mistysj

Fair warning, GCBC is very long and dense with information.

Here we go. In the second photo I am holding the fabric behind me. In the last photo you can see how much extra fabric there is. Also my boobs filled that dress last year and this year it is just sad.

I will be in India again from tomorrow to 19 Dec, for work. Then I'm back and off work until 6 Jan! Looking forward to the holiday. Husband's work Christmas party is the 20th, on a yacht. I will be so jet lagged. But the reason I was at Target yesterday was I needed to get new togs. I got a pretty cute one-piece that looks like a tankini set but really isn't. Hard to explain. Got some small shorts to go over the bottoms because the tops of my thighs are a disaster (other than that, I have great legs -- probably my favorite feature besides my hair). I know I won't be in these togs long so I didn't worry too much about the style. They look OK. We are going to the Briabane Jazz Club for New Years Eve. I have a black dress that I think will work, that I got when I was at my lowest Optifast weight (about 20 kg higher than now). Clearly it was too tight before but I thought it looked great. but there is a possibility it will just be too big by the time I get back from India, so I may need to go party dress shopping at the very last minute. At least it will probably be cheaper than the dress I wore last year, from Autograph. That dress was a red bombshell type dress and looked great on me last year. I tried it on this year before putting it in the donation pile. I will post a photo because it is hilarious. The photos are on my phone so it will need to be a separate post.

Have you thought of going to a Unitarian church, Susan? They accept all beliefs or non-beliefs and don't have any dogma. People get together and explore spirituality and logic and meditation and whatever interests them. They do a lot of social justice work and tend to be allied with minorities and LGBT, and do a lot for women's rights issues too. Sermons are often about humanist morality, social justice issues, and just being better human beings. I have heard it referred to as "atheists with kids". I went to a UU church when I considered myself an atheist but missed church, for several years. I loved it. I have since converted to Catholicism, but that's a different story. I still keep up with my UU friends.

I bought some size 12 tops! And 14D bras, down from 20DD! It's such a rush but such a weird feeling. And kind of expensive. Even at Target prices.

Article by Stephen Guyenet rebutting Taubes: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/11/brief-response-to-taubess-food-rewad.html Taubes confronts Guyenet at a meeting afterward: http://www.dietdoctor.com/ahs-showdown-gary-taubes-vs-stephan-guyenet

I'm working my way through Good Calories Bad Calories and it just makes me so mad that so much of the public health advice is based on such flawed science! I really want it to be wrong. I want the book to be debunked, discredited by scientists. But it hasn't been. I feel so lied to. I felt the same way the first time I tried to read it. GG, do you get me?

I can't find anyone who really looks like me either. So much regret when I see those smooth rounded tummies and then look at my hanging lumpy monstrosity. Why couldn't i realize I didn't look so bad on the way up? I bought some size 12 tops today. Two of them fit now and two are still a bit snug. I also had to buy new bras. Let me see if I can convert the sizes to the American ones. 14D is 36D down from 20DD is 42DD. But don't look inside the cup for gods sake because it looks like a big dehydrated peach in each cup. But I guess what I mean is I have definitely changed size and shape but it is so hard to see it. I still feel the same shape.

I've found myself here a few times lately. I think I'm freaking out that a problem I struggled with for 20 years (and I'm only 35) is almost solved (physically) after not even 7 months. It is whiplash. And though I get a charge out of the benefits, it's like "that's it?" And I have been eating over the discomfort. I don't want to fucked this up so I'm pulling my head out and doing more of the emotional work. My eating is some kind of self-blame mechanism or something. But I'm worth this. So are you, Nicole.

You have come a long way! Thank you so much for sharing. I am in awe of your strength of character.

Yep. Did this too. I still don't understand the compulsion. I think it had something to do with feeling like I had no say in what I ate or how much, growing up. I would allow myself choices, but nobody else could find out. Weird, right? Butter, have you since fessed up to your wife? What did she say? My husband still doesn't know the full extent. I just can't bring myself to go there, though I have dropped hints like "oh you have no idea how much I was eating and how weird my eating was" but I just can't go there.

I am right there with you.

Sounds great but be careful as dehydrated fruit still has as many calories as fresh but you can fit a lot more. Same thing with raisins, prunes, etc.

Awesome! This is the kind of outcome I hope to have. Do you still eat protein first etc? Is it easy to find healthy food in Amsterdam?

I have a good career now. I'm a manager in IT and enjoy my work for the most part, and am well-compensated. But since surgery and learning so much about how my body works, I keep thinking about the idea of a career in the medical field. The most attractive career to me at the moment is in medical imaging, maybe as a sonographer. Where I live, this would be a 4-6 year full-time course of study (not like in the US where I believe it is a 2-year degree) and the top pay would be close to what I make now (I'm mid-range for my career now). A huge commitment both financially and time-wise. What is attractive about it? A few things. I find the technology and the interpretation fascinating. It would be really helping people in a very practical way. I could leave work at work. The pay is pretty good. The demand seems high, from the research I have done. Not sure what this has to do with surgery or weight loss except that I believe in medicine and science, I have benefited from it, and somehow I have more confidence to consider such a thing than I would have before. I think I am also evaluating work-life balance in my current work and seeing some things I would not mind changing. But then, my work-life balance would be a ton worse while studying! Because it wouldn't be fair to my husband to have to earn all the money and support me through school. Has anyone else had similar thoughts / questions?

That is so good that they found out what was wrong!

Bec you look just lovely! And I know you must feel even better. Way to go! I still can't believe I am just "overweight" and in size 14s that are starting to feel a tiny bit loose! It has all happened so fast (less than 7 months) that at times it takes my breath away. My life is so different. I just finished running a quick 5k during my lunch time.

I think the people who have all the code in their posts have used the website's capability to adjust the font and colors in their posts. I seem to recall you could change your default font style, size, and color and it would affect all your posts. If that is the case, can you guys just disable that capability? It is actually a bad idea for accessibility reasons anyway, especially for people with low vision or color blindness. Also Alex I know you said you hired someone to do this app. I hope you have since fired them, that's all I'm gonna say about that. The website itself is much better than before though!

Even URLs in posts in the app now seem to work properly. Let's test: http://BariatricPal.com

“You simply do not see specific, trans-regional trends in human subsistence in the archaeological record. People can live off everything from whale blubber to seeds and grasses. You want to know what the ideal human diet consists of? Everything. Humans can and will eat everything, and we are remarkably successful not in spite of this fact, but because of it. Our adaptability is the hallmark of the human species. We’re not called omnivores for nothing.” “Nearly every food item you currently eat today has been modified from its ancestral form, typically in a drastic way, ” he began. “The notion that we have not yet adapted to eat wheat, yet we have had sufficient time to adapt to kale or lentils is ridiculous. In fact, for most practitioners of the Paleo Diet, who are typically westerners, the majority of the food they consume has been available to their gene pool for less than five centuries. Tomatoes, peppers, squash, potatoes, avocados, pecans, cashews, and blueberries are all New World crops, and have only been on the dinner table of African and Eurasian populations for probably 10 generations of their evolutionary history. Europeans have been eating grain for the last 10,000 years; we’ve been eating sweet potatoes for less than 500. Yet the human body has seemingly adapted perfectly well to yams, let alone pineapple and sunflower seeds.” <a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://mumanu.wordpress.com/2013/11/06/archaeologists-officially-declare-collective-sigh-over-paleo-diet/'>http://mumanu.wordpress.com/2013/11/06/archaeologists-officially-declare-collective-sigh-over-paleo-diet/</a>

See?

Your post looks really strange in the app, GG!

Another one (this time from Gary Taubes himself): http://garytaubes.com/2011/03/dose-of-intervention-land-of-dr-oz/

GG, have you seen this article? http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/2011/05/16/thin-body-of-evidence-why-i-have-doubts-about-gary-taubess-why-we-get-fat/ I'm just reading it now. I bought Good Calories Bad Calories as an audiobook to listen to when I'm traveling. Maybe I can finish it that way! But I want to make sure Taubes' opinion is still worthy. Hence googling him.

My sleeve surgeon just did a gallbladder removal for me a couple weeks ago. I saw him today for follow-up and he chatted a bit about a bariatric surgeon conference he just attended in Sydney, AU. Just as background, my surgeon does mostly sleeves and the occasional bypass. He used to do a ton of bands but now only does the band if the patient insists. He still maintains a lot of bands. He said that the band is way down in Australia and whole areas of the country have no band surgeons anymore. He also said that the re-operation rate (for all types of re-operation) is as high as 40% with the band. He said that the band has a lot of potential points of failure, including that the port can flip, the needle can puncture the band during a fill and cause a leak, or lots of other ways that are not really direct failures of the band. He seems pretty down on the band now but wants to give his existing band patients the highest standard of care. He also confirmed that Allergan has sold the lap band to another company, Apollo Endosurgery. I googled that and found a story in the Wall Street Journal. http://m.asia.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303471004579165961441181356?mobile=y He said that the sleeve is gaining massive popularity because of the low complication rate, high success rate, and that they are starting to feel really confident about the long term prospects of the sleeve, starting to see some patients with more than 10 years sleeved. He said that the sleeve may stretch 3-5% over time but then it stops. He said it is like taking a t-shirt and cutting off a sleeve. You can stretch the sleeve but it will never be nearly as big as the shirt. The bypass is going to be around a long time and is still very well regarded. It is the #1 choice for people with reflux or bowel diseases and it is the best salvage surgery for people who have reflux problems after the sleeve. The DS is very uncommon these days because the sleeve works so well on its own. This is my surgeon's summary to me about the state of bariatric surgery in Australia today from the point of view of the surgeons.