JustWatchMe

Pray for me banders. This Tuesday my lawyer thinks we may be able to come to a settlement. We've been meeting every week or two for negotiations. Mr. Wonderful is ramping up the crazy and his attorney is having difficulty with him, but 3 out of the 4 of us want to avoid a trial next month (jerk still doesn't believe the divorce will happen). I've spent the last two weeks scanning family (baby) photos to turn over originals to him. Emotional much? Tuesday is the big money issues. He lies like a rug, as my mom used to say. Trying to figure out the proper dollar figure to cut my losses and walk away. Anyway, haven't eaten over any of it. Not a bite. Thank God for my band. Food has not been an issue. I've been in the high 180s all month which is my lowest since surgery. Working my OA program, I haven't indulged in comfort eating. I'm so grateful.

I'm at a crossroads in my life. I've been at one before, many years ago. Back then, I went back to college, finished my degree, dropped 130 pounds, changed careers, and got married. Now, 24 years later, I've had WLS, dropped 100 pounds, am getting a divorce, and am wanting another career change. Problem is, I have no idea what I want to do. People ask me what my "passion" is. I haven't a clue. For 21 years I've been a mom. Now my little chicks are flapping out of the nest, and both will be graduating college over the next 18 months. I'm on my own and will soon be buying my own home as a single woman. I'm 54 years old. I feel like it's time for me to figure out what I want to do. I just don't know where to begin.

I was considering a fill last fall. I was gaining weight and even able to eat a lot of fried and carby and junk foods. But I talked to my nurse practitioner, and together we decided that I would try to clean up my food plan first and see if that made a difference. Well, lo and behold, here's what happened. I gave up fried foods. I gave up my carby meals. I eliminated alcohol.I changed back to eating lean Proteins and green veggies. Restriction returned and I have been losing weight. After one and a half years of being banded, I finally had to start working hard at losing weight. The first year and a half, it came off easily. The band was doing all the work for me. I could've been eating nothing but fried chicken and would still have lost weight. But after that first hundred pounds, the scale would not budge. Except it did budge. It started to go back up. Anyway, moral of the story is, I am living breathing proof that cleaning up the food plan helped bring back my restriction. I am quite tight enough. Matter of fact, if I swallow my salad or meat too quickly I get stuck.I hope to keep my band for a long, long time. In order to do that, I need to work with it, not try to eat around it.

Love

I relate to every word of the post about the college tour. Pre-surgery, I walked a college tour with my eldest and was dying. It was at the University of Iowa. The makeup was sliding off of my face. Iowa is all hills. I was at least a block and a half behind the rest of the parents, including my husband. It was humiliating.

Repeat mammogram and ultrasound are A-OK. There is a calcification in a blood vessel which is common with - you guessed it - age! Not anything to worry about. Routine follow up in a year with my regular mammogram. Very very happy!! Next: deal with the other "boob" at the lawyer's office tomorrow!

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I subscribed to too many threads and can't keep up. So I'm just visiting the participated ones. In the last week I've met with the wasband twice in the lawyer office for negotiations (he's being a complete obstructionist a-hole), got in (caused) a minor car accident (no injuries), have been borrowing my mother's car, and got a callback for a repeat mammogram and ultrasound (tomorrow morning before work). My eldest daughter has been traveling the country looking at graduate schools (looks like she will choose Emory in Atlanta) with her boyfriend who is going to grad school in Atlanta as well; they plan to share an apartment. Emotionally I'm a mess, but I'm getting lots of support from my friends and 12-step programs. Here's the amazing part: my food is clean and my weight is 188-189. The constant in my life is my LapBand. I can't believe it but the constant in my life is my eating/food/weight loss. I am so grateful for this gift of WLS. I thank God every day I made this choice. In a few weeks my excellent insurance will be gone. My company insurance is lousier and costlier than what I have now. I'm so glad I did this when I did.

This is very inspirational. Fabiola, you are beautiful!!!

I'm glad you're ok. Get checked.

Still showing 2003 thread.

Jane, I'm glad it's behind you!

Stay in touch with your bariatric team. Follow the food plan and don't worry about the weight right now. At four weeks it's all over the map. If you eat the way they tell you, the weight will start coming off. Good luck.

Never ever ever give up on yourself!

Sheesh. Until I read this, I never thought about it, but three family members have died at home in my mother's house where I live right now. My grandmother, my aunt and my dad. Right in the room I'm sitting in as a matter of fact. Not natural causes (stroke/cancer/ALS). I'll bet lots of homes have had owners die at home.

Debbie, your transformation is amazing. Liz, you nailed it when you promised yourself you won't leave the boards. As you guys know, I stalled for a year (yeah, I know a year is technically not a stall) and then gained a little over ten pounds before I was ready to get my sshit together. I wasn't ready until I was ready. But once I was, miracle of miracles, my band was as reliable as ever. In December I cleaned up my food. I dropped the crap that I knew was causing my weight gain. Dumped the fried everything. Dumped the movie crapcorn. Focused on p rotein instead of bread and p asta. Alcohol was already gone. I tracked the food honestly and even bought a kitchen food scale and used it. I faced the truth about what I was eating. And the truth was that I was regularly eating over 2000 calories a day. No way was this old shot-metabolism, zero-exercise body going to lose weight on that amount of calories per day. Slowly I got my calories down to approximately 1100-1200 per day. I've gone from 204 down to 189 since December. It's been slow but it's coming off. And that "tightened" my band without an additional adjustment. Funny how this contraption works. Feed it lean solid p rotein and no sliders for a couple of weeks and restriction comes back. Don't give up on yourself. I don't know why I stagnated for a year. Furthermore I don't know what emotionally kicked my butt into reenergizing. I have my theories, but today the reasons are less important than the success I am experiencing. It feels good to feel good again. You will too.

Talk to your surgeon. Don't put your fingers down your throat ever again. Retching to throw up food can cause a band slip. That's serious.

Is the new iPhone app out yet? Do I need to uninstall and reinstall when it's released? Can I get it from the link at the bottom of this site? Eager for the conversation reply fix.

Take care of you. I'm divorcing now and self care is my focus. I'm so grateful every day for the resources I have: dear friends; a good lawyer, a therapist, CODA and OA. I need them all. My WLS was the first step I took in self care before I filed for divorce.

You'll get there. But if you're like me, then it will bounce back up over 200 briefly. Now that's frustrating. My advice is the very first day you see 199.9, don't weigh yourself again for another week. And the day that you do, make sure you have not had anything salty the night before and that you have had plenty of water the day before. That 199-200-199 bounce was enough to drive me mad.

It's suddenly slow loading posts for me too. iPhone 6. Noticed it yesterday. And some double posts due to hanging.

I'm so glad there's a solution on the horizon!

I'm so sorry.

Happy dance!!!