green

Hey, hi to everyone from me. Yep, the weight issue is so complicated. I have got my mate telling me that he prefers me between 140 -150 lbs but now he is telling me that I look beautiful and very elegant. And then yesterday he finally discovered that before I got banded I weighed 200 lbs. This really shocked the poor guy, then he thought about it and said, "you didn't look like you weighed 200." And the truth is that he has always liked fleshy, curvy women, something which I was not! I was built more like a love seat with tiny little legs and arms - the curse of the apple-type gone to seed. As for the individual who made the remark about my weight problem after noting down my BMI, I think I know who she is. If I am right, she is my hospital dietician (well, the one assigned to my case) and she is herself morbidly obese. She was pissed off with me because I wasn't following her diet plan and then I avoided seeing her; I wasn't following her plan out of caprice but because I was too sick to follow it, something which she didn't seem to be able to take into account. That is why I soon began to avoid seeing her. There was no reason for these conversations which were going nowhere. I was tired, ill, throwing up, and didn't want to discuss Carnation Instant Breakfasts - blehhhh - I just wanted to be home and in my bed. Hah! And as for these weights, I haven't been this little since I was in my 20s. That's like 40 years ago. I would have thought I was fat back then....... LOL

I finished my 35 sessions of radiation the week before this one just past and then became so very sick with radiation sickness - I was seriously dehydrated and I couldn't eat but I was vomitting - that they admitted me to hospital and kept me there for a week. Now I am back home and am slowly starting to feel a little better. I am very skinny: my BMI when I was released from hospital was 21.5 but the same person who had noted that also noted the patient was a little overweight! Actually I gained close to 7 lbs in hospital because they were feeding me 24/7 through my feeding tube. And how did I find out all this info? My home care nurse lets me read her file on me. In fact my file is always kept at my house in case I get a substitute nurse. The radiation also destroyed my ability to enjoy the taste of food. Everything tastes like toxic waste should taste. My bucket list consists totally of restaurants I want to visit again and dishes I want to eat. There are days when I obsess on food. This never happened when I was losing weight the band way. Weird! So that is my news and hello to everyone from Green.

I don't do forgiveness, either. I just grow bored and move on. The only exceptions I have made are in the case of my parents: I never did manage to forgive or grow tired enough to move on.

Your maw sounds like she would be much improved if she had a couple of drinks under her belt.

I have heard that the province will often pay for the pannus reduction because this is not just an issue of vanity but also of health. Please look into this before picking up the tab for the operation.

My port was placed directly between the breasts about an inch below the bra line. I could never see it but I could feel it and I got into the habit of playing with it while lying on the couch watching prime time TV. Now that I have cancer and have lost more weight than I had originally planned on losing as a result of this I can see my port. By the way, my patient notes list me as having a BMI of 21.5 and then remark that patient is slightly above healthy weight range!!!! So now I am sick and confused, eh. LOL

Because of my problems with depression I have been seeing therapists since I was in my late teens. I am now almost 59. I have had a lot of experience and I can say that not all therapists are created equal. Although this therapist has pointed out something which is true, that some men may screw around as part of their mid-life crisis, his approach was not only less than sensitive to a patient who is in distress, it was biased in favour of cutting the guy a little slack. I think that this guy sounds both shallow and incapable of listening. He is likely to be very much caught up in himself and his own masculine/personal agenda. My advice would be to dump him ASAP and find someone else.

I am very very sorry for your loss. For what it is worth, I did not cry while my mother was dying or immediately after she had died. It was a few months down the road when I finally did crash and spent the afternoon in a remote part of the house noisily bawling my eyes out. You may not be crying but make no mistake: you are grieving and you will continue to grieve. Please accept my sympathy.

Omigawd. Forget eat the rich! It's gonna be eat the fat!

I'll second that. One of the many, many nice things about being an adult is that you now have the ability to communicate like one.

We all do lose weight differently, that is for sure. The thing to remember is that this is not a race. A slower weight loss is often the healthiest weight loss as the body has ample time to adjust. Congratulations from Green.

Congratulations, kiddo, from Green.

I really enjoyed reading this post. Thanks, WestCoast.

Oh, when it comes to being on medication in order to control my problems with depression I am a lifer. I simply do very, very poorly without meds to control this problem. Right now I am on Welbutrin, Selexa, and Topomax. Topomax serves as a mood stabilizer. None of these meds are in the anti-psychotic class and I have had no troubles with losing weight while on them. And yep, I do like to shop. lol I just don't do it to excess and I do like bargain hunting. I think that the confusion as to whether I am a straight depressive or bi-polar may have been related to the nature of my destructive urges when I am depressed. I suffer from anger issues whenever I am in a state of depression. I become moody and bad tempered. When my meds are working I am really quite pleasant to be around....

