Birinak

Can't wait to find out what the second of all is. The first was such a gem. She didn't know that her bestfriend didn't "even know what the lap band is." And, she's already explained why she hasn't told her husband; she's anxious that he won't be supportive. I agree that she should tell her husband, even if it turns out that he's not supportive. This is a major life decision and it's too difficult to hide from someone you live with. If (when) he finds out, and if it's already months after you've had the surgery, he's going to feel betrayed.

Well, I was about to tell you off for talking bad about the very love of my life! I hate candy (I mean those sugar-based candies like gummies. In Canada, we don't refer to chocolate as candy, but I think Americans call it a "candy bar"). But I love chocolate. Who doesn't? That's why I was so shocked when I saw your post-title. Why wait for next week to get back on the wagon? I think that if you make a mistake, continue on with your day as if it never happened, but with the knowledge that you aren't going to let it happen again (well, soon). This way, you avoid turning your one mistake into a weekend binge-fest. Is the detox a mental challenge for you or do you feel that chocolate is really a toxin in your body? I think it would be really interesting as a test of my will-power. I don't know how long I would last though. I haven't eaten chocolate in two weeks, but that's just because I'm too lazy to go to the grocery store (when I do, I only buy one bar a week). If it was off-limits, I think I'd start fantasizing about chocolate for every meal of the day. Chocolate bars, brownies, chocolate chip Cookies. Aren't you worried that it'll just make your attachment to chocolate stronger once the detox is over? Also, I don't know if you know, but there are some pretty awesome no-sugar chocolates for diabetics. There's one that's like a no-sugar version of skors. Pretty good and really low-cal. Obviously, this isn't for your detox, but just in case you later wanted a healthier albeit chocolatey option.

I think you guys should really watch out with how much Protein you're consuming. I understand that many of you are on a low-carb diet and that it's important to replace much of the carbs you're taking out with protein. But, as always happens, people think that if something is good for you, a lot of it must be great. Excessive protein consumption can place a lot of stress on your organs and bones. High consumption of animal protein can raise your risk of kidney stones by a whole 250 percent! At least make sure that a good amount of your protein is coming from eggs, legumes, whole grains (if you're eating carbs), soy, dairy (cottage cheese and Greek yogurt are great), and quinoa. Also, you guys should be aware of research that showed that insufficient carbs have a negative effect on brain function. A study comparing low-carb (less than 130 grams of carbs) and low-calorie participants found that the low-carb participants had slower response times in tests and worse memories than the low-calorie dieters. The low-carb dieters had worse results than even their own pre-diet scores. A week after the participants reintroduced carbs, their brain functioning returned to normal, pre-diet levels. I know how quick and satisfying the weight-loss can be on low-carbs. I just want to make sure that people go in to it knowing the cons and maybe give it a break the week before any challenging mental tasks are to occur (tests etc).

Yeah, but then how awkward would it be if he replies: "You mean that thing they put in your stomach? I think people who'd get that are mental!" or "I'm so glad you're not so weak to resort to that!" I think you should just start with: "Honey, you know how unhappy I've been with my weight. It's taken such a toll on my self-esteem. I want to be happy. I want to do something about my weight, I have a plan, and your support would mean everything to me."

I've read posts from people who've had slips and none have ever mentioned a "pop" or any weird sudden feeling. In fact, many people didn't even know that they had slipped and found out at the doc's office. Other people suspected a slip when they either could eat too much or couldn't eat at all after a period of being well or somewhat restricted. Also, slips usually take time to occur. From what I remember, the earliest that many people have slips is one year out from surgery. Most have been even later than that. There may be earlier cases, but I think that it's pretty rare to have a slip a few days after surgery. I'm not saying that it's not band-related. Because you had your surgery so recently, you should get it checked out. However, like the poster above me said, the band is placed higher than your mid-back. It might just be a pinched nerve that popped. Since you've just started your life with the band and you're concerned about slips, I'd just tell you to try to avoid vomiting frequently. For the first 6 months, whenever I got stuck, I would vomit the food up after a few minutes. No one at the surgery clinic told me how to manage my stuck episodes; all that they would say when I'd ask what to do if it happens is: "You shouldn't be getting stuck. Just eat small bites." or "just drink hot liquids before you eat to loosen your band so you don't get stuck." This is very good advice, but stuck episodes do happen to many bandsters. Even when I've taken small bites, it has happened with some foods. It doesn't happen often if you're careful, but if I ever get stuck now, I've learned to wait it out and see if it'll resolve itself. It always has so far.

