Wheetsin

I love being able to ask for a to-go box, instead of the desert menu! We eat out at least twice a week still. That's huge for us, because pre-op, we'd eat at HOME maybe twice a MONTH. For sh!ts and giggles (and a few tears) I added up all of our food expenses for one month and we were over $2000. And it wasn't because we were eating tons, we'd just go to fairly nice places, eat what we wanted, and leave a good tip. It really added up when we did it for the entire month. So think of all the $$ you'll save. I've never felt deprived, mostly because I order what I want, and eat enough of it that I'm no longer hungry. If someone has something that looks good, I take a taste and that's enough. I'm 2 mos out and have never once felt bad or like I was missing out when I've seen someone's big portion, or seen people eating things I'm too afraid to try but enjoy (rice, bread...) To keep from eating more than I do at home, I ask for a box when I order. (I tell them to go ahead and bring it b/c I know I'm going to need it). When the food comes I eyeball about a cupful, set it aside, and box up the rest so it's not even an option to eat more... otherwise I'd sit there and pick at it, eating way more than I need to. Then I make sure that it takes me as long to eat my mini-meal as it takes the others to eat their mega-meals. If I don't finish what I set aside, I add it to the to-go box. If I finish and I'm still hungry, I'll have a bite or two of something on DH's plate. Hey is -- when I'm NO LONGER HUNGRY, I stop eating. I don't judge it by WHEN I'M FULL. Big difference. Look to your company and conversation for enjoyment, and not portion size. Just keep reminding yourself of how totally worth it it's going to be one of these days.

I'm not so restricted that I can't eat, but I do get full faster. I can still eat more than I probably should be able to, but I don't let myself eat more than a visual cup full at a time. I'm tracking calories approximately through fitday but not exactly. My weightloss has REALLY come to a creeping stop, and I'm figuring my calroies probably has something to do with it... or it could just be my body "recalibrating" after losing so much so quickly, but in the last 6 - 7 weeks I've lost 5#. I'd love to know if I'm eating wrong... anything to get the weight moving off again while staying as healthy as I can be, so tell me what you think, here's what I ate yesterday and what I've eaten so far today: Breakfast: Protein drink made w/ fat free Carb Countdown milk, with a tbl of low fat/low carb Peanut Butter and a bit (about 1/5) of banana blended in. Lunch: about 40% of a medium chicken breast with a little bit of sauce made with chopped tomatoes, asiago cheese & garlic roasted garlic... and about 2 spoons of mashed potatoes. Snack: Protein Drink made w/ fat free Carb Countdown milk, with 4 oz light OJ. Dinner: Microwaved turkey pepperoni (cook the fat out, has lots of protein) and cottage cheese, about 20 pepperoni and about 1/2 C cottage cheese. Breakfast: 1/2 protein drink w/ low fat/low carb peanut butter blended in. Lunch: 3 grilled chicken tenders, about 2 tsp mashed potatoes, and 1 bite of applesauce (that's the applesauce that prompted my post) Snack: will be the other half of my protein drink. Dinner: Will likely be leftover from lunch yesterday. A typical day might look like this: Breakfast: protein drink with something blended in it, either PB or SF DaVinci, or maybe just a few berries. Lunch: Chipotle chicken bol with just a few black Beans, no rice, green chile salsa, just a bit of sour cream, no cheese. I'll eat half. Dinner: The other half of the chicken bol. Snack: Protein drink (more to make sure I get enough protein than because I'm hungry), or if I'm hungry I'll make 10 microwaved turkey pepperonis.

She's saying she can't I've become a once-maybe-twice-a-week kind of gal. I figure - my body is using most of what I give it, so of course there won't be as much waste. SInce I had a pre-op diet, the same was true for me post-op. Have you moved on to mushies yet? If you're still on liquids, no worries...

You can buy one for about $40. You could resell it on ebay when no longer needed and get most if not all your money back. That would be better than taking one.

My surgeon used staples, and put this plastic tape stuff over them. It was really sticky. Even with showering at least once every day, all but the very corners was firmly stuck 7 days later when I had my staples removed. They put on steristrips afterward, which started coming off 4 days later so after about 6 days I just pulled them off... they'd gotten so loose they weren't doing any good anyway.

That would have been my first suggestion - self pay. No idea what your surgeon charges, mine charges about $150, from what I've been told. I've heard of insurance companies putting a time limit on covered fills, as in the duration, but not a starting time. That's so odd, and makes no sense. "We'll pay for the band, but not to get it up & running!"

Hmm... I could drink w/o feeling sick, but would get completely filled up on water. I'd work ona 16.9 bottle all day and still not finish it. Are you trying to drink the water cold? If so, try room temperature - should help with the nausea.

Interesting read! In a study a friend/psychologist did, the number one non-phobic fear among women was getting fat.

Good news (not). I have to leave next Monday for a business trip and I'm gone all week... so hopefully things move a little this week, or else... *sigh* Friday the other guy's adjuster called and said they were going to have a look early this week, but nothing more specific. StrawartS - what an informative reply, I bet they taught you all kinds of things you didn't know! (major sarcasm). DH saw one of those commercials lastnight and winced when the impact happened, then looked at me and was like, "I really didn't need to see that..."

Most of our telecommuting jobs are not production-oriented, they are phone-based customer service jobs (still no requirements of number of calls handled tho). Jobs like account reps, underwriters, etc. Their productivity can be tracked, because their managers know about how many calls should be handled, and because they have a given turnaround time to resolve issues, but there is no direct "X per hour" type goal. My job is typically NOT one that is allowed to be done at home, in other companies, mainly for political reasons. Everyone already thinks "training" departments do nothing, so if we don't even have the face time... Fortunately a lot of work has been done at my employer to change the culture around "training" and to build good partnerships with the business, so we don't have this same concern. In my case, the building where I'm located is my official customer, but not the customer I usually do work for, so it's an even better prospect for telecommuting. My entire team is a virtual team. My boss is in Chicago, me and my onsite co-worker are here (we're in the same dept. but report to different managers), we have some people in FL, some in CO, some in NJ... I've worked here about a year and have only seen my boss twice. I do like the flexibility of working from home, and I do use the time to run errands. It's easy. In the office I typically work 7:30 - 3:30, with no lunch break (eat while working at my desk). When I work from home I might work off and on from 6am - 6pm, and take care of personal errands during the day. MOST of the time when I call a work from home day it's because I have a Dr. appt, or a delivery I have to sign for, or something that has it make more sense to stay home rather than do a lot of extra driving. Or, if I'm not feeling well, it's a way to "stay home" without having to take PTO... As long as I'm at my critical meetings (generally conference calls, which I can do from home), it doesn't matter when I work... since I'm mostly building courses, as long as my course deadline is met, I'm good... I don't have "daily" deliverables. I am a lot more productive at home because I don't have the "drive by" traffic... people wanting to stop and chat, people asking me questions b/c I'm the only one there, and then I have to go find someone who can help them, etc. The worst I have is the dog needing to go potty. I also end up working longer hours, actually, because I can start my day sooner, and end it later.

I burp way less, but they last forever... it's like just a little comes out at a time, instead of all at once, and I can feel them coming from "way deep down" in me. Niiiice...

I should add, the in-laws are paying about $7.80 per gallon, so you'll hear no complaints from me! :eekB:

We're about $2.69. It took just over $70 to fill up DH's truck this weekend.

We have the option to telecommute. I don't do it officially, but work from home whenever I need/want to. With my company, there's a formal process for people who want to become "scheduled telecommuters" (the opposite of what I am -- informal -- these people will have it on their calendar that "M, W, F - work from home." Mine is as needed/wanted) download a form and submit it to their manager. Managers review and make a determination. Our telecommuters use their regular phone line b/c they're required to have broadband access, which the company pays for... so no worries about the home phone being busy due to work. Just about everyone in the entire org. uses a laptop, so they're provided with monitor, kayboard, mouse, printer, fax, etc. at home. My job is more desk than outward, I develop learning systems and distance-based e-learning programs. I don't do "traditional" training (e.g. standing up in front of a class) so my absence doesn't really matter... plus there are two of us in our office, and my peer does most of the on-site stuff while I do more enterprise-wide... so the only time I'm needed in the office really is if she has something she can't make and I need to cover for her. As for reaching me, I will send a note to anyone I'm working with directly letting them know when I am working from home. I will dial in to my work phone from home and change my message to reflect that I'm at home and leave my home number. I will also usually set my Out of Office on indicating I'm working from home with contact info. We also use an IM client, so I indicate whether or not I will be available through IM, and also what hours approx. I plan to work. On the larger scale, we have training programs for managers of virtual teams, how to build a virtual team, teambuilding with telecommuters, EPSS for being able to manage a telecommuter, how to evaluate their performance, etc. There has to be a decent backbone & cultural support in place before a telecommuting arrangement can really work. Feel free to PM me if you have any specific questions. :eekB:

Our red miniature poodle, Mr. Hobbs, enjoying his first snow:

Bittersweet timing here. Until Tuesday I drove a Volvo S-60, lust like this one: It was likely totalled on Tuesday (still waiting to hear from ins co), so I have my eye on a Volvo XC-90:

How much fill do you have, and do you have restriction?

Unless you're like 4'2 it should be an issue. I flew at my highest (382), I'm 5'10, and didn't need an extender. At that was on a Southwest flight!

So so so much better than with!

Yay to you - you got your surgery scheduled! I'm so happy for you!

FunnyDuddies - was that the one on just the other day? I saw the beginning, they were saying that althought he house itself was a reproduction, everything in it was original... and how when the guy died he was worth 300k but only left his wife 10k? I've seen that series a few times. It always seemed rigged/faked to me. There was one with a group of guys in a cellar or something, and one guy "gets pushed down" and claims he got hit, but it jut looked like he tripped over barrels. Hard to see what's really going on.

I had some natural restriction from the band, too, but by week 7 post-op I was pretty wide open in terms of what I could eat, though even when I ate the most post-banding, it was still way less than a "small" meal pre-banding. I was able to eat pasta, hard breads, crackers/chips (omly tried tortilla, don't like potato chips), wheat thins... I also had 1 very small piece of chicken pizza to see how I'd do with the crust and it was fine, I just chewed the crap out of it and only swallowed teeny tiny bits of it at a time. I purposely avoided rice, soft breads, etc. just because I don't miss them and never found them worth the risk. There were two things that would bother me to eat, that I could really feel sitting for a bit before they went down, and that was (of all things) bananas and applesauce. I told my doc I couldnt feel any restriction - I felt myself getting full quicker, but not really restriction, he gave me the fill and said, "There, you should feel that!" I certainly hope so! My willpower is destined to fail. :brick:

It would be very hard for me to 100% give up fast food because I eat half a chicken bol at Chipotle for lunch at least once a week, then half the other half the next day. DH wanted lunch at Fuddruckers the other day and stupid me ordered a hamburger w/o even thinking about it. I did get the small one, and kept it plain & told them to hold the bun so I just had a patty and some pickles and mustard, but chew, chew, chew I could not get that hamurger chewed up enough that I felt comfy swallowing it. That's the only hamburger I've tried since banding. I have stopped by taco bell a few times at airports. The Pintos & cheese have a lot of skin, but discreetly spit them out and it's a good meal... and the insides of a spicy chicken taco makes a good entree.

My first fill was 1cc, 3 weeks ago. I called infor another b/c although I didn't feel hungry between meals, I was aboe to eat large quantities... and didn't trust my willpower to hold out. I got another cc today, so I'm hoping. So far no difference but all I've had was a few tastes of DH's soup and a protein drink, no hard protein yet.

OMG I can't believe I didn't see how dirty the mirror was before I took this pic. :brick: :nono: Here's the layout, and below are close-ups. 1. Actual size about 1/4". (That's just a small mole next to the incision, not something from the surgery). 2. Actual size about 3/4". 3. Actual size about 3/4". 4. Actual size about 3/4". 5. Actual size about 1.5" (port incision). My port is under the band-aid. Here's a close-up. You can see the fresh needle prick from today, and to the right and a little up the one from 3 weeks ago. It's the spot that looks like a discolored/bruised pore.