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I have been watching this site alot. and posting occasionally, My husband and I both hope to be banded in the future. We both have seen our PCP who whole heartly agreed to put together a referral letter for both of us. We have both been under his care for 14 years. Yeah we have weight loss history (and weight gain :ermm ) He has faxed them to Dr Boutt and Bhesnia in Port Huron Mi. Dh had his psych consult yesterday and mine is Friday. We both have a consult with the banding Dr March 28th. So far everything is going smooth I just hope BCBS says yes to the preauthorization. We hope we can be banded in the summer. It makes no difference to me when. I am a RN want work contingent (when I want) But my dh is self employed and our 17 yr old will be out of school for the summer and ride in the truck and do the physical part. So he hopefully only has to take a week off staying home. Just thought I would update everyone. I weight 280 5'4" and dh 360 6'0. I enjoy this site. And have hopes it continues an its present positive path.

Hi All ive tried to think about when i became fat. what was it linked to? what caused it? well i didnt have a great childhood. had an very abusive relationship with father of my kids (who i dumped years ago) and have a kid with adhd which is very stressful...am i stress eater? After giving it a lot of thought i have to be honest and say..... The reason i am fat is because i ate too much and didnt exercise enough..... cant blame anything other than myself for loving food so much and in big portions.... However even though i am brutally honest about my own obesity i do understand that for many people there is a trigger to their weight gain and this post is in no way meant to upset anyone who have a very real trigger i just trutfully cant blame anyone for the size of my hips other than myself.. love tracey

Hi , I can think of lots of reasons why I got fat. I was born a preemie and weighed about 4lbs. That was pretty small in the 1960's. I was thin until I was about 10 or so. I was always forced to eat everything on my plate. I came from a very dysfunctional family and I had low self esteem problems because of an abusive mistrustful father. I remember weighing about 120 at age 10/11 and then I remember 160 at age 15 and the last recollection I have of being under 200 was when I was 19. Then I started drinking heavily and of course with hangovers I would have the urge to eat whoppers or chicken wings at 12:00 midnight. I also drank and ate a lot in my 20's. I remember weighing about 247 at age 23. Then I moved to Holland and my weight stabilized for a while because of smaller portions and less processed foods in Europe. I stayed in the range of 250 - 260 for a while and went to a dietician to see if I could lose some weight with a well balanced diet. This did not work very well. After my first child, I got up to about 300 lbs, stayed there for lots of years. Ballooned up to 327 and went on Atkins and got my weight down to 279 over an 8 month period. Then I got pregnant again in 2002, went back up to 320 and after my baby was born I dropped back down to the 290's. I was nursing my son for a year and did not gain or lose any weight. ONce I stopped, I ballooned up to 334 about 3 days before lapband surgery. THere is some obesity in my family on my fathers side, mostly the women. None really on my mothers side. My mother was anorexic at one point when she was married to my father. She weighed 82 pounds at her lowest and did not go above 100 until she left my father. She is 5 ' 2 " , so she is much shorter than me and my brothers and sisters. My sisters and my brother do not have a weight problem. I did not try to diet often. I think I made two serious attempts to get the pounds off. I was always so hungry all the time and I loved junk food. I was never a sweets eater, but I loved bread, cheese butter and Pasta. So I would say in my case, there were a lot of causes for my weight gain. Babs in TX 334/180 -154 New goal: 170

I most closely relate to the reason Jack said hewas fat. It is about control for me. I first started gaining weight consistently since 1997 when I moved in with my now husband. It is the first time I was away from home, and away from a controlling and abusive family. When I moved into my new place I had ULTIMATE control. I could eat when I want, what I wanted, and as much as I wanted. That is exactly what I did. Also, my husband is a huge eater. I would sit with him and think that he would eat everything if I didn't take it first. So, I ended up eating more than I wanted or needed. All that plus little exercise=weight gain.

