WASaBubbleButt

We need more females. Where's Tommy?

Regarding the type of female being discussed here, I gotta say that you make one hellova female by your actions. So I don't really think you need to worry that someone will associate you and a penis in the same line of thinking. Cheers.

Darl'en, you give yourself far too much credit. Perhaps this is the problem.

One more thing, you are obviously not doing it well if you claim to read all this. I recall a PM I received from you just a few days ago that was so out of line and silly, not to mention completely untrue... if you are able to read without a problem how did you miss it so far off the mark when you were annoying me with PMs? No, you are not above the rest of the world in any manner.

It is your job to read that stuff, you are paid for doing it. These message boards are our enjoyment time. We are not paid to do it, we don't have to do it. When it isn't enjoyment anymore we don't have to read the nonsense. Since you are reading your students work, please ask them to use basic grammar and punctuation so that when the come to message boards we won't have to skip their posts too.

The love of food is what got us to the point we are at today. I have found that the band takes away a great deal of the pleasure of eating and I love that it does that. There are far more productive things I could be doing with my time.

Sounds like a soft stop to me. When you hiccup, quit eating. Your body is trying to tell you that you have had enough.

I see my friends on a daily basis and I have no clue what size they wear or what sizes are sold in the stores they shop. I think you are expecting your mom to read your mind and that is unreasonable.

If you ask them if they are a nurse they may say yes. So ask them which level of nursing they are, LPN, RN, or BSN. When they say Medical assistant that is not a nurse, that is a medical assistant. Docs permit this in their offices yet can you imagine the uproar if nurses claimed to be doctors? HA!

Why not? There is a lock on the other bands and many US surgeons are under the impression it cannot be unlocked, it must be cut off. That is not true. I've seen the procedure with my own eyes, the lock is unlocked, the band is repositioned, and relocked. The newer bands just make it easier to do but it can (and is) done routinely in Mexico. I have a hunch Inamed created this lock so that if someone needed their band to be repositioned the patient would have to pay for an entirely new band. Well, it did not work out that way. The lock can indeed be opened and relocked.

Would you write out an example or two of your daily menu? And write out exactly what you do for hard cardio and let's see if we can figure out out. When you write out the menu, please include brand names. Sometimes we are pretty good at coming up with better alternatives. You are correct, with your calorie restriction and BMI, it should be melting off so let's see if we can figure this out.

Have you actually told her what your size is? Sounds like she was trying to be nice. When someone is losing weight they go through clothes like crazy. I think expecting others to know what size we are and exactly what size we will be in two months is unfair. If you don't believe you'll be needing Lane Giant then tell her and ask her if she would exchange it for the store of your choice. She likely has no clue.

I know exactly what you mean. As though they say jump and we are expected to ask how high. I'm not referring to the staff having to jump through insurance hoops like I have to, I'm talking the crappy attitudes, making me feel like I am a huge annoyance to the staff for having insurance, and being treated like part of the herd of cattle shoved through the office on a daily basis. My insurance covers banding but it was a matter of jumping through hoops with the insurance co to get it done. I had two choices, go to a doc locally and do a six month medically supervised diet, a psych eval to tell me I have an eating disorder, a nutritionist eval to tell me I'm eating all the wrong things, a bariatric consult to tell me I'm fat, a sleep study to tell me I do not have sleep apnea, THEN the insurance would have covered it. I figured it out and by the time I would have been getting my first fill under insurance I was actually at goal by going to Mexico. Ten months, beginning to end. Now I'm at goal. How long would it have been in the US w/insurance with the six month diet? I could go to Mexico and see the teacher for half the price or stay in the US, fight the MD office, beg and plead for them to do their jobs, hate every moment of it, and pay double the price for the student. It just wasn't a difficult decision. My heart goes out to people that have to fight the insurance co, beg the MD office to do their jobs, deal with unanswered phone calls and questions, then by the time you finally get it done you see the doc if you are still awake before surgery and then you never see him again. Quite frankly, for what docs charge for their 30 minutes in OR, they need to do their own follow up vs. having a nurse or MA do it. No doc is worth $3K/hour. They just aren't that special. They need to do their own damn fills, they need to spend time with their own patients. I'm telling you, Mexico avoided all that for me. I'm not suggesting people not use insurance and go out of the country, I'm saying I am quite lucky that I was able to do that. I'm very fortunate and I know it. When I go there for fills I see my doc, he sits down and talks to me, if I'm doing something stupid he confronts me in a gentle manner, if I am doing all the right things he points that out. If I need a butt kicking he knows me well enough to know how hard he can kick because HE sees me and he has come to know me. He has thousands of bariatric patients over the years and if I pass him in the hallway he knows who I am because he knows me. He doesn't have to ask his staff who that lady is. Bahh... this turned into a rant and I really didn't intend for that to happen. But I've worked in medicine and obtained health care in the US and I am so sick of the system. BUT! Since I am throwing a tantrum, you know what else MD offices do that make me so angry I'm tempted to turn them into the board of nursing? When their medical assistants with six months of education refer to themselves as nurses. That is illegal to do in many (all?) states, it's a felony to pass yourself off as a nurse if you don't have the education and licensing behind you. To tell patients that they are transferring the call to a nurse and come to find out, the doc doesn't hire nurses they hire MAs, that is wrong, deceptive, and a flat out lie. Their six months of learning to take blood pressures vs. my 5 years of education. Grrrrr.... You know what? From this day forward I am going to start filing complaints with the board of nursing each and every bloody time someone tells me they are a nurse when they are not. They'll have to go before the board and explain why they are claiming they have education that they do not. They could lose their MA certification and potentially go to jail. It's a big big deal in AZ, not something the board takes lightly. Okay, end of rant.

