phyllser

So can you get your fills in Vancouver?? Do you ever have to go to Toronto for followup?? My exercise this winter consists of water aerobics. When we head home I have to figure out how to get the exercise in... public pool? May see if my knees can handle treadmill and mayb try weight machines at our condo. I think they may frown on me doing water aerobics in the condo hot tub!! Our oldest daughter has an above ground pool, but can't imagine the water will ever be warm enough to get in before about August!!! :cheers2:

That's great news!! I am anxious to see my PCP when we get home and hoping for the same.... drop a BP pill & maybe one cholesterol Rx, too!! Congrats!! You're doing great!

Good Morning!! Well, you were up and "running" early this morning, as usual! We slept a little later than normal and took our time reading the morning paper and having some coffee, so we just finished breakfast 1/2 hour or so ago. No plans today except for the Seder Dinner at 4 pm. May go to the pool between now & then, but no vigorous exercise... maybe jog in the water... shoulder is feeling better so I'm going to pamper it a bit this weekend. Wanted to start using the weight machines but that might not be too easy on the shoulder either! Did grocery shopping yesterday and have lots of seafood for the next few weeks!! That Mahi Mahi on the grill was sooooo good! Did you see Green's post this morning...I think on the 50+ thread. Throat cancer... so sorry to hear that.

Hi, Doddie, Welcome! Jump right in... yeah, we take Canadians!! The more the merrier here!! Us old chicks gotta stick together!! So, am I understanding that you had your surgery in Toronto?? I grew up in Buffalo NY so quite familiar with Toronto. In fact, probably more so than Vancouver which is so close to where we live now. As you probably figured out, we are down in Southern California for the winter in an RV park where there are LOTS of Canadians... from BC, Alberta, mostly. There are around 2700 people in this park during the peak winter months and a very large majority are the Canadians, and folks from WA state, Oregon and a smattering from Idaho, Montana, ND and even a few from Alaska. But, people are already starting to head back north and there will be a traffic jam at the front gate on April 1!!

http://i227.photobucket.com/albums/dd150/phyllser/Peaches-Avatar.jpg I think if you go to the page where you edit our avatar & click on this link it should work.

Is this what you wanted??

Well, pasta is one of the things I really miss and it was a good substitute, though not as good as the real thing, but a nice change from our usual french style green beans. I might try some whole wheat pasta, too, to see how that compares to this. Atonement... I wondered if that was worth going to see. We'll need a list of movies to go see when we get back up to the rain!! :cheers2: Someone on TV said last night that squirrels are just rats with good PR!! :smile: We'll all be thinking of you on Friday!! Hope all goes well! Your new picture is great! You are sure lookin' good. My suggestion for making it smaller... upload it to PhotoBucket... they have tools there to do it. But, in the meantime, I'll see if I can copy/paste it and maybe I can do it with my photo software.

Lookin' GOOD, Kid!! My, you are YOUNG!! You really look great... how far to goal??

Green, My heart sunk when I read that. I'm so sorry! Your husband has really stepped up to the plate. That's a real blessing, to have him supporting you like that. Our thoughts and prayers will certainly be with you as you go throught this treatment. Keep us posted. We missed you!!

Those last few pounds are being stubborn, huh?? Stick with it... they'll come off. You're so close to your goal!!! That's great!!

I was looking at my rings today in the hot tub... thinking they will never get too big because my knuckles are swollen from arthritis. In the past, when I lost a lot of weight the rings would fall off!! Not any more! Yes, I think we had some of the pasta the next night... forgot to tell you. We had spaghetti sauce in the freezer so we had the pasta with that. It was very good! Thank you!

Hmmmm, that was yesterday...my memory is foggy but I think I got an email request. It is a boring evening here, too. Could've gone up to hear a barbershop quartet, but went shopping all afternoon, then wanted to sit outside on the patio for a while. So we had dinner late. Mahi Mahi on the grill with lemon & onion slices.... it was yummy. I don't think we ever cooked Mahi Mahi before. Very nice white fish. Also bought some smoked salmon for snacks and omelets. And, of course, scallops! Didn't eat enough fish this week, so we made sure we have plenty for the trip home. Messianic group/Christian Jews is doing a Seder dinner here tomorrow so we got tickets. Should be interesting. We went to one a very long time ago. I think normally lamb is served, but this one is going to be chicken.

Wow!! Very nice! You look great! We should've had Earl take a picture of the two of us last Saturday!

That's funny!! How old is he?? I have a nephew like that... but he's in his 30's. He loves the snow. Sitting on the patio with DH's laptop this afternoon! It's around 85. Weather report from home today is 34 degrees, snow, sleet, rain, hail!! Yiippee!! We will take our time driving home!! Maybe by mid April it will improve!! Daughter just says WAH, WAH, WAH when we complain!! It's been quite a winter up there! she & SIL are escaping to Cabo as soon as school is out. She works at the high school. We're supposed to "babysit" 18 & 19 yr old!! Yeah, right.... like nailing Jello to a tree, right!!???

Hey! Where is everyone today?? Haven't been able to get online most of the day, but sitting outside on the patio with DH's laptop now & pretty strong signal. Hope everyone is having a great day, and a GREAT Easter weekend to all. Bought the book "Eat This, Not That" today. Has anyone else read it?? I was reading it on the way home from Costco because we got stuck in contstruction traffic. I'll share little tidbits as I read it. Interesting info on calories, fat grams and sodium on favorite menu items from all the major restaurants. I was making a wrong choice at Panera Bread... Sierra Turkey sandwich is not as healthy as I thought it was! surprising stats on other places, also. five consecutive days of water aerobics took it's toll on my joints this week. I often have a day off if we go somewhere during the week, but lately we've been at the pool every morning. Last night I was having a lot of pain in my left shoulder. Had a rough night trying to sleep and struggled through my hour in the pool this morning. A little better tonight. Hate not being able to take NSAIDS!! So I bought some Glucosamine/Chondroitin today at Wally World. We'll see if that helps. I used to take it a long time ago but didn't seem to give me much relief.

Catching up on all the posts. We've had no internet most of the week. It's on again, off again, tonight, but enough to read posts on my threads and post a few entries myself. This is my MAIN support group... LBT, and I really miss it when I can't get on. Today is the 8 month anniversary of my surgery and I'm down a hair over 70 lb. Three fills, the last one Oct..29, and I'm scheduled to go in for one April 14 when we get back up north. Hope everyone is doing well.

No kidding!! They called today and now they are a little miffed at our neighbor across the street. I told them that the neighbors are in the process of moving in to one of the double wide mobiles so they wanted to know if they were going to sell the park model. I told them it is already sold! They had a few choice words to say as according to them, THEY were promised first dibs on the park model!! Some Canadians we don't know bought it after our other neighbors decided they couldn't take retirement funds out right now with the market in such a slump. So, we're not moving in to that nice spot we showed you either! Maybe something will come up in the fall when we come back. I'm back at LBT because my email is taking so long to download. Actually, I bet Microsoft is downloading a big nasty automatic update that is slowing down my system because it shouldn't take 3 hours for 188 emails to download!! That's probably what broke my internet browser earlier this week!! If it does it again I'm going to be plenty mad. I had to do a system restore and so I lost my tax software and just had to reload it! I'm ready to get outside and sit in the sun and have my wine and my afternoon snack!!! WAH WAH WAH!!!

Don't remember the brand name, but ours is from Target. I think we paid around $20-30. It doesn't do as much as Janet's does, but it's a pretty good one. Hi, Linda, thanks for missing me!! Internet here at the park has been pretty much DOWN all week. I'm at our park library using it now. seems to be working on this side of the park!! We leave for home April 1st.. but probably won't actually be there until the 15th. We're stopping at our son's for a few days in the bay area. Youngest daughter will be there with her family on the 6th, so we're celebrating DH's 65th birthday!! Then we're going on to Bodega Bay with them... about 50 miles north of San Francisco. We'll camp there until the 10th and then head home. But I have an appt for a fill on the 14th, so we'll stay in a campground south of Seattle to be closer to the dr's office and go home the next day. The winter sure went by fast!! Heard today that it's 40 degrees and raining in Seattle today! Go figure!! We will stay here longer next year!! Glad you're feeling better Janet! I'm afraid that walk in the cold wind Saturday night probably didn't help any!! I've been here for a couple of hours I think, catching up on my email, bills, Scrabble games!! So, sorry I don't have time to respond to ALL of you... I've had PAGES of posts to read and no time to check my other threads!! I MISS all of you when I can't get on here!! TTYL!! HUGS!!

Well, I can tell you what to say to them..... "No, thank you. I'm allergic!" (I break out in fat!) What you tell your head is more of a challenge. Try visualizing that..... I'm allergic, I break out in fat!!

She posted on another site yesterday, but I already forgot which one!! She did say she hadn't been on in a while. Did you try to send her a PM?? I just looked it up.... the "new 60+ thread" is where she was. She was asking about the symptoms of esophageal dilation.

Welcome, Dawnie! I was banded last summer, have since turned 64. I also live in WA state, but we spend the winter in southern CA. Welcome to this site. Also check out the 60+ site. Where did you have your surgery? Mine was in Seattle at Virginia Mason. Don't tell me about snow on the ground!!! We are headed home in two weeks and I'm afraid it's still going to be too cold up there for me!!! I'm spoiled!

Patti, As we all know so well, the battle is all in our heads!! You just have to decide to take control. Develop some techniques for coping with the temptation. Something you can do when the temptation comes, to put your mind on something else besides snacking. I definitely would find a way to have a healthy snack between that 7 a.m. breakfast and the 1:30-2:00 pm lunch. That's way too long between bandster meals! Your snacking later in the day may be triggered by feeling deprived earlier in the day. Can you have a small yogurt, cottage cheese, something around 10:30-11:00 to get you through to lunch. Something I use if I'm going a long time between meals is beef Jerky. One ounce of beef jerky is about 80 calories. That's something that doesn't have to be refrigerated. You can get some of those little zip lock snack size bags and measure out an ounce of beef jerky and throw it in your purse for mid morning. This is a journey that requires discipline and that's something most of us have never had! I read on another site that whether we "cheat" or we remain "on plan".... a decision we have to make... is it easier to cope with "depriving" ourselves of all those things we want to eat... or "depriving" ourselves of the healthy body we're striving for????? When you say you are eating a cup of food... what types of things are you eating? Are you concentrating on lean Protein... fish, etc.? I have about 4 oz of meat/fish, and usually steamed veggies. tonight... about 1/2 cup of macaroni/tuna salad, but normally not much starch in my diet at all. I have a small eggbeaters omelet with a little skim mozarella & shrimp or scallops for breakfast just about every morning. Fits on a saucer... and no toast, etc. Just the omelet. that's about 7:30 a.m. then around noon, usually a small salad... sorry to be redundant, but usually with shrimp or tuna again!! I like my seafood!! dinner, 4 oz meat/fish & veggies. For Snacks we buy lowest calorie chips & crackers we can find.. low fat potato chips (olestra doesn't bother me), or try to find baked tortilla chips. Mid afternoon snack I will have chips or crackers... weighed out... if it says 1 oz chips for 130 calories, I have 1/2 oz and 1-2 Tbsp of salsa or chip dip. with chips and crackers, I usually have half the amount it says for one serving. That way I can have the dip or salsa, too and keep the calorie count down because I'll tell you quite honestly that I'm sipping a small glass of merlot with it~~! In the evening I sometimes have 1/4 cup of cottage cheese, low fat, with 1/2 of one of those little individual cups of mixed fruit or sugar free applesauce sprinkled with a little cinnamon. and that's pretty much my life. If I'm tempted to munch and can't live without having something, my bag of beef jerky is within reach. So.... that's my life where food is concerned. We DO go out to eat sometimes... you HAVE to make healthy choices even if it means you're sitting there eating salad while everyone else is having mashed potatoes and gravy and you want some too!!! If I start to feel really deprived, my DH is always willing to let me have one bite and that satisfies me. And Desserts.... the now famous "Phyl's THREE BITE rule"!! Sometimes it's only one bite, but no more than THREE. The other thing that's really important.... exercise. Are you getting any?? I'm doing Water aerobics 5 mornings a week. We're snowbirds and in a nice warm climate for the winter (well NOT today, but usually it's nice and warm!!), but we head home in two weeks, so I'm getting my head ready for that. I have to find another way to exercise when we get there and I don't have my nice warm pools available! I'm going to try weight machines at our condo, and maybe see if I can do some treadmill time... bad knees!! AND, I'm going to get the knees evaluated next month, too, so maybe I can get back on my feet more. We're here for you, Patti. Please feel free to share your struggles as well as your triumphs!! We're all in this together! We gain strength from one another. Hugs!

Hi, Gang, Quiet day here today. Hope everyone had a great weekend. Enjoyable visit with Janet yesterday. DH cooked us a great dinner!! Now looking forward to seeing her, and some of you, in July at the Mall of America July #7s Bandiversary Getaway! That should be fun! Researching hotels on Expedia today. I came up with some options, but wondering if we have specific needs/wants. Noticed a lot of the hotels are Non-Smoking! Not good for Janet. And not too many have a restaruant/bar/lounge and we may want that for evening... unless we have a "party room". Most seem to have indoor pools/hot tubs/exercise rooms. Many have continental breakfast, some have full breakfast included. Often the "continental" breakfast includes Cereal, yogurt, bagels, fruit, though... not necessarily coffee and danish/donuts. I've also been researching travel... about figured out that Amtrak may be as cheap as driving. DH will probably come with me as we will go on to Buffalo to see family. So, with the stop in Minneapolis, Amtrak will be cheaper than flying, even if we upgrade to a "roomette". I'm getting excited about this!! Can you tell??? :party::tt2:

Yeah, you've been gone a bit!! Where ya been??? Glad to see you back. Esophageal Dilation?? I don't know. You're having trouble with PBing?? Too tight?? when was your last fill?? Jiggle my memory----- you were banded in July, too, right?? So what else is going on? I'm still in the desert but heading north in a couple of weeks. It's so cold down here this weekend, might as well be home!!

Hi, Linda, Thanks for the compliment! Welcome to this site. You can get a ticker at tickerfactory.com. Setting it up on the site is pretty easy but then the trick is getting it here. There is a tutorial on this site somewhere, but I'm not sure how to get to it. Here's my two cents... when you finish your ticker there will be several boxes of "code"... you pick the one that says "bbc code" and right click, "copy" then come here to "edit signature", when your little edit box pops up, right click in the box and "paste", then save and you should have it. If you want a fancy glitter name, I think I had better luck with sparklee.com than with the glitter site.