Lap_dancer

what a long, strange trip it's been... I had lost 25 lbs for our trip to Seattle. I thought I looked fabulous. But in this photo I was sitting, instead of standing, because I had been on my feet about twenty minutes so I was pretty beat. I also didn't want my hanging stomach to show in a photo, it was halfway down my legs and the girth would be obvious, so I sat. But goofing around, my husband caught this photo anyway HOW TO HIDE fat in a PHOTO and on this cruise, I hid behind a deck chair, put my hand over my chin. And he said to me, "Patty, think about all the things you would have done on our cruise if you didn't have as much weight to carry around." So often I felt like a freak of nature. But I kept going.

what a long, strange trip it's been... I had lost 25 lbs for our trip to Seattle. I thought I looked fabulous. But in this photo I was sitting, instead of standing, because I had been on my feet about twenty minutes so I was pretty beat. I also didn't want my hanging stomach to show in a photo, it was halfway down my legs and the girth would be obvious, so I sat. But goofing around, my husband caught this photo anyway HOW TO HIDE fat in a PHOTO and on this cruise, I hid behind a deck chair, put my hand over my chin. And he said to me, "Patty, think about all the things you would have done on our cruise if you didn't have as much weight to carry around." So often I felt like a freak of nature. But I kept going.

Taken less than an hour before my surgery. What I use to look like, normal, healthy. 128 lbs. in 1978. It's not how long your journey is that matters, it's how much luggage you are carrying. Losing my luggage.

Taken less than an hour before my surgery. What I use to look like, normal, healthy. 128 lbs. in 1978. It's not how long your journey is that matters, it's how much luggage you are carrying. Losing my luggage.

You are allowed the occasional 'grrrrrrr':cursing: You could go eat ice cream and cry and then tomorrow hit it again. The whole beat it down mindset is to simply go, go, go until it's second nature to simply wake up, repeat day after day what we do to stay in weight loss mode. You lost a pound and six weeks or not it's gone. The same thing has happened to me and in my circumstance it went on like that for months. It was depressing and I did much assessment of what I was doing. In once instance it was the amount of fat % I was intaking and recently it has been my inability to be active, work out. Roseann Roseanna Danna said, "it just goes to show you it's always somethin'"! that's so true. Resolve to, no matter what, not quit.

Familial Fat. Remember this folks. I'm watching Discovery Health and a woman is having a full body lift. The familial fat does not allow the skin to attach to the muscle. After large amounts of weight loss and if there are large amounts of loose skin the lift surgeries remove the skin so the body can return to a normal structure. Dr. Lockwood is the doctor who invented the full body lift. Superficial facia is the element that holds the skin to the muscle/tissue.

I think a 'productive' burp means something other than just air is coming up, hence the 'productive'. By the nature of vomiting, it's related to illness, nausea and an emptying of the stomach. The difference between both is most definately the mucas or 'slime' that we talk about.

This is me putting to rest a year of hideous pain. Saying goodnight to that search for an answer as to WHY? I hurt so badly. ( found ) GOODNIGHT 2008. You informed me and enlightened me and showed me what I am truly made of. Now I'm ready to get out of this bed and, pain free, finish the race.

and these... Christopher James Potter. Patty's grandson.

Hey Mommy how are you's!!!!!! Great to see you here. My BOY, you mean my great little guy, my awesome cute wonderful little man..he is awesome. SOOOO cute, babbling and singing ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ohhhhhhhhhhhh uhhhhhhh he has changed my life. Being a grandmother is so much better than being a mother. It's so much more fun. Pictures;

Congratulations on the losses everyone. Great job with the minor flux in weight gain, could have been steeper (think of our history beforeWLS). MissMom - I'm glad you weren't filled as well. Ack! Prty- I have read indications there are problems were things like overeating, not able to eat, pain in that area of the stomach, difficulty swallowing, reflux, ... Glad that CT scan was checked by doctor K. I wish he could do my two hernias. He's a great surgeon. My scars are so minor and my recovery was so quick. *speaking of hernias, I had a CT done of my stomach. I was pushing 400 at one point so I have wondered if there was any 'damage' done to my abdomen for bearing all that weight. Found out I do have a herniated navel deep inside that I will notice more and more as the weight comes off my stomach. Right now I'm thinking and have been that nothing I ate was ever worth a herniated navel.

