BJean

My doc is very conservative with the fills. His office is in closer proximity to me than some of your doctors are to you. I feel the tiny stick for the novocaine but only a little pressure from the fill itself. I do not ever feel bad afterwards and in fact, I always have the fill around 4 PM and then I go home and have dinner. I have never stuck with soft foods or liquids after a fill. I think all of this is attributed to his very conservative approach. But of course I'm only guessing. Btw, immediately after the fill, they have me drink about 2 oz. of herbal tea just to make sure there's no problem. I hope you all can figure out the code and stop having problems with your fills! We shouldn't be afraid to get a fill. We should look forward to it when we think we need it.

Yep, we bought the "Little Red Book of Sales" and gave it to our SIL who just got into sales recently. It is a good little handbook - contains many of the really tried and true approaches and ways to handle various scenarios. I am looking forward to getting "Killer Instinct" - sounds like one the DH would enjoy. Also, I haven't read "The Secret" yet. My DD says it's great and that it really helped motivate her into working out everyday. She's a size 4 but needed to firm up some. She already looks fantastic. No more thigh cellulite and now has nicely defined upper arms. She actually weighs a little more than when she started but looks thinner and healthier. That's inspiration to read the book, I just keep forgetting to get it from her. I didn't see the Oprah show when the author was on.

Well I thought I'd had enough of Bruce Willis until I saw his latest. I actually enjoyed it more than The Bourne Ultimatum and I enjoyed that quite a bit. It was the camera work. I guess I haven't played enough video games or something. Bourne was more believable, but Die Hard (15, is it?) was really fun. Anybody seen either of them? Metal you crack me up too!!! :bounce:

Poor DynamoMini! I feel your pain, big time. I opted out of a fill today because I have had so many of those episodes in the past month. You never know what is going to set you off. One day you can eat something and the next day you can't. Have you found that you can be having a meal and everything is fine and then you feel the pressure start building and continue to build until you have a PB episode - even though you stopped eating the second you noticed something? I mean you don't even know that you're in trouble until it's too late. I think I'm going to have to use a baby spoon to remind myself how small my bites need to be. Let's hope we both get to the point where we are happy for the restriction, and not experiencing the pain! :phanvan

You Win!!

Janet- FANTASTIC!!!!!!! That is just fantastic! Woo-hoo! :whoo: I am so glad you got it done, got the results and are energized! We try not to worry about those things, but it is impossible not to. I am very happy for you.

Kat I totally agree!!

Hey ya'll I feel very sorry for this girl. She's obviously a product of her upbringing and exposure to all kinds of messages she gets from every direction about how bad you are if you're fat. She is a person who is right now struggling with self-esteem issues. If she stays on this track, she's going to crash big time. But I don't really blame her for trying to find an easy way out of compulsive eating. That's what prompted me to get the band. I didn't think I could do it on my own either. I'll bet this is just the start of a trend in youngsters in America. I'll bet there are lots of parents who want perfect children so much that they'll gladly put them under the knife. What a message to our kids!

I agree with lepez. Here's a whole thread about it. Whoever thunk it up should get a raise. It took me a long time to understand that Huey Lewis wasn't singing, "Hit the B Square" :nervous

When you perform an exorcism on a twinkie, does the white stuff ooze out so you can get to it without fouling up the taste with that awful yellow cake?

Yes, Indio that's right. I just got back from a meeting with my dietician. There were three other people there who have been banded about the same amount of time that I have. We are all struggling with the same problem. I was supposed to get a fill, but dietician and I decided that I should wait another week because I am still not able to eat everything in regular amounts. I used to read about people who would eat sweets and cheeseburgers and fries and stuff like that. I didn't understand it. I wish I still didn't! I don't know of a sure-fire remedy yet. Although everyone saysthat exercise is the only way to get over this hump. :bounce:

I didn't realize that some of you are so soon post-surgery or haven't had surgery yet. If you get a fill where you are really restricted, it is much harder to leave the sweets alone - for me, anyway. That's why getting a fill is such a big decision. Too restricted and it's difficult to eat real food and not restricted enough, you can eat anything in any quantity. So finding a happy medium is the trick. Any little gimmicks you can use to keep you on track are great!

You bet! :confused:

April... you are not alone!

Dynamomini: May I ask, what kinds of things does your therapist have you do to overcome the urge to overeat, or is it all just talking about issues that you have not dealt with over the years that is helping you? I am beginning to wonder if I'm ever going to get off this plateau and if getting therapy is the only way to figure all this out. On the surface it seems so simple. I want to be a normal weight, I have the band, I did all the prescribed pre-surgical and post-surgery things. So why now that I'm at 180, can I not recapture the momentum that I had going? I don't really expect you to answer that question. You just seem to have your head on right and you seem to have found a way to work through this whole journey. I guess I'm hoping you have some specific "ah-ha" moment you can share that will be an epiphany for me too. :nervous

