TheGh0st

OMG :omg: I can't believe I just uploaded the swimsuit shot!:opps2: :help:How do you remove a picture from a previous post! All I can see in that pic is my large arms and my stomach hanging down by my side. Thankfully my legs are hidden by the towel! Here's crazy... Part of me still can't get enough of showing people my before shots while my "current" shots still embarrass me. (I'm not willing yet to call them "afters") It's like I think if they see my before shots maybe they will be more forgiving with how I look now. So on that vein here are my before's... But for the sake of non-partiality whoever is going to be kind enough to show my current photos to their friends for their opinions, don't show them these as well.

OK here goes... I'm going to post my pics for you guys. Anyone who is willing or able could you show them to a couple of your non-banded friends (Maybe a good looking guy:eyebrows:) and see what they think. Do they think I look "fat", "normal" dare I suggest "thin".

Hi Mommi If you go to the main home page for Lapbandtalk then click on the category that you new thread would best fit under. "General Support" "Fill Doctors", etc. Once you bring up the page with all the existing threads for the category you want your new thread to be under, you should see a button at the top of the thread list marked "New Thread".

Hugger - you are doing GREAT!!!! Congratulations on the hard work. There is an online group called KCBandsters. I can get you the link if you don't already have it. They use to meet once a month at a local library but stopped meeting nearly a year ago. Most of the people that attended that meeting including its founder who was banded in Mexico before it was approved in the US now attend a group that meets in Doctor Malley's office. The group is a good mix of newer and older bandsters. Usually there is only 1 or two people that are scheduled for surgery but haven't had it yet. The moderator has also been banded which I love. There are usually around 20-25 people and I'd say at least 20% of them were not banded by Malley. I'd love to see you come if only so we could go out for lunch or coffee together afterwards. 10:00 am-11:30 am 2nd Floor Brill Eye Center - Just North of the Lamar & Johnson Dr Intersection, Mission, KS Backed by Dr. Malley's Office but open to all.

Below is a link to an article that was in the Kansas City Star on Wednesday discussing the results of two long term studies comparing the 7-10 year mortality rate between groups of people mobidly obese that had and hadn't had weightloss surgery (of any kind). It found that 30-40% fewer people that had surgical intervention died in that period than those who didn't. Below is a quote from the end of the article. "...Deaths from diabetes in the surgery group were dramatically cut by 92 percent; from cancer by 60 percent and from heart disease by 56 percent. Surprisingly, the surgery group had a higher risk of death from accidents, suicides and other causes not related to disease. Both studies were done before surgery advances that have led to smaller incisions and faster recovery time." Anyone else notice that statement about the increase in suicides and other non-illness related deaths amongst those that had weight loss surgery? I wonder if the increase in other non-illness related deaths could be due to the more active lifestyle we are able to have after losing some weight. I also wonder if the suicide increase is due to the fact that after most of us have spent many years blaming many of our problems on our weight secretly or not so secretly believing that if we could only lose the weight everything would be so much better, then finding after we lose the weight that we were oh so wrong, and that losing the weight just gives us new problems. Just my rambling.

Thanks Chimboree - Now lets see if I have the courage to actually hit the send button with some photos for you.

:behindsofa:I've been lurking here for several days. I've wanted to post but I have so much I'd like to say I'm afraid I might post a novel and wasn't sure I had the time to write it or if you would have the interest to read it. I LOVE ALL of your posts! I started searching Lapbandtalk this spring for a thread just like this one to no real avail. Thankyou for starting this. :yo: I am 5'2" and down to 165 with an original goal of 139. I also have a Tummy Tuck scheduled for October (YEAH!!!) :whoo: I can relate to everyone of your posts. My secret belief I am still SO FAT goes far enough that I've been afraid to post here for fear one of you will secretly think I still have too much weight to lose to belong on this thread. (Now who is crazy?) One of my problems these last few months is I just have no idea how much more weight I need to lose. I set a 139 goal based on a combination of the least I needed to lose to get to a "normal" BMI combined with the fact that I always dreamed that I could get down to the British equivalent of 9-Stone X-Pounds. (Where each stone is 14-pounds.) But now I'm down to a size 10 and part of me thinks why can't you just be happy where you are? I'd like to think that once I get the tummy tuck I can be satisfied no matter what the weight is. And I HIGHLY doubt that the surgery is going to remove the 25+ pounds I still need to lose to get to that original goal. :pout:In so many ways I feel so alone. My band-friends that aren't as far as me yet are starting to treat me like one of those "skinny" women who they hate for complaining about their weight. They try to be nice but I still feel like I can tell it hurts them that I still don't think I've reached my goal. As for my non-banded friends, they are competely sick and tired of hearing about my struggles. I can't even say one sentence remotely related to my weight or the band without my husband asking if I would "drop it already" and yet he still asks from time to time if I need another fill because he thinks it looks like I haven't lost any more for a while. Then their are the people on the street. I just don't have a clue what they are thinking. I still am convinced the "normal" sized ones are thinking I'm a plus size but then the people who really do need to shop in the plus size department are giving me those same "She doesn't belong with us" looks too. Lately I've been obsessed with the idea of asking strangers their opinions. I haven't done it yet mind you just obsessing over it. Problem is I don't think I'd believe anyones positive responses. I'd just think they were being polite. That's when I came up with a truly "Cunning Plan" :madgrin:(reference-Black Adder Fans) maybe there are others out there in Lapbandland like me who would be interested in exchanging photos. We could ask all our friends what they thought of this "strangers" photos and share the responses we got. That way we wouldn't have to worry about the responses just being "polite". If by some chance one of you don't think I'm completely off my rocker, let me know. I'll show yours if you show mine. :spy: :heh:

Quick check in. No weight loss this week either. Of course eating an entire tube of chocolate chip cookie dough in one day may have played a role in that. UHGHH!! Must get back on that wagon!

Nails, This site took me a while to get use to as well. But it is one of the best if not the best "thread" based sites I've ever found for any topic. I love the smileys, signatures and the way you can "sucscribe" to different threads to get reminders when there have been updates. I've even been known to come to this site just so I could cut paste a smiley from here into a personal e-mail I was sending someone. And, I think I'm subscribed to nearly 10 different threads though I'm really only active in about 4-5 right now. A local Kansas City thread, a couple Plastic Surgery Threads, a thread for people banded in September, a thread talking about Relationship issues and even an off-topic Harry Potter Thread. I'm not sure how to fix the picture sizes myself but for the "ticker" slash signature line. That's relatively easy. You can go to a webpage called tickerfactory.com. Pick out a ticker style you like put in your stats which can be a mini-goal or final-goal, it can show pounds lost or your exact weights. Some people have even started using the ticker to measure other things like exercise goals. Setting a number of hours or miles they want to reach in a month and tracking it on the ticker. Once you create the ticker at Tickerfactory you open a seperate webpage window and go to LapBandTalk. At the top of the page there should be an option for "UserCP" click on that then on the left side of that screen there should be an option "Edit Signature". Once you select that you should see a window that looks a lot like the reply windows for a thread. In that window you can type what ever information you want to appear on every reply you post to Lapbandtalk. Now here is where I might tell you something different than others might. On the Tickerfactory site at the end it gives you all these different wierd codes to use to get the image to work on different types of web pages. I don't mess with any of those. I just highlight the ticker I created on that page with my mouse, right click my mouse and hit copy. Then go to the edit signature window, right click and hit paste. It is much simpler. Once you have created the signature I recommend you hit the preview signature button just to check it first. The ONLY thing I've found that I don't like about this site is that once you change your signature line it is changed for ALL the posts you have ever listed not just you future posts. So you can't go back to old posts from months or years ago and see what your ticker looked like back then. Small complaint I know.

Nails - You look fantastic! I was banded Sep 05. I've gone from 255 down to 165. I'd like to get down to the 130's for my goal. I'm much further away to my goal than you but considering I started higher I believe a good chunk of the remaining weight is from the excess skin (as well as my F-cup chest). I've already scheduled PS for an extended tummy tuck & lipo on October 9th. My hope is to lose around 15 pounds from the surgery. I had toyed with waiting until I lost another 15-20 pounds before I had the surgery but after consulting the PS he said it wasn't necessary. That I was close enough to goal that I could have the surgery now and still lose the rest of the weight afterwards without risk of looking like I needed another tummy tuck. Either closer to surgery or just afterwards. I'm going to start a thread on it. I've already got the before photos from the PS office ready to upload.

Yvonne - My prayers are with you. Have you and your husband spoke with your boys yet? I may not know what you are going through but may understand a little of what your sons are thinking. My mother and father slept in seperate beds for close to 10 years if not more before they finally divorced. First they stayed together for my sister and I then out of habit and fear of the unknown once we were out of the house. But for them it was something that should have been done decades earlier. As early as grade school I can remember thinking they would be happier if they didn't live together. All the "pros" talk about the children feeling guilty for causing the breakup I actually felt guilty for being the cause of them not breaking up. I know finances will be tight and the children are probably worried about that. I know I was too when I was a kid and begging my father to please leave my mother. But at least in my case, I would have gladly endured the financial hardships with my mother, over the years of unhappiness she went through.

Frank - Just wanted to thank you for chiming in. We've been wanting more men's perspective on this.

No real weight loss this week. Scale was 0.2 lower than last Monday but hardly worth writing home about.

I'm glad to see this site picking up again. Hugger - You are looking GREAT! 2bethinagain - CONGRATS on joining Bandland! Mary - Thanks for bumping this site and getting us talking again By the way who is running the meetings these days? I stopped going after Billie left. I just couldn't stomach the idea of someone else taking her place. One person in particular.:heh: I've still been going to a support group just not the Hoehn/Hitcock group. But I still miss you guys. My 2nd Bandversary is next month. Here is are my before & current photos. ___________________BEFORE______________________________AFTER___________________

Afterthoughts - I've joined a second band walking group on Thursday nights up North at Zona Rosa if anyone is interested in joining us let me know. There are only 3-4 of us trying to hook up each week and usually only a couple of us manage it each week right now. I'd love to see a few more people start coming.

It's good to see someone posting again. I miss this board. Where did everyone go I wonder? I'm doing all right. Finally broke my stall and lost 7 pounds in the last 2-3 weeks. I'm also scheduled for plastic surgery to remove the left over skin in my tummy in October. I'm hopeful that after I recover from the surgery that I won't feel the need to lose anymore weight and I'll be able to learn a new life of just living where I'm at without the constant struggle to lose more weight. I know I'll probably spend the rest of my life struggling or worrying about gaining it back but I'm hoping that struggle will be just a little less depressing than the one to lose weight. I'll probably start a thread hear in Lapland on my PS journey. I'll post a link once I do for everyone.

Don't applaud me to prematurely. Technically that was Sat a.m. weight. Then I spent Sat night at in-laws for my DH's B-Day and didn't get back til 2am this morning. After all the potato soup, strawberry cheesecake icecream and chocolate sauce straight from the bottle (damn that Hershey's syrup they keep in the fridge at all times) I was too afraid to get on scale before work for fear I lost all the headway I'd been making. I don't plan on getting back on that scale until Tuesday or Wednesday now. Hopefully if I gained any I can pull it back off again over the next couple days.

2.2 pounds down for last week! STATS 8-4-07 - 166.4 8-2-07 - 166.8 7-30-07 - 168.6 7-23-07 - 169.8 7-9-07 - 173.6 May-07 - 167.8 Goal for Sep 13th Bandversary - 159

:welcome2:Darragha - thankyou for chiming in. I doubt you could offend any of us. :alienOFF TOPIC: And Star Trek? I must have missed the earlier reference. I'm a big Sci-Fi geek myself and proud of it. I'm currently reading through the additional Dune Series Novels written by Brian Herbert & Kevin Anderson and loving them. Do you ever read Trek books and are they better than the TV series (no insult intended to one of my much loved TIVO staples)

Imfine - Just a thought maybe if you went to counseling on your own first then approached him (possibly with a letter or call directly from your couselor) with a request to meet with the counselor either together or even better by himself under the premise that it was to discuss how he can help "You get over your problems" Then maybe he wouldn't feel threatened with the idea that the purpose of the meeting was to accuse him of wrong doing. My father is a counselor and I have seen him use this non-threatening tactic before. Like others said he maybe more open to change if he hears it from someone else. And if it is approached in a manner that makes it out like he is helping you rather than addressing any of his own flaws it might just keep him off the defensive.

Sharon - Congratulations! And welcome to the group.

:update: I know its not Monday but I had to post anyways. I made it down to 166.8 thats 1 pound lighter than my previous banded low weight. And 7 pounds down from my weight at the beginning of July!!! I might actually knock out my goal weight by my bandversary! :boxing: STATS:bounce: 8-2-07 - 166.8 7-30-07 - 168.6 7-23-07 - 169.8 7-9-07 - 173.6 May-07 - 167.8 Goal for Sep 13th Bandversary - 159

You know I was thinking it could have been a piece of the egg in the egg drop soup but then again I seem to have the worst slime episodes on plain old protein drinks or milk. I swear I sometimes slime more than I actually drank.

LISA - Amen Sister - I've been fantasizing about asking random men on the street what they think. I just can't get my head around wether or not I really need to lose much more weight or if I'm focusing too much on those hidden dangly bits. Ofcourse I'll be getting rid of my fleshy fanny-pack & muffin top in October which should help, I'll still be left with my flabby thighs that have thier own cleavage and my chest that looks like rocks (OK maybe boulders) in socks. Maybe we should exchage some photos and start asking men we know what they think of the pics. After all I don't think I would trust what a friend or stranger might say to my face. But if someone else could ask for me that might just work. KATT - Egg Drop Soup - It could have been some of the Egg in the soup. I've heard of people having a piece of lettuce in a salad act like a thin lid closing off the passage way between our upper & lower stomach. Maybe some of the flat noodle like egg managed to cover your hole the same way? D@mn that need to chew Chew CHEW even something as simple as SOUP!

7-30-07 - 168.6 (-5 or +0.8 "getting closer") 7-23-07 - 169.8 (-3.8 or +2 depending on your outlook) 7-9-07 - 173.6 approx 2 Months ago - 167.8 Goal for bandversary - 159 or 1-1/4 pounds per week Surgery date: 9-13-05 Height: 5'2" Age: 37