Wheetsin

They're based one state over from me. Seeing them once was too many times. At our last AIDS walk, they were trying to spit on (apparently) gay couples that walked by.

Something to the effect of, "You're 10 years old, why do you care?"

You have to consider generational differences. The differences are a little more obtuse each generation you go. I graduated from highschool in 1993, and I know that some of the stuff we were wearing would have been under scrutiny by people in your generation, just as what people wore in the 80s was by the prior generations, and the 70s, and... Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I like it. I'm not saying it doesn't bother me to see child's size thongs. But I'm also just barely young enough to remember telling my mom, "It's just in style! All the girls are wearing them!" and understanding that often a few bad apples really do ruin it for the whole bunch. Maybe we're at unprecedented levels of the "deal" that's made about it, because of how our society is now. Probably we're at (not unprecedented, far from it, but just tabooed for a while) sexual activity among minors, and definitely we're at an unprecedented levels of awareness of our society's sexual deviants. All of that changes the intetions involved... the intentions behind some people's wearing the clothes, dressing their children in a certain way, intentions of the people who give the girls (or boys, whatever) the attention, etc.

I've seen the show off and on since it started airing, and I've always thought she was sickly thin. Last season or the season before (pre-mansion, when they had the regular house) they dedicated her air time for a few episodes to talking about her eating disorder - she doesn't eat. I think the weirdest thing about Dr. Rey is his choice of hair and attire. Other than that, deeper/personality, I think he's just a very driven man with a lot of ghosts in his closet that he's trying to compensate for.

I used to go by a goal weight. I quit that about 16 mos ago. My goal weight was 180, which was the weight I was last happy with my body. Understanding of course that my body this time around is going to look nothing like my body that time around. By most BMI charts, this has me in the overweight category by 0.05 pts. After weighing almost 400 lbs for the last 8 years, I would consider myself at goal if I could get to that weight, even though it's still technically classified as overweight. Because I believe I will be happy there. And for me a goal is a goal, not a rule. If I get to 180 and am not happy, then we'll go more. Simple as that. I absolutely believe there's a fear of failure. That's why so many of us never maintained any loss ever. But there's also an element of compromise. Think of it this way: I was once talking to a plastic surgeon who commented that he LOVED doing surgeries for WLS patients. In fact, he said he would like to be an exclusive WLS provider, if it could support the business. His reasoning was that when you take someone who has been morbidly obese or beyond for the better part of their lives, they're THRILLED with anything you can do for them. They will GLADLY take the surgical scar over the wrecked skin. He said that's not the case with non-WLS patients - they're nit-picky, finding fault in everything, and generally not grateful for their results. So maybe your surgery results aren't perfect, and we know they could be better, but damn - compared to where we were, it's GREAT to be there, and we'll take it.

And without context we must also have a satanist in office. Or at least a Mediterranean curse monger.

I'm a behavioral eater with poor portion control.

I'm way too anal for a tattoo. I'm not opposed to them by any means, I'm just too much of a perfectionist. It would never be perfect enough. THere would always be a line that glitched or a color that didn't look the way I wanted. I can't even commit to a wall color for my living room, let alone something that I have to trust someone else to put on my body.

I think OH also has a list by state, with user reviews. Or did at one point.

I'm not yet convinced that clothes now are that much more horrible than when I was growing up. Girls now wear skin tight jeans, but we wore "biker shorts" and a wide concoction of lycra/spandex leggings. You don't get much tighter than those. Girls now wear belly shirts, we used to wear those elastic tube tops or 4-strap halters. Girls now wear daisy dukes, and we used to wear the equally short gym ("ball hugger") shorts. I never wore platforms, but I did wear clogs. I had a bikini (cactii, sunsets and cowboys) in elementary school, as did all my friends. It seems like we're just seeing the updated versions of the same old things. What I think has changed, is the intention behind the clothing. Why I wore those things, and why a girl today wears her versions, are probably very different OTHER than the basic "it's what people wear" that grabs at ALL kids. I know that when my 10ish y/o cousin was showing me her new school clothes, she asked, "Do I look sexy?" Clothing companies will only produce what people will buy. There's a much larger issue than what's on the shelves.

I can't see the pics, but - good for you! Nothing makes us feel quite as good as reversible impetuousness! I used to have many more piercings than I do now. Now it's just the ears double, but I used to also have the cartilage, eyebrow, lip, and nose. I wouldn't mind having the nose redone some day, with the teeniest tiniest little gold ball. Nothing like the hook I used to wear. I just have to convince myself that the pain is worth it.

<p> I grew up in a neighborhood called Tierrasanta, and we could see the stadium from our backyard. Of course, back then it was called the Jack Murphy stadium, and people were still angry that it had been named after him. Obviously Starbucks wasn't around then, but we brought our trendy little sushi sets for lunch. Damn straight we have our priorities. :heh:

I write, and I always have to assign everything I can to my characters, make them as close to "real people" as I possibly can, so that I can get into their heads. I have to do this in order to try and be realistic about how they would react to situations, what they would say, what they value, etc. And just like every other aspect of what makes us us, from our hair color to our nightmares to our favorite foods to our sexual orientation, it all plays a role in making "us." But I can understand why people burn these books. I mean, gays threaten the American way of life. See?

Oh, all of that is MHO, yada yada.

Our dreams protect us from realities we don't want to deal with, aren't ready to deal with, etc. Ever have that "faceless stranger" that you still somehow know? Ever have someone you haven't thought of in 10 years show up in your dreams? That distances the immediate "threat" (in the psychological sense, not physical) of whatever the function is in your dream. Symbols in dreams - symbols schmymbols. It doesn't matter WHAT is in your dream - let's say a chocolate bar. The fact that it's a chocolate bar doesn't mean anything compared to how you feel about the chocolate bar, or what the chocolate bar means in your dream (yes, dream dictionaries are a waste of money, unless we all share a single brain, there's no way one object can have a single meaning to all of us). So you talk about what's happening in your dreams, but not your emotions, senses, etc. during them. How did having a chocolate bar penis feel in your dream? Did it seem unusual to you? Was it a surprise, or something you already knew? Did it scare you? Etc. I have extremely vivid dreams. I dream in color. I have all 5 senses in my dreams. I can be myself, I can be another character, or I can be the "director" -- this sort of third party observer watching myself and others in my dream. So I get a lot of input on what I'm perceiving in the dream. Pay attention to your inputs.

I'd like to find some people to bounce ideas off of, share ideas, etc. I find the decorating messageboards are a bit too elitist and cliquey for my taste.

And if it takes off we can sticky it as another quick reference. So I'll start, then you add. 1. Starvation mode. If our bodies could really just "stop" breaking down & metabolizing fat and muscle when it is not getting adequate nourishment (aka starvation mode), then no one would ever starve to death. This one doesn't even make sense to me. Even if there was some way by which our bodies could do this, we'd have to be down to such a ridiculously low percentage of body fat that we wouldn't have the energy, state of mind, or - hell - enough eyesight or musclular control to post a question about it. So in other words, if you're here, you're not in starvation mode! 2. You have to remove carbs from your diet to lose weight. You can remove any singular nutritional component from your diet and lose weight. It doesn't have to be carbs. Remove fat from your diet, you'll lose weight. Remove Protein from your diet, you'll lose weight. But come on, are you really going to eat 2gm fat a day for the rest of your life? You're much better off finding an all-around approach that you can really live with. Most of the time, this is a caloric reduction. Then if you want to reduce something else, do it to supplement, but not as its own means of weightloss. No one here is interested in temporarily losing weight, and then gaining it back as soon as old habits are resumed. 3. Eating late at night causes weight gain. If you're eating more than your body requires to function during the day, you will gain weight. It doesn't matter if you're eating in the morning or at night. If you eat a 10,000 calorie Breakfast, and have a sedintary lifestyle, you will gain weight. If you eat nothing throughout an extremely active day, and then have a 4000 calorie dinner, you will not automatically gain weight just because you ate the calories at night. 4. The scale shows how much fat you have, or fat and weight are the same thing The scale shows nothing more than how much you weigh at any given point in time. Think about your weight for a second. There's a lot more to it than fat. There's your hair, your clothes, your body, and everything in or on your body. Weighing 200 lbs Monday night and 205 lbs Tuesday morning DOES NOT mean you gained fat overnight, just that you weigh 5 lbs more. I see people freaking out -- "omg I ate chocolate lastnight and now I weight 10 pounds more I'm never eating chocolate again!" Yeah, maybe you weigh 10 pounds more, but it's physically impossible for a chocolate bar (one you can carry, anyway!) to convert to 10 pounds of fat. For that matter, assuming you're (a normal) human, it's pretty much impossible. You'd have to eat about 35,000 calories on top of your BMR. That's like eating 50 sticks of butter on top of whatever number of calories you needed to function that day. Not gonna happen! If you see a quick change to the scale, it's most likely a function of Fluid retention. This is why the scale should not be looked at daily. Some people can see upwards of 20 lbs daily fluctuation. And this is why the scale should not be used, at all, if you want an accurate way to see how your body is changing.

I researched a lot of different surgeons for my band. I had actually selected a surgeon in another state and was in the early stages of paperwork when I was referred to my current surgeon. I changed to the new surgeon because there were a few things I really liked about the program, including: 1. The surgeon did the fills. 2. I could usually get someone to answer my questions, even if it was the someone I didn't want to hear from. 3. The surgeon appeared to be an advocate for the band, vs. a RnY surgeon who does bands if they have to. 4. The comprehensive nature of the surgeon's program. 5. There was a "small program" feel that gave me a sense of security. When you went in, people took the time to talk with you and your questions were heard. Now, most of that has changed. If you go in for a fill, you don't even see the surgeon unless you happen to pass in the hallway. If you do see the surgeon, it's brief and uncomfortable. I've actually had the surgeon leave the room as I was in the middle of asking a question, and have to ask them to please wait until I'm done and can get an answer. They've brought on someone else to do the fills and this person, at least the last time I had a fill, didn't know what they were doing. When the surgeon gave the fill it was "poke, push, done". This new person took over 10 minutes to fill me, and at first was poking the needle in a place where there is no port. I tried telling this person where the port was, and they said "yeah I can feel it over here..." (not where I was pointing). I was once chastized because the surgeon didn't know I had been unfilled (he wasn't there that day), even though he had my medical records in his hand. All he had to do was look. Instead I was asked, "Why did I not know about this?" Umm - because you WEREN'T HERE and haven't bothered looking at my chart yet?? You tell me! The knowledgeable people are either gone, or very hard to get ahold of. Questions are answered generically instead of on a per-person basis like they used to be. It used to be that you could call with a question, be listened to, and then get information/advice based on what you were experiencing. Now it seems like they have an Answer Manual, and when you ask a question they flip to the corresponding page and read what's there. We all know that doesn't work. In fact, the staff that's there now is so uneducated or so uninvolved (or so biased - more to come on that) that I am seeking a 3rd party practice to switch my care over to. So many people (including me) have had such poor experiences with the aftercare staff, it's getting to the point that it's not worth it. At one point I was concerned that I had a complication, and was calling OTHER surgeons because I questioned whether or not I could receive good/unbiased care. (Long story short, a group of us online would talk openly about our opinions and experiences, and complaints. They had someone monitoring this and reporting back, and when we went into the office we would be pulled aside and reprimanded for saying anything negative. One time when I was in the room waiting for the surgeon, a hushed (hello, I can still hear through that thin door) comment was made to the effect of, "This is one of them.") We (when we still went) were openly pointed out during "support" group meetings, and the office staff was encouraging the other banded people to heckle us.How can you trust that you will receive good & unbiased care when that's what you face walking into the office? I saw my band as sort of entering into a contract (so to speak) with the surgeon. I picked this program for a reason, and now those reasons are gone, but I still have my band. I know change happens, but I can't help but feel a little bit like someone ripped the nice, soft carpet out from under me, and now I'm left standing on cold concrete. This sucks.

Mmmm jicama. You can cook jicama in some sugar free cider mix, weetner and cinnamon and make a crunchy, but not horrible, low carb substitute for country-style fried apples. But it's much better just sliced & chilled.

I'll be totally honest here. I have a really hard time cleaning my bellybutton. It has become bottomless. With weightloss, my stomach has kind of collapsed, and my bellybutton went with it. I'm a visual person, so see graphic below. I try to pry it open in the shower, but it's like trying to pry open the business end of a water-weenie. Seriously. Think of a Water weenie, and trying to get down into its... hole. The minute anything gets down in there, the water weenie is closing in on it. That's exactly what my bellybutton does. I try to push the shower head against it, on massage mode, to jet water down into it but I have no way of knowing if it's successful. So now it's a combination of shower head, qtips, and trying to work some peroxide down in there. I seriously don't even want to think about what's in the deepest, darkest reaches of my bellybutton. At least some loose change and probably my missing cell phone, for starters. Here's what my bellybutton has done. I mean - how do you really clean that? (on a brighter note, I'm going to have my primary doc start recording this stuff, and see her every time the skin gets irritated instead of just piping some neosporin in... may help my TT case with the ins co):

You know what? I wish I could work out on an elliptical because it kicks my ass and I know it would be an awesome routine. But there's just something about it. I can't straighten my legs. Well, I shouldn't say "I can't"... maybe I could with enough practice, but even after the guy adjusted it for my height, I still felt like I couldn't do it. That makes me feel like I'm just doing these uncoordinated one-legged hops the entire time, and my thighs last for about 3 mins and then I'm d-u-n.

Yeah and ladies - remember that good haircare doesn't stop at the waist. :whoo:

Oh well hell, if that were taken into account my info would look like this:

Did you meet with a psychologist as part of your pre-op work? What techniques did she/he advise, and are they not working, or...?

I'm fond of Asics for athletic shoes. I've tried a lot of different kinds/brands and I've found them to be the most comfortable. I like it when you step down in a shoe and it kind of springs you effortlessly forward. These do that. I think I have the "Gel Kayano" but I'm not sure.