's like saying I was here when they invented dirt. On a health radio talk show the other day I heard that if fish oil capsules taste fishy or "repeat" on you, there's a good chance that they have not been stored properly, either in transit or at the store where you bought them, or by you. They say you need to buy them as fresh as possible and then freeze them, although I don't freeze mine because my DH and I both take them and they don't last long.

Yeah, me too!!!! It's pretty obvious it's a sham. Sort of got some of us spun up trying to help. What a waste of perfectly good advice... :thumbdown:

Looks like Hillary took Texas. I haven't seen the news, just a couple of friends' emails. I voted, then later opted out of the caucus meeting, which was not really smart. But I was tired after being at work all day. You notice I didn't say, "after working all day." That would have been deceiving since I spent part of my work day posting at LBT. Over the course of political campaigning in Texas, I had 4 phone messages from the Clinton camp. Personal messages (recorded) from Bill & Hillary, a Clinton get out the vote message, and a poll from the Clintons. I had one message from Obama yesterday. I went online to locate my polling place and there was, at the top, a web address from Obama for locating your polling place - which was brilliant - except that it didn't work. One of my Florida friends emailed me this AM and said that Rush Limbaugh hopes that Hillary wins because she'll be easy to beat after 4 years of her struggling to change everything the Republicans have done in the past 2 terms. He says there's no way in the world that the Republicans can win this one. That to me, goes to the thought that Hillary sold out to get the presidency. Remember her vote to give G.W. the power to bomb Iraq without advance Congressional approval? There have been other things, but that is the one that steams me the most. I used to be a Hillary supporter because I thought she would always stay true to her stated convictions. I should have known better when she and Bill folded under the Repblican pressure in the beginning of Bill's term. They never fought the Republicans like I thought they should. It feels like Republicans have a stranglehold on the voting process in our country. Remember the voting machines fiasco? Thing those things were ever corrected? Well, like I said just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean that they aren't out to get you. :thumbup:

wjbluv: When I first began reading and posting at LBT, I had an experience similar to what you seem to be having here. I felt misunderstood and that people were being incredibly rude to me. A lot of what I felt and thought then turned out to be my own paranoia. On this forum, we are anonymous (unless we choose to reveal real names). We don't have to be careful about how we word what we're trying to say here. But I do not think that most people here, including me, have been trying to give you a hard time. I'm with the previous poster who mentioned that this thread was started by someone who was feeling victimized and resented having to eat the way the band causes us to eat. Somehow that person's posts and yours became intertwined in our minds. They were so similar in some ways. Then you added the part about losing 3 of your closest people. We definitely are a compassionate group and know that losing even one person who is close to us, is a very difficult thing to endure. But the thing we know the best and are used to speaking to here at LBT is the band. So that's why I believe we homed in on your problems with the band. It isn't that your losses are insignificant. If you are having shoulder pain and abdominal pain and are so uncomfortable that you've had to have all restriction removed, you need medical care. You have to put your body first, above and beyond your job, school or anything else. If you have an eroded band, or a slipped band or an enlarged esophogus, these are very serious complications that won't go away by talking about them or just getting the restriction removed. You didn't ask for my advice but I'm givin' it anyway: seek help from a live medical professional right away. After that, get some grief counseling. laurend: thanks. You are tres' cool!

WestCoast: I completely agree. What we should be enforcing is some kind of classes in parenting skills before children are born. gadget: The signing thing is great! This has become very popular and it really works! On the other hand, many parents are too quick to fly off the handle and hit their kids. Some parents are too lazy to use intelligent alternatives. All too often, parents who were beaten as children have become child abusers as adults. Child abuse is way too common in the U.S. That's the "spanking" we need to stop. Education is the best way that I know to do that.

I had a terrible experience once with a Seventh Day Adventist couple who were going door to door with their little 4 year old girl. It has always been my policy to politely turn people away at the door when they were peddling their stuff. If it was religious in nature, I explained that my beliefs were private and not something I discussed with strangers. (I had been innundated with extremely presistent LDS'ers in Arizona and I thought they knew every trick in the book until I met these Seventh Day Adventists.) I nicely explained this to the couple with the little girl, who had her arm extended and a pamphlet in her hand reaching toward me when I opened the door. As they argued their case, she never wavered. The poor little thing was trained to just stand there with her little arm extended until some seemingly religion-deprived homeowner took the pamphlet. I never did take the pamphlet (which would have been a complete waste of their material and a tree) and she never did drop her arm over the long minutes that they tried to convince me that I should discuss their religion and accept their reading material. Even after I told them I was Catholic and had plenty of reading material of my own she stood there, arm extended. As far as I was concerned what they were doing to that sweet little girl, was criminal! I wanted to take my broom and chase that couple down the street and invite the little girl in for milk and Cookies and to play with my daughter.

