green

The lapband is great. I am eating healthier and I can wear a size 10 pant now. I think everyone should get banded.

Thanks for answering, LadyHR. It's funny but I had more mood swings when I was getting my period. I spent the week before getting in touch with my psycho side and then I would be flattened with the worst cramps for about 24 hours. Unfortunately for me I was on a short cycle and so it seemed that I was always getting my period! This was I was so resistant to HRT when I first went into menopause. haha

And Jenin is absolutely right, the influx of this illegal labour has had a very direct and very negative impact upon your own labour force. It has driven down both the price of labour and the safety standards. It is more difficult for your working class to find jobs, these are less well paid than they were, and the health benefits and safety standards are crumbling. What you might save on cheaper foreign labour you lose in paying out in welfare for the unemployed. This is a tragic situation.

It is human nature to migrate when the living situation becomes untenable. This has been the case throughout history. This is what the Okies did in the 30s when the land upon which they where living became a dust bowl. And when the Irish were dying of starvation during the terrible potato famine in the 18th century many of them migrated to America. There are also many economic migrants in the modern European Economic Union; these are workers who are moving from the poorer member states to the wealthier ones. And of course our forefathers were migrants. The Mexicans who come to the States are only doing what is human. Nevertheless, the sheer numbers of the new arrivals are straining the social fabric and the infrastructure of your communities. This is the fault of governmental policies the way I see it. The way I figure it, the current laws which you have in place are not being used effectively against the folks who hire illegals and this may also mean that businesses in general are not being monitored about their employment practices the way they should. Another thing: Mexico is the third party of the North American Trade Federation Association - NAFTA - which is a kind of European Common Market lite. Very lite. It strikes me that through this connection your president and the Mexican president should be having ongoing talks concerning ways to solve this problem. Obviously these talks should not be about building bigger and higher fences but about upgrading the economic health of the country and this is done by providing jobs and education for people in Mexico. You must remember that most people prefer to live close to their friends and family and all that they know and love. They only leave when they feel that they must. I also believe that it will be crucial in the upcoming century that North America have a healthy, well-educated, and prosperous workforce. We will need this in order to survive the global challenges. Both India and China are emerging as powerful economies. And of course the Middle East will continue to be a bloody mess. :confused: To return to Mexico for a minute: my husband and I have done a little travelling in Mexico and we are nuts about the country. It has deep colonial roots as well having had some of the most advanced Aboriginal cultures. We find the country rich in history, culture, and in natural beauty. And we have always been treated well by the local folk even though we don't speak a word of Spanish. :cry (Up here in Canada we learn high school French instead, eh! :phanvan )

I think that I already mentioned that I went through a really early menopause. I was 41 and this seems to be a family thing because my mum was 39 when she went through hers. I used to have very, very bad menstrual problems and so I resisted going onto HRT until I was close to 50. Soon after that the results of that big study came out and my doc took me off estrogen immediately. My skin tone is really good, especially for someone who drinks and smokes. :faint:This is probably a combination of the fact that I have spent my entire life avoiding the sun and the luck of the genetic deck. I do have osteopenia which isn't osteoporosis but is in the neighbourhood and so I opted - it was my choice - to take an osteoporosis drug along with bumping up my consumption of vita D and calcium. (It was probably my lack of vita D which messed up my bones in the first place since I live in the north and I don't spend much time in the sun in the summer due to my very white skin and my over sensitivity to heat. :rolleyes ) Anyhow, I sleep with a fan on and I use Zopiclone, a prescription drug, when I am having problems with falling asleep. I have been doing this for years. I don't know whether HRT makes it more difficult for us to lose weight or not. This would be a good question to ask an endocrinologist, I guess. I do know that I was banded last Sept and I am pretty much at the target they set for me at the time. Now they have dropped the target by another 5 lbs or so. I am curious to know why so many of you are on HRT. Is this for strictly medical reasons or is it because you feel that you will be suddenly thrust into old age should you quit HRT? I guess I am asking you because we are all over 50 here and we are all dealing with another shared set of issues apart from our problems with weight.

