Fairysaddle

I am proud of myself, but I am also a little bit embarrassed by the numbers and attention. Fortunately, I knew going in that I wouldn't be comfortable discussing it all the time, so I just tell people "I'm sorry, but I don't give numbers." Most of my "inner circle" knows not to ask. I read this one on one of the boards, so I can't take credit for it. But I've also occasionally used "oh, a few sizes. Thank you." That lets you answer without really answering. Which is kind of nice. A couple times with my "no numbers" reply the person started apologizing profusely. I felt bad for making them feel bad when they were only trying to be nice and supportive. I like the compliments, and if I make people feel bad I'm going to stop getting them. :thumbup:

Both are at the St. Francis site next to CHRIAS, at 6:00 pm. Tuesday is the "original" support group, with mostly pre-ops who are required to attend. I have no idea if there is a topic this month. Typically a lot of "newbie" discussion - insurance, liquids/mushies, etc, and not a lot of post-op help. Wednesday is the post-op group with Dr. Wynn. (I've never been to one of these.)

I'm here! Can't make Tuesday, I have a PTA meeting. But I might try to make Wednesday. Anyone else going? I'm still having a tough time fitting exercise in. If I make it once a week I'm lucky. :crying: But, I have been being really good about walking up to school. It takes about 10-15 minutes one way (depending on how fast I can get the kids to walk and how many times the dogs poop), but it's up a hill so that helps. That's 2 walks a day 3x/week, and 1 walk 2x/week. Not a lot, but better than I was doing a year ago! However, I'm also in a plateau for about 2 months. I've got to get my motivation back. I'm eating until full instead of just satisfied, and that late night snack is killing me. I just can't give it up. I'm going to just have to get all the Snacks out of the house. Which isn't fair to the rest of the family.

The club that I belong to has a nice little cafe. Twice now I have eaten right after exercising, and both times I had to run to the bathroom. One "almost" and one pb. The first "almost" pb was understandable. I had DH order for me, and ended up with a dry hunk of pork. Ugh. But today it was on an anti-pesto salad, which I normally wouldn't have any problem with. I eat salad all the time. So I'm wondering. Do I get tight after exercise, or is it just a coincidence? I'm a little gun-shy about eating after exercising now. Does anyone else get tight right after exercising? They have really yummy, healthy food there, and it is just so darn convenient. I don't want to give it up. But I'm certainly not thrilled about pb'ing, either. :biggrin:

Thanks for the reply! I was hoping it was just my imagination. *sigh* It's so tough to fit exercising into my schedule already, now I have to worry about whether the kids are starving, too.

Woo-hoo! I just scored one. I can't wait for it to get here. :biggrin: I signed up for instant messaging on Amazon.com. You sign up, then when you get the message you reply with "buyfit". It took me about 6 tries, but I finally replied fast enough and got one. It's even free shipping. And I don't have to buy one of those package deals with $60 worth of stuff that I don't want.

FYI, I had my travel agent look into Disney's policy on the meal plan. You cannot get a child's price dining plan that includes 1/2 size portions of adult food, as a kind person pm'ed me that they thought you could. However, they WILL allow you to be removed from the family's dining plan with a doctor's note. (i.e. the rest of your family can have the dining plan, and not you.) HOWEVER, you also won't get park tickets, and will have to purchase them seperately not as part of the plan. (Given my knowledge of ticket prices, I don't think this will cost any more. It's just a minor inconvenience.) This is a great option for those of you who want to share meals. Don't quote me on this part, but I think he also said you can get a child's dining plan, but you would have to buy children's meals. I completely wasn't interested in that, so I didn't pay attention to the details or pursue the concept. I opted to stick with the regular dining plan, as was my original plan that I discussed above.

We are going back in October for the first time since I was banded. We have opted for the dining plan (the regular, not deluxe - I can't imagine eating 3 sit down meals a day, even pre-banding!) For us, given how we vacation, it is a good deal. We are a family of 4, with two young children, thus we are planning several character meals some of which happen to be buffet/family style. We also are planning a few double credit meals (Hoop-de-doo and Cinderella's Royal Table). For the buffets, I will get the children's price, and we will just pay for those. Those meal credits can be used on the double credit meals for both DH and me. For the other sit down meals, well, I simply want my own meal, and I do NOT want to order off the children's menu! DH will eat an entire meal, so sharing isn't really an option. I'll just have to throw food away. Same with the counter service meals, I want my own grown-up food options, and DH will eat his whole meal. We'll be staying in an on-property hotel, so I can't prepare my own meals, nor would I want to - it's vacation! We also aren't willing to give up valuable park time to go back and eat. We do take cereal, bowls, a pitcher, and powdered milk so that we can do breakfast before heading out in the morning. So one counter service and one sit-down service is perfect for us. We usually end up using most of our snack points in the gift shop for stuff to take home. Any food item up to $4 is a "snack", so you can get nice stuff. Perfect for little gifts for friends & family, stocking stuffers for the kids, etc... You just have to evaluate your own needs and decide for yourself. For us it is perfect, obviously for others it is a big waste of money.

I took my kids to the meet and greet at our Elementary school last night, which is about 1/4 of a mile up a hill. First off, I can easily hike up that hill now without huffing and puffing or having to stop and catch my breath at the top. :eek: But, even better, after meeting their teachers, the kids wanted to play in the playground. While DH swung DD, I sat on a swing to keep them company. It didn't hurt! I swung a little - it didn't hurt!! I kept swinging - it still didn't hurt!!! I can't remember the last time I was able to swing on one of those sling-type swings without my hips hurting badly. Admittedly, it still isn't terribly comfy, but it didn't hurt!

I did it! I went to the gym today. Busted my patootie. And, surprisingly, I haven't lost that much ground for missing for a couple months. I wasn't able to do the elliptical for quite as long, but aside from that, I only had to drop 5 reps off of one of my machines. And I didn't lower any of the weight settings. Woohoo! I was so worried that I was going to have to fight to get back to where I was after being so bad. Of course, I did go to a campfire tonight and ate s'mores. I won't say how many. (Any chance there is Protein in milk chocolate?) I guess it's a good thing that dinner got stuck so I only ate a couple bites of that, though.

30 pounds is awesome! Well done! I don't need a kick as much as to have someone come over to my house around 9:00 am and drag me outside and dump me in the driver's seat of my car! Any volunteers? :biggrin: I don't mind exercising. In fact, I am rather starting to enjoy it. That's not the problem. The problem is walking out the door! Especially since my only opportunity is in the morning after I get DS off to school and before my nephew comes over at 11:30. And I am SOOOO not a morning person! If I miss that, fitting exercise into my nutsy schedule is almost impossible. Especially with small kids around - you can't take them on a walk with you, and you can't leave them at home. OK - I don't have my sister's kids tomorrow, and there's no school. I'm going to make myself go exercise! I just need to make myself do it. I was doing really well for a while, then "life" got in the way and I lost the habit. I need to get it back again!

How many people come to the post-op meeting on Wednesdays? I've been wanting to go to it, but it seems that there is always something that night. I've pretty much given up on the Tuesday meetings. It's kind of fun being the only post-op in the room, and I enjoy helping people. But I really don't get much out of it for myself. As for an update on me -- I need a serious kick in the pants! I'm snacking and not exercising. Bad, bad bandster. :biggrin: I really need to get myself back on track, and having a tough time doing it. Those "tomorrows" just keep adding up. :thumbup:

As has already been pointed out, PB'ing isn't anywhere near as bad as vomiting like when you have a flu. It isn't pleasant, by any means, but not what you are likely imagining. It's not like the flu, where vomiting is a whole-body experience of heaves and a super-nasty taste that leaves you shaking and hurting. PB doesn't have that foul taste, and isn't gut-wrenching. (I've never been seriously stuck, mine have come right up. Others may disagree with that, it's just MY experience.) Even the nausea that you feel when it's happening isn't the same type of nausea. Not pleasant, but not nearly as bad. It's very localized, more of a discomfort rather than a sick feeling. I realize that won't make any sense at all to you until you experience it. Just take heart that it's not as bad as it sounds. :thumbup:

I'm at a good level of restriction, and I can even take the big vitamins/fish oil tablets. You will probably be able to go back to your regular pills after a couple months. Although I personally wouldn't even attempt it for about 2 months. Give yourself time to heal before risking it. How about Patches for some of the medications? My doctor put me on Catapres (patch) for my blood pressure. I changed it once a week. I really liked it, although I stopped using it after it became a problem with swimming over the summer. I now take the pill form of the same medication. Note that they were very expensive. So if you don't have good insurance, that may not be the best option. edited to add - you can get little plastic pill crushers at the drug store. You could carry one of those in your purse for when you are out and about.

Leftovers. If I try to reheat meat, I get stuck every time. No matter how well I chew. Even soft meats, like a nice, moist, flaky fish. It's kind of a bummer, since when I make the effort to make a nice meal, I really want to be able to get a few good lunches out of it. I *HATE* having to make myself something blech for lunch when there is a wonderful baggie filled with yummy-ness sitting right there in the refrigerator.

Protoccinos are yummy! I really, really liked those. I still keep some on hand in case I need something to grab for Breakfast while running out the door. I'm only an occasional coffee drinker, btw.

Absolutely! I never tried Wendy's, but I did homemade chili several times. It is awesome on a saltine! My doctor allowed saltines during mushies. They made the mushy stage for me. Mushies sound a little too much like baby food. Ick. But dip! Well, I can seriously get into dips. Just be careful if you are watching carbs. It's easy to get carried away with the saltines. (I use the multi-grain ones, btw.)

Have a great trip, Rob!

Absolutely! Multi-grain saltines were a life-saver. Using crackers makes "mushies" become "dips". And I love dip! :biggrin: Refried Beans are blah on their own, on a cracker they are yummy! Tuna mousse. Hummus. Ground up chili. All kind of yucky to eat plain on a spoon, but super yummy on a cracker. Just keep the carbs down by really loading up each cracker. They add up quickly.

The salty crunchies! Particularly at bedtime. I'm trying to make wiser choices (soy chips, nuts), but they call to me... I have pretty much just resigned myself to a slightly slower weight loss because of it.

Very nice! I am impressed. I can appreciate how much work went into those pieces.

Very nice. Have you already made furniture, or is that still just a dream? I would love to see some pictures of pieces that you have made if you have done it before. I can definitely understand the travelling thing. I had to rent a scooter when we went to Disney last year. After a few days, I just couldn't walk any more. I'm hoping that I don't have to do that again for a very long time! Besides, I would love to do things like riding horses and parasailing. Not to mention that my kids are going to want to go to "real" amusement parks in a few years. I don't want to have to sit on a bench watching them ride the roller coasters! My kids deserve to have me be able to do stuff with them. I don't want to watch from the sidelines any more!

Oops, sorry. I thought it did show up in previous posts. Obviously, I was mistaken. I must be thinking of another forum, too. :wink2:

On the right, click "Edit Options" under the Members area. On the left, click "Edit Signature" Go to your ticker website, create your ticker, then "copy" the ticker (the actual picture, not the link) and past it into the edit box. Add any other info you want in your sig into the box. Viola! :confused: BTW, you don't need to post "test" messages. Your sig will show up in your old messages. You can look at them.

If nobody answers this, you might want to try one of the larger forums. I think most of the people currently hanging out in the Delaware forum are fairly newly banded. You'll get better answers elsewhere. I'm kind of curious, too. I think I'm finally at a decent restriction, but I'm not sure. I still feel like I'm eating too much, but on the other hand I do feel full and stay full for a while. And, I get stuck ocassionally, so I'm not sure that I WANT more restriction. I would rather lose a little more slowly than to PB all the time. How tight you want to be is somewhat of a personal preference thing. PB = "Productive Burp", i.e. bringing the food back up.