Hi Betty, Good post. I don't know if I would neccessarily call my obesity an illness but in my case it is obviously hereditary. I am the spitting image of my grandmother and great great grandmother. Heaviness runs in my family everywhere. I also know people who are very thin and can eat whatever they want. It seems obvious there is something different in my metabolism when I see people like that. I was thin till I was about 3 years old and then I started getting heavy. My parents were dealing with emotional stuff at the time so I don't know if that changed their meals or what but I also have always eaten too big of portions and I think being on the depo shot for the last 9 years has played a role in my adult obesity. One clinic had quit giving me the shot because of my huge weight gain but I continued getting it elsewhere. New evidence shows that shot definitely causes bone loss, so just recently I switched off of it to a lower dose pill. I think many factors have played a role in my weight problem and they have all compounded it. I think insurance companies should be more willing to treat it as a disease and treat it as such. If I even mention weight when I see my family practitioner my insurance refuses to pay and sends me the bill for the entire visit regardless of what the appointment was actually for. That is very wrong in my books. Best wishes, Teresa

I agree, we are all different, and we all gain or lose weight different. I don't have the chatter in my head, I don't wake up in the middle of the night to get something to eat. And I don't agree that I am sick because of my weight. When I was five years old, we were on our way to a Sunday outing, my Dad, Mom, and my three brothers. A car crossed the line and came over and hit us head on. My father broke one leg into 50 pieces. He was in a cast from his chest to his toes for over a year. My mother broke her kneecap and hit her mouth and lost all her teeth. One of my brothers hit his mouth, knocked out his teeth, and two of his teeth went down in his lungs. He also hurt his knee and broke his jaw, and had pins in it. One of the other brothers lost his front teeth, and my other brother and I was just bruised up. We had no money coming in our house at all for a very long time. My Mother was a great cook, but everything she cooks was southern and very fattening. We lived on pots of Beans, stews, and every Sunday we had fried chicken. Most of all, almost every meal we had was based around what kind of potatoes we were having. Potatoes was the base of all our meals, and most were fried or mashed with gravy. food was hard to come by since money was so scarce, so we had to finish our plates of food, and couldn't waste any. I learned to cook exactly like my Mother, and once I got married and had children, I started gaining weight. I didn't lose the weight between my children, which started me off on a huge weight gain. I didn't exercise like I should have, or eat the right foods. The only way I knew to cook was how my Mother taught me. Just like the old saying "You can't teach old dogs new tricks" I just didn't realize the way I was cooking was causing me to gain so much weight. Losing weight has been extremely hard for me because of the way I cook, and because of lack of exercise. I am learning I can fix meals without the potatoes or the other starches. I am learning just because I fix my DH those things, that I don't have to eat them. I am learning I can fix some veggies and fill up just as good on them as the starches. I am learning I have to exercise to get this weight off. I am learning that no one except me can do this, and I am also learning that I have to want it bad enough to do all of that. Do I think I am sick because I have gained this weight and have problems getting it off? NO! I just think I have to learn the right foods to eat and the right way to cook without all the grease/oils. My dear Mother, bless her heart, didn't even realize that cooking with lard was bad for her. She cooked with it right up until a couple of years before she died at the age of 83, and she was in such bad health I finally told her it would be best if she didn't use it anymore. She grew up eating lard sandwiches because of the depression, so using lard to cook with was a natural thing for her. I followed her footsteps using lard and cooking just like she had, so now I have habits to break too. I think almost everyone on these boards has a reason why they gained weight if they go back and really think about it. And yes, I do believe it can be a sickness for some people, but not everyone. It took me a long time to realize it's my problem, and I am the one that has to work at getting the weight off. If I sit on my lazy butt and don't do anything about it, then it's my fault. I have chosen to get this band to use as a tool, to move my butt and to eat the right foods, and guess what? It's working, and I feel great! I am lovin life again for the first time in a long time.

Dr Phil's wife did a show for him about the change and talked about some drops you can put under your tongue for hot flashes. Here, I found this info on drphil.com: supplements for Menopausal and Hormonal Symptoms Robin McGraw shares a list of natural supplements that have helped her put her hormones back in balance and ease menopausal symptoms. To Relieve Menopausal Symptoms Black Cohosh B12 and B6 Vitamins Folic Acid Inositol "These four items are very good for overall menopausal symptoms," explains Robin, "especially black cohosh, which is good for hot flashes. The B12, B6 and folic acid help with mood and to ease you through the transition. The inositol also helps with mood. You take it at night and it helps you to sleep." Essential Oils Flax Seed Oil Evening Primrose Oil Vitamin E Omega-3 "These are really good overall for hormone symptoms," says Robin. "Essential oils are good for joints because sore joints can be a symptom of menopause." Menopause and Weight Gain Robin goes on to explain that weight gain can be a symptom of menopause because menopause affects the thyroid gland, which helps regulate body weight. "When you get your blood work done, there is a range for the thyroid and your doctor can tell you if yours is normal. I bought a basil thermometer and every morning for 10 days, I put it under my arm and recorded my temperature. If it's even a degree below 98, then you are susceptible to having a low thyroid. Mine was 95. My doctor had told me I was fine, but mine was very low so I went on natural hormone therapy."