Take a good book or a magazine with you and try to relax. The appts are a pain in the a$$ but these physical tests are in order to insure that the surgeon won't run into any trouble with you while you are on the operating table. The operating team wants to make sure that you will have a safe and uneventful operation. Soon you will be banded and you will be free of all these appts and entering into the next phase of your life.

I spent some of my inheritance money on mine. It was money well spent. I'm gonna spend some more on a face lift this fall. I figure I am gonna enjoy my rusting years.:heh:

Sounds like the beautiful comments were code for "you have been losing weight and you look great!" That is a nice compliment and an excellent NSV. Enjoy.

Welcome, LadyHR. This is a good thread for us older bandsters, and I am sure that you will find the band a positive experience.

When you were 6 years old your parents knew better than you but now you are 35 and you are the one who is best equipped to make your own decisions. You have been reading over the posts on this site and I imagine that you have a very good idea of the good, the bad, and the ugly. The majority of us who post here have had/are having positive experiences with the band. I am real happy with my band. I am eating more carefully and the band has helped me with my big problem which was portion control. I have gone from wearing an 18W pant to wearing a 12P. My BMI is now 24.9 and my cholesterol results finally look good after years of looking kinda bad. The surgery is relatively easy. Where I was banded the surgery is day surgery and I was back home the same night. I spent the next three days in bed and, apart from the gas pains, really enjoyed myself. I enjoyed the pain meds, reading, napping, and feeling like I had a license to do nothing much. The cat kept me company and that was cosy. By the 4th day I was bored and so I got up, washed, got dressed, and started goofing on the computer. What I like about the lapband is that it is adjustable. If you do become sick and need to eat more, well, they can defill your band. There are other forms of weight loss surgery but they are much more invasive surgeries and thus are more dangerous and these surgeries are not adjustable or reversible. Of course, as you probably already know, the band is a tool, a fabulous tool. :biggrin1: It physically stops you from eating as much but it is up to you to make sure that you eat the right foods. This is important, too. You need to make sure that you get enough protein and other nutrients. I am crazee about my band.

It does sound like you have got some irritating parents-in-law on your hands! :paranoid It is probably best to stay out of their reach. Anyway you can avoid the bar-b-que tonight?

You might want to pay close attention to the nutrients component of Lean Cuisine and other frozen entrees now that you are banded. I started doing this and found that a lot of prepared meals may be low in calories but they are high in sodium and low in vitamins, minerals, fibre, and the other good stuff. I am not a cook but there are a number of things that you can make on the stove top or in the microwave or eat fresh which will be tasty and healthier for you. I guess my favourite microwave meal is two beaten eggs with milk (eggs are loaded with vita Bs, protein, vita E, selenium, the omega oils and have only 70 calories per egg), a finely chopped tomato, a little salsa, and some cheese. Put this in a bowl and nuke it, then eat. Oh, yah, season to taste. I also keep around the house those little cans of Clover Leaf flavoured tuna; these come in such flavours as spicy peanut satay, dill&lemon, and have a pop top lid. They are low in calories, taste good, contain protein, and although there is some cholesterol it is better than eating a bag of chips. I also eat a lot of tzatziki which I buy from the store. I don't have much of a sweet tooth and this is a thing which the Greeks do with yogurt; they mix it up with garlic and slivers of cucumber. If you can get over your fear of the stove top you might consider getting into stir-frying fresh vegetables and chunks of expensive beef/pork tenderloin or chicken. I use the expensive stuff because it chews up nicely in my mouth and because it tastes better. The leftovers nuke up nicely the next day. However, if you cannot get over your fear I would suggest that you make a point of chopping up fresh vegetables and adding these into every item which you microwave. I say this because I shocked to note that even Gardenay soups (which allowed me to survive the full fluids weeks post-op) are surprisingly devoid of the vita Cs, etc. I have to say that I really was surprised when I began to study those nutrient info labels! I also rely a lot on salads and I often incorporate chick peas into these. They are a good source of complete protein when combined with cheese and they are fibre rich. I add diced onion, red, yellow or orange pepper, and fresh parsley, dill, or coriander. I make my own salad dressing by mixing together dijon mustard, cider vinegar/lemon juice, extra virgin olive oil and a few drops of balsamic vinegar. Because I like spicy I add a bit of hot sauce. And when the season is right I substitute avocado for chick peas. Avocados are kind of fattening but they are loaded with nutrients. As for the salad dressing, I learned how to make this when I was living in France. Olive oil has the good kind of cholesterol, and both apple cider vinegar and lemon juice are good for you, they say. The sweetness of the balsamic vinegar cuts the acidity of the dressing and the dijon mustard binds the vinaigrette together and gives it zest. This dressing takes 2 minutes to make and is less fattening, less expensive, and pretty much free of additives. Another lazy thing which my husband and I have gotten into is that we buy these pre-roasted chickens which are available in our local supermarkets. They haven't been deep-fried and they don't come with the Kentucky crust. We buy 'em, put 'em in the refrigerator, and eat 'em cold. This works out well for us, particularly so because I like white meat and he prefers the dark. It is another source of protein for the non-cook, eh. I know that this is an awfully long reply to your question, grrl, but I am anxious that you understand that surviving on a diet of Lean Cuisines and Healthy Choice Meals is probably not going to cut it. We are subjected to those Campbell Soup ads which mention that their soups contain full servings of vegetables when in fact nutrition-wise they are lacking. At the same time I, while I am not phobic, do not derive any joy at all from cooking. Eating is where I was at! It strikes me that you have got to figure out a new and creative way to deal with your food issues, one that does not necessarily mean that you ever have to go near a stove. I have provided you with a few of my thoughts. There are other things which you can do in order to get your food needs in order. Eating a lot of fresh fruit is one of them. You will need your Bs, and your proteins, of course. Beat an egg or two and then nuke it, and buy those pre-cooked chickens. This should cover most of your nutritional needs. And do what most of us bandsters are doing, take your vitamin supplements as well. I take the chewies and because I live in a northern climate I take an additional 1,000 IUs of vita D. I think my answer is really boring but I hope that it helps.

