Wheetsin

In a few hours I will have my first consultation with my surgeon. When his coordinator setup the appointment she told me that I will be picking my date today. WOW. I'm very eager.

Oh, the bad news... man, getting weighed there was d-e-p-r-e-s-s-i-n-g! There was a 20 lb. difference between their scale (the higher) and PCP's scale! I was really caught of fguard with "sticker shock" for a while!

3/1 was the earliest they had available, so I booked it! Now to make arrangements for work... I'm supposed to be in Tampa the week of and the week after. I'm sure moving the work dates won't be an issue, but still - go figure. I have a feeling I am going to be even more thankful than I already am that my boss is such an advocate for flexcible work arrangements & telecommuting.

I think this is becoming my motto here, but remember - weight does not equal fat. Weight is a measurement of your body's total mass, not of it's fat content. All of the possibilites you question are indeed possibilities. Muscle weighs more than fat, so if you are doing any strength training, it's almost guaranteed that you will be losing fat but not weight. Muscle also needs more calories to exist (long story short), which is why the more muscle you have, the more calories you will burn, even while sedintary. You could be retaining Water. Things that commonly cause retention include being pre- or post-menstrual (esp. within 2 - 3 days), eating salty/high sodium foods, not drinking enough water (your body will go into "store" mode, just as it does with your fat reserves when you don't consume enough calories and nutrients), weather, temperature, elevation, mobility -- all that and more influence how much water your body holds onto. Have y6ou ever weighed one day, then weighed the next and you've lost some incredible amount of weight? It's not possible to lose that much fat overnight. Your bosy has decided to give something up. No worries, eventually the scale will catch up with what your body is telling you. :cake:

I didn't read all the posts so this may have already been suggested, and I'm far froma mom or dad, but I always give the same gift & it is ALWAYS appreciated. Diaper Genie, and bag refills for it.

Hahahha hah. When I was a kid (quite skinny one, too) I would stand behind my mother while she brushed her teeth or put her makeup on, and bang my hands on her bum cheeks, left, right, left, right... while singing, "I'mmmmm playin' my drums! Playin' my drums!"

Well, there are weight issues that involve the house, and there are weight issues that involve the hospital. Cosmetics & self-esteem are one thing, health and productivity are another. Which matter most to you? Not that I would advocate LB as the only option. There are lots of options out there. But you got this far, so I assume you've already decided that of those options, this is the best for you.

For me - slimmers. Whenever I have to be in a suit & up in front of the masses, I'm so happy I have them. Then they come off ASAP.

So is something wrong now?

I am the reluctant queen of stretchmarks. When I reach goal, I will consider them to be my battle scars.

Hematoma = bruise. But I got the impression you were asking *why* you have a bruise? Any cut, incision, pressure, impact, etc. can cause a bruise. Very common after surgery. Very common after falling down the stairs. 1 question, 1 advice. My question to you would be - is it a NEW or OLD bruise? (i.e. what color is it). My advice to you would be to call your doctor. It is not typical for a bruise to become a hard ball and feel like a knife. There are blood-related things that can cause symptoms like those, but a 1 week post-op bruise is probably not really high on the list.

I've been trying to contact my Dr.'s office for a while now to get a status update. I didn't know if they'd even submitted my paperwork yet. When I got back from lunch I had a voicemail at work from the bariatric clinic's coordinator saying "I'm trying to be discrete so I'll just say that I hope you got the same letter we did." What?? So I call her back and apparently my insurance company approved me in 4 days & sent out approval letters, but we were out of town until late lastnight & haven't checked mail yet so I had no clue. I have to give about 18 thumbs-up to my insurance company. I was sure I'd need additional testing since there's no documented treatment for anything weight-related in my recent medical history (or ever, really). Plus when I had my physical all bloodwork came in good, I have normal blood pressure, I'm not diabetic, I've never had medically supervised weightloss efforts, etc. But nope! Sent them 4 pages (that's it!) of medical records with nothing weight-related in them other than when they record your weight when they start, and my preliminary info that I filled out from the bariatric clinic, plus a copy of my Dr.'s dictation from my physical (in which she did state I would be an excellent candidate doe to overall good health), and I'm good to go. Kudos to them, I'm excited! I have my consultation next week to choose my date, and will have at least 1 mandatory psychologist & dietician meeting sometime afterwards. WOW - I was expecting a lot more fight than this!