Whaaa? Was it in a bowl of Water under a pile of clothes? And for how long until you found it? When I first read this, I thought you were saying you found it on the ground, out of water and under a pile of clothes, and that it survived.

Okay, you have no clue what everyone is going on about (here or at the lapband clinic?) and you need help. What do you need help with? You say "time how long" in your title post--how long until what? Until you can get your surgery? Or until you can see your surgeon? You should come up with a list of specific questions that you need answered, providing enough detail for us to answer them. Post your questions here and we'll try to help.

I've noticed that many bandsters are religious (comments about prayers, religious quotes in sigs). There's a subforum for various religious groups (it's a ghost-town), but nothing for atheists/agnostics/irreligious bandsters. Strangely enough, atheists/agnostics have a subforum on the VSG board, even though the lapband board is more populous. Are there any atheist/agnostic bandsters on this board? I can't be the only dirty heathen here!

Jeebus, did she really phrase it like that? That doesn't sound like a concerned friend.

It's weird, I obviously changed my member title soon after joining to "Irene," but now I can't remember how I did it. I keep looking at the various edit options and I can't find the one used for changing the member title. Maybe the forum no longer allows that option? I doubt it. Someone else will probably be able to help you.

I never expected people to actually know much about other countries (although, the average North American is noticeably less well-read about the world than other First World citizens and that's a shame). What I expect is actually pretty reasonable; defer making your judgements on any topic public until you've done your due diligence, as you say. It's actually more to Loserbob's benefit to know what he's talking about before he speaks on a subject. Also, people generally look less ignorant if they avoid phrases like "those people" and "tribe mentalities" when referring to entire populations (of which they know little about). A good tip, I think. I certainly have never argued that there are no animalistic and tribal people in the Middle-East, Africa, or South Asia. My family's story is all about various members suffering at the hands of those kinds of people. The point is that the people who are fighting them, being tortured, raped, and killed everyday, are Middle-Eastern too. So, imagine how angering it is for non-tribal, secular Middle-Easterners (or even those decent families who don't fight because they reasonably don't want to lose what my family lost) to see comments like Loserbob's. Anyway, I gathered from a few of your other posts on this board that we have different political ideologies, so our opinions are going to differ radically on many things, I expect. Nonetheless, I find it funny that you, the Republican on the board, are responding with civility, and actually listening to what this Middle-Easterner has said before responding, whereas the proud Democrat (Loserbob) persists in insulting me with stereotypes because of my ethnicity. Now, I don't think that you guys are representative of your respective parties (I happen to like the Obama administration and I dislike many figures in the Republican party). It just goes to show that it's too simplistic to judge people's characters by their political persuasions (...or ethnicity, Loserbob). As for a debt of oil, I would think that, in theory, it would only be fair. Then, there are questions of whether the intervention was just and ethical (as Latin Americans can tell us, many have not been), and whether it was for the purpose of liberation. I think intervening countries have done well to intervene in Libya. I was really hoping for it. There will always be Islamic militants and pro-Gaddafi supporters (or my fellow leftists) who claim that it's Western imperialism, but this action, as in the Balkans, is the definition of a "just intervention." As it is, it seems that the rebels are actually quite grateful, waving French flags and what not. There was that incident a few days ago, where rebels were accidentally killed by NATO forces and the surviving rebels (even those in hospital) were saying that it was only natural that mistakes like this happen and that they were still thankful for the coalition forces. One rebel said: "It's the coalition that protects us." Similarly, many Iranians would be grateful for a multi-lateral intervention. After the start of the Iraq war, my dad was actually saying that he hoped America would go into Iran. Obviously, this isn't the view of all Iranians. I wouldn't want America to take that burden onto themselves. Also, I think that Iranians are capable of over-throwing the Islamic regime themselves, and when a people can liberate themselves even after decades, that's always best. Then, there will be no excuses left for anti-Westerners (i.e. saying that Americans just came for oil, as some are saying about Libya). Plus, any civilian deaths that occur can't be blamed on foreign forces. Of course, air-strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities would be just. I hate when non-Iranian leftists (although I am also ideologically left on most issues) try to claim otherwise, as if they were being compassionate to Iranians. If the Iranian government obtains nuclear weapons, it will be Iranians and Iran's neighbours who'll suffer. The government may never use a nuclear bomb, but it'll be able to hold neighbouring countries hostage whenever it likes. Or, imagine the next time the government wants to execute an innocent woman, what kind of pressure can America place on the Iranian government when Iran threatens a strike against Iraq or Israel? What America needs in order to strengthen its position and to weaken totalitarian Middle-Eastern regimes is energy independence. U.S. administrations have been promising this since Nixon, and there's been very little progress toward the goal. The focus needs to be on bio-energy research. Saudi Arabia is one of the worst regimes in the world and, when it beheads women and gays every Friday night, it gets a free pass because of its oil resources. Not only is it a prison for women, but it's a major threat to the rest of the world. Saudi Arabia openly supports terrorism, has been sponsoring Islamo-fascist schools in the West and recruiting westernized Muslim men to Wahabbism. If people are serious about winning the war against Islamo-fascism, energy independence should be our number one goal rather than increasing our hold on foreign oil.