I am a self pay. (5'8", 31 years old, 225#, don't qualify because I am healthy with no comorbids, weight gain obesity is only for last 6 years) I am going to Mexico. Tropicana, PM me if you want to know details about what I am doing. Another good person to talk to that self payed is La_Madam. We both have the same doctor. Although, she is already banded and I won't be banded until end of March. She answered a lot of my questions.

Sensy, your doctor will have his own thoughts about how much to fill, but it has nothing to do with whether you're a piggy or not. Every doctor has a personalized approach, and even docs who are pretty aggressive with a fill probably won't be that way on the first fill. And you don't want him to be. Whatever fill you get will be more than you have, and will therefore take some getting used to. You may be hungrier than you thought you'd be at this point, but if you pay attention I'm sure you'll find that you are already eating less than you were pre-band. And that's the whole and only point. Many people do gain a little weight back in the period before a fill, but it's weight that you lost on the liquid diet, not actual weight gain. It's a sort of bounce-back effect and inevitable once you are off liquids and eating solids again. Don't worry about it! Just practice eating slowly and mindfully, so when you have restriction you'll be ahead of the game. So many people are ready to jump right in with mega-restriction right out of the gate. Those are the same people who come back later saying "I can't eat at all! All that goes down is ice cream!" Learning to live with restriction and eat healthfully takes time and we have to allow ourselves that time. As a very wise woman said, this process does not have to be drastic to be effective. Sorry for the lecture--it's not directed at you. But there is no specific amount of fill that's right for everyone, so there's no answer to your question.

thank you all so much I think I am definetly going to research this nuvaring. I know I probly sound silly, however I am soo soo soo terrified of gaining weight. Thank you all so much for your advice. I am just soo upset about this weight gain. Kristie

Hmmm, I was waiting for a birth control forum. Your lucky you can use the patch because they tell me I am too FAT... boo hoo. I have been on the depo shot for the last 9 years or so and finally just got off of it last week. I somehow missed the point that it can cause hair loss and weight gain... New evidence shows that it definitely depletes the bone density too so we all decided it was time to try something new. For the moment I am using the pill (evidently one of the lower dose ones). I am trying to decide what long term device I want is s.a. an IUD or the Nuvaring. In the meantime I am hoping by getting off of depo maybe it will be easier to LOSE weight and GROW hair. I am taking really good chewable vitamins and calcium now sooooo.... Kristie, I'm sure you must feel like you took a big step backwards but it will settle out hopefully and come off. I would have been frustrated too. I get irritated when I stay at a plateu for more than a week or two. And God forbid I gain a pound or two back. I just ignore the bad scale reading and hope for a better one the following week. I ALWAYS think I am pigging out and NEVER think I have actually had a loss so it makes a nice surprise when the scale does show a loss. Anyway any insights would be great regarding anything about birth control. Teresa

