Wheetsin

I ask myself, "Am I still hungry?" between bites. When the answer is "no" I stop eating. Sometimes that's after three bites and sometimes it's many, many more. I figure -- I'd much rather get more food later, than have too much and deal w/ the consequences.

Married over 8 years. We had a picturesque civil ceremony on the edge of a cliff in Red Rock Canyon, just before sunset. My main pic server is a little dismantled right now so I only have one tiny thumbnail right now:

I was covered by UHC 100%, but Iknow my surgeon billed about $30k and the allowed expenses were about $1600.

9 jellybeans. They were sour, I couldn't resist. No other candy - never been much of a sweets person. We did easter yesterday. My mom's side of the family is Greek so we eat a little differently than most when we get together. dinner was homemade gyros (I made it, so I know only fresh/unprocessed meats & good things were in it), 2 thin slices. Homemade hummus with feta on a whole grain Wasa cracker. Marinated, grilled leg of lamb. Desert was a few slices of fruit. My "downfall" was the fat-free covered mini-pretzels, although normally I could eat a whole bowl, and this year I had about 8 yesterday and about 6 today. Lots of decaf sun tea and Water.

Mys urgeon uses consultation weight since that's the last time pre-op I was on his scale. But I think that's bogus b/c I gained a good chunk between consultation & surgery, so I personally use my surgery date weight as my starting weight. And when my surgeon asks me how much I've lost, I make sure to tell him -- "X since consultation, but X since surgery day." I worked hard for those add'l lbs lost. :eek:

There's more to a bikini body than size. The flabby skin I'm going to have, years of stretch marks, etc. don't make for a great bikini body. If size is all it took I already have a bikini body because they make them in my size. :kiss Plus the person quoted needs to keep in mind that we aren't all built the same. A single-digit size on me would be downright "skinny", and I hae no desire to be "skinny" -- and that comes from what I like about me and how I like seeing myself, not from any fears that I simply couldn't lose that much weight. So maybe instead of just thinking people are giving up too early or underestimating our own abilities to lose weight, it's also important to remember that not everyone looks the same in the same size, and not everyone wants the same physique.

It dawned on my about 1 week post-op that I'd forgotten to take "before" pics. Typically I take them clothed and nekkid for comparison. I completely forgot! :uwelcome: Add that to our "What to do pre-op" preparation lists! By the time I remembered I was already 30+ lbs down. Any pre-ops out there, make sure you do this! It's invaluable, and for me -- it's one of the only ways I can get it through my thick head that yes, I am losing weight, no, it's not just that these pants have stretched! Good news is I have before pics from Atkins, and I started at similar weights, so I do have *something* to go by... but really would have liked official before pics too.

I've been on solids for a bit now, and I can feel most things I eat. I'm aware of it, but it is not discomfort. The only things that I really REALLY feel, that I'm afraid might become discomfort if I don't stop, and applesauce & bananas. I feel these way more than anything else, and for longer. Even when I drink a thick fluid (protein shake) I feel it a bit. I've come to figure that it's just part of banding life. :uwelcome:

Big footed women! I just replied to a post about shoe size that reminded me -- I'd been wanting to post about shoe stores. I'm a big footed (and big everything else, except boobs ) woman. I need more shoes! Where can you find large sizes and wide widths at, and still have them look decent? Doesn't need to be cheap, just cute & good quality. I know Payless carries larger sizes but I'm not a Payless fan. I've bought some pairs through Cloudwalkers at Avenue but a lot of it isn't really that great -- they'll have really cute shoes with super ugly soles, or cute shoes that only come in fuschia and lime, or cute shoes that are all... bedazzled. Not for me. I need business & casual!

Yep! I'm surprised how few Nordstrom's there are in my area, Dillard's or Jones (didn't have either in CA but we had Nordie's) seems to be the more popular choices here.

Pasta with sauce? Yes. Lasagna? Yes. Mac n cheese? Haven't tried. Grits? Never had them. Oatmeal? Haven't tried. Cucumbers? Haven't tried. Bananas? Yes, but I can feel them going down. Grilled cheese sandwich? Haven't tried. Oysters as in fresh? Haven't tried. Sushi? meat only, haven't tried rice. Rice? See above. Shrimp as in cocktail? Shrimp yes, cocktail shrimp haven't tried (can't stand cocktail sauce) Celery? Haven't tried. French fries? Have eaten one. Fake crab meat? Don't eat fake crab. Real crab, yes. Corn on the cob? Haven't tried. Chili with Beans? Haven't tried. Enchilada? Insides only. Have you ever slipped up and had champagne? What happened? What could happen? No champagne tastes like pee.

Really?! Never would have thought to look there. I was there just last weekend shopping with mom (I bought the DKNY "Be Delicious" perfume - it's great if you like non-flowery scents!). We passed shoes and I was tellig her, "Oh those are so cute! And those! And those! But they'll never come in my size..." I'll travel for good shoes, but Reno may be a bit far -- though who knows when I'll go where for work, so I've written down the names & numbers... also going to look for a website. We have DSW here, I've looked before but only saw 10 & smaller... I will check again! I checked out Zappos and found a few, and found a few more at Roaman's... going to order today. :uwelcome:

My mother's side of the family is Greek so we do easter dinner a little differently... I'm not 100% sure what the "typical" fare would be, but maybe the insides of some deviled eggs? Mashed potatoes made with sweet potatoes, stir on some maple syrup flavoring, and add some spray butter.