My point was that it didn't have to be a touchy subject and even if it was, so what? First of all, most people here aren't telling people "how to parent." This thread has been going on quite successfully for a while. Most posters have managed to tell people how they, personally, approach feeding their own children without causing controversy. Also, we're all adults; I'm sure, as we've shown, that we can handle a debate maturely. There isn't any need to be fearful of touchy subjects if everyone communicates their differing opinions rationally and respectfully.

The problem is that the people commenting here about Iran or other countries know little about the Middle-East. It's silly to say, "well, what do you expect us to think about you guys?" if people haven't bothered to read about the countries they are ranting about. Millions of Iranians have been "stirring the pot" for over three decades since the Islamic government took over. My father was tortured as a political prisoner for two years. He was later banned from university, even though he had the highest entrance exam score in the country. He escaped execution because of some ties his family had with an official. My mother fought with the Marxist guerilla fighters against the government. Years later, when she was pregnant with me, she managed to escape Iran on false documents. When she was crossing the border into Turkey, she turned around and gave the equivalent of the middle-finger to the Iranian border guards. She was almost killed for that act. My uncle, as a teenager, protested for women's rights in Iran. For his troubles, he was blind-folded, lined up with his fellow students, and executed by a firing squad. My grandfather had to watch while a couple of "Revolutionary Guards" pissed on his son's fresh unmarked grave. He had to beg them to hand over the bag of my uncle's bloody clothes, so that he could take it back home to my grandmother. Other members of my family, because of my uncle's "crime," were fired from their jobs and blacklisted from working. What do you guys know about Middle-Easterners "stirring the pot" and the consequences they face for doing so? Ironically, a poster on here spoke casually about how fond she would be of nuking Iranians until they glowed. Not one single person "stirred the pot" and commented that what she said was despicable, vicious, and not worthy of a citizen of civilized country. Perhaps posters here are afraid that the secret police will abduct them in the middle of the night if they did. Oh, hold on... America has freedom of speech, and you don't have to worry about what will happen to you and your family if you stir the pot. Still, I don't believe, just because the "smart, good" Americans haven't spoken out against the fringe loons, that the fringe loons are in the majority in America.