First off I want to apologize if I offended anyone. Also please read all the way thru before condeming me. I am having a bit of a time getting something out of my head. I have a problem with seeing fat people in public and thinking to myself negatively regarding that person-even avoiding them. You know-looking at that person with sort of a disgusted look on my face-wispering to myself what happended to them,how could they not care. These thoughts coming from a 430ish pound guy-probably looking worse off then the person I just saw. Does anyone else have or previously had this same thoughts? I am not sure what is the cause of this but after some thought I came up with a few ideas. The first one is that society in general forsters this kind of thinking and it is socially accepted to "make fun" of an obese person. Secondly, my weight got put on me quickly with my thyroid quiting suddenly-leaving me with a mental body image quite different from reality. I sort of knew I had gained weight but always thought I looked better then I really did-sort of a glory picture in my head of days long ago. Then as time went on I noticed my weight in different body parts-my face,my belly and finally my first overall body viewing in a full length mirror. I was an obese man--I weighed it, I looked it, I felt it!! Then a sort of depression set in-only punctuated by periods of time of intense effort to fruitlessly loose some pounds only to regain it back. I am a very caring guy- I stop and pick up hitchhikers, pull cars of people back onto the road that ran off of snowbound roads, hold doors open for people going into a store after me, spend as much time as I can with my kids playing games with them-yet I cannot understand my "hatred" of obese people! Perhaps I cannot come to grips with the fact that I am one of "them" and despise what I let happen to myself. How could I let myself "go" and not care about how I looked for so many years? How could I bury my head for so long till I opened my eyes and am now such a socially disdained person. Could my slow social evolution from being semi-social to being isolated to being avoided be caused by my weight gain? Could my hatred of so-called friends that are now no longer around now that I am obese be fuelling my own dislike of obese persons? Never being a popular person has me,at least that's what I think, of being more than aware of my "social" standing-perhaps paying more than the usual attention to it or to the lack of it as the case may be thru my life. Sort of always wanting more of something that I never really had. Now I am at the total bottom of the social ladder and my sense of competition has taken a huge blow. Has my years of thinking I am better than many around me taken its toll and I have become prideful in my own little way? Am I afraid to eat some humble pie and accept myself as others view me. Just a few days ago- I was checking into a motel for the night- I noticed that they were remodeling and the new rooms looked very nice. I saw some people going in to the new rooms earlier so I asked the clerk if I could get a remodeled room. She told me that they are very picky who they rent the "new" rooms to and that I couldn't have one. I was amazed- my first recollection of discrimination based on weight. This hit me like a ton of bricks. You see I had always been raised at the middle to higher middle range of the socio-economic scale and always treated people nice and was treated in kind back. Now because of my weight I was no longer middle class but something lower-sort of a lesser human. And now this is my problem- I was a lesser human because of the choices I made for myself-not because of who I was born to or some life tragedy. I made bad choices- in what I ate, in how much I ate and in what I did or did not do for excercise. I made myself this lesser human and now I cannot seem to do anything on my own to get myself back. Am I alone in my thoughts? Has anyone else has similar thoughts or feelings? As I work on rooting out this negativity, I appreciate you comments and ideas. T

Darcey - I'm really envious now - my best buds live outside Portland and a trip up there for a fill would be awesome. But feel I must return to Ortiz for the first - just to make sure all is right in bandland. Maybe this summer we could rendezvous during the blues festival and tighten up!!!! Good luck to you; give me an update after this fill and I'll cross my fingers that it's good for another 20. Jonathan, as to the soup thing - I think that's the culprit for my weight gain - well that and the elimination of Diet Coke. Good luck to you; if you begin gaining refer to these posts and wait it out patiently till fill #1. Marla

Have you said anything about this to your surgeon? I would not have let him talk to me this way. There is no difference in your weight gain before surgery and most surgeons don't even ask for a pre-surgery diet. I would look for a new surgeon if that is possible in your area. It's not like you are having Liposuction...you are having a surgery that is supposed to help you with this problem as it is! I would telk to your surgeon before yo do anything rash with your eating habits. If you don't have enough strength to get through the surgery because of your diet before the surgery then that could hurt you more than help. I would ask another doc in your area about this before I went through with it. There is no doubt you could lose 6 pounds in one week. But doing that is not healthy!! Please take care of yourself and don't put your surgery in the hands of someone who doesn't know what they are doing!! Kim

There are dozens of references to hunger during this phase in past posts including one in the the "sticky tabs" section at the top of one of the threads. Hunger and possible weight gains are totally possible during the pre-fill stage. Best of luck, Teresa

I remember going to my Doc at 260lbs, and telling him I would like surgery to cope with my drastic weight gain-a few years back. He told me "Why don't we put you on a diet low in calories (yea right..never thought of that before), and increase your exercise." Uh, huh. Excercise. At my weight...exercise is cleaning my kitchen floor, walking from the parking lot to the university, and doing laundry! There is a new day on the horizon. This is for all of us-because we are still alive! Joan

