Happy August 1st everyone!!

This will be our home for the Gone For Good Club – August Challenge.

For any newbies out there, the gone for good Club is our way of “banding” together for support and encouragement as we take off those pounds…(I know, cheap pun)

…Once each pound is lost, we consider it Gone For Good!!!

Weigh ins are on Wednesday in this format: current weight (total loss, this weeks loss) like so: C-350 (-36, -2) This person’s current weight is 350, they have lost 36 lbs so far and they have lost 2 lbs this week.

Feel free to join at any time, by posting a brief introduction for yourself and let us know what you are challenging yourself to. Whether you are banded or not, we are very happy to have your company!

This is not a competition, but just for a little added incentive to each of us, FunnyDuddies has promised a gift to the biggest “loser”, and I will be awarding a prize to the participant with the most creative exercise idea during the challenge.

This month’s challenge will involve keeping a close eye on our BMI’s (Body Mass Index) Here is a link to a BMI calculator so that we can make sure we are all using the same one:

http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/bmi/adult_BMI/english_bmi_calculator/bmi_calculator.htm

So here’s the challenge: Let’s see how much we can lower our BMI’s over the next few weeks. I want to hear that we are all guzzling our Water, eating healthy, and moving, moving, moving. The more creative the exercise the better! Share your ideas…

And we are all going to try to fight those demons who lurk in closets and cupboards…the one’s that make us crave no-no foods and try to convince us to slip into our old habits and negative patterns. We are united, we are strong and these pounds will soon be GONE FOR GOOD!

Welcome to the club for August, and good luck!!:clap2:

Sunshine

PS

Just a reminder, when posting on this thread, please remember to take out the check mark on "show signatures". This can be such a long thread, that it gets hard for those on dial up to participate. Let's try to keep it as "clean" as possible.

Thanks!!!

Welcome, Lyn. Glad to see you on this thread. I feel really close to these folks.

I've been looking at Telly's hair. I'm jealous. This heat makes me look old! Frizzy grey hair sucks!

I hate my scales!

it's after midnight - so Happy Birthday Mychevygirl!!!! Have a great one!

All,

Haven't lost in over a month, and have been able to eat WAAAYYYY more, so went in for some fill last week... bad idea...

Way too tight, throwing up, acid reflux, haven't slept in days, lots of pain... getting partial unfill (back to where I was last week) later today...

Pardon if I don't post much today, feeling rather poorly, haven't had much to eat or drink in 5 days.

On the good front, down to 218 lbs... that's 153 lbs down, and only 29 lbs from goal! Not the way I wanted to lose a couple though!

Later.

Dang! Now you see why I don't want to get a fill. It just freaks me out.

Sorry to hear that you're having a rough time Paul. I wouldnt want to be in your situation :cool: I think that's why I'm having a hard time deciding if I want this done. Are the bad parts worth going through for the end result?

*stops gnawing on pnuts ankle* she doesnt know what she's talking about.

Luna, even if I never get a fill or lose anymore weight, the weight loss so far was well worth the money.

ONly bad fill I have ever had, and It was my fault as I insisted he get agressive, as I hoped to make this my last fill.

Actually, it feels a lot like it did when I came home from the hospital. Don't let my bad experience discourage anyone, I've lost 153 lbs since November 17th... cannot complain about 5 days of discomfort, after the new changes I have seen!

Thats the line of thinking I'm trying to keep. Any little bump is worth the end result right? I'm such a pessimist. Glass is always half empty. I worry way too much, which is such a contradiction to my laid back/relaxed way of life. I know I want to get the surgery done, but I seem to keep trying to talk myself out of it... and I cant quite put my finger on why.

WOuldn't trade the experience for the world!

The band is the best thing I have ever done for myself.

Here here Paul! Here here!

Luna, it's ok to be indecisive about making a full, lifetime committment to something such as this. It's very smart of you to second question it. One day though, I'm sure you will make the right decision for you.

Paul, you should be the LapBand Poster boy. I swear, the change in your appearance is phenominal! And Telly should be the LapBand Poster girl!

So sorry to hear about the misery with the overfill, Paul. How much did you have them add?

My last fill was only .5 and I started having problems getting stuck on meat and broccoli, and also having pains in various areas of my stomach, so my Dr took my fill out completely. I had stopped eating hard Proteins and he wanted me to have some time of bringing those back into my diet without that risk of further irritation. Think you'll do the same, or are you just going to ask for a slight unfill?

Paul and P'Nut,

how many fills had you guys had before you got to this stage? I'm thinking of going for 3rd fill because I can eat more than I should but this is point where I know if there is gonna be trouble it's going to be now...dunno what to do now!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Before I talk about my band and my fills, I want to remind everyone that there is really no way to compare what will give one person proper restriction to what will give another proper restriction -- even if you have the same exact band. All of us are built differently, our stomachs are different sizes and shapes, the amount of fat we have around our stomachs is different, and we react differently to different types of foods and different amounts of fills.

So, that said... I have a 10cm band that holds 4cc. My first fill was put in about 6 weeks after surgery. About 6 months later I had an additional .5cc put in. That is when I started having problems. I didn't mind the getting stuck as much as the constant "pain" around my port and lower left stomach. I put quotes around the word pain because it wasn't painful, just uncomfortable like a sore muscle.

Anyway, when the Dr took out my fill I asked how much was in the band. He said 1.3cc, which was confusing because I know he told me he put in .5cc on that second time around. But he assures me that's what he put in. *shrugs* So, I guess just .3cc was enough to make that big of a difference. I went from being able to eat a 6 ounce steak, baked potato and veggies, to the troubles I was having... all over .3cc! Crazy huh?

I went from 5CC to 6.8, and felt fine at the doc's office, had been feeling really open lately. I thought it was a bit much, but everything showed it to be OK at his office. The came saturday AM... reflux... then a glass of OJ actually burned going down, and I couldn't manage my AM cup of coffee (I always look forward to the AM coffee as it is so warm and soothing when I am tight in the AM).

By sunday evening, I was really uncomfortable, and can't even eat a decent amount of Soup, and can only sip Water (room temperature) in the tiniest quantities.

Happy Monday all :cool:

I'm down to 222 so still making some progress.

Paul.

Dude, sorry you are feeling so crappy, I can't even imagine what it's like.

You have to remember something though, from what I understand you have spent a lot of time at the gym. If that's accurate don't forget that your muscles are going to demand an increase in calories to support that new structure. Your NSV's should be the focus now that you are so clost to goal. You are doing incredibly well and look like a different person.

I'm getting down to the weight level where I can't reasonably expect too much weight loss and will need to do my re-sizing at the gym.

One other thing. You MUST have some spare skin (if not I'm going to find you and kick your ass). Skin isn't light and thats going to affect your "projected" goal weight (if you use BMI or anything similar). Just a tummy tuck alone could drop 5 or 10 pounds.

I've been giving this some thought myself, and I have to accept that even though my shirt size is now "XL" or even "L" (down from 4XL), my skin size is definately sticking at 2XL (for now).

Good luck folks, may the "fill" be with you.