SpecialK

Sorry I missed our gathering but I've been working to get my Mom a new little puppy and it turned out that Valentines Day was the day she woke up and saw an ad in the paper, we went and checked him out, bought him, went to the pet store and dropped a chunk getting all the stuff he needed, and then had fun taking him to her home to get all settled in. It was a fun day. I think this will really fill a gap she has had from losing her husband back in August after virtually caring for him 24 hours a day due to his illness.

I have to say that when I read that Fenton said he has learned so much in the last year, I was jokingly thinking he meant all the girls talk we have on here about Victorias Secret push ups, and many other funny girls room only (usually) info. But seriously, I think he also meant learning a lot of great stuff about nutrition, exercise, friendship, support, and all that other mushy stuff we have been there for each other. So here's to more learning and growing every day!

I found myself a new In Front of the TV exercise to fit in while watching TV if I haven't made it to the gym. I have a Step Bench that is about 4 feet long and 12-18" wide and about 3-4" off the ground and I do step ups and step offs of this bench for about 15 minutes at a time and it really gets my heart going and my bodybugg detected this jumped my calorie burn up so that is going to stay there and Im going to try to get in extra steps and calorie burn doing this daily now even if I did make it to the gym. Pretty low impact on the knees which is something I needed. I figured if I got tired, I could sit and rest and then do another 10 minutes or whatever.

BrandNewLisa -- I'll swap with you... just kidding. I'm at the size 18/20 on the top and 22/24 on the bottom... I always thought I was Apple shaped and now I'm Pear shaped! Still not lacking in the top though just seeing the middle going down and down so I can buton things without gaps... sorry guys if that is TMI! With all the cardio type exercise I'm doing, my butt and legs are shrinking above the knees -- I almost didn't recognize my own legs and I can feel the air and space between them in my pants legs but alas I too fight the bigger belly thing. Anybody have really muscular lower legs due to having carried so much weight around for years? I'm hoping my calves will go down in size as the weight I carry keeps decreasing. I figure they've been bench pressing 300 lbs for awhile so they need time to decrease muscle mass.

Nice hearing from you Wildercrews. I think you are doing great. Sarah, I have noticed with the colder weather that I think the barometric pressure is exerting force on the fluid in the band and that is making me feel tighter when the atmospheric pressure is really high like when we had the coldest weather and things seem a little looser when it warmed up to 40-50 degrees and a low front was in the weather. I've heard of telling if its going to rain based on the ache in my knee but not being able to detect or forecast the weather due to my lapband. Ha Ha!!!!

Christine, May I ask if you are doing some Protein shakes to be sure you are supplementing and getting enough nutrition until this passes? I recommend strawberry milkshakes made with skim milk, frozen strawberries, splenda, and some Protein powder if that sounds good. I sometimes throw in a banana. I also have found a great protein mix that is orange flavored (called Fuzzy Navel) and I make Orange smoothies using Lite OJ that is low cal for 8 oz and use some ice cubes in it to make it nice and icy like a smoothie. Take care.

Congratulations Greg! You're doing fabulous! We need more guys to put their ideas and input in. Keep hanging in there. I'd love to see you in the April style show for Mt. Carmel and meet your family. I'm sure they are so proud of you they can hardly stand it as my family is for me too. I hit my 90 lbs this week.