wjbuv: My post was not directed at you - only at the original post! You sound as if you are completely at odds with your band. I doubt if you can expect to be successful if you resent having the band. I have battled depression for many years. I was holed up in my house, watching TV all day and eating and feeling sorry for myself. One of my neighbors recognized that I was that depressed and she insisted that I go to Curves with her one day. I resisted for a week or so until she promised me that we'd go to lunch afterwards. I didn't even have any work out clothes. That was the beginning of getting me back in the world of the living. I went for a check up, got put on blood pressure and cholesterol medications and he put me on an anti-depressant because he observed my depression, not because I asked for it. As for the control issues you're facing, make no mistake, YOU are in control of what happens to your body. NOT THE BAND. At best, the band is simply a tool that you can work with for weight loss success. Or at its' worst, the band is an encumbrance to your long-time confortable way of eating and it is making you depressed because the band wants you to give up that careless lifestyle and quit eating so much food. Yeah, the band makes you uncomfortable, you have gas, you have bloating, and you have pain if you don't eat FOR the band instead of against it. That's really the point of having the band. If you have actual depression (not just that you've hit a low spot for a short period of time), you probably need some kind of chemical for the depression and some kind of psychologist-type therapy. You can't be expected to pull yourself out of it when it is something that is biological and/or chemical causing an imbalance in your brain. I hope you will seek help and get somebody who is really good at recognizing depression and knows what to do to help you. I would consider keeping the band, if I were you, until I got the depression straighted out. But if you absolutely HATE having the band, by all means have it removed. Just think long and hard about who you are and where you'll be if you give up on it. You are certainly not the first person, and won't be the last, who was unhappy with the performance of the band and disappointed in how they feel with the band. But you ARE in control of everything in your life... IF you choose to be. It's easy to feel like a victim! That's one reason why people here have little patience with someone who blames the band for how they feel. We've learned that if we want health and a slimmer body, it's up to us, not the band. We know that if we don't want gas, bloating, bulging port and all the rest, we have to stop eating so much and we have to start moving more. Good luck to you in your decision making. It is all up to you. Whether its' keep the band, or get rid of the band, get control of your life. You're the only one who can. :thumbup:

I used to feel guilty if I wasn't pleasant to telemarkerters because some of my son's friends worked as telemarkers. Finally it dawned on me that the more time I spent with them on the phone, the less time they have to actually sell somebody. Recently I heard that if you answer and there's silence and you know the switching thing is moving along the line of calls, you can press the # button 6 to 8 times and it will foul up their system and automatically delete you from the call list. I have no idea if it works but I've been doing it. They definitely do use "private" and "unknown" to get past your caller ID these days. Everytime I'm caught off guard and answer, I kick myself. In my Mom's day, the Arthur Murry studios (and other dance companies) called constantly. She told them that she only had one leg and she found that they wouldn't call back. She did this for fun with any number of solicitors - like with car sales, she'd claim to be blind. They'd shut right up when they heard her sad story. It was lots of fun for her and she considered it a challenge to come up with something creative with every phone solicitation call. She was a fun little gal, yes she was! I tried to make her proud. When they start asking questions, I say... "oh I don't give information out over the phone, but I want to tell you about my children." If you go on ad naseum, they'll interrupt you and try to tell you why they're calling. They hang up very quickly after deciding you're a nutcase. If instead, when they ask the first question you respond by asking them if they'd like to hear about your children, dog, grocery list, or whatever, they will tell you "no" and at that point, you can tell them that you aren't interested in what they have to say either and it's your phone. :eek: When you are real busy and accidentally pick up one of these calls, the most effective and quickest response is to ask them to do what someone else here suggested, tell them to put you on their DNC list. They HAVE to do it.

I'm guilty - here I am again! I still think it is someone's idea of a joke. Silly prankster stuff. Liking the attention, giggling everytime we post. :eek:

Okay. Thank's for the info!

Anyone ever know of a woman who was unable to get a much, much needed abortion, who committed suicide? I do. I didn't watch the video because I probably do not have the stomach for it.

L8BloomR: You're cool and I respect your approach. Makes me feel that you have a fair and kindly spirit when you post things.

Living in Texas makes me think you might have a "hitch in your gitalong." :thumbup: Sorry, I know it isn't funny.

I had a bad kidney infection. I thought that was the extent of it, but actually I also had "Shingles". Now that was something that I definitely couldn't walk off or take Tylenol for. I haven't been able to get a fill because they told me that I could get the Shingles inside my body. Egad!! I can't imagine how bad that could be. The breakout of the rash is fading and I expect it to be gone by next week. I hope. One of the women who goes to the same doctor as I, had the kind of chronic left side pain that you're describing. They couldn't find anything wrong. But the pain was very real and eventually she began to gain weight a little bit at a time. She went in and had the Band removed and got the Sleeve. The last I heard, she's doing very well. I don't know if they ever discovered what the left side pain was from.