I have United Healthcare EPO. I had UHC PPO at my last employer and was very happy with them. Going into this job 7 months ago I knew that WLS was a definite possibility for me, so I was very strategic in picking my coverage (we have 11 or 12 options for coverage where I work) and picked the company/plan I felt was most likely to cover the procedure. I talked to people I know who have had WLS and found out what carrier the used. I called several of the companies I was considering to see if they had exclusions for WLS. I researched the surgeon I was considering to see if he had previous procedures convered by UHC. Etc., etc... My plan covers surgery in a hospital at 100%. Inpatient & outpatient stays are at 100%, though inpatient admission has a $250 copay (who cares?!). Fills will be considered an office visit and covered at 100% minus $20 copay (again, who cares?!) All doctors at my clinic are in-network. Of course this plan had the highest monthly cost of all the options, but who cares? My work reimburses us 80 - 100% of our premiums, but even if they didn't it's so worth it, I have been so happy with UHC during the 7 years I've had them. (Ok, so technically they "maybe" reimburse us for the premium... there's a plan for healthy employees, and we get points for workouts, weightloss, not smoking, wearing seatbelt, etc. Your points translate into a percentage of your premium that the company will reimburse... a great "stay healthy and cost us less" incentive!) I was set to have DH write a check if my insurance co didn't approve me, so this is happy news (and I told him to go ahead and write the check, but write it to liquid savings & we'll use it for a celebratory "when I meet goal" trip to Turtle Island, Fiji instead!) Now... when do I break the news that he gets to write a check for TT??? (although I know three people who had RNY, and have my same coverage, whose TT/PS was covered...)<A< p>

I don't but a co-worker does. I thought she was kidding me when she told me about it. Here's some info from a site she uses: All information quoted above originates from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

I'm hooked on the Asics GT-2100 series. SUPER comfortable. The meshing lets your feet breathe, you can literally feel the air coming into the shoe as you walk. Downside to this, which I learned the hard way, is these aren't shoes for the rainy day! My mother swears by Rockport but I have never tried them.

The pics are thumbnails. Click on them for a larger pic. :rofl:

I went from hair that was all one length and went to my belly button when wet (it's curly, so a few inches shorter when dry), to hair that falls just above the back of my collar. It's amazing how your head springs forwrd - I never realized how heavy my hair was. If you go fo rsomething significantly shorter, watch out for these things: * You will use much less shampoo/conditioner/anything. I would automatically go for the standsrd 4 - 5 pumps of shampoo, and realize I had no where to put it other than down the drain. * You will need to re-learn how to comb your hair. For years, I would take my hair out of the towel, fling it over my shoulder, and start combing from ends up. I went to fling my hair over my shoulder and there was nothing to fling. Felt really akward. * Stare at your hair for an hour before you leave home - that way, you won't have to narrowly avoid wrecks b/c you're staring at its new weirdness in the rearview mirror while going down the street. * Prep SO, if you have one. I didn't prep DH and he was quite (unhappily) surprised.

I thought you were describing me, but I wear a 12. :rofl: At 235ish I wore a 20. At 215ish I wore an 18. My first personal goal is 200. My long-term pesonal goal is 180. This is me in 20s, so you get an idea what that size looks like on someone with our structure (forgive the bad clothing, I was boarding a 12 hour flight!):

Why are you guys so sure she had WLS? I've seen a couple threads about this here, and teh general consensus is, "She needs to just come out and admit that she did it!" There are other ways to lose weight, esp. when you have the $ for personal trainers, chefs, etc. I, like mousecrazy, do not mean to come off grumpy, but it seems like people are of the opinion that that's the only thing she could have done. All weight loss must be the result of WLS... or something. I'm reading much more than opinion, I'm reading "She just hasn't admitted it yet." No one here really has any clue what she did or didn't do (and I don't see why it matters anyway).