Hi Amy! Congratulations on taking that first brave step to go to an information session. Yes, there are multiple bandsters on this forum and the thread under Ohio Forum which you posted on the Columbus thread here, is called NE 1 Banded at Mt. Carmel. Here is the link: http://www.lapbandtalk.com/f56/n-e-1-been-banded-mt-carmel-col-oh-31225/index92.html#post1141891 You'll find a huge amount of information about Mt. Carmel's program especially you'll hear that we all love Dr. Choban, Dr. Price and Dr. Miller as our surgeons and we are all doing great. I attend Mt. Carmel's Support Group on the first Monday of the month and the next one is March 2nd and its titled Chat with Choban for any one who wants to ask questions either pre-band or post band. Its at Mt. Carmel West at the Medical Staff Bldg which is just to the left of the Emergency Room entrance. The auditorium in that building on the first floor is where the meeting is. Second, there are a group of us bandsters who have formed a friendship and support circle and we meet at the Polaris Mall once a month in the food court area in the corner by Great Indoors and Chik-fil-A. There are people from Mt. Carmel, OSU, Riverside, Barix, and self-pay people so its a nice cross section. 2pm Feb 14th is the next meeting of that. Please feel free to PM me on this site to ask any questions you'd like to ask off-line. You PM someone by clicking on their username, and it will give you choices to send a personal message (PM). Good luck on your journey. I'm absolutely thrilled with my progress and if you dedicate yourself to this decision, you can be too.

Jamie, glad to hear that they verified what fill level you are at. Yes, I do think some docs doing fills aren't verifying what amount is in there before they fill but my doc withdraws what amount is in there to recheck the level and then adds that back in with the .25 cc or whatever adjustment he feels is needed based on my discussion of my eating capability. My restriction level now which is good for me allows me to eat about 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup of good solid Protein, or a fruit or something nutritious before I'm full. I can eat Soup or mushie type foods in greater quantity but I try to make sure I am eating whole foods as much as I can. Today I was able to eat 4 oz of steak in very tiny bites and about 3/4 cup of smashed sweet potato over more than an hour's time of eating and chewing very slowly. I took the other half of the potato and the steak home. I have had to learn to stop eating about 3 bites before I really think I'm full because if I eat until I feel full I am really over full. Surprisingly I tried to eat about 1/4 cup of raisins last night and I got way over full because it didn't occur to me they'd reinflate inside my stomach and plump back up to their grape size!

We meet at 2-4pm in the corner of the food court by Chik-fil-a and Great Indoors.

I'm trying really hard to hit my -100 lb mark by St. Patrick's Day -- my bandiversary. I'm at 89.6 now so I think its doable if I really keep my butt in gear on the exercise.

Lafs -- don't worry I have 10 cc in my 14cc band and I consider myself right at my sweet spot at this point and my doctor isn't concerned at all and in fact is thrilled with how I'm doing. I'm okay though that your doctor is being conservative and checking things to be sure -- that is a good sign of a good doc as far as I'm concerned instead of just filling and filling and not knowing if it really is okay. Tell him there are several of us on the lapband board at 10+ in our 14cc bands and we are doing great. I haven't heard of anyone at the max of 14 but 10-11 isn't unusual to hear about.

aJoneen.......................-1 75 pounds LOST! BrandNewLisa............0 evelas5000.................-.5 Desdemona..................0 Fenton........................-3 100 POUNDS LOST !! HarleyGirl.................. -3 75 pounds LOST! Hopeinapril................0 Lynn1215.....................0 NurseNiki...................0 Nycm00.......................0 Potatie.........................0 100 POUNDS LOST!! Scrappy_Friend......-3 150 POUNDS LOST!!!! SpecialK......................-2 Sugarbean..................0 100 POUNDS LOST !! Sharona......................0 stellabella...............-3.4 HALFWAY TO GOAL! Tess415......................0 Thin2bme................- 2 WestCoastMom........0 Wishin4......................0 Kpodski............-5

Actually I think the band tightening for those of us in these cold climates is maybe the Barometric Pressure exerting force on the band and making it swell -- kind of like air inside a balloon having more pressure exerted on it. When the barometric pressure is higher, I feel tighter.

I thought it was interesting how Bob and Jillian interjected comments when the returning contestants weigh ins were done and told them ... hey,it is what it is, now get to work!. And Jillian wasn't happy with her lady Aubrey I think, that said I think I build muscle weight and ... nope, you didn't burn enough calories for the calories you ate. Accept it and be thankful to be on the ranch to get the help you need.

Okay, I still splurged last night by fixing non-crust pizza and ate a good size portion but it tasted good to me and I haven't had pizza in maybe 3 months or more and it used to be a every Friday night thing where I'd eat most of the pizza by myself. I put pizza sauce in a pyrex dish (the sauce was 20 cal for 1/2 cup) and then put shredded mozarella cheese/italian cheese, then pieces of pepperoni on it and baked it until bubbly. Next time I do this I plan to make a personal size serving because I found I liked the taste but could have done with much less quantity if I had only made a smaller amount. I did weigh out the Doritos to get the package amount for 1 serving -- it was a miniscule amount of chips and really not worth it for the calories it took. So with my two weekend days of eating quite a few calories but also burning off more calories than I had eaten, I'm showing a maintain this a.m. and I'll take that. Keep moving everyone, I'm convinced the exercise is helping me mentally and physically. Yep, the arm batwings are definitely here for me too. I don't want to gross anyone out too much but when I had a particularly bad rash in those special areas, I took my own digital pictures and showed them to my doctor on my last surgeon visit. She said yes, this is a very good idea to document the rash problems and to talk to me about it because it will help you get approval for the panniculectomy portion of the surgery. So, be sure you mention this for the next year or whatever to your doctors if you're thinking of going the plastic surgery route eventually. I did see a show about a woman that had the full 360 body lift procedure and that looked excruiciatingly painful and I don't think I'm heading for that. Going to have to save money and do what I can in steps but my first goal is to have the insurance cover the tummy surgery. They will upgrade panniculectomy to tummy tuck at my hospital/surgeon and just charge you the slight upgrade in price but at least the rest is covered on insurance. I LOVED the SuperBowl game last night. Best and most exciting one I have seen in a long time with the game going down to the last seconds. I'd rather watch a game like that than a blow out score game any day.

Okay I did the Fenton-thing last night -- super buffet dinner with tons of delicious food but I tried to eat as small amounts of things as I could including only 1/3 of the slice of cheesecake that came for dessert after a dinner that started with a glass of white wine, prime rib, etc. etc. I did skip the rolls -- not worth it. So, the total for that one meal was 1200 calories. Beware, it adds up fast at a fancy dinner. Fortunately I had done over 3500 calorie burn yesterday with two big snow shoveling hours burning up alot but I still should have gone for less. My NSV this morning is that I'm wearing a pair of jeans for the first time in years and years. Yes, they buttoned up without having to lay on the bed to zip them. Woo hoo! Okay, gentle reminder for myself and others -- no big eating today for SuperBowl parties tonight. I looked at the small bag of Doritos I bought and it said 170 calories for a serving and I thought okay, for a special treat, then I read the bag has 3.5 servings in it and it isn't a very big bag! OMG! I am going to have to count out or weigh a serving to not eat the whole bag. Go Steelers!

Good to hear from you Sue. I havent' heard lately from GregW but he was close to 90 lbs last time he did check in. Hang in there. Go see Dr. Choban for a fill because it sounds like you aren't to your sweet spot on restriction yet. Take care and keep the faith.

Hi Denise. Hi. I'm 10 months post op now and down 87 lbs and thrilled. We have a local Columbus OH group of bandsters from several different practices including a few people who went self pay with Dr. Curry. Our next group meeting is at the Polaris Mall 2pm Feb 14 in the food court area corner by Chik-fil-A and Great Indoors. Great group and lots of support. PM me if you want more info. Kathy aka SpecialK