Hello BarneyGirl. I see you are from Colorado. My first thought was how lucky for you that you live in such a beautiful state and can drive through the spectacular views along your way to your surgery. I too had my surgery in Colorado. I think most of all of us were a little scared of the unknown. It's not like what we have done is common like giving birth but in a way it is very much like giving birth to a new life. I can tell you it was far less pain than I expected when I woke up. It was more like being super sore. I was surprised at how fast I could walk without discomfort. The most difficult part for me was teaching myself the new habits of not drinking large amounts of Water with my meals and also chewing slowly and eating small bites of food. I use to gulp my food. I do not do any of this anymore. You are giving yourself an amazing gift which is the chance for a healthy life. I wish you the same wonderful experience that I have had. Please know I will be thinking of you. Best wishes on this new journey. Patty

Thanks! but for the pain I'm feeling good in my clothes.

Thank you! I'm loving wearing 18/20. YUM. Beans are so tasty. Christmas was great. Who else is secure with the feeling that overeating isn't possible anymore? Well...not possible unless you want to whirl in pain and slime, then gasp for five minutes. I find I am not "AFRAID" of food anymore. Thank you! Your ham sounds nummy. I had a nice and moist turkey...secret is to cook it frozen, covered in foil, 275 degrees for 8 hours or until the little meter pops. Moist enough that it crumbles into small little bites rather than stringy. No PB. Thank you! Decorating the tree is like painting a canvas for me. No worries about the choices from yesterday. I find myself this morning in my same habit. I read somewhere that since your intake is limited in amount, be PICKY about what you do eat. Eat only the best, FRESH and well prepared foods. That eleminates fast food right out the gate. Packaged, prepared quick items as well. I baked a pie yesterday and that isn't the norm around here. The pie is in the garbage today because it hasn't the same appeal as the FRESH from the oven presentation it had yesterday.

:tongue2: as you should be.

YUM! I'm copying this day. Dinner looks divine.

Merry Christmas and a Happy, Healthy, Peace and Plenty 2009 to us all

WAY TO GO

About eight months ago my weight hung around three hundred pounds like un wanted company. I checked my food intake, looked at my card to see if I was green. I had my last fill in Feb. 2008. I had great restriction and felt like I finally hit my sweet spot. Long spaces of time between meals, not even thinking about food, obsessing about food is more like it. That was gone. Drinking my meals, gone. Gulping food, gone. I had retrained myself successfully but each time I tried to do the rest of it, the working the body to strengthen it I got nothing but pain. The more weight I lost, the greater the pain. This wasn't part of the bargain, sure, my knees stopped hurting, my feet stopped hurting, no more diabetes medication, no more snoring. This part I had hoped for but the pain. It radiated down my spine. It shot down my right leg. I felt stabbing pains in my groin and lower stomach. The more I walked the worse it got. The only thing that gave it remedy was bed rest. My life was work and then going to bed. It was easy to see why my weight had slowed up. It took getting caught at work not being where I should have been because the distance required walking was too much, and having my boss sit me down and confronting me to force me to confront the pain. What the truth was and is remains. That I have lost over eighty pounds, over fifty since being banded, and despite have good restriction and food control I am unable to walk any distance or stand longer than five minutes. I stepped back from focusing on the scale and focused on cause. I started with my doctor who ordered an MRI of the area most disturbing. It came back and there was part of it: arthristis, bulging disc, compressed vertabrae, scoliosis. My lower spine was a mess. To keep me working, I cannot afford to stop working, I was placed on morphine and it helped slightly. In late November I went to the Cleveland Clinic in Weston, Florida. A second MRI was done, a CT Scan of my abdomen, revealed the beautiful band Dr. Kirshenbaum had inserted was exactly where it was suppose to be. My band was fine. I had a hiatel hernia though. I had a hernia filled with fat in my stomach near my navel. This will need to be repaired when they do the surgery to remove the skin that is becoming part of the problem. I will need a lower body lift. My stomach had gotten so large and now that it was shrinking, my body was redistributing the weight and it was pulling higher up on my spine. In that location where I had the most stress from my stomach, the spine slides out of place. The nickname is SPONDY and the long name is two other versions of SPONDY that I was diagnosed with also in my cervical spine. The next test will be a CT Scan of my entire spine. Now that they found one, two maybe three or four sources of the pain, no one is stopping the doctors. This next year will be filled with rehab. Physical and Occupational. When I get over this hump I have the vision of a better life, the same vision that got me started. Onward I go...