When I read these "off-topic" posts, on either side of the issues, I constantly see people getting ridiculously carried away with their rant without stopping to think rationally about what they want to say. Now, for all that you've said, I don't think that you're a bad guy (obviously, I don't know you, but I'm judging from the earnestness of your posts). You just need to stop getting worked up, take a pause, and continue your argument on the basis of logic and not emotion. Some of these posts are just silly, whereas others (i.e. Murpel's fondness for nuclear holocaust) are thoroughly disgusting. I don't speak about countries of which I know little about. I don't make generalizations about entire populations, especially amazingly insulting generalizations when one of "those people" may end up reading them. I have never referred to Americans as "those people" and I wouldn't think of ranting on and on to an American about the crimes of other Americans, as if every American has to answer for them. "Shooting abortion doctors! Marrying 12 year olds in Utah! Arming vicious Latin American paramilitaries! ...Yeah, Americans, THAT'S REAL CIVILIZED!" You must know how very patronizing you are being by telling me that I am safe in America to speak (and that I should "thank U.S. soldiers" for that). First, along with the various other assumptions you've made, I'm not American. I'm Canadian. And I don't need your permission or encouragement to speak my mind freely. If I haven't responded in full until now (when, really, we just started talking last night), it's because I haven't had the time. I am not a Republican (again, I'm not even American) and I am not dodging any of your all-over-the-place "valid points." In your next post, you continue to refer to my tribal thinking and you seem to think that I view 14-year olds differently than the typical American. As I said, this is presumptuous and insulting. All that you know about me so far is that I'm a Middle-Easterner and that I object to the generalizations you made about Middle-Easterners. From these facts about me, look how many prejudiced assumptions you've made about me and my opinions. You know very little about me, and yet you write as if you knew my thoughts on the injustices that you mentioned or as if you thought I was in need of a lecture on just how horrible the crimes of other Middle-Easterners are. I already know, better than many of you, the atrocious social and legal violations of human rights in the Middle-East. I had a long debate on Facebook recently against a Canadian Jewish friend of mine who thought that I was being racist against my own kind when I criticized Islamic countries and praised Western values. I am an Iranian-Canadian woman and my family comes from a Muslim background. I am now an atheist, as is much of my family. Those Muslim members of my family are still firmly secular. Many Iranians (the people Murpel thinks should be nuked until they glow) are secular. Few non-Iranians know that very few Iranian women wore the head-scarf before the Islamic revolution. They did so after because they were forced. This is why you rarely see Iranians wearing the head-scarf outside of Iran. When my mother was a student in Iran, it was seen as backward and overly religious to cover your hair. Many women wore mini-skirts in Iran before 1979 (my grandmother made a mini-skirt for my mother on her birthday once and this was considered quite normal). You can see videos of the pre-1979 days on youtube (here's a . It's overly nationalistic, but it shows Iran before the revolution and women today). If anyone was paying attention to the protests in Iran in 2009, you would see that, unlike some other Middle-Eastern countries now, at least half of the protesters were young women, many of them wearing thin veils (in defiance of the authorities and at risk of punishment). Many protesters were shouting "Marg bar Joumhouri-e Islami" or "Marg bar dictator" (which means "death to the Islamic Republic" and "death to the dictator [religious leader].)" Further, about 60 percent of university students in Iran are women. People have such simplistic views of the Middle-East. These views lead to a de-humanization of Middle-Easterners to the point that simpletons such as Murpel joyfully speak of murdering millions of people for the crime of being born within the wrong set of borders. Even if you understood Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia (those countries being just about the worst of the worst), you couldn't make generalizations about people from countries such as Iran. The Iranian government is despicable, and there are factions in Iran that are responsible for maintaining the government's existence by force, but you and others frequently conflate these factions with the rest of the population. And then, you were speaking about Iran, and you suddenly start lecturing me about Iraq and that case about the 14 year old Bangladeshi girl. You didn't hear me defend the victims? That's because that was unrelated to what I was talking about in my first post. It was you who suddenly brought it up when I objected to you speaking of an entire country or region in that way, and saying that "those people have tribe mentalities." As I mentioned, I had a very heated (essay-length) debate with a friend on Facebook, where all I did was defend Islam's victims and criticize the political correctness of Westerners and the justifications of "moderates." You wouldn't know that because you don't know me. But that's precisely why you should avoid making wild assumptions about people you don't know on the basis of their ethnicity. Anyway, your post was really all over the place, which makes it difficult to respond to all the points you made or to do so briefly. If you ask me a few specific and non-rhetorical questions, I will answer them.