Tekdiva and any others new -- yes this forum has a ton of information but here is how I tackled it for my use and found it helpful. 1. Checked out all I could read under the Mt. Carmel thread since that was the surgeon group I was going with. 2. Checked out all the Columbus things I could find so that I could compare what folks going through Mt. Carmel, Barix, and OSU and self-pays said compared to what I was finding. 3. Checked out the Insurance thread stuff especially when I was going through the pre-approval stages. See what others were finding they had to do and how they got approved for surgery. 4. Pre-op surgery - all the things to especially consider right before surgery. 5. Post-op surgery - all the things to especially consider to be ready for just after surgery. 6. Monthly Support Groups -- we started a March 2008 band surgery group thread and there is one for each month now even the 2009 months. This group has been especially helpful because it represented a huge cross section of people around the US and other places too like Austrailia that were going through every step pre-op and post-op that I was since we had our surgery in the same time frame. 7. General Lapband Discussion thread - check this every so often as I have time. 8. The Pictures Only thread where people post their progress pictures -- this is huge motivation to me to see what it looks like visually when we are losing. 9. Plastic Surgery thread -- yes I know because of the amount of weight I have to lose I am going to need a tummy tuck and maybe some other things done to help my self confidence once I have lost weight. This thread gives you the full details and don't look if you are squeamish because they sometimes post pictures that are tough to realize its going to cause some pain to get to the end result. 10. BMI over 50 -- I thought it would help me to follow some with others who had well over 100 lbs to lose and I've occasionally done this but not that much really since the March group has several of us in that category and the Mt. Carmel and Columbus groups do too. I haven't found it as helpful to tie into other threads by religious group, age, or just the women, but some might. Whatever encourages you. I have to tell you I also joined Obesity Help and Thinner Times web forums and found myself always coming back to Lapbandtalk as my primary source of lapband only focused info.

I think Scrappy should start posting her exercise and food diary so we can follow her diet and exercise plan and start smoking the pounds off like she is. Congratulations. It is so encouraging to see all of us losing. My doctor was amazed at my progress and said I'm way ahead of the lapband average so she'd be blown away by some of you.

aJoneen........................-3 evelas5000.................. -.5 Desdemona.....................0 Fenton.........................-2 HarleyGirl.......................0 Hopeinapril.....................0 Lynn1215......................0 NurseNiki.......................0 Nycm00.......................-3 Yippee Potatie.........................-9 100 POUNDS LOST Scrappy_Friend..............-3 150 pounds lost SpecialK.......................-1 Sugarbean.....................0 100 POUNDS LOST Sharona........................0 Tess415........................0 Thin2bme......................0 WestCoastMom..............0 Wishin4........................0

Thanks for all the birthday wishes. I did have a good check up with Dr. Choban today, no fill adjustment needed because she is thrilled with how well I'm doing, she said you are way ahead of the curve for lapband patients. Keep working the tool. I see the docs next on March 16, right before my 1 year surgery anniversary. I told her I'm working to be at -100 by then. I had lost 12 lbs since about December 2 at my last tiny fill adjustment and she thought that was great. Very good encouragement.

I have seen some folks talk about their bodybugg but I never knew what they were looking at on the computer or how things worked so I will post some info here if you are interested. If not, skip on by. Fenton - I am a fanatical food tracker for the last 2 years and I am finding in the first two days that the Bodybugg website is pretty good on having the things I eat in their food catalog and they have the same capability my other tracker does where you can enter a food you eat, its nutrition label stuff, and then it keeps it in your favorites so you can keep reusing it. That speeds up entering Calories Consumed. For me, it is saying I could be eating about 2000 calories a day and my Calories Burned goal is 3000 calories a day for a net deficit of 1000 calories a day, or 7000 calories deficit in 7 days which should equal 2 lbs (3500 cal = 1 lb). So today, I had the big snowstorm to deal with too in Ohio so I worked at home sitting on my backside until about 10 am then went out and worked really hard shoveling snow for an hour and then came back in from about 11 am - 2pm and then went out and did about another hour shoveling from 3-4 pm then took a nap! Well, when I uploaded my Calories Consumed readings out of the Bodybugg I was pretty shocked to see how it had exactly picked up the time and effort level of me during the day...maybe this thing is accurate or at least 90% accurate is what they project. Anyway, I'll attach a sample food day listing so folks who want to see it can and a sample of the calories burned graph hour by hour thru the day.

Terri - that is a Great Idea about the Gold Card with the Shamrock behind it as the image. I will definitely try to see if she'd do it when I get there hopefully by my bandiversary on St. Patricks' Day.