Animal rape is generally speaking a matter of establishing social dominance and does not come out of a twisted desire to hurt and humiliate. Most animals do not kill for the sport of it. They will kill in order to eat or in order to protect themselves from predators. Humans are also animals, members of the mammalian class, but are arguably the most complex of all animals. There are many societies which are far more secular (the Scandanavian countries are notable examples) than Americans are, and there are societies which are much more devout. It certainly cannot be said that a Lord of the Flies situation flourishes in any of those very secular Scandanavian countries. Many of the Islamic countries are very devout but one cannot call these societies successful by most of our western criteria. Indeed, some of those countries do sound considerably closer to a Lord of the Flies scenario, don't you think?

Most of my family are depressives and I am one, too. I ran into weight gain issues when I was under the care of a shrink who decided that I was bi-polar. This is when I was placed on drugs which fall into the class of anti-psychotics. These drugs will cause a grrl to gain weight and they are often prescribed for folks who suffer from anxiety. My slim husband was placed on one of these drugs because of his anxiety issues. He ended up gaining a lot of weight which he quickly shed once he stopped taking his meds. I also have a friend who was blessed with one of those little skinny gymnast-type bodies. She gained 60 lbs in one year after being placed on an anti-psychotic drug for reason of her anxiety problems.

Child rape and serial murder are bad because they have a negative impact on the well-being of the tribe. Most people, I believe, understand this on a basic level. Thus the majority of us do not need our civil laws nor threats from a diety in order to keep us in line. Civil laws and dieties which threaten Hellfire are there in order to exert a measure of control over those of us who are psychologically damaged and are thus unable to behave in a manner which protects the well-being of the tribe. Atheists are as interested in matters of right and wrong as theists. Philosophers are folks who have made it their business to study ethical questions.

No species can survive if the individuals who make up the species do not behave a fashion which furthers the health of the group. This is as true of wolf packs as it is true of human beings. We have hardwired in us an altruistic sense of the collectivity or group because this is as necessary for our survival as the simpler ego-based needs are for our own personal survival. And as for anyone who feels he needs the Big Hall Monitor in the Sky to prevent himself from committing anti-social acts, well, I would be inclined to suspect that this individual has some pretty big personal problems.

Yep, we have two pink flamingoes in the backyard, too. We also put up a wall made of used doors on the side of our yard that abuts our psycho neighbour. He was asking for it. Haha. And we have a "found object" sculpture in the back yard. This side of the house is where we express our lunatic selves and the front is where we try to blend. lol

Reproduction is a lop-sided business. The male contributes a little sperm and the female is tied up for the next x - depending on the species - number of months in hosting the foetus until it is ready to be expelled and take its chances in the world. This is a very expensive proposition for any female mammal for she must obtain extra calories and protein in order carry the pregnancy to term and then while she is nourishing, protecting, and training the infant animal. She must do this while remaining as safe as any male from predators. Some of us would call this biology unfair. I am one of those people. I like sex as much as the next individual and certainly I took precautions with birth control whenever I indulged. When I found that I was pregnant an abortion was a no-brainer for me even though the man who contributed his mite was anxious that I have the child, as was, indeed, my own mother. I had an abortion as soon as I could arrange it (which was 7 weeks into the pregnancy) and still have no regrets 25 years later. Every woman must have the freedom to make this decision for herself for it is she who must carry the true burden of the pregnancy, she and not some other interested party. Pregnancy is a wonderful thing when those who want children can have them, a nightmare when motherhood is not desired, and the flipside, infertility, a tragedy when those who desire children find themselves unable to have them.

I am another apple. Even when I was a fatty I had the legs of a racehorse, and now that I am skinny I still have a thick waist. I have inherited this unfortunate, kind of boyish figure type from my mum. And like her, I started gaining once I hit my very early menopause (I was 41 and she was 39). She used to say of her body that she looked like a spider with a giant egg-sac. I did, too.

I really enjoyed reading your post. And I quite enjoyed Shallow Hal.

That really is a drag. That knowledge would have saved you a lot of frustration and relieved you of all feelings of failure. I must confess that I didn't know this when I paid for the operation. At the time I just felt so fed up with being fat that I cut a cheque, and got the band. It was my dumb good luck that the band solved many of my problems and that I had an easy time recovering from the surgery.

Ghost, how are you doing? And what is the latest news? Please keep us in the loop.

The band works well for those people who suffer from portion control issues. People who have a sweet tooth fare less well with the band. I was lucky in that I fell into the first category. I was a glutton and the band put up a physical barrier against my gluttony. I ended up losing the 50 lbs that I needed to shed over a ten-month period and with little pain. I was lucky in that I have never liked sweets. Folks who enjoy sweets have a much bigger battle ahead of them, one that will never be entirely resolved without using a lot of personal will power.