We paid a little under $7000 for 2nd wedding (first wedding was spontaeous & out of state no wasn't enough time for others to attend, so we had a mock one upon our return). Pictures were done by professional photo-journalists. Their site is here.

Just remeber that fast weight loss doesn't necessarily = WLS. I've lost 80+ lbs. in 3 mos more than once, but certainly haven't ever had WLS. Good luck to her, I hope she's able to keep it off!

Hi Joanna, have you tried changing the image resolution? It sounds like you're on the highest, and unless you're going to do a lot of large scale printing you don't need to take up that much disk space. Or it sounds like you have a tiny memory card by default. Or perhaps you have the camera set to a lossless compression format. Have you tried messing with the settings? Just checked and your camera apparently comes with a 32MB card. That's not much! Your camera and it supports 5 different resolutions between 640x480 and 3072x2304. At the lowest, in a lossless format, a 32MB card should hold about 80 pictures.

She could be getting you ready for surgery, or in general feels that working out will help you get in better health. That's always the #1. Sounds like you're on your way - hope the process goes quickly for you!

I have an Olympus c2500-L for "real" pictures, and a Fuji Finepix S-700 for quickies. The Fuji is great for its purpose, no complaints, couldn't have picked a better picture. Photography is a hobby of mine and I bought the C2500 to get away from 35mm so I went with this digital SLR but have really missed having a choice in lenses. My next purchase )I think DH is getting it for my birthday next month) will be a Canon EOS Digial Rebel... digital SLR with more than 50 lens choices! HarleyNana - what is your primary goal for the photos? Do you want to keep them online, or are you looking to get quality prints? Do you do any serious photography, or just for memories?

I don't live in SD now but I was born & raised there, and try to get back at least once a year. I'll do by best to help you out. When I lived there and we wanted snow we would head to Big Bear, Tahoe, Mammoth, or Shasta. I believe all are open to snowboarding and ahve several terrain tracks. There are actually LOTS of ski places in CA, but you won't find much skiing in San Diego proper -- the farthest south to find skiing would be San Bernadino & San Gabriel mountains... most skiiers head to Tahoe or farther into the Shasta area. Here is a site with more info. "Don't miss activity" depends... who will be there, what are their ages, etc. They have the best zoo, and it's in Balboa which I personally would consider the whole area a must-see. Balboa Park is beautiful (I was born at Balboa hospital!), and has lots of museums & activities, especially on the weekend. Here is more info ob the Balboa area. If you want a relaxing day, and one a little removed from tourists (but very busy nonetheless) I would suggest Seaport Village. There's a small outcropping known locally as the best place to picnic & fly a kite. The backdrop for the whole area is the Coronado bridge, and across the bay is the Coronado (home to a naval ship base, the Hotel del Cornodao, and some very nice beaches). There are some great brunch harbor cruises). Here's more info about Seaport Village[/url]. Another huge hit, especially with out of towners, are the Sea World and SD Wild Animal Park (actually in Escondido, and HUGE, over 1800 acres). If you want fun, ecclectic shopping take the drive up to Laguna Beach - HUGE arts/crafts area, and a beautiful beach. Old Town is just hands-down a great/fun area, lots of things to walk around & see (and home of the Whaley House - your kids might get a kick out of that, depending on their ages). La Jolla is a great beach and a beautiful place to spend an afternoon, and if you're there make sure to see Mount Soledad - one of the best views of the city... and something virtually no tourists know about, but we used to take field trips there in school & I still go back is Shell Cave. It's part of a little store, and for a very little fee (I think it's like $3) you can walk down this looong tunnel (a cliffside cave) in stairs, neat to explore w/ the small cave offshoots & such, but at the bottom is a downright amazing view of the ocean from just inside the mouth of the cave. Beautiful sightseeing. As for shopping, I'd say you could pretty much stick to two malls, Fashion Valley (great for high-end stores) and Horton Plaza (fun, zany, good selection of stores). I always like UTC (University Towne Center) b/c it's less touristy. (According to the Forever21 website store locator, there are stores at both Fashion Valley & UTC). Hope this helps. Feel free to post or PM if you have other questions. :confused: