Wheetsin

Ok I'll tell my style if you tell yours! Trying to redo my living room, which is hard because the focal point of the room is the raised hearth fireplace. And IMO it's an eyesore. First, when we built this house, they wrote down the wrong wood stain (umm... and wood too). Everything was supposed to be done in clearcoat, and instead they did it in Fruitwood, which is a bit garrish orange, if you aren't familiar with the color. So the mantle & surround color screams "I have jaundice... and diarrhea!" Then the surround tiles we selected, based on the assumption that they would be up against clearcoat hickory, look horrible next to fruitwood pine. *sigh* My style is a bit hard to describe. Ecclectic, but not gypsy ecclectic. Rustic, but not "lodge" rustic with moose and plaid all over the place. Maybe a little country, but nothing like anitque douche cans for flower vases and pig-themed kitchens. More like a Spanish rustic, but not santa Fe. I lurve handcrafted things, but not the primitive dolls with barbed wire hair stuff. My house has a lot of Spanish style recycled hand-blown glass, lots of wrought Iron, several pieces of Mexican rustic (chunky pine & iron style) furniture, distressed leather, I love apothecary style pieces. A touch of arts & crafts, but I'm not a true devotee. Lots of Pottery Barn older style, like the Madison line of occasional tables, pub mirror, etc. I don't do a lick of modern. I dont' like really light wood. I don't like really dark wood. I don't like formal lines or finishes. Yeah, I'm pretty picky. We had new sofas delivered this week and I was hoping to have a painter in to get the family room painted before they arrived, but I didn't make it. On two counts. One was the painter was already booked, and two was that after a year I still haven't picked a color (I'm currently torn between benjamin Moore Yorkshire Tan or Lenox Tan. I have Olive Branch sampled on the walls, and it's a beautiful color, but the room doesn't get enough light to pull it off). BTW, can I say that fabric is $^% expensive? I ordered some Covington linen for new bedroom panels. 11 yards. At 40% off, I still paid over $400. I'm still trying to convince myself they'll be so perfect I won't mind... I'm not winning so far... :faint:

Along the same lines as the scars bad stretchmarks good... Morbid obesity bad, not being able to wear underwear in the OR worse? Here's my take on it... No undies here. And I didn't care in the least. Underwear was the farthest thing from my mind. I mean - if I didn't mind laying there with no bra on, and my flab hanging all over the table, a naked pooty in the room with medical professionals certainly wasn't going to phase me. I mean - I have paps, and there the person is trying to look... during the surgery, any sight would be incidental.

If you could change: 1) One physical (other than weight) thing about yourself, what would it be? 2) One non-physical thing about yourself (mental, situation, etc.), what would it be? And how about the same two questions, only now applied to your partner/spouse? For me, 1) I'm knock-kneed and I hate it, I don't wear shorts or skirts above the knee because of it. 2) I would like to be able to get out of ultra mode with some things. There are certain things I'm never satisfied with, no matter how many of my goals I meet, and I'd like to be able to just sit back and enjoy what I've accomplished sometimes, long term, without thoughts of another goal to reach coming to mind. For my spouse, 1) Fix his eyes. He's not a good candidate for LASIK and can't wear contacts. So he has to wear glasses and he HATES wearing them. 2) Improved & sustained self esteem. He was dragged through the dirt in a few prior relationships, childhood, etc. and his self esteem still suffers from it. His issues cause severe limitations for him in just about every area of his life, and that makes me sad.

I regret not doing it sooner. I regret not capitalizing more on the first 6 months, when is when the weight was really flying off. I tell people who ask - even when I'm at my worst, which has to be somewhere around hunched over the kitchen sink wishing that the PB would just come so the pain will stop, I would do it again in a heartbeat.