His name is Carter Lee and he was 20 1/2 inches long and weighed 8 pounds 9 ounces. When I found out I was pregnant, I was worried that I would have to be unfilled. But I talked to my doctor and she said she'll keep a close eye on him and how well he's growing and as long as he's growing fine, I wouldn't need to be unfilled. Obviously he grew just fine....he weighed almost 9 pounds and I delivered 2 weeks early!!! So thankfully I was able to keep my weight gain to a minimum. I squeezed (and I do mean squeezed) into a size 14 pair of jeans today. That's down from a size 22/24. It is so nice to be losing again. I am trying to stay away from carbs until I get another fill. It seems to be working. Thanks everyone for the congratulations. It's good to be back on this website and to read how everyone is doing.

No help for us. We are fat, we are gluttons, we are weak and undeserving of help, sympathy, or adequate medical care. Like Orson Wells said, “Gluttony is not a secret vice.” Do I believe that? Some days I do in fact believe it, when I’m down, and lately more because of how ill I have been. Mostly it is a load of hog wash. Fat does not equal ugly. There has long been a weird relationship with food, the body and the Christian church. And of course, we all know the impact that both Protestant and Catholic sects have had on Western Civilization… Some of the Christian based weight-loss schemes are screaming “fat people don’t go to heaven,” and “use our program based on Leviticus and you will loose weight and be closer to God!” Sorry, I’ve read Leviticus, and I am NOT eating bugs…. (I call them schemes because I think we all here have come to the understanding that “diets” are just schemes…) If you had better self-control, more self-esteem, more will-power, were a better person, loved God more…. You would lose weight and be a better person. There is no understanding for the overweight from most doctors. Before my husband had his band installed, the cardiologist said “Have you just tried cutting out sweets?” Now, on the face of it, this is good advice, advice we could all use. However, this showed a complete lack of understanding on the part of the doctor. You see, before my husband had his band installed, he weighted 596 pounds with a BMI in the high 80’s. Cutting out sweets would have certainly helped, it wouldn’t have stopped my husband from eating two or three fast-food meals at one sitting, or any of the other overeating behavior some of us know intimately, and other behaviors we are only starting to understand in ourselves and others. I am currently having difficulty with my asthma: hospitalizations, steroids, greatly reduced lung function, other things as well. What am I told? Well, just lose some weight, we aren’t going to help with this, we are just going to pass judgment on you. Sudden and unexplained weight gain? Well, just don’t eat as much… (never mind that I gained 10 pounds overnight with severe edema…). I have to suspect that part of Delarla’s current adventure with gauze might have been caught earlier if she was thin. I was told by my doctor that I just need to take up running. Yes that’s right, take up running. Can you imagine a woman with a BMI in the high 40’s running? (Please see the thread about giving one’s self black eyes…) Being fat or overweight or big boned, or under tall, or metabolically efficient or famine resistant doesn’t make us failures, bad people or jerks. We might be over sexed (skin is the largest sex organ…), but we are not failures, or bad people or jerks. If we are failures or bad people or jerks, it is independent of our weight or size.

Mary (anyone actually - this is a general question), IF you had WLS by having your stomach stapled so many years ago, why cant you go back in for a revision and have it restapled? *My MIL had this sugery 20 years ago - lost a ton of weight. Gained some of it back, then became bulemic to 'keep it off'. Ive always wondered why she didnt just go back and have her tummy restapled.*

