coolcrystal

What insurance do you have? Do they require five years of showing you are obese?

Call me paranoid, I'm a little nervous to talk to anybody about this for fear of retaliation or something...

I totally agree!! Dr. Phil is SO irritating!!

I've known people who have had both. And, I'm going to tell you right now, the people who've had the lapband were always satisfied with it and healthy.. the ones who had the bypass surgery hated it, were sick all the time and suffered issues from having it. I can't tell you either way to go, only what I have been told. The lap band does have maintence, ie, fills, but, in the long run, the bypass friends have either gained their weight back and are suffering serious issues or are still slim, and suffering with issues.

After keeping track of my calories for a week, I was between 1900-2500 cals a day, but I'm not banded... I'm hoping to stay between 900-1200 if I do get banded.

I never get popcorn at the movies.. usually just a drink.. but, perhaps you can get a small Icee... it's like a small frozen treat and I believe it would be considered liquid. I know several theaters that serve them. I'm not a big fan of the popcorn, so I can't relate to that temptation luckily. To save money I prefer to not buy any food items there. Too dang expensive now.

Thank you! Curious, I think Peanuts are loaded with protein, right? I've been eating a lot of these lately when I crave bread. Do you feel this is a good idea to help me get over the carb issue? I don't know why, but the peanuts sort of help with the cravings.

I'm not sure how to post links here, but if you go to the Insurance section/forum, there is a great thread about Your Aetna Experience (or something to that affect). I'm going through Aetna too, but sadly, I think it depends on who reviews your file, what mood they are in.. etc. LOL.

Man, I feel dumb... this is the "knockout" forum. LOL I just thought this was "before" pictures for everybody. It would take an act of god for me to get banded in January, so I'm not a January Knockout.. I'm sorry :-(

I know this sounds really dumb, and I don't know how much I believe it or not, but it is said that Virgo's have really bad immune systems and suffer with more ailments than other signs.. I don't know if I believe all that, but I look at all the ailments and crap I have and how hard it is for me to even get over a cold. My mother-in-law and best friend, both Virgo's, are also in the same boat. Have lots of ailments and don't heal easily, etc... so, I'm just curious if there are any Virgo's out there that did well with the band.. have lost good weight and healed up nicely with their scars. I'm not really the supersticious type, but it would be nice just to see... If you are a virgo and didn't do well on it, please post too.. Thanks!

I'm from Texas and the DFW area too! Which doctor is doing 9500??? That's not bad at all~!

Thank you so much! I really hope I can get this done in February! The way I've calculated it, my ins. has a month to approve it, and my doctor office said they can get me in fairly quickly and I'm going to go ahead and start the south beach phase one (which is what he requires to shrink the liver) in february wether I'm approved or not, that way when and if I get the approval I can say "lets do it now". Of course, this is only a dream of mine. LOL. It rarely works out like this.. I might not get approved... they might require more information... the doctor might be too booked for february.. so many factors.. But, it's my goal.

Wow! that makes me feel so much better now! Lots of virgo's who have been successful with their bands! awesome!! Thanks all!

Wasa, I have hypoglycemia as well which is why I pretty much call myself a breaditarian. LOL. I tried to stop eating bread a while back and felt sick and was shaking really bad and ate some grapes, which helped and then went back to the bread. Do people start having like delirium tremmons and stuff when they cut bread out completely? This is my only concern with being banded.

Wow, not even one virgo has responded or read this it looks like. LOL. Should I be worried?? well, it's only been about an hour.. geesh, maybe I'm just talking to myself. :cool:

I'm curious.. when I was slim I still had a full C Cup breast. Now at 290 I wear a 42D or a 42DD (can't remember what this one is), but I wonder if I got down to like 150-160 if I'll never get less than a C, since I still had a pretty large breast size when I was 125??

He meant seven bites of food is your meal; and this was in regards to losing weight. He was saying if you stick to 7 bites per meal then you will lose weight and feel full and not have as big of a chance of pb'ing. But he also stated that it's different for everybody.. but, my doctor does not give aggressive fills. He starts off slow. Some people can have 15 bites and some might only be able to do 2 bites if they are tight.. everybody's banding experience I'm sure is different.

This is very true. I have a lot of large friends and some slim friends and for my wedding I had asked the girl I knew the longest since we were kids to be my maid of honor.. well, she happens to be in really good shape and about 125 pounds. After she left my big friends made derrogitory comments about her being a "skinny waife" and "no wonder she's your maid of honor, becuase she's skinny".. like insinuating that I only picked her for that reason, even though the other girl I picked was 215 pounds. It had nothing to do with weight! Many times my bigger friends have done this towards skinnier people.

This is so weird, I don't know if its the forum or my computer, but for some reason I can only see this thread. This happened a bit ago on another thread, so I completely shut down and logged back in and clicked on this thread and it let me in so I thought the issue was solved, but its doing it again only with this one now... UGG... This has never happened before.. does anybody know what it could be?

Have you tried a fruit smoothie with some protein powder in it? That might fill you up for a while in the morning and you can sip on it for a pretty long time too.

Weird, no matter what I click on , I only get this thread... I guess there is a bug in my system or something. LOL. I've tried clicking on aobut 12 other threads in other forums and I still get this thread... HA HA

Here is me! All 290 poundages of me :-) I'm wearing funny outfit because I do rennaissance festivals, and this was a gathering, hence the hat and odd clothing.. LOL

I'm almost 5"4''.. right in the middle, so I'm quite a bit shorter than you are, which is why 290 on me is really becoming a nuissance on my knees and back. Me and my hubby were pregnant when I was about 250 and I had a miscarriage due to the weight issues, so, the doc would like me to be between 150-165. I think I could be fine to get pregnant at like 190'ish. I'm 34, so if I can get approved for my band and get it done in like February, I'm hoping that I can lose enough to get down to a good weight for pregnancy in a year. Which would put me at 35. My sister just had a healthy baby at 40, so if she can do it, I think I can do it at 35. LOL. Let's hope :-) Oh, it's funny, a week before Christmas, I was at Hancock's getting a bunch of material to make ornaments and I looked like crappola big time.. My face was broken out.. I had no makeup on.. and get this.. I wore my slippers in. HA HA... and the lady carded me since I paid with credit card. I go in all the time when I'm in my work clothes and the same lady never cards me.. but I look COMPLETELY different when I'm all wearing my relaxed stuff.. it was so funny. I said, "you never card me when I look good" and sort of giggled and she said, "well, it's procedure" and I said, "it wasn't procedure when I was here last week".. No comment.

I don't know if this will help or not, but my doc said "seven bites is the magic number". He said if you stick with 7 bites, and chew well, nothing will ever come up. It might be different with everybody though.