I had a FIL like that once. I finally lost it with him and pounded my fist on the table and bellowed "you are not my father! I don't have to take orders from you!" He was shocked but after that we got along quite well. My MIL from that era ragged on my about not ironing my husband's shirts. I was working as much as he was and I said so. And then I pointed out that he wasn't handicapped as far as I could see. (To tell you the truth I hate ironing and never do it. I just tell people that I want my clothes to have more wrinkles than my face. :heh:) It does seem to me that you are having difficulty standing up to the old man and so perhaps you should stay away from in-laws for awhile. On the other hand, ask yourself what would happen if you did stand up to him. Would there be a fight? Or would he simply process the new information? Remember, the in-laws have more to lose if the relationship between themselves and your young family goes sour. Maybe you figure out a strategy with your husband? This is just a suggestion.

Bandiva, I think that you are doing very well with your weight loss. It is supposed to be a gradual loss because that is better for your body - it gives it time to adjust - and you have lost a lot of weight, you know. 62 lbs is an impressive loss and you should be feeling proud, grrl! I am so sorry to hear that your mum's cancer has spread. This is going to be a difficult time for your family and you have all my sympathy.

Bravo for you, nume! :clap2: I know a number of people who became really good friends with their exes. I was good friends with my ex after the dust settled and his wife (now widow) is one of my closest friends. In fact she and I will be going to a gig tomorrow afternoon which another one of my exes (who was a really good friend of my ex-husband, also a musician) will be giving. It's a small world up here in Greenland.... *wink* Your husband sounds like he will be a fine friend and you will be free to find yourself a man who will care for you the way you want to be cared for. This will be a good thing.:biggrin1:

I don't see that it is any of your FIL's business what you do with your time and how you choose to spend it. If he is worried about his wife then he should be making the time to go bicycling with her and not shovelling this chore off on to your shoulders. Perhaps you might point out to him that you, too, work hard and this time which you have to go on outings on your bike are special to you since they combine exercise and a break from the family chores and cares. You might explain that you look upon these times as your physical and emotional renewal periods and that you are not prepared to share them at this time. You might also indicate to him that if he were to go bicycling with his wife these trips would be healthy for them physically and good for their relationship. Certainly what he is asking of you is not fair given that it is a fight to get the old girl off her couch and up and on her wheels.

And, oh yah, happy Pride to everyone,......eh.

It's gonna be Pride weekend up here in Toronto, and this will be the culmination of Pride Week. Tomorrow will be the day of the Dyke Parade and on Sunday afternoon the big Pride Parade will take place. The final parade is now such an accepted part of Toronto life that it routinely attracts between half to 3 quarter of a million people who come down to watch the parade and participate in the party. This means that there are a lot of corporate floats now, a fact which I personally find weirdly amusing. I like watching the marriage of drag queens, cod pieces, and corporate interests. And I live to see the day when Mickey meets Pride. The parade is still pretty good, though; in between the floats you will see many people marching who belong to such groups as PFLAG, gays with AIDS/HIV, and with them are groups which have ethnic, religious, political or small town affiliations in common as well as a shared sexual orientation. And then there are the naked gays, the leather boys and grrls, the dykes on bikes, the bears. These groups also make their own representations in the final closing parade which will finish off Pride week for yet another year. To tell you the truth the Pride parade has become a major institution in this city. The Mayor always makes an appearance and it seems to be that this may be becoming the new norm for the Premier of our province. The downside for us oldtimers is that we remember the days when the parade was a much more local and thus informal event. We could hang out, watch the parade, and then jump in behind the float which was playing what we figured was the most danceable music. The experience was both intimate and fun for us. Now, with between .500 and .750 of a million watchers there are barricades, cops, and the experience is very much changed. Tough luck for us but my friend who used to march in those first Pride walks told me that these would consist of a group of 20 or 30 persons marching down a sidewalk, ducking the garbage and insults which were being hurled at them. This was a long, long time ago. Now the major streets of the core of this city are blocked off to traffic and there is a raft of cops standing guard over the festivities which both recognise and celebrate its most deviant citizens. This is very, very cool, doncha think?

A very big bummer. This woman sounds like pure evil.

And as for the wonderful laurend, as I have said before, you are one of the finest dragon-slayers whom I have met on-line, grrl. You will continue to do what you have to do with respect to the dragons and you will continue to keep those of us who have ears to hear educated and up to date (as much as we layfolk are able) on the latest in your arena of scientific research. Speaking personally, I find your dispatches as a scientist and an atheist from the land of the Bible Belt and the home of creationism to be most interesting. This is foreign terrain for me and is, quite frankly speaking, a kind of topsy-turvy land. All that seems normal and that is taken for granted where I live is challenged where you live and, I guess, is vice versa. Let me explain. I am almost 58 years old but evolutionary theory was taught as the norm when I was a kid. And although my parents, a Jew who was an atheist and a Christian who hadn't troubled to get herself confirmed until she was in her late 20s, had me and my brothers baptised Anglican/Episcopalian this was primarily in order to satisfy the social conventions of the the time. During the 1950s everyone was supposed to have a religion. Why, they even asked for this on employment applications at the time. Though my parents were not at all religious I did spend a bunch of years consigned to an Anglo-Catholic boarding school but this was because I was a wild child and because, I suspect, my father had social pretensions. Certainly I paid them back for my exile. I went through a six month period of religious passion and I hassled them with promises of their torment in Hell if they didn't shape up and listen to me. I also brought serious disgrace upon them when I was summarily expelled in my final year for smoking marijuana, something which the daughter of an Anglican prelate had taught me. I should mention that this kid, a kid who came from a family bristling with clerical types, had been expelled from a number of schools before she washed up as a student in my school.... At the end of my street is a Catholic church which serves the Portuguese Catholic community. On important holidays the street is jammed with cars and sometimes there are parades of folk which walk up this street. I find these displays of devotion interesting and not at all threatening for they are also displays of a community and its culture. For me it is a cheap and charming trip to the streets of Portugal. Around the corner from this church is a storefront mosque and this doesn't bother me either. The street is certainly clotted with worshippers on Friday but this storefront mosque is on a business street and it has had the effect of calming down the neighbourhood. One block down from the storefront mosque is a Baptist church which has been there forever. In fact this church had long ago built a highrise retirement home in order to house their ageing population. They came to a point after some years where they ran out of Baptists and this was when they opened this home to other Christians. And then to other old people. Now Baptist towers houses a number of young kids who are going to university and who need a place to stay. I read about this in one of the local newspapers. The reporter said that the kids and the old people find value in each other. This is a splendid thing. I tell you these stories in order to stress that my environment is one which is kinda loosey-goosey with respect to the question of one's belief or disbelief. There is this polite, possibly typically Canadian assumption that you believe or disbelieve in whatever and I will do the same. Indeed, when it comes to our pamphlet people, the way the business of conversion Canadian-style works is that they wave their material in front of your face and when you smile and respectfully tell them that it is not for you they smile, apologise, and withdraw. I suspect that we figure that there are multiple ways to get to Heaven and multiple ways to avoid it, too. This is why we/I find your tales so interesting. Keep on posting, you dragon-slayer.

Bwahahaha. Maybe we Rant/Ravers should mount a wholesale invasion of de site claiming that we wants to get obese and we wants to know the recipe because we needs de help. :heh: (We could claim that we need de recipe because we live Africa and Bono's aid money isn't filtering through the corrupt dictatorships.....or is that too twisted?....?) :rolleyes

Destructive joking is one of those strange behaviours which men tend to indulge in more than women. It is a mean and belittling way to behave towards the people you love, your wife and your kids, and it does a lot of damage to its victims. At the same time the perpetrator can say, if he is called up on it, "what? I was only joking!" This is passive-aggressive behaviour, nasty behaviour which flies under the radar. We women have our own arsenal of bad behaviour, by the way.... Although my husband and I have a relationship which really is pretty terrific in most ways he will get into those moods where he does the joking thing and of course his jokes are never funny and never nice. When I challenge him on these he starts out by claiming that he was only joking but when I begin to push a little bit he does admit that he was aware that he was being mean to me and he apologises. The truth is that sometimes I have had to push back quite a lot before he will back off and admit that his jokes were anchored in anger and other negative feelings. Anger and resentment are bound to crop up from time to time in relationships and the language which women and men use to convey these feelings while seeking to avoid a full out direct confrontation tends to be different. Men and women have their own ways of chipping away at each other and often they are not even aware that they are inflicting damage. These behaviours are those passive-aggressive behaviours and the first step is to identify them as hurtful stuff which gets under your skin. The second step is to sit down with your mate and tell him or her that when he or she behaves in such a manner you feel belittled, demeaned, and hurt, and these are the reasons why. And then you must lay out these reasons in a cool, calm, and easily understandable manner. You might be interested to know that my husband who is 9 years my junior had for years been silently seething with humiliation whenever I would make a point of mentioning our age difference. He wanted us to be viewed as equals, you see. As for me, I just wanted to have everyone calm down with respect to their speculations. Passive-aggressive behaviour is always a sign that the perpetrator is unhappy about the way the relationship is going and is anxious that something be changed or repaired. It can be something minor or something more serious. You might also be interested to learn that it was my husband who taught me how to do all of this. The sad truth is that although in many ways I am a smartie pants I have always been a hot head and I was not all that successful in my personal relationships. It was my husband who has taught me how to calm down, analyse my emotional damage, and then distance myself from it and deal with it like a thoughtful adult. Adult dogs can be taught new tricks and I am hoping that old bitches, for I am almost 58, can learn new tricks, too. :heh:

It is difficult making real as opposed to virtual friends after one hits a certain stage in life. My gang of off-line friends is shrinking, that's for sure.

When I was younger I had this fantasy of finding an orphen to settle down with. I do have problems with my in-laws and it has taken me many years to educate my husband that we have to come first as a unit. His family was used to him being single and to, well, owning his free time. He now recognises this but his sister sure can't deal with it and blames all his tensions with his family on me. In fact she recently ripped me a new one and then hung up before I could rip her a new one. The touching thing is that my husband was horrified by the way she treated me and wants nothing more to do with her, ever. His parents, oddly enough, are the only people who do now kinda get our relationship. I sometimes suspect that this family has problems because we have never married even though we have been together for over 22 years. This does strike me as strange. We are so happy together and have been together for so long and his sister is married but has been in the middle of an ugly divorce for the past 5 years.

Marjon, of course Green is on your side on this debate. She believes in recycling.