You know how sometimes the answers come to you right when you need them? This article did that for me...and there are many messages in it that we discuss here. I couldn't find a link to it, so I typed it up because I thought it was so important for everyone here to read. It's long, so grab a bottle of Water and settle in. Size and Sensibility Losing half her body weight was no picnic. But living thin—and expanding her sense of self—nearly made Frances Kuffle’s world blow up I had been summoned to The Show, the Holy Grail for authors and the fulfillment of all my mother’s dreams. In a harried day of phone calls from Chicago, at the tail end of a snowstorm, the producers of Oprah decided, with 90 minutes to catch the last shuttle out of LaGuardia, that they might want me. You’d think, on the eve of what could catapult my book to national attention, that I would be too nervous to eat. I am never too nervous to eat. As I grazed the basket of goodies in my expensive suite, I had two questions. First: Would Harpo Productions’ bean counters go over my hotel tab and ask, “Isn’t that the woman who lost all that weight? What are these charges for chocolate-covered almonds and honey peanuts doing here?” Second: Why am I eating all this stuff? I might be on TV tomorrow! What with Oprah replaying 24/7, everyone in America could count the bread crumbs on my velvet dress. So much for the can-do kid, who, after 42 years of obesity and missed opportunities, had lost 188 pounds and written a book about it. Passing for Thin: Losing Half My Weight And Finding My Self is an account of how I used my radical change in weight to turn a small, private worlds of eating and surviving into one as big as my former size 32 dresses. I climbed mountains! I swaddled myself in cashmere and had lovers; I went to Italy. I floated out of the gym after lifting weights, I sat in restaurant booths, wore bracelets, and crossed my legs and took the middle seat in airplanes. Then I used my weight loss to do the next impossible thing: I became and author. Being thin opened the doors to experience and intimacy. National exposure, however, was an intrusion I hadn’t considered. I am not a pundit or a role model. You’re going to be pilloried, Frances, I thought with the vehemence of a Sicilian curse. And yet, there I was gobbling Oprah’s $12 Cookies. I put on my pajamas and pulled back the comforter on the king-size bed. It was littered with wrappers. My cheeks were burning with shame and calories. Tomorrow, I promised myself solemnly. And when tomorrow came, I smiled and joked, and I was gracious when I wasn’t, after all, needed for the show. I ached not from disappointment but with the hangover of sugar in my muscles, the sour gas in my gut and the heartbreak of being a liar. After a failed romance and a change of jobs, I drifted into relapse in March 2003, a year before Oprah, I had time on my hands—and time, in my case, is the enemy. I filled it by studying where and how I went wrong, at the office, in the bedroom. Intellectually, I knew that the boyfriend was emotionally frozen and that my former employer was abusive and infantilizing, but I couldn’t shake my ingrained conviction that I was responsible for everything that went wrong. I stopped going to the gym: I started eating peanuts or rice cakes between meals. A little of this, a little of that, and one morning I announced to a friend that I saw no reason why I couldn’t eat blackberry pie and ice cream, get the craving out of my system and return to my abstinence by noon. I wasn’t talking about a slice of pie a la mode. I was talking about a whole pie and a pint of ice cream. A whole pie? That summer I was reminded at every turn that I needed to be thin to promote my book. “You don’t want those cookies, honey”, my mom said as I carried off a stack I’d grabbed from the cooling rack. “Remember: You’re going to be in Oprah’s Magazine.” She was wrong. I did want those cookies, and I didn’t need reminding about Oprah. I sighed and took two more. When I asked myself what I needed, I was met with an unconsoling barrage of hungers. I needed to know I was not disposable. I needed a resting place. I needed to know I had enough stuff to carry off the rest of my life—enough talent, discipline, and intelligence—and enough sufficiency to protect myself from more heartbreak. I needed enough hope to find the friends and man I mourned the lack of. From August 1999 to August 2003, I’d gambled that losing weight would get me closer to all that, and I was told what to eat in those years. Now, after three years of maintaining my weight loss, I needed to be told what to feel when everyone but me has an opinion of who I am. I knew I—not just my body but my very self—was in trouble when I brushed aside a fleeting thought about how fat I looked with the answer “Never mind. You’ll like yourself when you get thin.” How does one live with self acceptance as a future and an always-conditional state of mind? More pragmatically, in lieu of my size 8 clothes, my career depended on self assurance. When asked, I admitted that I’d gained weight, adding that I never presented myself as the poster girl of thin. I said this with poise, which is not the same thing as confidence. Poise is teachable; confidence is one of the elements missing from the periodic table, three parts self respect