All the more reason to put a ticker up and show off your weight loss. You must be losing quite well, show it off!

When you say this doc did abdominal surgery, are you referring to band surgery? There are some abdominal procedures that can be done with a local, for example, removing a port. But to do a band I'm comfortable saying you wouldn't want to be awake for that. A local will numb your skin, not yer innerds. Are you sure it was a local anesthetic vs. a spinal? I think if any doc did do a band with a local only he wouldn't have a license for very long and his medical malpractice might dump him as well. There are still risks for blood clots with a surgical procedure regardless of anesthesia.

Thank you, Denise. BTW, I called your Dad the other day to see if he wanted to go out to dinner somewhere but I wasn't able to reach him. When you talk to him would you mention that I'd love to take him out somewhere as we planned when you were here?

For the most part I agree with you regarding leaving the GI anatomy as it was when we were born but along that thinking the band is really no different. We weren't born with a band wrapped around a stomach. Bypass is the procedure I don't get, I just can't wrap my brain around anything logical with bypass, MGB or DS for a majority of patients. I look at my stomach as an annoying part of my body that malfunctions. :huggie: Something is wrong between my brain and my stomach and just like any other part of the body that is causing problems such as an appendix, if it isn't working then get rid of it. I have no use for an entire stomach, it has done nothing but hold too much food. It just hasn't been a good friend to me. I don't like the idea of 80% of my stomach in the garbage either but I'm not sure a band is much better. It is still invasive with a great number of complications. I'm not suggesting sleeves are less risk vs. banding at the time of surgery but wouldn't you agree that after 6 months or so the complications with sleeves are fewer in number vs. banding? I don't know, maybe I'm wrong. And lets face it, doctors don't make things easy for us either. I was banded in Mexico and trying to get a fill in the US is very difficult. And you know what? I had my choice narrowed down to one US doc and one Mexican doc. I chose the Mexican doc because I couldn't stand the AZ guy's staff. And it's not just Mexican banded people, folks banded in the US who move to another state are in for a real challenge when trying to find a fill doc. There are docs out there that charge $1100 for a single fill and it's not even under fluoro! I know fills are not a huge money maker and docs are running a business, I get that. But $1100 is taking advantage of people who are desperate enough to do bloody anything to lose weight. I know the history behind the fill issue, I know what Inamed does during certification classes, I know the politics, I know that Inamed hires a lawyer to come to the certification classes to warn docs about filling patients they didn't do surgery on... it's all politics and not a great deal of truth. I don't think Inamed realizes how much liability they are facing by attempting to stop people from getting medical care. But that's for another day. Point being, you guys (general you, not specific you) make life very difficult to obtain fills and don't you dare ever die because who will your patients go to for fill? With a sleeve there is no hassle, no problems with follow up care, nothing. I still can't figure out why I was so set on having a band because I could reverse it. I can't think of a single reason why I would ever want to be MO again. I have to admit something here. I've been reading so many boards and talked to so many people that lost their bands to slips or erosion. I am really beginning to question if this band is going to be doable 30 years from now. I know full well that people with problems are more likely to post on boards vs. people that met their goal and are out there doing their thing. I understand that. But there are just so many issues with a band. I can't get rid of a strong feeling that I am one that won't have a band forever. I have felt this way since before I even had the surgery and I can't shake that feeling. When I was banded I was desperate and I would have done anything to lose weight. So all in all, I am pretty sure if I had it to do over again I'd choose a sleeve.