My periods stayed the same in all regards but one. During the last 6 - 7 months, my period has shifted to a full week later than it used to be. Each month, I'd be 1 - 2 days late starting, and the next month I would be that late + another few days. This sucks because I've always been regular to within a day, maybe two. And I used to be able to schedule vacation so that I wouldn't be on it... but now, who has a friggin clue... :phanvan Your sex drive is probably 90% hormonal and 10% psychological. Give or take, that's just a guess. Don't let your decreased libido affect your weightloss journey. Have you ever had your hormone levels checked?

You're not starving, not eating large portions, and losing weight. At least that's what I read from your message. Because I don't know what they cost, let's say fills are $100. Here are two scenarios. Certainly they're not the only scenarios, but each is quite likely. Scenario 1: You go to the appointment and tell the truth. The doctor gives you little to no fill. So you pay $0 - $100. You go home, and continue to enjoy your current level of restriction, which seems to be working (that's a guess based on the above information). Perhaps in a few weeks your restriction changes and you're "for sure" ready for a fill. At that time, you go again, and pay $100. Result is that you're comfortably restricted and have paid $100 - $200. Scenario 2: You go to the appointment and lie. The doctor gives you a fill, possibly more fill than you can tolerate if you're already at a good level of restriction. $100. You go home, and cannot get any food down. This irritates the esophagus, you swell, and soon you cannot even get your own saliva down, so you're yakking up saliva that looks like a combination of egg whites and soap lather for 10 hours. You call for an unfill, and the surgeon takes out more than he put it. $100. Then, a few weeks later, you've recovered and want to get back to your original level of restriction, or perhaps a hair more. $100. Result is that you're comfortably restricted now, but have been very uncomfortable for some point, and have paid $300 to maybe get back your original level of restriction, or maybe still need additional fills to get there.

Hon, if you don't need the fill, cancel the appointment. Then you're neither out the money nor overfilled.

Since you don't yet have any fills I'm going to guess you don't have much restriction. If it tastes/smells like vomit, it isn't a "PB." So, chances are that you had what you might call a "wet burp," and actually did bring up some of what you had eaten. A "PB" refers to clearing things that are stuck in the pouch, or at least the thick saliva that your body produces. Yes, true, it doesn't make it to the stomach. It's unable to clear the restricted area of the esophagus (stoma). So, when you "PB" you're only bringing up whatever got stuck and anything you swallowed since. This won't have the typical vomit taste or smell because there is no stomach acid or digested food in it. Usually, if it has any taste at all, it tastes like what got stuck. I'd also wager you had a little but of actual puke vs. a PB because normally there's a fair amount of discomfort, or downright pain, involved in the whole being stuck/having to PB process. Our bodies try to unstick what's stuck, and this doesn't feel good at all! A lot of us have agreed that the term "PB" sucks and is generally not accurate... I sure as hell never had a burp that took an hour and hurt like hell. Perhaps I should host a "rename the PB" contest.

Perhaps you got here by eating junk food, perhaps I did, perhaps some out there did, but not "us all." No way. I know several bandsters and bandster wannabes who aren't at all fond of junk food, but are still obese - because they eat too much "healthy" food, are too sedintary for their caloric intake, etc. People cannot be afraid of their cravings. IMO, it's not a good practice to tell someone it's going to hurt their family to buy or eat a candy bar. All that's going to do is infect the guilt they will already feel and deepen all the bad emotiona stuff that's going to happen when they finally do something bad (and chances are, that's gonna happen). When cravings go unfulfilled, undesired behaviors such as binging are WAY more likely to occur. The majority of us can probably relate to this. I'd rather someone eat 1, 2, 3, hell 5 or 6 snack sized Snickers, because they have a craving and this will satiate the craving, than not have them because they're afraid of failing or they've been told it's going to hurt their family... deny the craving, it festers and builds and they end up doing a full blown binge or obsessing to the point that a few will no longer offset the desire. A bandster is going to be hurt (literally and figuratively) a hell of a lot more by binging than by having the blasted Snickers.

How is buying Snickers hurting her family? Or her? Are we trying to incite panic? Unless you can't afford a Snickers and are doing bad to your household income with the purchase, buying a bag is not going to hurt you. Or your family, or your neighbors, or anyone else. EATING a Snickers isn't going to hurt you, or we'd have an awful lot of people laying in broken piles around vending machines. Eating 3,000 Snickers is gonna hurt you. Let's hope you didn't buy that many.

COMPLETELY depends on the person. The amount of calories you burn while at rest -- doing nothing other than living -- is called your Basal Metabolic Rate, or BMR. You can use online calculators like this one to determine your BMR.

:heh:

Yes it's normal.

I could swear I posted an answer to this.

There is no yes or no answer to this. Like most things in life, it depends completely on the person. Depends. For some yes, for others no. For me it does not hurt. For another, she says it's unbearable and insists on being numb. For me, the numbing shot hurt 10x worse than the fill poke so I told them to knock that numbing crap off. Hasn't hurt since.

Wowzer, if you want a Snickers that bad, eat a Snickers. It's not going to make you gain 10 pounds, and if this is the result of your craving, it's better (IMO) to eat a Snickers and be done with it, than get to the point where you're obsessing about it (sounds like you're there now)... because that's when you eat 10 Snickers.

I'm not in the UK but I had about 14.3 stones to lose (200 lbs) and so far I have lost about 11.8. Can't answer yur last question because I haven't yet lost all the weight, but I am just under 18 months out.

Removal is normally done due to medical necessity, e.g. someone's band has eroded or it has slipped and the non-surgical routes have not corrected the problem.

I see a couple of questions here so I will answer them as I understand them, and if I've not answered the right questions, let me know. I can eat whatever I want as long as I'm careful and listed to my body. I read this in a few ways, and I'm not sure which you're asking, so I'll answer both. Can you drink alcohol? Yes, you can drink alcohol. Can you drink with meals? I CAN, as long as the food is passing through the stoma. I used to sip with meals, but I don't so much anymore. If I have food that has not cleared the stoma, drinking hurts and can make me have to yak. Tough to know how to answer this because overeating and my social life were never the same thing... so ability or inability to overeat is a "not applicable" when it comes to my social life out at a restaurant, for example. Can you overeat? Umm... yeah, unless you're tight and have consistent restriction. If you don't have restriction, the band can't do its job. If you do have restriction, you could still have irregular restriction patterns (for example you're very tight in the morning and not at all tight in the evening). But if you have restriction AND have it consistently, overeating is fairly limited to grazing because you're only able to physically hold so much until the food begins to clear the stoma. If you overeat with good restriction, this could most definitely impact your social life! :laugh

Ah, gotcha. I think. So you're unable to type the letters P and R together, without it autochanging over to "Page Ranking"? Well I know that messagboards can be set up with autofilters... e.g. so that "shit" is automatically changed to "parrot" or something. Maybe Alex has something like that set up with those letters. Or maybe it's just you. :mad: (Actually it's not, I just put in P and R together and did a preview, and saw "Page Ranking" too)

Are youg uys kidding me? Unless I'm going right back out, my bra is off within the first 5 mins of getting home. Usually the first 5 seconds. And sometimes, it's off before I'm home. I hate bras, and I really don't like clothes all that much. I will compromise with a knit house dress, a big tshirt, or a bathrobe/nightgown. I NEVER understood the point of being dressed and trying to lounge in jeans and a shirt when I'm in my own home and no one is coming over.

Umm... what?

I have a hard time with slimy foods. You'd think that if anything would go right down, it'd be a slimy thing... but nope. I made strawberry shortcake the other night and the strawberries gave me the worst time. So did some apricot jelly I ate the other day. Applesauce gives me more pressure than it's worth. Bananas just sit there for way too long. Etc.

You've been banded for... more than 6 years. Why do you need a protein drink? Can you not tolerate solids, e.g. supplement with a Protein Bar vs. a Protein Drink? How much protein do you need to supplement? There are protein waters out there, like the Special K Water. They don't have ginormous amounts of protein... but they have some.

:mad: