Devana

Thanks Missy, they did get home on the last ferry. By time I picked them up and dropped everyone home it was almost 4 am. And they had a wonderful time. It was a real adventure for them. They saw the concert they wanted and visited a couple of pavilions and just walked around soaking up the ambiance. However, they were sputtering with indignation about the Coke pavilion. They felt that they were held captive once they got in (they were actually locked into a room at one point) and that Coke was trying to "brainwash" (their words!) them. Only one of the kids drinks pop and he has vowed to never again let Coke touch his lips!!!!! (Exclamation points his; you know how emphatic kids can be). Despite that, the overall experience was fun and empowering for them. Now they're talking about taking the bus to the city about an hour away to see concerts. This is something I have been gently trying to encourage because otherwise Mom is around (because I have to drive them, and I don't mind, I might add) and that is so uncool.

Ok, the games are almost over, I'm still in kind of a snit. This afternoon I took a carload of boys to the ferry and they went over to the mainland to partake in the Olympic festivities. They're all 17 and all good kids, but they've never done anything like this before on their own and I'm a bit nervous. (Hence me sitting up late waiting for a phone call.) They may get the midnight ferry home or may stay there all night. My slight feeling of irresponsibility over this is negated slightly by the fact that there's safety in numbers and by the memory of what I was doing when I was 17. Yikes.

These numbers just astound me. 12 to 22 K a year for health insurance and it sounds like they still are able to deny you coverage for some things. I pay the highest premium which is $108 per month for my whole family. Everything we've needed we've received immediately. My son has had well over a million dollars in care for an ongoing problem. This has not affected our premiums at all. I sure as hell don't pay 12 to 22 thousand dollars extra in taxes to pay for this. I just don't get it. I would think that people would understand that fellow citizens' health can only strengthen a country. This fear of "socialism" and the apparently selfish attitude of "why should I pay and others get the benefits" puzzles me, but I suspect that a lot of people are being influenced by the propaganda of the big insurers. These guys have a huge investment in the status quo and I have no doubt that they're doing everything they can, both overtly and covertly, to keep things that way. Don't be duped by them. I always used to lecture my son and his friends about tobacco advertising: These ads are aimed at them. Adult smokers very rarely switch brands and the companies know this. Therefore these ads which appear to be aimed at adults actually contain subtle messages to make them attractive to kids. I would exhort them to be smarter than the companies and not be seduced or fooled by the advertising. None of these kids are smokers now they are in their late teens. They get it. How come so many adults don't get it when it comes to being manipulated by the health care powers?

sam, most people who have beliefs which are alternate to traditional Christian ones have given much thought to their spiritual journey and have thoroughly explored Christianity as well. One of the hallmarks of the spiritual process is the realization that there are less "absolutes" as I said before. See patty's quote below: This is pretty absolute. I agree with BJean that we're kind of hardwired for spiritual growth. And I believe that everyone, including patty, worships or expresses faith in their own way according to their own needs. When you say that people like BJean and me might be closed minded to the possibility that patty might be right, you can be sure that I (and I would imagine BJean) would certainly have examined the possibility that her form of Christianity is the one and only way. However, I can read the words of Jesus and have a whole different understanding of those words than she does. I believe the problem with fundamentalism is their belief that they're right and everybody else is wrong. You see this with fundamentalist Muslims as well as Christians and I would imagine extreme factions in other religions as well. They ALL believe they have the one true way. And the most disturbing thing is that they usually all want their respective countries or governments to run according to their fundamental beliefs.

I come on to LBT sporadically and when I do I always spend a few minutes in the Introductions threads to welcome newcomers. I always try and pick the older threads that nobody has replied to yet. When I first joined LBT it was after much lurking. I was shy and very new at forums, having never joined one before. I placed my first post in the Introductions site and waited a whole day and a half before I got an answer. LBT had many fewer members back then. I think if nobody had replied to my post I would have found it very difficult to begin participating on other threads. What astounds me now is I can find old threads that have 50 or 60 views and NOBODY HAS REPLIED! Sometimes you can see that the member has made a few other posts somewhere, but more often than not this is their only post. My hope is that we all remember that this forum is about support. Please, when you view an introductory post just take a few seconds and welcome that person. You never know what they'll go on to contribute.

I'd rather get a root canal.

Thanks, BJean, that one always made sense to me.

I am partially with you on this. However, I see myself as having a spark of the divine within, I certainly don't see "God" as the big father external to me. Therefore, I don't need a "gift" from "him". It is in my nature and my right as a human to achieve a higher level of consciousness or increased awareness of the "god" within. And it certainly doesn't depend on whether or not I "believe" in a Christian sense. Now this is just me. My Christian friends despair of me and pray for me to "see the light" which, of course means to come around to their view of things. I think it's quite alright for them to believe the way they do. I have no investment in having them come around to my way of belief. However, this is not the case with them. They are "right" and on the true path and I am "misguided". Like I said before, absolutes.

Really Patty? Who says? You? One of the beautiful things about the evolution of consciousness is that people seem to see things less as absolutes. I heard an analogy once: We're all sitting in a theatre watching the stage. People in the front row are totally unaware of what's behind them. The people at the back row see the whole thing. As we grow in spirit or consciousness it's like we keep moving back and seeing more of the whole. At some point on our journey we become aware that there are rows behind us that we haven't reached yet. Yet some people in the front will insist that this is all there is.

Congratulations on your loss so far and good luck with your continued loss, Jeff. That semester was like investing in your life. Way to go!

David, that was my experience as well. Then I saw a program that said that of all obese people that lost weight, only 4% would keep it off permanently. At that moment I realized that I would never be in that small percentile. Good luck with it. Do you have a date?

So you're a veteran bandster. Congratulations on your loss. Are you at goal yet?

Way to go!! It feels good, doesn't it. I'm up in BC and have had a fill at Dr. Neal's office. I didn't meet him but his staff were wonderful. Continued good luck with it!

Hi there, I'm awfully sorry nobody has replied before now. My band buddy and I were self pay. We went to Mexico where it was cheaper. She opened a line of credit and I got myself a new credit card, one of those deals you get in the mail with very low interest (for a credit card) for a year. I know it may seem a bit scary to go into debt for this. But for me I felt it was going to save my life. I have absolutely no regrets and neither does my friend. She had a much lower BMI than I and therefore reached her goal very quickly and has been there for some time. She still continues to thank me every couple of months for suggesting it. Good luck, I hope you work something out.

I would hope that not many people voted for this reason. I would be disappointed in the American population if this were true.

With all due respect, I sincerely hope I can spend my whole life doing whatever I want.

The whole thing pisses me off. Having elite level sports where one participant who is a couple hundredths of a second faster than another is considered a "winner" where the other isn't, is ridiculous. Winners and losers, all at great expense. I really have been in a snit since Vancouver decided they wanted the games. I'm across the Water on the island, however this is still the same province so it affects me. What I would have liked to see is all that money funnelled into making sports and physical activity available for all. I would like to see parents able to provide team sports, even expensive ones like hockey, for their children. I would like to see all sorts of non competitive activities available eg. swimming and kayak instruction. I'd like to see free seniors activities like swimming, pool exercise, tai chi, yoga, whatever. There is a small grant available for low income families to put their kids into sports but it's barely enough to cover basic soccer fees. And there's been such an obscene amount spent that I bet it would cover music lessons for any kid who wants them, too. There's all this talk of the spin offs the city will get with future tourism, however, someone should have consulted with previous cities, because it sounds like it wasn't nearly what they expected. So, all my bellyaching done, no, I'm not watching. However my husband is a bit, he tends to stop there when he's channel surfing. Therefore, I did just manage to catch kd lang singing Halleluia. Sublime.

Elcee, there is a CBC radio program called "Ideas" on which many topics are discussed and philosophised over. In the late '80's I happened to hear one called "The Immortals" which posed the question: What if the ancient Gods were real? Holy smokes!! It electrified me. I sent for the transcript. It all made sense. The key for me is the fact the original word for these guys was actually "immortals" rather than gods. And in the old testament the original word also was "immortals", which we now use as "God" and have morphed into meaning "deity". Anyway, this sent me on a Quest that has helped form my opinion which is this: I think something very interesting went on back then. SOMEONE was here and I'm not even going to speculate where they came from. I think the ancient gods and the gods of the old testament were the same group. I think they were guys and not deities. I think Jehovah was one that emerged from a group and tried to build his team (hence the smiting of people not on his team, which is very un-supreme-deity-like behaviour). I think the old testament has nothing whatsoever to do with the big "g" God. It was just some guys trying to control their underlings and get them to be good and obedient children. And I think this is where we get our western view of god as the "Father" from. Probably sounds bizarre to most people but it's the only thing that makes sense to me.

I came home to find about 100 wild swans (and a few assorted Canada geese) in my front yard. And I can't find my camera!!!

BJean, before we had a child late in life, we moved around a lot. I think it may be due to the fact that my sweetie and I both have Sagittarius rising. I make friends quite quickly and in one of the parenting classes I took I examined my own attachment behaviour and could see that in every place we've lived I make three very good and intimate friends and a whole pile of just good friends. When I've moved on, I usually manage to keep in regular contact with one or two of them and sporadic contact with the others. When we do connect it's almost like we've never been apart, we can pick up where we left off no matter how many years it may have been. I agree with you that friends are very important. I went through a period of post traumatic stress disorder after our son was ill and it was my girlfriends that got me through. My sweetie was there for me but he was kind of going through it a bit, too.

Crap! I didn't think of my phone. I'm actually a cell phone neophyte and haven't learned to use the photo part yet. That will be my job this weekend. Herds of elk, how cool. Here on Vancouver Island I've only seen them singly. And I believe they're not quite as big as mainland ones. One jumped off a bank onto my car one rainy night and wrecked it. I'm not sure how he fared as I couldn't find him afterward. Because we live on an estuary we get lots of sea birds and birds of prey. In the autumn I've counted 10 bald eagles out front. We also get sea and river otters. The seals stay out in the deeper bay Water. Love it.

Hi, Michelle. Congratulations on your decision. I think the best thing to do would be to find specific threads to post your questions on. You'll have a better chance of getting the answers there. All the best!

Hi and welcome to LBT! I think the best thing would be for you to just start reading threads and asking specific questions on those threads, even the ones about plastic surgery. There are lots of experiences that people have shared. Good luck with your decision!

Hi Politisa, I see you've posted this in the low BMI site too, and have had lots of lookers but nobody answering. I was high BMI and in a different situation, but I'll try and give it my best shot. My friend that I got banded with had 70 lbs to lose and was very successful with it. Some time after she had reached her goal weight her band slipped and she had it removed. She's finding it a struggle to keep the weight down but she's managing by exercising like a fiend and eating very little. I have to point out that she's self employed with teenagers so she has the time to spend 2 to 3 hours a day exercising. I think it may be quite different with young twins. (Congratulations, by the way!) I have heard of people hitting plateaus in their weight loss by eating so little that their bodies kind of go into a starvation protection mode. I also know that certain foods take quite a bit of energy to digest, so if you eat tons of broccoli, say, you should lose. The speed of losing 50 lbs on the band? It really depends on the person. It is possible to "eat around the band" and even gain weight, for example if you suck on milkshakes all day. In your case, two things come to mind. First, people who are not heavy have no idea of the physical and psychological burdens that obese people deal with. It's very easy for people to state that if you just eat and exercise right you will reach your perfect weight. While that does happen sometimes, often things are a lot more complex than that. A lot of well meaning people discourage obese people from getting bariatric surgery. Your weight gain is fairly recent and it's entirely possible that you will lose it naturally, although not as quickly as you may like to. On the other hand, many of us who are obese had the whole thing begin with our gain during childbirth. Keep reading posts. Hopefully others will put their two bits in and give more information to help you out. Keep us posted on how it's going for you. All the best!

Hi there, it's been a few days since you posted this. How are you now? Are you alright? My first guess would be gas, but if it lasts awhile it probably should be checked out. Keep us posted!