vinesqueen

I'm such a cry baby. Your post made me cry Megan. I need a new dog. My DH isn't too happy with that, but I NEED one.

Hey Campers! This last Friday Victoriana (Kathleen) and I had a great time crawling the Pike Place market. We had a great time, and I figured that we had such a great time, if we had more bandsters with us next time it would be even more fun for the next outing! I'm not working right now, and I thought it would be fun to play tourist in our home town. Any takers?

Jack said it all, Aliens abducted me.... (of course, that's about the only way I'm ever gonna lose weight....:faint:)

Sorry Cindyn, I haven't read any bandster book. I do know that you will find a wealth of information about the band here on LBT that you will not find in any one book.

Yes Alex, you got it right. That's a great NSV Alex, sorry you still have hpb but now you are not afraid to face it.

I don't know how you find her Penni. I figure that the best parts of your grandma are already part of your character. I know that when I set about to create the mother I needed, the mother I became, I made a mental list of all the things that I wanted, that I needed, the mamma that I wanted for my spudboy. Perhaps it would be helpful for you to make a list of the qualities you loved most about your grandma, the qualities you miss most. It's possible that you need to do this not for yourself but for someone else. I know that your grandchildren are not physically close to you. Perhaps you need to "adopt" one? I know that I am an adopter. While I only gave birth to one child, I needed more than just my spudboy, so I've always adopted all children that come into my life. All my son's friends are my surigate children, and while I was in exhile, my friends' children became "my" children. I don't know how you will find her Penni. I only know how I found my mamma. Some people feel that when loved ones depart this plane of life, people who especially love us become our guardian angels.

Uhm, Kelly, surely you don't mean "cesspool." Although I'm sure I'm full of BS a great deal of time. Oh and I am certianly not someone with "infinite wisdom" although you are so very kind so say that.

Wowie! Excellent work!

Oh Margo! How wonderful!

You are absolutly correct Elisabeth, most obese people do not have Cushing's. But I have to wonder how many of my Turtle Tribe do. On my Cushing's board we have been discussing this. We wonder if it is so rare only because it is so hard to get a diagnosis. Because so many people who've had Cushing's for years but were never diagnosed because they didn't "look" like they had it. Anyway, if you are not losing, and doing everything PUSH for answers. If your doctor doesn't know, don't let him or her push it back on you. Demand answers, and dont let them insult you.

Penni, if you are looking that hard for her, she must have meant so much to you. And that is a wonderful thing. I was raised by wolves, as you know. I never got the love a child should recieve from her mother. What I so desperately needed and wanted, my mother could not provide me, for what ever reason. So what I did was to become the mother I needed. To heal from my horrific childhood, I became the loving mother that I needed for my son. In being the mother I wanted to have as child for my son, I became that mother for myself. Perhaps you can internalize all the best things about your grandmother, and become your own grandmother even as you are grandma. Give yourself the love you need.

that was the funny thing about the drummer, I wasn't dancing for them, I didn't pay they any attention, since they were there for me. I danced for the other women in the class, the students, the instructor and the guests. It was very intimate, yet not at the same time. I made each woman there feel like I was dancing just for her, with her. Bringing her into my world, sharing my love of dancing with her. Oh, and today I have a job interview of sorts. I IM'd a former boss and told him he needed me. Oh and Jessie, belly dancing can be slow and gentle, it isn't all shimmies and swords. It really is something that women of all fitness levels can do. In my current class there are a couple of women who are close to 300 pounds, and the beginning class has even more larger women in it.

Hi Skinnimini, it sounds like you might want to get just another bump in your fill level. You are not doing that badly you know. We, as bandsters, sometimes get a distorted view of what we "should" be eating. I think partly this comes because we've spent more than a month on very little. A good rule of thumb for protien is about the size of your hand. That's your entire hand without the fingers, same thickness.

Did you pick up the scales and hit him in the head? Of course the damn scales lie, that's all they do. This is so personal for me. I've been accused of being a lier about my food and my excersize, because I gained 10 pounds in a week at 1000 and only lost 1.5 pounds the month I was at sub 700 calories. There is a recognized condition called Cushing's, and one symptom is unexplained weight gain, another is the inability to lose weight. I'm so tired of doctors and everyone else using the scale to beat-up on us. The next time he does this, accuse you of lying, you get pissed off! How dare he do that to you.

VOtt, from what many recommend, try to get by with as few fills as possible. The point of the band is not restriction, it is weight loss. I don't know what your stats are, or how long you've been banded, so I don't know that I can offer anything that is meaningful. Wendy, it sounds like you are too tight. If you cannot eat what you are supposed to eat, you are too tight. Of course you start eating crap when that is all you can eat. Ice cream goes down all to well, and it is a comfort food as well. The sugars and fat have an effect on us, and we really do feel a lift when we eat it. We might feel like crap after eating it for a varitety of reasons, but we feel good when we are doing it. Please schedule an unfill, and get yourself back on track. Tippytoes, trust me when I say I understand. I want you to understand that this is not your fault. You are doing everything you can think of and you are not seeing the restults you have every right to expect and demand. And if your doc is upset, well too effin' bad for him. You are doing what you need to do, so it's his turn to step up to the plate. Start pushing for answers. It might be a metabolic issue, it might be your thyroid or something else. If your doctors push back, then you push back harder. It is NOT normal to work as hard as we do for no results.

Very interesting thread Sue. Thanks for starting it. I don't know if things have clicked for me, but I have yet to lose any real weight. I'm down 15 pounds in a year. And I find myself gaining weight on 1000 calories a day, or lose when I increase with days over 1600, lose at the same rate as when I went to sub 700 calories. I'm a conundrum. I find myself slipping into drinking while I eat when I dine out. But I do it conciously, something that I choose to do. When I eat at home, I don't drink while I eat, and I almost always wait to drink after eating. Sometimes I need a small sip to clear my palate after some foods. But this last year I've some some very painful soul searching. I've made some painful discoveries, things that I knew, but didn't want to look at. I had to go to painful places that I think were every bit as painful as the original pain. Sometimes we have to lance a boil before it will heal. I feel like I've lanced some painful psychic boils that were festering on my soul. Old wounds that never healed right, that had to be re-opened. It's entirely possible that once I have a cure that it will turn out that I never needed the band to lose weight. Most folks with Cushing's drop their weight quite fast after they are cured. A few need to have extra help, but they are the exception to the rule. I have gained my health back with the band. My asthma is all but cured, something that I was sure was going to kill me. And death by resperatory failure isn't terribly pleasant, I was on my way to a slow and lingering death. I spent far too long in hospitals and home with the only treatments being oxygen therapy and breathing treatments, still I would get out of breath trying to catch my breath. I worry that if I were to lose my band that lingering death would once again be my future. I wish I had a certian bright future. But right now I'm faced with more questions. The promice of being thin following the band was false. For me anyway for now.

GeezerSue pissy???? No, it couldn't possibly be true (you KNOW I love ya' Sue! he he) And then there is me. The band won't help me lose weight, and I'm sure that a bypass/malapsorption type of procedure would not help either.

oh Lisa, honey, I wish you were having an easier time. I really, really wish that. It is so hard when we are raised by insane parents. The damage it does lasts forever. It is flat out amazing that we are as functional as we are. I'm astounded that my son is not damaged beyond repair, he's got his own issues, but he is not damaged. And that is my miricle I suppose. He is kind and strong and wise beyond his years. I look at him and know that I'm not as damaged as I could have been. I have seen you with your animals Lisa. I have seen the love and devotion you have for those in your life. I know that you love deeply and passionately. I know your love for your daughter, even as she is in the EU with her father and other family. I know that while you didn't give birth to her, she is as much your daughter as your own flesh and heart. Because she does have your heart. Lisa, my dear, I wish you could love yourself just half of what you love others. Because you must love yourself to survive and heal your physical damage. And you must because there are so many lives, people and animal, who need your love and energy. But you must heal more than your physical, you must heal your psyche, wounded as it was by the insane wolves we were forced to live with as children. I know that I protected myself by building armored shields around my core, I wouldn't make a noise while my mother would beat me, even though I knew it would anger her. But at those moments, I had power, she couldn't make me cry no matter how hard she hit me, no matter how much she made me bleed, she could force no sound from me. Lisa, you had the same power. You still do, you know. You were able to not only survive your childhood, but you thrived. How do I know this? I've met you, I've felt your energy. You did not let her destroy her then, you must not let her destroy you now. I was going to send this as PM, but I decided it would give your more strength, the more people who read your thread adding their positive thoughts and energy, helping to heal your heart

I wanted to be an astronaut, but they made fun of me because girls couldn't be an astronaut. So then I said I wanted to be a doctor like my Aunt, but they said that girls could only be nurses, that there was no such thing as a lady doctor. I think that was the closest I ever came to wanting to hit anyone as a child. In school (fourth grade I believe) we had to draw a picture of what we wanted to be as an adult, and since they wouldn't let me draw a woman astronaut, or a woman doctor, I drew a picture of a beautiful woman who's job hadn't been invented yet. A job that was nothing like a nurse, or a teacher or a secretary, the only jobs they said a woman could be. I am a security consultant. A job that didn't exsist when I was a child. And I'm beautiful. So there!

I know we've had this conversation several times. Some people have who were not hungry in the mornings, too tight, etc., yet wide open at night tried an experenment where they made sure they were eating breakfast, lunch and afternoon snack reported that they were less hungry and less "wide open" at night than they were if they basically only ate dinner. Several bandsters took experimented with that and discovered that they had more evenly restricted throughout the day. And I have no doubt that blood sugar levels have something to do with this as well

I'm in the process of dismantiling my life in Idaho. *heavy sigh* I still don't have any test resutls back from a week and a half ago. I don't know when I'll get the results. I was told by the nurse to not call and ask for the results. They will be mailed out when they are mailed out. I spent an hour crying tonight in frustration. I'm not here very much right now. I'll be doing a bit of lurking, but I just don't have anything encouraging to say. I feel angry, and petty and pissed off in general. I'm not dealing well with the rabbits or the winded wabbits either. Not well at all. I just feel like I can't be supportive of anyone here right now, so I'm just going to concentrate on packing up my apartment right now.

Okay, I just got a phone call from OHSU, and they've moved my appointment up to 4/24! Woot! I also was thinking about how much I hate to wait for my life, so today I decided that I wasn't going to wait. I just sent an IM to one of my old bosses and basically told him to schedule a job interview for me. I'll see him next week.

Well, we have one at the Bandster bash in Vegas, but other people just post what they have available. Some folks have suggested setting up a freecycle sort of forum, which would be pretty cool. :scared:

:scared: May the cities in your wake burn like candles on your cake!