Wheetsin

I'm up for anywhere, Thursday is probably the best day for me (I don't have to go into the office Friday). Jennifer/Robyn/Holli/whomever else's name I don't know?

Sent you a response.

My surgeon specified clear, sugar-free liquids 2 days before and either 2 or 3 days after surgery. Double-check that they just mean "clear", and not also sugar-free. Included on my list were: Jell-O Popsicles Broths Fruit drinks Water I think that's it, but it's been a while...

I am but only from home. Work authorized SameTime (Lotus chat client) but only for internal use. You could call but I'm on a 12:30 - 3:30 conference call - WOO! If you want send me an email, jonesang at gmail dot com.

America is under-couseled and over-medicated. Obesity and depression pretty much go hand in hand. chicken & the egg. My pre-op psychologist was asking me if I've ever experienced a long list of things. When he hit on depression, I answered - not in a clinical diagnosis, but sure. You don't weight 382 lbs and not be depressed. At the very least situationally depressed.

I guess I walk a weird thin line. I had/have no co-morbidites due to my weight. Not even a blip of high blood pressure or a drop of high cholesterol. No mobility issues, though probably some endurance ones, which is all around "out of shape" not "fat and out of shape" (sad, but true - I can outlast some of my skinny friends). I saw lap-band as a way to help prevent getting them. So I didn't do it to overcome current issues, I did it to help avoid potential ones that may or may not have ever developed, but I didn't want to just hang out with my fingers crossed. Kind of funny... in the first post... "then I hear someone call me a fat bitch and I want to cut my fat off with a knife." So you want to cut your fat off, but you don't want to do anything about the "bitch" part of the insult? :heh: It's sad that "fat" is what sticks with us, even though it's only ancillary to the *real* insult.

Vent: Taking a class this semester. Really not clicking with the instructor. This is the first time I've had this particular challenge. Challenges in the form of, I ask a question, and she replies, "I believe I've already covered this, but here we go again..." I say, "I don't see X, which is my fault - but could someone point me to it?" and she replies - in a private area - "I hope int he future you would show the discretion of posting questions in a private area or else the other students might think there's a problem with the way I've organized the class." What?? This has been going in since the class started about 6 weeks ago and doesn't show any sign of getting better, but I'm kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place. I've passed the cutoff for withdrawl/refund (this class cost about $4,000). The class is required for my degree, so if I dropped it and forfeited the $ I'd be delaying my graduation another semester. I've tried talking with the professor about it but it doesn't get me anywhere other than, "My style isn't for everyone, and you can't expect me to change." So I wrote to the school and explained the situation... that I couldn't have foreseen this issue with the instructor before class started (when refunds are no longer available), that I've followed reasonable measures to remedy the problem, that I have a good grade in the class (so they wouldn't think I was just scared of getting a bad grade and wanting to drop). I've not yet gotten to the point of specifics, e.g. pasting the teacher's remarks, or even saying *what* the exact problem is (I left it as a general inquiry for now - are there any circumstances under which the refund policy can be waived... having some challenges with how the class is instructed...etc.) Doesn't matter, I know how schools work, and I know there's slim to no chance that I'll have any options other than 1) eat the cost and drop the class so you can pay another $4k later to take the class again or 2) Deal with the instructor, which means (for me) pretty much stop asking questions or doing anything beyond exactly what's required... which isn't how I learn. *sigh* Sucks!

There was a buzz a few weeks ago, about the fashion industry's movement away from "rail thin" models. I didn't look at all your links so forgive me if this is a duplicate, but Spain actually banned super thin models, claiming the prefer to project images of beauty and health, not not heroin-chic. http://www.theage.com.au/news/fashion/spain-bans-skinny-models/2006/09/13/1157826985132.html

Jennifer, Holli - I got your voicemail you left before last SG. Just this morning! I never even noticed it there in my inbox. Usually I get an alert but I had muted alerts since I was in a meeting earlier that day, and forgot to unmute. I just got another msg and noticed I had two instead of one. Sorry! Please don't think I was ignoring you! Anyone up for getting together some time? Doesn't have to be a big meal event, we can just get drinks or something. Thursday maybe? Short notice tho.