to two parts experience. To get to confidence, I was going to have to listen to my self-accusations and sit with the rejections. Maybe shame had something to teach me. My next recovery period from food addiction would be based on therapy, heretofore more a matter of coaching than peeling back the layers of self. My psychiatrist’s and therapist’s offices became the places I could air my feelings about myself and the hopes I could change my self-perception. “There’s no point in getting depressed just because I’m depressed” I told my psychiatrist, who increased my morning meds anyway. That October, on a blue-and-gold afternoon, I had Indian food with Lanie, a friend visiting from my hometown, Missoula, Montana. I described how depressed I was by my weight gain until she preempted me. “You’ve been very fat, Frances, and you’ve been very thin. Welcome to where the rest of us live.” I twiddled my fork in my plate of saag panir. I think of Lanie as being very tall and very thin, but a few months earlier I’d helped her pick out a dress. Her dress size was similar to what I was wearing that day. The event we shopped for had been a gathering of Montana writers, many of them old friends, all middle-aged. One had a rounder face than I remembered; another wore layers of a truly terrible print in the style that catalogs and store clerks describe as “flattering”. Someone else was still very thin but looked drawn and brittle as age caught up with her bone structure. These were woman I’d long envied for their pretty thinness, and yet I’d been less like them when I was a size 8 than I was now. At size 8, I had to admit, I was so self-conscious (and secretly, overweening proud of it) that often that was all I was. I could have programmed my answering machine to announce, “Hi, you’ve reached a size 8. Please leave a message and either the size 8 or Frances will get back to you.” None of the women at that party, or Lanie savoring her lamb jurma across from me, claimed their identities from their weights that night. They wanted to gossip, compare stories of their kids and discuss what they were writing, tell old jokes more cleverly than thy had at the last party, and sample the Desserts weighing down the potluck buffet. I was not unlike them. Smaller by a size than Lanie, larger by a size than Laura, a little fresher looking than Diane. Of the Americans who lose weight, 95 percent gain it back within five years. I had gained a third of it back. Not all of it. To some extent, I had beaten the odds. I was stronger than the echoes of the boyfriend and boss allowed me to hear. I was determined not to repeat the mistake of being, rather than having, a thin body. I’d lived through my size all of my life, so acutely aware and ashamed of my obesity that the likable things about me—my sense of humor, my intelligence, talent, friendliness, kindness—were as illusory to me as a magician’s stacked card deck. As long as I defined myself by my body size, I would not experience those qualities for myself. As fall turned to a snowy winter, I picked through the spiral of relationships that had unglued me the year before. I didn’t blame the boyfriend or my boss for my relapse. I had been half of the problem; healthier self esteem would not have collapsed under their judgments of me. In obesity, I had clamped my arms to my sides to keep from swinging as I walked. I craned my body over armrests in theaters and airplanes, stood in the back of group photos to minimize the space I took up. I got thin and continued to hide. Whatever reasons the boyfriend had come up with for not seeing me, I met with amicability and sympathy. Had I reacted honestly, even to myself, I might have ended the relationship. Instead I’d gambled all my sweetness only to find out I was disposable. Likewise, I had not pressed my boss for an agenda of responsibilities from the start, nor had I clarified with her that her work and recreation styles frustrated and frightened me. Slowly I began to find toeholds in the avalanche of food and doubt. I worried about how fat I looked to potential readers and what I could possible wear to flatter or disguise the 40 pounds I’d gained. At the same time, however, I had become the canvas of makeup artists, stylists, photographers and publicists. They weren’t looking at my stomach. “Give me a hundred-watt smile,” commanded a photographer whose censure I thought I’d seen when I walked in. I licked my teeth and flashed a grin only somewhat longer than her camera flare. “Wow.” She straightened up at the tripod. “That really is a hundred watts. These are gonna be great.”