Weight Loss Myths Exposed Myth #3: Cutting calories causes your body to go into starvation mode and slows weight loss. This is untrue. Your body’s resting metabolic rate can vary by about 15%. Nevertheless, eating too few calories and an inadequate amount of Protein can make you lose precious lean muscle mass, which will eventually slow metabolism, for the long term. Ideally, stick to the calorie and protein amounts that are right for your body with the Herbalife™ program. (Plz ignore the Herbalife nonsense) I only post this particular link because it is usually body builder types that promote this myth. Researchers and most docs tend to disagree with how the body works. I was happy to see a body builder type pass on quality info regarding nutrition issues.

Bodybuilding.com - Jeremy Likness - Ask The Health Coach - Part 1. And another... >> Q ] How do I avoid "starvation mode?" I always love the starvation mode argument. "Don't go under 1000 calories or you'll be in starvation mode." Starvation is when you are not getting nutrients or energy - zilch, nada. It is true starvation - i.e. not eating. No, you will not go into some special mode after 6 hours of not eating. I've fasted for days before, and contrary to the popular trend, I did not suddenly lose 15 tons of muscle mass and become a thin sluggish weakling. I fasted for spiritual reasons and when I was done, I eased back into my regular nutrition program and was fine. Starvation mode is something that serves two purposes. In the mind of marketers, its a great scare tactic to shock people into buying supplements to make sure they have something on the road and don't go into that scary starvation mode. It is also great to market systems because Americans like to eat. So any system that says, "Lose fat by eating more" is going to sell. The second purpose it serves is for the person on the diet. It is a great justification for never going low enough to achieve phenomenal results - after all, they may kick into starvation mode. Better to have a reason to keep calories up and blame the inability to lose that last bit of ab flab on something else. Seriously: when you lower calories, your metabolism goes down. This isn't starvation mode, this is your metabolism slowing down. The thing is, who cares? I know the trend is to say it's better to eat more and have a burning metabolism. Personally, I don't see how a slow metabolism is any worse than a fast one if you are eating nutrient dense. In other words, I know of a 1200 calorie diet with far more nutrients than a typical American 3000 calorie diet. If it is sustainable and enjoyable, who cares if the metabolism is a bit slower? The idea is that it is easier to lose fat, but if you reach your goal and are maintaining, theoretically you don't have to lose more fat.<<

Yeah, that's one that came out of the 70s. Science just does not prove eating more calories will make your body lose weight. If you eat 2000 calories you'll have to burn 2000 calories. Calories in/calories out. People often times give the human body more credit than it deserves. The body stores fat for the purpose of storing energy. When Glycogen and other carbs are burned it start working on fat and muscle. The human body simply does not calculate how many calories it is getting and then make a decision to store them vs. burning them because there are not enough. The body is very good at storing fat, too good in a way. How easy is it to eat 3500 calories? That's a full pound. How many miles would you have to run to burn 3500 calories? A LONG run! :huggie: Bottom line, you have to burn more than you take in to lose weight. The Starvation Myth

I'm not buying it. That does not match up to what science says, but it does agree with the myths of the 70s. A bit like starvation mode. It's a myth and science has proven it wrong. Your body isn't able to think and rationalize anything, he's giving the human body credit for things it is quite frankly, unable to do.

Many people cannot tolerate bread or steak. If you get an unfill, won't you just eat bread? I WANT restriction enough that I can't eat bread, pastries, pasta, etc.

Sometimes it can be tricky to find the right fill after a slip. When you slip the scar tissue is pulled, stretched, and sometimes ripped. New adhesions are often times formed. For a variety of reason the fill is tricky, you just have to hang in there and keep working with your doc to find what works for you. You can do this, you know you can. You have already done it. Don't let this get more out of hand than it already has, get in there and work with your doc and get it done!! It's totally doable and you know that!! We are all here for you.

I would imagine some of them agree with me and some of them disagree. That's how it works with adults.

Cuz I just ate four of them? But it's not my fault, I can't find my glasses so I can't read the instructions and I'm just making sure I get my calcium in for the day. :huggie: