Jonathan

I've been on vacation for the last week and a half, and have spent most of my time (since we are visiting my in-laws ) on dialup in my hotel room doing additional research on our favorite topic here. I'm sure some people might think it's a waste of money, but I've decided to self-pay for the surgery in my home town (Austin, Texas) instead of going to Mexico. (With the surgeon I had originally worked with before my insurance denial.) It's going to cost me $16,000 instead of $6,500 (of which I've already paid a $500 deposit that I'll lose) but I know my aftercare won't be an issue, and if anything goes wrong, I'll have a 5 minute drive to the doctor's office. And, if it takes 5 fills to find my "sweet spot", it won't be nearly the deal it would be if I had to go to TJ 5 times. (I was having a very hard time finding a doctor locally who would perform my fills if I went out of country.) Fortunately, I was able to get financing for the extra $10k at a very reasonable interest rate, and I'm sure that it will pay for itself very quickly. You have no idea how much money I spent on sushi on a weekly basis =) Dr. Fass will be doing my surgery. I'm not sure if anyone knows that name, but he's a very nice guy, and has quite a bit of experience. He was one of the doctors doing the procedure during the FDA trials, and I believe he assisted during Sharon Osborne's surgery =) (Not that that qualifies him, but I thought it was an entertaining notion anyway.) I have my final pre-op appointment with Dr. Fass on Thursday, so I should get a date then. Oh yeah, the other "up side" is that even after I do the private pay, I can continue the appeal process with my insurance company, and hope to get reimbursed, eventually. Anyway, just thought I'd "update" you all, since I have no doubt this community will be a source of support for years to come. =) Jonathan

Back on track ... =) I'm coding a way for you all to update your own weights on the "Weight Loss Challenege" website. Bear with me for a couple of days and it'll be up and updated. http://www.waistingaway.com/wlc Oh, and I'm up 2 lbs. I got a 1 cc fill on Thursday, but as of yet, it's worthless. Jonathan

Wow. I think it's amazing that so many people stick up for the Molding Clinic. What's interesting is that most of the people that do so have 1 post. Imagine our luck! They stumble upon our site, find a post about the place where they had their procedure at, then they take the time to post about how wonderful Adres is (they always mention this -- he must be awesome) and how perfectly everything went there. Most of them never post again. Again, how lucky we are that they just happen to find the posts about Molding Clinic and are able to offer us their (wonderful) experiences before leaving without ever posting another message. Lucky lucky lucky are we!

I'm unfilled (and haven't been banded for 6+ months like you asked, but thought I'd chime in anyway) and I could drink 16 ounces in a few seconds. I only say this to point out what's possible if you have no fill whatsoever and don't have any natural restriction. Jonathan

Anyone?

Welp, confession time! I'm up a pound. That's actually better than I thought it would be. I get my first fill on Thursday, and I'm definitly going through the "last meal" stage again. But, screw it. Thursday will be here soon =)

Yeah, it's all just whole numbers But look at it this way -- you're only .1 lbs away from showing a 1 lb loss =) If only they were all like that!!

236? Last week you reported 237, so that would be a loss, not a gain!

It's just a body fat test. When you determine what your body fat is, you can determine what your lean muscle mass is. Let's say you weigh 300 lbs, and your body fat is 50%. That means you have 150 fat pounds, and 150 lean body mass pounds. If you lose 100 lbs (now weighing 200 lbs) and then are 20% body fat, you have 160 lean body mass lbs, and 40 fat lbs. So, even though the scale shows you've lost 100 lbs, you've really lost 110 lbs of fat, and put on 10 lbs of muscle. (At least, that's how the measurements work.) Keep in mind that scales that do body fat measurements work on hydration levels in your body, so you need to use them at the same time every day (hoping for the same hydration level) for them to be accurate over any short periods of time. (I'm sure the one at the doctor's office is of a higher quality, and thus more accurate than a $40 scale you'd buy for home.) The caliper tests are pretty accurate if the person using them knows what they're doing. And, of course, the submersion tests are very accurate. Jonathan

It's TOTALLY your choice. You do what you think will help YOU the most -- not what you think will help US the most.

Ok! That'll work. =)

We now have 25 participants. I still need to hear from Becca, Betty, Illsucceed and Nancy, unless I've either missed their posts, or didn't know they already replied under their username (and I didn't know their real name). I think next time I'll just use the usernames instead of real/nick names. Jonathan

March 10th? We're doing weekly Monday weigh-ins, and the end date is June 1st.

I want to root for Anthony, but he was off tonight. They were too nice to him. He had pitch problems the entire time (even the final note) and I don't think he "brought it back" at all. I think Bo was the best tonight -- I just don't know if rock 'n roll can get it done over all. I'm interested to see how he does when he's forced into some other genres. My suspiscion is that he'll pull it off. But I do have to say, I'm utterly in LOVE with Carrie Underwood.

I watch it, but I'm a little more interested in the girls =)

Whoops.. just missed the post I guess =)

Done =) We're up to 18. Becca, Becky, Betty, Illsucceed, Jamie, Nancy, and Wade all need to check in. Jonathan

I have everyone's weight in that has posted it. Hey guys, if you think of a feature that would be cool to add to the display, let me know... I'm enjoying the development. You can now sort by name, weight, or weight loss, just by clicking the table header. I've also added other stats, like total weight lost, average per person, etc. You can view the challenge info by going to: http://www.waistingaway.com/wlc Jonathan

I'll update it. All that matters is your starting weight for the CHALLENGE, which will be 262. Great job so far, by the way =)

But there's so much handicap to having that Y chromosome everywhere else :cool: There's the selective hearing loss, the inability to change diapers, etc. =) The *99 side-challenege is a go, Zoe =) I hope we both tie...soon!

Ok, it's updated with what I have so far. Some of you indicated your weight to the tenth's. I always omit the decimal when I report my weight. So, as long as I'm 299.9, I'm 299. That's the way I wrote the software -- using integers instead of floats (er, that just means it won't accept the decimal places). I can change it, if people want me to... Jonathan

I'll have the site updated sometime shortly after lunch. =) Maybe before even...

I'm up 5 :cool: I need a fill, badly. 315 for me. Jonathan

I wrote a new mambo component (mambo is the content management sytem I use on my website) to handle a weight loss challenge. You can view my "test data" here: http://www.waistingaway.com/index.php?option=com_wlc&Itemid=50 or go to http://www.waistingaway.com and click on "Weight Loss Challenge". Like I said, if you want, we can just link to this. It will be easy for me to update, since it's all done through a control panel. In fact, if Paula wants to help, I can give her access to it and she can update it too -- or I can do it, I don't care. =) Having the list here would be nice too, but HTML is turned off, so we wouldn't be able to use tables to make it pretty. Trying to import an excel spreadsheet might work, but I'm not sure if the spacing would look right. But, whatever =) Jonathan

Since everyone keeps saying "what rules do we want" and nobody's saying what rules we want, I'll start with an idea, and you can all tell me to be quiet. (That's how the male-female relationship works at my house anyway =) ) I suggest we do monday morning weigh-ins. You can either start your weight at whatever your weight is monday morning, or you can start at "0" if you don't want to disclose your weight. Then each week, we'll keep track of your weight and the weight change, or, just the weight change, depending upon your personal preference. June 1st is a Wednesday, so we'll have the Monday weigh-in that week, then a final weigh-in Wednesday morning. If you guys want, I can set up a page on my website with everyone in the challenge and update the challenge on a weekly basis. Then maybe we can sticky this thread, put the link on the first post in it, and use it to update. That way when you click on the thread, you need only click on the link in the first post to see the current status. Are any other "rules" needed? Jonathan