About eight months ago my weight hung around three hundred pounds like un wanted company. I checked my food intake, looked at my card to see if I was green. I had my last fill in Feb. 2008. I had great restriction and felt like I finally hit my sweet spot. Long spaces of time between meals, not even thinking about food, obsessing about food is more like it. That was gone. Drinking my meals, gone. Gulping food, gone. I had retrained myself successfully but each time I tried to do the rest of it, the working the body to strengthen it I got nothing but pain. The more weight I lost, the greater the pain. This wasn't part of the bargain, sure, my knees stopped hurting, my feet stopped hurting, no more diabetes medication, no more snoring. This part I had hoped for but the pain. It radiated down my spine. It shot down my right leg. I felt stabbing pains in my groin and lower stomach. The more I walked the worse it got. The only thing that gave it remedy was bed rest. My life was work and then going to bed. It was easy to see why my weight had slowed up. It took getting caught at work not being where I should have been because the distance required walking was too much, and having my boss sit me down and confronting me to force me to confront the pain. What the truth was and is remains. That I have lost over eighty pounds, over fifty since being banded, and despite have good restriction and food control I am unable to walk any distance or stand longer than five minutes. I stepped back from focusing on the scale and focused on cause. I started with my doctor who ordered an MRI of the area most disturbing. It came back and there was part of it: arthristis, bulging disc, compressed vertabrae, scoliosis. My lower spine was a mess. To keep me working, I cannot afford to stop working, I was placed on morphine and it helped slightly. In late November I went to the Cleveland Clinic in Weston, Florida. A second MRI was done, a CT Scan of my abdomen, revealed the beautiful band Dr. Kirshenbaum had inserted was exactly where it was suppose to be. My band was fine. I had a hiatel hernia though. I had a hernia filled with fat in my stomach near my navel. This will need to be repaired when they do the surgery to remove the skin that is becoming part of the problem. I will need a lower body lift. My stomach had gotten so large and now that it was shrinking, my body was redistributing the weight and it was pulling higher up on my spine. In that location where I had the most stress from my stomach, the spine slides out of place. The nickname is SPONDY and the long name is two other versions of SPONDY that I was diagnosed with also in my cervical spine. The next test will be a CT Scan of my entire spine. Now that they found one, two maybe three or four sources of the pain, no one is stopping the doctors. This next year will be filled with rehab. Physical and Occupational. When I get over this hump I have the vision of a better life, the same vision that got me started. Onward I go...

Picking it up now, I am glad I journaled those words. I'm glad moreso that I took the photos that reveal the mass attached to my body. I'm coming up on two years now. My anniversary and birthday is April 17th. It feels more like a birth. The unexpected hit me hard and I wasn't prepared. Foremost I had to speak the truth, what my real weight was, the peak weight. It was documented when I went to the hospital so I know just how big I got but fearing I would be turned away, jeered, and yelled at, like the local doctor who refused to consider me as a patient and told me if I didn't lose weight ..I wouldn't fit on his surgical table.. It's amazing how much abuse you are willing to take when you are so desperate. It was 392.8 I can say it now, I was close to four hundred pounds. I'm not there anymore. Motivated by the rejection and spurred on by the hope of getting a band, I began slowly losing a pound at a time by mostly starving myself. I wanted it so bad. Looking back I think I was at around 370 when I first spoke to Dr. Kirshenbaum's office. The day before banding I was 352. I kept going...still going...with more walls going up than I could imagine.

Picking it up now, I am glad I journaled those words. I'm glad moreso that I took the photos that reveal the mass attached to my body. I'm coming up on two years now. My anniversary and birthday is April 17th. It feels more like a birth. The unexpected hit me hard and I wasn't prepared. Foremost I had to speak the truth, what my real weight was, the peak weight. It was documented when I went to the hospital so I know just how big I got but fearing I would be turned away, jeered, and yelled at, like the local doctor who refused to consider me as a patient and told me if I didn't lose weight ..I wouldn't fit on his surgical table.. It's amazing how much abuse you are willing to take when you are so desperate. It was 392.8 I can say it now, I was close to four hundred pounds. I'm not there anymore. Motivated by the rejection and spurred on by the hope of getting a band, I began slowly losing a pound at a time by mostly starving myself. I wanted it so bad. Looking back I think I was at around 370 when I first spoke to Dr. Kirshenbaum's office. The day before banding I was 352. I kept going...still going...with more walls going up than I could imagine.

11:37p A long thoughtWhen does it become necessary to elevate your dispair to a level of desperation. Such is the case of myself. No one can possible know the depth of depression to rise in the morning and swing my legs off the side of the bed and pause , feeling the rush of blood to my head...dizzy...grabbing the headpost of my bed and bracing myself as I pull hard for support to rise from my bed. Walking on the sides of my feet because THAT is less painful than walking flat footed across to the toilet. By then I am winded. And this lifestyle is okay? This lifestyle is not life threatening enough to look at a procedure that gives pause to the cycle of death by dietlessness. new word. on I go............