You started your response in your first post [to me] as if you wanted a civil, rational discussion. However, it seems that the more you write, the more presumptuous and insulting you want to appear.

Haha, what does this have to do with "conscience?" This isn't a moral decision. It's a decision about health--whether it is harmful to consume a slice of cake in the soft-foods stage, in particular.

I second that you should ask your doctor, but I can't see why you shouldn't eat some cake. The point of the soft-food phase is for you to eat things that take little work to move through the stomach. Cake is soft-textured. This phase has nothing to do staying away from "bad" foods. Even if it were, I don't see why having a slice of cake is a problem, unless you know that you wouldn't be able to handle it without going on a binge-fest. Some people feel that they mustn't eat a single bite of junk food, while others manage quite well indulging occasionally.

Nuke my family until they glow? Those kinds of sentiments really warm my heart! You're so very sanguine at the prospect of murdering 80 million women, men, and children. Afterall, if these people didn't want to be annihilated, they should've chosen some place else to be born!

As one of "those people," I'd like to thank you for your very profound musings about an entire ethnicity. I'd say more, but I'm afraid my pesky "tribe mentality" tends to limit my capacity for communicating with civilized people, such as yourself.

Ugh, I wish I could really burp! There have been a few times, when I'm on the phone with my sister, that I really just want to disgust her with a huge belch... and I get nothing. I only occasionally have these little barely audible burps after I've eaten too fast or a little too much. I've rarely been able to burp loudly before the band. But now... nothing. I wish I was told about this side-effect before the surgery... If I had known, I definitely wouldn't have gotten the band (...juuust kidding).

I don't need B12 pills (I did take sublingual pills for about a month, but not out of necessity). I only recently have been taking a multi-vitamin as a kind of insurance. The only vitamin/mineral deficiency I've ever had was a slight iron deficiency, but that was corrected by making sure to eat more dark greens. Vitamin B12 can be very easily obtained from eggs, milk, yogurt, cheese, and whey. These sources will also supply you with calcium (along with dark greens like broccoli) and Vitamin D (along with 15 minutes of sun exposure a day). If you're not a vegan, you can get all of these dietary needs by eating an egg, dark greens, and dairy products each day. As mentioned above, be careful of cheese made with rennet, since rennet is usually made from animal stomachs. And, yeah, since you have a more particular diet and there's a risk of developing a deficiency, make sure to get your blood tested for specific Vitamins and minerals about every 6 months to a year.

Man, I would love that. It would totally make my day! Those kinds of comments are so much better than a number on a scale too. The only times I'm called tiny is in reference to my height!

Only when I've gotten so stuck that I need to, or almost need to, throw up. It hasn't happened in a long time, but during those stuck incidents my face heats up and I start to sweat.

Whoa, you really must have worked your butt off! Great job and congratulations on your progress! This should motivate me to get working (...but I'm amazingly lazy, so I would bet against it! ).

Wow, 326 to 199 pounds. That's really amazing. You must look like a completely different person. Congrats!