Betsyjane

Who's coming to the meeting on the 12th? BetsyJane-1

Karen, I know how you feel. My first and second fill did nothing. I was kicking myself and holding off on getting another fill, thinking I was failing. then I got my third fill and it all made sense. i had restriction and I could follow the plan. Wish I'd gotten it much sooner and quit beating myself up! Hey Angela. I'll bet there's a way to do mindful on the run. Probably terribly difficult. I'm going to see if I can feel something like that......

Hey Karen. We take other large breed dogs too when we have room....but we are in Houston.... Christmas was fun. 14 large dogs in the house...... The way I figure if I need a fill is if I'm 1. Food seeking....feeling that insatiable thing 2. Not losing weight while eating in a healthy way. I sometimes eat about a cup and sometimes a cup and a half. I do better counting calories than cup, but I do eat on small plates.

Are you losing 1-2 pounds a week? I'd go by that first...... I also have 4 dogs---3 Golden Retrievers and a Standard Poodle.....but we often ahve lots more! Here's our place....We drown in dirt if we don't reclean all the time! www.GoldenRetrieverCamp.com

"They" say that sometimes when we think we want to eat, we really need Water, exercise, or sex. Maybe that machine IS the answer! I swore off my dear diet Coke when I got banded, but I've slid..... when we are out to eat, I sometiimes order a DC, knowing that I'll only get a few sips before the meal comes and I have to push it aside and not drink. Satisfies that little urge. When I get stuck, it's sometimes because I gulped instead of chewed and swallowed a tiny bit. and it's sometimes because I just shouldn't ahve eaten it....gooey things that seal over the opening. I assume all my stucks are stuck at the top of the band/bottom of the pouch. I often feel my fullness in my throat and I was worried that that was too late... but dr. says for some people the fullness sensation is referred. It'a actually happening in the right place, but the senssation gets transferred to the throat.

Oh, sorry, Angela! I'm here. I love the concept of mindful eating. I came at that concept from another avenue. Joan Borysenko wrote a bunch of books about mindfulness based on her research on psychoimmunology. I love the term. I was in Thailand a year ago, and I was reminded watching the monks meditate in the temple, with loud tourists practically walking over them! I also do think that my past bad eating was done in a trance, so it isn't that foreign a concept to my insides to have a healthy trance now. I'm also finding that I can't get any solid food down in the morning unless I totally relax, and I can get way too much food down in the evening unless I really focus.

Cars are expensive to maintain. Purses are still worth something. If you ever prioritize it, I have faith in you that you'll do it. We tend to be attracted to, and marry, people who at our own level of emotional maturity. The better you get, the better the guys you get attracted to. The relationship payoff comes from working on you. but ya know, when I was in college, I was attracted to a guy that I could never imagine seeing myself with now. Just glad I waited until later to get hitched.

I've found either side to be at fault.

I figure some people have the erroneous belief, as my father did, that people improve through criticism. Couldn't be farther from the truth. Their loss.

I've had the same thing happen, more than once. After I get my bearings, I have fun grilling everyone, if I have the time. I think sometimes people get so busy that they forget how they look and act to others. I give them a mirror...if I have the time to mess with it. "Now, I just want to find out what happened so I'll know how to handle it in the future. Pharmacy, please show me the fax verifications. I'll need to know date and time and that it was verified received. No? You don't want to do that? Well, I'll need it for my records because my doctor has accused me of lying about it. Doc's office, here's what I have written down about what you said to me when I called to follow up on this. Is there anything else you can recall that was said to me. I just need to get it straight since I got in the middle of a miscommunication between you and the pharmacy and I don't want to do that again. I stick with it and talk slowly and use up their time until I have everything I can get about what happened. Then I write letters to all parties concerned detailing what I have found out and asking how they would like situations like this handled in the future. Usually by then, they are speaking solftly, and I have never raised my voice either.

LOL! what IS it about that? I exercise best if I try to do it before I'm really awake. I guess it's before my brain is engaged enough to talk me out of it!

OK. I promise no more haranguing about counseling. You could sell a car and a purse and get it if it were at the top of your list of priorities. Good luck finding a job! I hope it's everything you need it to be.

The price seems to be starting to drop a bit. I paid $15000 in November and my Dr. has dropped his fee since then. I'm like you. I thought about Mexico since I'm self pay but felt safer in the USA. But I've also read about lots of successes in Mexico....lots of people here went to Dr. Ortiz. Here's another thing to consider. My $15000 also pays for a year of fills, and if I lose half my unwanted weight during the first year, mt second year of fills is free. If you go to Mexico and then find a fill doctor here, you'll pay for each fill.

If getting used and using guys is what you consider a good life, then you'll really be thrilled if the world opens up to you having a great relationship someday...and love. It's worth getting the counseling so you can get to the next level. Meanwhile, the next time they want to give you a purse, ask for counseling instead. Sounds like some of them can foot the bill. See if they want you to dress up your insides as much as your outsides. Oh, never mind. You're not in a place to make that commitment at the moment. Er, how many cars?

Ipod shuffle.

100% cotton socks so you don't get static shock. Pillow for the ride home was a blessing.

Seems to me the point is to not use your stomach muscles yet, so if you do hand weights with enough strain to do any good, hand weights would be included. Just my opinion.

I got sick of the treadmill and a fitness freak told me to just stop and do free weights for awhile. She said building up my muscles would make the treadmill easier later, and switching around keeps things interesting.

Danielle: I think we've all been where you are. Somehow, the TV tells us all we need to do is diet and exercise and we'll be fine, and otherwise we're lazy. That's just bigoted ignorance. Morbid obesity is a complex thing, unlike a thin person trying to lose 10 pounds! But we've been blamed and we blame ourselves. The kind of person you want to hang around from this day forward in your life is the person who cheers you on. that's all. People either enhance you or deplete you, so go with the enhancers. When I told my hubby that I'd be writing a check for $15000 out of our now mostly depleted savings, and I told him what for, he said that some people go on for the rest of their lives not facing big problems and doing whatever it takes, and that he was proud of me for going for it! (After he picked his jaw up off the ground about the money...) And as far as it being easy, let me tell you all it did for me was to make the Impossible into just Hard Work! And that's enough for me. Yoyo dieting for the next 40 years and THEN getting banded is stooopid. Hi---call me stooooooopid. But at 20, you probably still want to please everybody, right? Just hang around us old crusty souls. We'll be your cheerleaders. Everybody else can either support you or jump off a cliff.

On this South Beach thing...It's interesting. Some bandsters tell me that they see the band as a way to never mess with diets again...It's about sensible eating and lots of portion control. Others tell me they follow particular diets and even take diet supplements or diet pills. Anybody have any thoughts about that?

There's a thread under PreOp that lists everything....

I was just able to stop taking my diabetes meds last month, thanks to the weight loos with the band.

Yeah, you're right. It doesn't make sense not to drink with meals on the liquid stage. It's just good to start practicing now....... Behave like a good bandster now to get those good habits down right from the beginning. I drink fluids right up to the moment I start eating, but then none for 60-90 minutes.

Check with your insurance company. Check with your insurnace company. Check with your insurance company.

Your first posts from around a month ago and your posts now are so very differnet that it feels more like covering up than lasting change. Seems like you're all over the place from one month to the next, and that's a hard road. Eveybody wishes you the best. What will happen to the dog if it doesn't work out for you guys?