Wheetsin

She gave me a tennis ball and told me that it's size was relative to the amount of food that I will ever be able to put into my tummy at one time. I'm ok with that, but she somehow made it sound like total deprivation. She said between eating small meals every two hours and drinking 8 glasses of Water, you'd pretty much be doing one or the other all day long! It sounds EXTREMELY regimented and unflexible. A lot of dieticians try to standardize these things, so they have something other than "there are no absolutes" to tell people, but the truth is that there are no absolutes and anytime anyone tells you "you cannot eat..." or "you will not be able to..." (unless they're saying, "You cannot eat more than you can tolerate", let it raise an eyebrow. I eat 2 or three regular meals throughout the day. I drink when I'm thirsty, and try to have a bottle of water around at all times to sip on, but I've always done that. Don't think of the tennis ball as deprivation. Quantity wise - may or may not be accurate. This will depend on the level of restriction you have, and can change daily, hourly... some days I can only eat a few bites. Last night I had a piece of chicken the size of a "tender", and 4 good sized slices of tofu. She recommended going on a post band diet now for one month to see if I could handle it. I don't think I can..... You won't be able to do it. Well, I shouldn't say that - but it would be unrealistic to think you can, or for someone else to expect you to. The band works because the small portions fill us up. The small portions aren't going to fill you up, and your body & brain retaliates against this (which is why so many people foil a diet by binging or overeating). I don't know many people, fat or not, who could eat the same I do in a month, unless they were stranded on an island or something. They would just be too hungry.

My husband (the hobby physicist) has the science one, and bought me the scuba fish back when I completed my first scuba certification.

Yup, same thing happened to me. I would either get, "What's that?" (followed by assumptions that it was a reference to dinnerware oe eating... and I wasn't even fat at the time) or people who had no clue - but didn't want to let on - so they'd say something like, "I agree!". Once someone knew what it was referring too, but was utterly confused by the suggestion that we try to stop them.

I was a fast loser, and am now probably one of the slower. Also known as a "winded rabbit". I lost about 50% of my excess weight by the 6 month mark or shortly after, and have been plucking away at 2 or 3 pounds every handful of months since then.

That's exactly what happened to me. Well, kind of. My car was not damaged, but the emblem was stolen (allegedly) by a neighbor. The same one who wants to knock on our door when his church is selling something or wanting donations. I think this one is hilarious:

Maybe this will help: Since it calculates from AGI there can be large benefits to MFS, if one or the other spouse had significantly higher medical expenses.

Deductions are amounts removed from your taxable income, not not credits toward the taxes you owe. In the example I gave, $10 of the money owed would be deducted (hence a "deduction") from your taxable amount.

Medical expenses must be at least 7.5% of your AGI, not just your income. And you can only deduct the part of the expenses that are above the 7.5%. In other words, subtract 7.5% of your AGI from your medical expenses to figure your medical expense deduction. Deductions are not amounts that you get back from the IRS, they are amounts that are not liable for taxation. And it's only on out-of-pocket expenses - nothing eligible for reimbursement (meaning if something is reimburseable, and you just don't submit for it, too bad - you can't clain it) from your insurer or from your flex spending. Say your AGI is $80,000. To qualify for a medical expense deduction, you'd need to spend more than $6,000 out of pocket. So if you spent $6,010 you'd only get to deduct $10. And that $10 deduction would only reduce your tax liability by $2.50 if you're in the 25 percent tax bracket. If 7.5% of your AGI is $2000, and your suergy costs $4000, you could claim $2000, subjected to your tax bracke. You would not get $2000 back from the IRS.

Assuming you are your avatar, why would they give you prenatals? I've not come across a prenatal Vitamin. Please share the brand/name if you can. What usually happens is my PCP says "I don't know if there's a chewable available but I will tell them to use it if they have it." I get there, and they're regular non-chewables. This happens frequently. It was a nightmare to get liquid antiemitic.

NSAIDS should not be taken when you're banded. I was given an rx for Lortab when I went home from surgery and it worked quite well. After a day or two I moved on to liquid Tylenol. I've found it much, much more effective than regular/pill Tylenol. Speak with your PCP and surgeon about the NSAID issue.

See this thread: http://www.lapbandtalk.com/abbreviations-and-they-t7959.html

Tae-Bo. It gets the whole body.

A 10cc band does hold 10ccs. Well, let's say it's designed to hold 10ccs. And many people don't get restriction until they're filled to 8ccs or more. I know people who have to be 9+ before they feel anything. Maybe you're confusing cc with cm?

jaysd74 - try this thread for abbreviations: http://www.lapbandtalk.com/abbreviations-and-they-t7959.html AF = "Aunt Flo", a euphamism for menstruation.

I had two very bad PB's (one yesterday and another one today). Today's brought me to vomiting!! I am trying to eat small bites really slow, but obviously it's not slow or small enough. Also, I am missing the full signs. It's as if I go from fine to golf ball in one bite! Any advice... I don't have full signs. I will go from "fine" to "uh-oh" inone bite. I've come across many, many others who don't have full signs (also called "soft stops") either. I wish I did, but I don't. Also, it's not always a matter of how small or how slow. Sometimes here are foods bandsters just can't tolerate, regardless of how long they take to eat them. And sometimes there are just times when eating isn't going to happen (for me it's anywhere from 2 - 5 days before my period). If you're having a hard time, go back to the basics food-wise. Eat only the smallest bites, and put your fork down - foce yourself to wait about 5 minutes between bites, until you are confident that it's going to be ok. Drinking while eating. Maybe this is the problem. I have been really trying to not drink while I eat. Today, I didn't drink anything with my supper and that's where the problems began. I guess I need to get used to food consumption/restriction without liquid interferring. I drink with meals. Well, I should rephrase that. I sometimes drink a little with meals. It's really becoming less and less b/c I only really do it when I'm eating out (I've noticed this lately), and when I do go out, I drink so little that I get tired of paying $2 for an iced tea that just sits there, so I've stuck with water... which is tap water... which I hate... so problem almost solved. But honestly, for me, drinking with meals was never a problem. I never ate more because I took a drink. I was always full within the same amount of food. Worst case - I drank too soon or before something cleared. When you do that, you know it immediately. I AM STILL ADDICTED TO SODA!! Diet coke. I only had 5 oz of a 20 oz bottle today and I feel like I did well. The previous days I've had at least a 20 oz bottle, then maybe another can. I've tried iced tea, hot tea and coffee, which is helping, but I could use some pointers here too! Hmm, I gave up soda cold turkey after surgery, which wasn't hard since I was never a big soda drinker, and had already weaned myself down to caffeine free Diet Coke... and at that point, it was just about hte carbonation. Screw the soda, I wanted to feel the burn. Umm... something you could do (a RNY friend used this) is to flatten your sodas before you drink them... swish the bottles around or something. She did this in the beginning, and eventually it just wasn't worth it anymore so she quit.

Yep yep. You have to eat solid in order to poop solid. As long as you're eating through a straw, you'll be able to poop through one.

Yes, but it irritates me. I understand it, but it is still irritating. And it was the exact same way before I gained the weight, only I didn't process it as such because it had always been that way. It took being fat and very, very rarely getting any attention before I realized that getting the attention wasn't just "how it was".

This is common. It's part trauma, part anesthesia, part recovery, and probably a pinch of psychology. I was banded almost 13 months ago and my appetite has never returned.

If we hit an adult, it's assault, even if it's a family member, even if it's open-handed, even if it's not with a foreign object. If I slap you across the face, I can be jailed. Why is it ok to then slap someone even smaller, even more defenseless? Honest question.

My father would hit me. All it taught me was to be afraid of my father. My father never really stopped to think what, exactly, he was teaching me. He hit me because he was hit, and he didn't know what else to do. He taught me that I should be afraid of him, and that when dad got mad, Wheetsin gets hit. It never taught me to do or not to do something. "I was hit and grew up just fine" and "I was not hit and grew up just fine" exist everywhere. So there is no "right way". Maybe there are kids who truly only respond to hitting (and then you have to ask why), but probably that's not the case. I think a lot of people don't know what else to do - they've learned that hitting get results, and have not been adequately trained or experienced in any other approaches. I'm not a parent so I can't say what I do or do not do with my kids, but I would certainly hope that they could grow up to be good people without having to be physically punished via hitting, swatting, spanking, or whatever you want to call it. As for the legislation - I would *like* to think that a society wouldn't crumble if parents didn't hit children. I would also like to think that anyone who puts themselves in the position of being a parent could find other ways that a fist or hand or branch or belt to get their point across. I can see the argument that, "They're my kids and I will discipline them as I see fit", and I see the argument that, "Hitting does more for the parent than the child" and I can see the argument that, "It is wrong for a 40 year old to hit a 2 year old", and on, and on. But is it something that government should step into -- I'd have to think a bit more before I cast my vote. *Edited - submitted accidentally, before I was done.

I definitely slowed down, and hit a stall at about 8 months out that I'm still not over. I've lost about 8 - 10 lbs since then, but that all came during a week that I was overfilled. The same thing happened to me on LC. I stalled about 7 - 9 months out, and the stall lasted about 4 months, and then I lost nearly 20 lbs (scale pounds) during the next 2 weeks. It's definitely easier to be motivated and do the right things when you're seeing some change in the numbers, but I'm sort of trusting at this point that this will break soon, and loss will begin once again.

What your surgeon told you is spot on. All of our organs are different sizes and even slightly different shapes. Since our sizes vary so much, there is no "one size fits all" approach, and the surgeon can't know until he gets inside what size band to use. He can guess what he will use, but can't know. Case in point - my surgeon supposed he would use a 10cc band, but I ended up with the 4cc. Since you know he uses Inamed, there are three possibilities, listed below. The first measurement is cm which is the band's length, and the second is cc which is its Fluid capacity. 9.75cm - 4cc 10cm - 4cc 11cm - 10cc

Our parents and in particular our mothers are behind about 96% of our neuroses. Fact.

just my 2 cents... Often when people experience complications of any kind, the first reaction is to blame them for doing something wrong. Something that caused the complication. To many people who haven't experienced complications, this has to be the only answer. (Afterall, they're doing just fine, so it can't be the band or a true medical problem). And a lot of people see their bands as part of themselves, and become defesnive when it comes into negative light. Because of this, there's a quick jump to defenses and blame. This can make it hard for people to share their problems, in hopes of getting help, because they become intimidated or afraid to post what's going on. I think LBT is very fair about this, but even here you'll notice that we have people who START OFF their post defensively, because they EXPECT the retaliation -- e.g. posters who start with, "I'm going to get flamed for this but..." or who start a note by listing every possible alternative under the sun and what they've already done about it (because the anticipate someone saying, "It's because you haven't done XXX"). I think it's virtually impossible to escape in an online forum and - in particular - an anonymous forum. Personally, I think LBT is one of the more open board (when it comes to issues like this) out there, whether we're talking about boards specific to LBT or making general statements about boards where people can voice unpopular experiences/opinions/truths.

My point was not to say that gossip = terror. It was to say that there are certain things that we just can't get rid of. That point seems to have been lost, and for that I apologize. I do not think that "war" and "giving up" are the only answers to problems. Perhaps I am a minority.