Accountability was lax during my trip. Day of flight (Tuesday) ate nothing until dinner... had a bowl of parmesan asparagus Soup, 1/2 a potato Napoleon, and some herbed foccacia with dipping oil at the hotel restaurant. Wednesday Breakfast - few bites of yogurt (lowfat vanilla), 1 hotel-sized packet of Peanut Butter (at about 3/4). lunch - about 4 braized potato chunks, a few bites of chicken, two bites of mediterranean salad, 1 hors d'ouerve sized piece of mocha cheesecake. dinner - 2 scallops, 2 pieces of mini bruschetta, 1 pork wonton, 4 sashimi-sized strips of ahi tuna w/ soy & wasabi. Thursday - breakfast was same as Wed but smaller b/c food didn't want to go down well. Lunch - few pieces of deli turkey, 3 or 4 homemade chips. Got stuck and had to walk it off. Dinner - "Garlic Encrusted Black Grouper with Thai Chili Sauce" - ate about 1/4, had a small bowl of clam chowder with it, ate about 1/2. Ate a half dinner roll equivalent size piece of sourdough with hand churned salted butter MMMmmmm. Treated ourselves to ice cream, so I had a "miniscoop" (about half of a regular sized scoop) of chocolate peanut butter, and a miniscoop of cookie dough, in a cup. Friday breakfast - 2 bites of a cheese omlette, took a while to go down so I moved to apple juice. Lunch - General Tso chicken, got kinda stuck on the third bite so I gave up on it. Dinner - Protein Drink. Saturday - made breakfast muffins crushed oyster cracker/bread crumb crust, egg/cream cheese/seasonings, topped with cheddar and baked. I ate a half of one. Lunch - 1/3 Chipotle bol. Dinner - Protein drink. Sunday - no breakfast. Lunch - Mango chutney shrimp, got stuck on one and thought I was going to have to PB it up... hit the point of sliming... then it cleared on its own. So dinner was a protein drink w/ peanut butter mixed in, and a handful of Fiber 1 'cause I'm having some fiber issues. Today - breakfast was a strawberry nutrigrain bar. Lunch was one of the small Healthy Choice meals, turkey, potatoes, veggies... ate 3 of the turkey pieces, about 1/2 the potatoes, threw the rest away. No idea what dinner will be. Something I don't have to cook. I'm tired! Maybe some pizza Hut wings. Yum.

Congrats! Re: the arms - any seamstress can make you a shawl for relatively cheap. That way you don't have to find one with a dress -- which is going to be hard to do esp since you aren't hitting a big prom time. Just select a coordinating fabric and I would guess maybe $30 will get you a tailored shawl. Then get a nice brooch - faux diamond, or even have it covered in a fabric to match your dress. Then use the brooch to secure the shawl, and you won't have to worry about it, it will stay in place all night. Also, formal night isn't as formal as it used to be. Last time I wore a floor length skirt, black, with a semi sheer, slight metallic sheen overlay... and a black top that had a black velvet bodice, gathered on the side with a trailing ruffle, and sheer sleeves. Aside from the older people, I was one of the dressier ones there. Formal has been replaced with cocktail and in many cases dressy business casual (LOTS of pant suits w/ sweaters, etc).

Hitting this a little late, I've been out of town, but here's my breakdown: "Sliming" = excessive salivating, sometimes more viscuous than regular saliva. Usually precedes a "PB" (see below) or vomitting. "PB" = involuntarily brining back up something that has become "stuck" (see below). This can include food and/or slime. Causes you to "wretch" like you're vomitting, but is very different from vomitting. "Stuck" = when something cannot clear the stoma. Food in the stoma can cause a back-up of saliva or food, if additional bites have been taken. "Vomit" = This is an emptying of the stomach contents including stomach acids. It has nothing to do with band-specific events. Vomitting and PB are TOTALLY different. Vomitting can cause damage when you're banded. I keep a Rx antiemetic on hand just in case. Above definitions are MHO, others use the terms differently.

It was not a week for airplane travel. I left on Tuesday for Chicago (was at a conference in Chicago Wednesday and Thursday, and spent Friday in Aurora/Naperville, where my work team is located), which should take about an hour, hour and a half depending on the airline... and it took me over 6 hours to get there. 2 hours sitting on the runway, and hour and a half holding pattern over Kirksville, etc. I had the window seat, and the two people to my left were youngish guys on their way to bootcamp. Interesting conversations. Flight home on Friday was extremely uneventful and one of the smoothest flights I've had in a long time.

Yep, bobbed right back up to 279. Stuck I am. Saturday - a little over 1/3 chipotle bol, 2 chicken strips, 1/4 empanada, 8 fries. Sunday - half my entree at a Mex restaurant, so an order of refried Beans, and half of a small chicken breast with lettuce & queso on top. 1 cookie. Today - 18 pepperoni chips, plain, for breakfast. Other half of the Mex entree for lunch - didn't finish it. 2 decaf iced teas w/ 1/4 packet Splenda. 1 16oz Crystal Light lemonade.

I stewed with this debate for a while, until I realized something. Yes - I could lose the weight on my own. I'd done it, a few times. Therein was the problem. I was constantly in a state of "losing" or "gaining" - no "maintaining". I would break a diet and go up from there, or go on a diet and go down from there. So they way I saw it was that the band was going to be there. *I* was going to lose the weight, *it* would help me maintain. You talking about doing WW a hundred times, yet here you are, so I'm guessing you're in a similar boat - being able to lose, but not maintain. Think of how nice it will feel to have a reasonable amount of confidence that this time, when you lose the weight, it's staying off... Coltonwade - your friend (you said "bf" then said "she" so I'll just leave it at "friend" ) has no understandong of obesity. We have the money for gyms, trainers, meal programs, etc. So? That just meant I could buy whatever fattening food I wanted, or go to whatever expensive restaurants whenever I wanted, and not have to think twice about it. Or it meant that I plopped down the $2000 for an annual family gym membership that got used a little bit for a month or two. People who haven't walked in your shoes don't understand that hunger, or lack of knowledge, or lack of stationary bicycles has nothing to do with being obese. And I object to the "do it on your own" mentality, because I went through it, and I see how stupid it is. I have the band, and I'm still doing it on my own. If I didn't take ownership and make good choices, I'd still be nearly 400 lbs. All my band does is moderate my portions, and give me a slap on the wrist when I do something stupid. It doesn't nothing to keep me away from ice cream, milkshakes, puddings, candy, or other evils that would insist still trying to make my butt fit into a size 34 pant. I hate that people discredit our efforts at weightloss because we have LB. So farkin what? Anyone who says "it's the easy way out" has obviously never spent 2 hours sliming, hoping to irp the food back up so you can breathe normally again, and get the "nails driven through my spine" feeling to subside.

I don't have a special feeling. It feels like I'm not hungry any more. I don't get pressure, pain, tightness, or any of the other "soft stops" I hear others describing. I feel it if I get stuck, and I feel it if I drink too soon, but no separate feeling to indicate fullness. This is part of why I'm starting to consider another fill.

I dreaded PBs. Little did I know that PBs were the least of my concern. I've since learned the *pain* involved when something gets stuck. Before getting banded I had no idea how much it hurt, I just thought you kind of "blech" and up it came, perhaps at random. I definitely had no idea of the 20, 30, 40... minutes of pure agony that preceded the PB. (Of course, we're all different here, but mine HURT!) I wish I had understood how much more citical I would become about others' eating habits, and done more to curb that before it really set in. I've learned that I really have no idea whether I'm at proper restriction or not. I have always, always questioned this, and am still unsure. I'd read before that "you just know" but that ended up being completely inaccurate for me.

FWIW, the best deli mean nutritionally is "Boar's Head" brand. I did a LOT of work on researching this a few years ago when I was on Atkins. Boar's Head is the best about avoiding fillers, using whole meats, etc. Of course it's more expensive, and one of the harder brands to find, but well worth it if you can.

My language tends to be on the formal side. For the most part. Sometimes I slip into my "California Casual" - like - you know? It's so not funny. People pick on me for this as much as they would pick on someone for using extremely informal English. I use too many "big" or "fancy" words. I've been told numerous times, "I didn't think anyone actually used words like that." So like anything, I do my best to assess the situation and use whatever is most correct, within reason. I don't really understand what "Fushiznit in thay hay-ouse, boo, got my biznit" means, and some others don't really understand what, "juxtaposition of divergent forces" means. Is one more "right" than the other? If your target audience doesn't get the message, can it be "right"? Some people think language like the former is a sign of ignorance, and some people think language like I tend to use is hoity-toity... but in both cases we're probably in the same boat - we've somehow been trained to talk the way we do, or adapted our way, and it's what we know. I don't teach English, but I have an English degree (emphasis in Literature, not grammar). I've taught college English - 101 level. I don't know if this was the case in previous generations, but the rule now is definitely "write like you speak, speak like you write". In courses I took on the evolution of langauge there were countless debates around: Should we accept Ebonics as a language, because it's a showing of people's pride in their heritage, and a testament to the strength of a population or Is Ebonics just a way to butcher the English language? Is it anything other than a lazy, ignorant, uneducated attempt at English? Of course, you can replace <Ebonics> with the vernacular of your choice.

And did you use the "12 items or less" lane, or did you insist that they open a new "12 items or fewer" one?

Hehe, I used to think he was singing, "Carry a laser down the road that I must travel" or "Carrie she lives on the road that I must travel." I'm *REALLY* bad about this. Here are some of mine. Instead of "Bring me a higher love" - "Bring me a pie dear love" Instead of "The answer my friends is blowing in the wind" - "The ants are my friends, they're blowing in the wind" Instead of "I'm so excited and I just can't hide it" - "I'm suicidal and I just can't hide it" Instead of "They paved paradise and put up a parking lot" - "It's a gay paradise..." Instead of "There's a bad moon on the rise" - "There's a bathroom on the right"

Dana Kwt, click on "User CP" > "Edit Avatar" and scroll to the bottom. If your phto resides on your computer use the "Upload image..." option. If it's on a webserver, use the "Enter URL..." option. Then click "Save Changes". HTH

Wow with that "emergency" header I thought you were going to say you were spitting up blood or something. What shall i expect? Depends 100% on how your surgeon does fills. Some use barium/fluoroscopy, some do not. Some use local anesthetic, some do not. Some withdraw Fluid before inserting, some do not. Too many variables to tell you what to expect, other than -- expect a needle, expect a poke, expect to not necessarily feel any different afterward. is it gunna hurt? Again, we all have different pain tolerance levels. For me the local they gave before the fill hurt a lot, so I requested no more numbing and fills since have been a breeze, no where near anything I'd describe as "hurt", at most a slight annoyance, but really more like pressure without pain. what will i feel post the procedure? If this is your first fill, probably nothing. Maybe relief, because you'll realize it's nothing, whereas you seem to be panicked about it now. Unless your surgeon is super aggressive, or the band is tighter on you than normal, the first fill doesn't really give a lot of resrtiction. So at most I'd *guess* that you'll feel slight restriction. and how my diet will change with that? Some doctors tell you warm mushis ir liquids for 24 hours after a fill. Some don't. If you get restriction you might see a change in quantity or food types you can tolerate. You may not. Again, depends...

I'm still stuck, and qualified for "stall" now. I've weighed the same, plus and minus the same 3 pounds, since around August 23. No change in measurements, and no change in body fat % as of 2 weeks ago. I've tried eating less, eating more, exercising less exercising more, less water, more water, on and on and nothing is changing. I find it very hard to maintain any motivation when I'm full on stalled. And I find it hard to not start thinking, "Maybe I won't lose any more", as irrational as I know that is.

Sea, did I see you at the Chiefs game yesterday? We took off at half time but as we were heading out the gate I swore I saw someone who looked just like you wandering around the "hallway" area, carrying a white plastic bag. (BTW, I loathe football. Hubby got free tickets, really wanted to go, football doesn't have much presence where he's from and he thought it might be fun... but he didn't know anyone to go with who wasn't already going so I took one for the team. I sat there staring at my hands and the really weird people in the crowd while everyone around me stood up, screamed their heads off, and insisted on drumming the back of my chair... absolutely miserable time... )