I know I need to quit buying. *sigh* I've always been this way. That's why I don't really need to buy. I buy a new wardrobe every damn type I drop a size, and I've dropped & gained sizes several times, so I know as soon as I hit the next size down I will already have lots o' clothes waiting for me... *sigh* You guys are all very right. One of the things I bought was this brown dress on the right, because I've always wanted to be able to wear one like that, but haven't dared since I was like 20. That means the answer isn't quit buying. The answer is go buy the shrug they've layered with it, too -- then fit won't matter! :Banane04:

This was a fun conversation at work today, it actually stemmed from two questions. 1) What did you want to be when you grew up? 2) What really weird thing did you think/do as a child? I wanted to be a geologist. I had this weird obsession with rocks, and you know -- when you're a kid, that's all a geologist works with. I'd go to the canyon behind our house and find "pretty rocks" and collect them. My parents bought me a rock tumbler when I was a kid so I could tumble my rocks and make things from them. Whenever we'd go to Sea World or Disneyland I didn't want the Shamu shirt or the mouse ears, I wanted the piece of cardboard with different rocks glued to it, or the "Fool's Gold" they sold at Captain Kidd's World. I used to find rocks with the squiggly oil deposits in them and swear they were fossils. A related "weird thing I thought"... I went to daycare, and we had this huge sand area with all kinds of wooden things w/ bridges and poles, vertical wooden fences to climb (think bootcamp style), 50g barrels to roll over... you name it. We were very close to some canyons that were full of a type of red rock. We saw these rocks every day and never thought twice about them. One day a kid named Mark fell off of the jungle gym and split his forehead open. Starting the next day, any time I (or anyone else... you know how kids can be) saw one of these red rocks, we really believed it was a piece of Mark's forehead, and was red because of the dried blood. We never once reasoned that - wait, Mark still has his forehead, so where did all these pieces of it come from? Or - wait, Mark's entire forehead is only the size of a sock, so how come we have boxes full of it around? I went there for about 10 years (it was my preschool, kindergarten, and then I'd go there after gradeschool until I was 11 or 12), and the entire time I was there, after that one day, the red rocks became known as "piece of Mark's forehead." "They're throwing pieces of Mark's forehead at me!" "If you throw a piece of Mark's forehead at the window it'll break." "Go get some sticks, some Water, and some pieces of Mark's forehead so we can pretend to make soup!" And un unrelated "really weird thing"... ok, don't tell anyone, but apparently when I was like 4 or 5, whatever age you start losing your teeth, I refused to put them under my pillow. I didn't want the toothfairy to have them, I wanted to keep them so that I could string them on a necklace to wear. Wtf?!

I also need to get better about eating more, as weird as that may sound. I'm still eating around 600 cals/day.

I miss my veggies. I used to eat salad every day - I haven't dared to try it yet. I love veggie kabobs on the grill. I need to get better about my Vitamins & Calcium chewables. The calcium isn't so bad since I'm using milk for my Protein drinks, but I always forget my darn Multivitamin, even though I have a bottle at work & at home. I've lost another 9 lbs since Friday. Woo! I needed that! My scale hadn't budged in over 2 weeks!

I've been married over 8 years, if I don't know what sex is yet, then DH is a much more patient man than I give him credit for!

I've never even heard of those places -- that's the kind of stuff I need! No, my shoes still fit. But past weightloss experiences tell me that within the next 30 - 40 lbs I'll need to get rid of the wide, or when i stand the sides of my shoes will be gaping away from my foot.

Oh, and I was either going to marry He-Man, or my dad.

Since when we drove we never drove right past the moon, I always thought it was following us. My parents had medical enyclopedeas in the house that I used to read and study the pictures in. Because of this, before I was 10, I was self-diagnosed with syphilis, ghonorrhea, cancer, tonsilitis (I didn't eve have tonsils then), subaceous cysts, appendicitis, and a host of other maladies. At some point I got a seriosuly mixed up notion of sex, and related pregnany to "a man being on top of a woman". I remember waking up once, I couldn't have been older than 6 or 7, and I had this big life-sized Curious Goerge doll that was laying on top of me and I freaked out b/c I didn't want to get pregnant. I wanted to be a vet until I found out vets have to put animals to sleep. I wanted to be an anesthesiologist, just because I heard the title and thought it would be a cool job title to have -- I didn't actually know what they did, and couldn't pronounce it at the time (I was like 10). It always came out "anna-sneeze-knee-olly-just". When I was a young teenager I *really* wanted to to movie effects/prosthetic effects/animatronics. I used to give my friends "cuts" and "bruises" just to see if we could fool anyone. I started college as a pre-med genetics major, physiology minor because I wanted to be a research geneticist focusing on congential malformations. That waned and I thought I'd still go the MD route and do forensic pathology. I love what I do, but sometimes still wish I'd gone the MD route.

If it moves, sounds like it could be gas, esp. if you're ony 2 days post-op. I didn't have any gas after my surgery, but have empathized with several who have.

Now I wear an 11 or 12 wide. When I've lost weight before, and before I got fat, I wore a 10.

"I have a tapeworm."

What happened? Was it just a wet burp?