Indio: My DH has a theory about fat people. They have learned to be very efficient beings. They can think up all kinds of ways to keep from having to move much. They are very creative when it comes to housework, walking, parking their cars, getting on an elevator instead of taking the stairs, etc. I started paying attention to myself and also started watching my slender friends. They all move more than I do. They are constantly up and moving around picking things up, rearranging this or that, cleaning their closets, changing the sheets, parking way out in the parking lot so they can "get some exercise" and the list goes on. Meanwhile I'm being a couch potato, putting off everything and planning my next meal. Thinking about an art project that would be so much fun, but planning another meal. Knowing a room would look better if I got off the couch and started painting, but instead I just think about it and go to the store to buy good things to eat. Lands it's overwhelming to think about all the "head" stuff that I need to work on. :phanvan

I don't do the flat dumplings. Mine are large and very fluffy. Melt in your mouth - not chewy. Btw, remember that we are supposed to realize that there are NO BAD FOODS. Indio I think you're right on about the head hunger issue. I am one of those people who has started obsessing about my next meal. I haven't been able to decide if it is because I am too restricted or not restricted enough. Or if it is simply that my head is so used to thinking up good things to eat that I have reverted to that since I've been so restricted that I can hardly eat some of the time.

I promise not to complain about the work that the ACLJ is doing if you'll lay off the ACLU. I think it is good that both sides have advocates.

Jackie a similar wake up call has happened to me. What a shock to hear yourself say something like that when you honestly do not think there is one reason in the world why a person's skin color should enter into the dating equation. But it does. Pure and simple. There are still many bigots in this country - from all sides. And I imagine your initial thought was governed by the motherly instinct of wanting to protect your son from all harm. That harm could include discrimination in your little town and by his own grandparents. No one can honestly blame you for wanting to protect your son. But if we were completely free of any racial discrimination, we wouldn't have thought it could bring him harm in the first place, right?

I have high hopes that when and if an organization like the ACLU has gone off the deep end, we the people, the judge and jury, will set it right. The ACLU doesn't really get away with much unless there is just cause. But if you get a biased group of people who are in power, like the judge, the police and D.A., for instance, and you do not have the ACLU on your side, you have little chance of setting the thing right. Thus the need, I think, for a watchdog group. And the ACLU isn't the only watchdog group, just probably the most controversial - except for maybe PETA.

L8BloomR: Yes, not surprisingly we do differ on this subject as well. There's no doubt in my mind that you and I are wired differently and this subject, the ACLU, is very complicated. I don't know what litigation you've mentioned that relates to the Boy Scouts. I do remember a while back that the Boy Scouts had a terrible scandal about some of their leaders being pedophiles. My point is, although I do not agree with every case that the ACLU pursues, I believe that we have a need for a "watchdog" as Green so appropriately calls it. Unlike you, I would trust the ACLU quicker than I trust Bush and many of our politicians who have extremely personal agendas. But there again, the ACLU is made up of people. People are not perfect. People display bias. That's why we need to study both sides to most issues and not blindly believe all the headlines and spin that is spun by either side. To make it more difficult, many times we can't just lump everything into a neat pile that is aligned 100% with one side or the other. Afterall, we're both reasonable people. If it were simple, we probably wouldn't disagree.

As far as I'm concerned all scorpions belong lifeless in a box. The beauty shop scene you two paint sounds marvelous! I can usually find good conversation without good skills or good skills with no conversation. I thought I had found someone a couple of years ago. I paid more for her services but she was fantastic with my very difficult hair. She was pleasant enough. But by the time I got to know her well enough to share any kind of real conversation, it was always all about her. She talked non-stop all about her church and how I needed to try it, how wonderfully faith-based her whole salon was, how difficult it was to meet eligible Christian men, blah, blah, blah. She finally took me on as a project to convert me both for a religious conversion and for a rigorous weight loss regimen. I gave her up for Lent.

thompson362: Can you give some hints on how exactly to go about facing the mental stuff?? I am sure a lot of my problem is in my head, but I have no idea how to begin to straighten that out.

nickanut I had meatloaf for lunch today. I made chicken & dumplings last week and had some of it for a couple of meals. I had to go very easy on the dumplings, and with the meatloaf no bread, but I did have a couple of small bites of roasted garlic mashed potatoes. I am one of those who can't eat most chicken. The chicken & dumplings dish was the first chicken I have had in months. It was extremely tender and cooked very well, but I still didn't eat much of it. I went for the broth mostly. Some people eat chicken often, I'm just not really one of them I used to never eat fish and now I order it a lot when we go out. It just is much easier to eat and it tastes much better to me now than pre-band. Good luck. I think you'll agree that the weight loss is worth any foods that you can't eat (like bread).

Jackie- Been there, felt that!! When we moved back to Texas, I called up a good friend from high school that I hadn't seen in 35 years. She too was flabbergasted and didn't hide it. Then she proceeded to insist that we go to her husband's office after lunch so her husband (who was also a good friend of mine in H.S.) could see me. I was in so much denial I thought she was just proud of his successful business. Well, his mouth dropped open and he said, OMG! Like you've hardly changed! And then roared with laughter! It really, really stung. I realized that she was just wanting him to see how big I had gotten. I caught my breath and said, yeah you haven't changed either... To which he said, well I HAVE put on a few pounds around my middle. I decided to retreat into my own bat cave and was there until the LB. Now if I could just get the rest of this lard off, I'd thumb my nose at those jerks.