Marimaru

holy crap... lol

Here I was getting ready to get all preachy, lol...

Keri that is so funny! Sorry about your liver juice Lisa . I prefer chicken to beef when it comes to broth. At least you get to punish the whole office with the smell, lol. I don't even know what liver tastes like, lol. Probably I'll keep it that way.

lol, Vines is right! But to your question; eating too much is not going to damage your band. Eating too much will do 2 things that can eventually cause problems: 1. Cause you to PB (barf), which doing in excess can cause band slippage. 2. "Pouch Packing" can cause your esophagus to not work as well as it's supposed to, because food actually sits at the bottom of your esophagus for too long, and it's not designed for holding, it's designed for passing stuff through. At least, this is my understanding, and I am not a medical professional. There are going to be times when you overeat. We all do it. Just be careful not to let it happen often . The band will definitely help with that.

I look up the nutrition on everything I can now. Sometimes I look it up after I've been to a place and regret it, lol, but I always look. Sometimes I eat at taco bell anyway, but I know what I'm doin' when I go in. There's so much I always thought "wasn't that bad", *sigh*, lol.

You didn't have an ice cream shake, you didn't have the super double greasy burger with bacon and cheese. I have no idea what else is on that menu that you DIDN'T have, but it sounds like you did pretty good to me . Also, considering you didn't eat lunch, your calories for the day probably evened out (though I don't recommend skipping a meal to have a bigger one later, lol). That shoulder thing gets me whenever I eat too much. It's like built in negative re-enforcement!!

Put them on Erin's desk. Tell her you knew she wanted them anyway. Seriously though, that's insane. You have about as many people in your office as I do in mine, and I only buy a 12 pack of what everyone wants at a time, maybe two if the only reason I went to the store was for soda for the programmers (I hate going to the store). Have you tried putting spices in the liver juice? Garlic pepper or something (if you like that kind of thing). I've been drinking alot of green tea lately, and while it doesn't curb hunger for me like it does for some, I haven't had a soda this week and I haven't even been trying. 'course, I just stocked the fridge with the new fresca flavors, so I doubt it'll last. I'm so bad.

Kim, I didn't see your original post for some reason, but I'm SO GLAD to hear that things are doing well for now.

I don't know how 'up front' you are with your mom, but you might just tell her to back off. I know she paid for your surgery and probably feels some how that you owe it to her to be skinny by now or something, but it just doesn't work that way. 25 lbs in 2 months is really fantastic. Now you aren't losing lbs, but your body is readjusting itself; I think when we lose weight, our body doesn't know what to do now that the weight is off. Every time I lose a few pounds, my back hurts for a few weeks, it's the darndest thing. I've decided that the fat is kind of padding my spine so that my muscles don't have to work so hard to hold me up, but when the fat is less, the muscles freak out... if that makes any sense. Also, my losing pattern contributes to that, because I don't lose anything for a few months, then drop 5 or 6 lbs right away so it's kind of a shock to the system I think. Anyhow, the scale will move again

Jenny, the Slow Loser's Club is comprised of people who have lost less than one pound per week.

Anesthesia seems to throw off alot of people's cycles. Probably you are fine , but keep an eye on it. As for salad, I was craving salad when I was where you are now. I've never had a problem with it, but I know some people who have. I guess you'll just have to try. Dunno about the raw vegetable thing, I've never heard that before..

If you are losing a pound a week, I personally wouldn't mess with it. If you stop losing that pound a week, then get a fill. My personal philosophy is that you should lose weight on the most food that you can, so that you can lower your calories later if you need to, you know?

Those cookie cake things are great. Lisa, they are big gigantic Cookies, like 15" across. Usually with something written on them in frosting. They are best when you take a piece and pop it in the microwave for a little bit so it's just a tad gooey. Evil cookie. This whole thread shows the reason that I opted for exersizing 4 days a week as my 'ban to laziness' for my chips. It's a total cop out. I AM exersizing 4 days a week, ever since I posted that and ever since joining the gym. But I should be trying to earn my chips for not snacking at night and not drinking wine. When I open a bottle of wine, I drink half or all of it in one night. I don't open a bottle every night, but obviously the liquid calories aren't helping me out. Snacking at night is bad too. I try and eat dinner later so that there are less hours for snacking before bed. So yes, I will earn my chip for exersizing, but I really should be working on other things.... but I don't WANNA!

When I went in the day before my surgery, my surgeon said to me "The great thing about the band is that if you got pregnant tomorrow, you'd be fine." I think the stigma of waiting a year or two is there because that's what they tell bypass patients to do, and they don't 'know' any different for the band. If you get an unfill you can have a completely normal pregnancy since you don't have malabsorbtion issues, and some people don't even need to be unfilled all the way, or at all and they do fine as well. Good luck!

Wow!! Thanks fantastic!!!

Sue, I'm very glad you decided to share your story. I'd seen that you were having your band removed, and got a little info here and there from various posts, but it's nice to hear the 'whole story' so to speak. I hope you stick around here tho! Keep us posted

DOH! I'm probably disqualified from the 'contest' aspect of this thing being 2 days late posting and all. I took my measurements sunday night and everything and then forgot to post (Monday was a bad day, and Tuesday was the sequel, lol). I'd still like to post every week if you all don't mind, just to have a spot... Weight:225 (bouncin' around) Chest: 39 Waist 41 Hips: 48.5

I chose my goal weight of 140 because it was right smack dab in the middle of the "normal" bmi range. I know BMI doens't REALLY have much barring on anything, but it was a place to start. According to the site that Vines found for "Ideal Body Weight" I should be at 162, and I've been playing with the idea of changing my goal to 160 for quite a while anyway. Right now though, I kind of feel like changing my goal is cheating myself. It's kind of silly, but here's the thinking behind it: If I change my goal now, my mini goals change, ie: I'm closer to halfway to goal, when with my original goal, my halfway point is still 15 lbs away. So it almost feels like I'm changing it just to get to my miles stones faster or something. I figure when I get to 160 I can re-evaluate and see how I feel and THEN change my goal. I also think that my sister looks very good at 130, she's my same height, but has a slightly smaller frame than me, which is another reason I picked 140.

I think for the most part people who are successful start to maintain and then move on with their lives. Once the weight loss is done, and you get a handle on the maintaining part, I imagine you don't want to think much about weight loss anymore, you know? Sue, I've seen what some of the people on OH have said or implied when you've posted. I have to say that I highly respect your stance that the band was a "good place to start", and find that it makes alot of sense to think that way. There's a few other people on the boards that I've watched get 'pushed away' because they had issues. People are so quick to believe that if something goes wrong, it has to be the fault of the bandster. So, Tropicana, I guess on the other end of what I said my first paragraph, is the folks who have a problem, and try to get support while they are having a problem and they get pushed away by people who refuse to believe that there can be band problems not caused by the bandster. I think people get that way when they have doubts about their own choice and are trying to make those doubts go away, but they forget that their choice has nothing to do with anyone else's choice.

There are lots of people around here who've chosen not to tell about their surgery. It's really the same thing. I would have to agree that if Kirstie Alley had the band and is endorsing JC, that would kind of be cheating, but at the same time, we don't have any kind of "right" to these people's information. They have just as much right to keep their banding secret as we do. But also, Kirstie Alley doesn't really have a history of being overweight... she gained some weight (and from what I read) stepped on the scale one day and freaked out, and so started dieting. I can believe that. I have a harder time with folks like Anna Nicole who lost so much so fast, and Oprah, who lost all her weight and for the first time in my memory has kept it off this long. Even still, if they don't want to share, we're just left to sit and wonder, you know?

Wow, what an amazing post, congratulations!

Welp, day 4 here. I'm a little sore from the gym last night. Which is good of course, lol. They have one of those scales that will read your body fat% n' stuff, so I hopped on that and I'm 43% fat!! eww. So I'll be using that scale once a month to see that % go down a bit. It does a little print out, so I'm going to keep those

I probably would check it out too if I saw it, but it really is very weird... lol

http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,69017,00.html?tw=rss.TOP

I'm here!