. When I saw myself in the magazine, my smile was, in fact, the focal point. When I began dating, at the age of 45, my smile was an attribute men commented on, but I hadn’t really seen it until it was emblazoned on glossy paper. It was bigger, it seemed, than my face itself. I’d been a size 8 in my author photo, taken as my food plan was wobbling but not yet in smithereens, in June 2003. I was surprised to see I still looked like….myself, apparently. The power of my smile fueled me through more publicity, giving me a sense of authentic attractiveness that allowed me to enjoy the process. When I had a couple of days in Santa Monica between readings, I had a chance to assess and absorb at my own pace. Walking along the Palisades, I admired the sea-twisted pines and pearly mist funneling out of Malibu Canyon. I felt as lucky as I had once felt by being hired, by being loved, and I felt worthy of my luck because I appreciated the prettiness of the place, the serendipity that brought me there and my particular grateful awareness that knitted the moment together. I’d tried to rob myself of that by punishing myself for the boss and the boyfriend. You should not have treated me that way, I thought. The emphasis was on “me”, and just then I knew who that was. I looked around carefully. There was a family reunion going on, or so I assumed until I got closer and realized it was cookout hosted for the park’s lost and unfound citizens. I smiled to myself. How…California. No gritty, iron-shuttered Salvation Army outposts here, no Soup and Jell-O punishment for being a bum. No siree Bob. In California, the homeless are just one more variant on the Beach Boys. I laughed out load. I’m here, I gloated. I like my own company. I was tired of the games—with food, with hiding what I looked like under big clothes and my big smile, with waiting until I was a size 8 again to like myself. I recommitted to chipping at my food addiction, but I let go of some of the rigidity I’d had in the first years of losing and maintaining my weight loss. “I want to be praised when I do things right, and I want to be forgiven when I mess up.” I told people closest to me. “And I want milk in my coffee.” It was a small list, but significant because it allowed me to fumble as I gained my momentum of eating sanely. Esteem, kindness, patience, forgiveness: By cloaking myself in these qualities, I could build a self that was not afraid of authority figures and charming men who have one eye on the door. Maybe these attributes will curb the millions of things that make me want to eat, starting with seeing my parents or returning to Montana. I turn into the kid whose mother had to make her school uniform, whose big tummy stretched the plaid into an Etcher cartoon; I became the sad, joking fat college student who was reading The Fairy Queene while her girlfriends were soaking up the half-naked wonder of being 20 years old. I think of my parents’ kitchens, and my mouth waters for gingerbread and well-buttered toast. I regress when I let people like Lanie, whose struggle is different, comment or take chare of what I eat. “That’s two Entrees, Francis,” Lanie pointed out when I said I wanted goat cheese salad and roast chicken for our first lunch together in Paris. “Oh, Well, then, I’ll have the salad I guess,” I settled, grumpily. That’s the way I eat, that’s how I lost 188 pounds; vegetables and Protein. I was allowing her to limit me to a smidgen of cheese, or insufficient vegetables, and allowing her supervision is how I got so mad--the fatal elixir of anger and crazed desire—that I bought all the chocolate in Charles De Gaulle for my untasting delectation. I am the kid who, when told not to put Beans up her nose, heads directly to the pantry. “I have got to learn to tell people to stay out of my food,” I reported to my therapist back in new York. Then again, perhaps this is an evolutionary process rather than a one-time miracle cure. In 2003, I denned up for two months in Montana and ate. In 2004, I struggled again in Montana but I also did a lot of hiking, alone with my dog and with my niece. My slow pace didn’t frustrate either of them. I went horseback riding and got a terrific tan while swimming every afternoon. My thighs did not chafe in the August heat along the Seine, and I was thrilled to cross the Appalachian Trail later that autumn. I had spells of disappointment and fear from the way I ate, but I was living in my body, on my body’s terms. It’s a small world I’ve pulled from the wrappers, boxes and crumbs in the past two years, but a very human one. I’ve seen my family, close friends and therapists hold on to the stubborn believe that I would come through this. They loved me enough to countenance my mistakes and let me start over. Each day, I venture a little farther from the safety of food, and my courage comes from understanding that I am a lot like a lot of people—a family member, a friend, a dog owner, a recidivist, a middle aged woman, a writer who got a good rhythm going and forgot to brush her hair. There is safety in numbers. Depression and relapse would have to wait for a different excuse than my size. I am ready to hope again. Frances Kuffel is the author of Passing for Thin: Losing Half My Weight And Finding My Self (Broadway books, 2004). Her website is www.franceskuffel.net

I finally got the nerve to weigh today. 239lbs. Thats early AM while I was running on empty after a workout so I know it would be more under normal conditions. I had gone down to 226lbs before. So don't think you cant gain folks. 13lbs is no joke. I have my work cut out for me I see. I will keep u informed. I'm planning a active weekend for sure and to watch the diet. I can simply eat more than I should I may schedule an appt. with the Doc. I will use you all as leverage. I will report my losses here and I promise they will come quickly........

Six Patterns for Weight Loss Management Researchers Say Certain Habits Can Maintain Weight Loss Efforts By Kelli A. Miller WebMD Medical News Reviewed By Brunilda Nazario, MD on Tuesday, August 03, 2004 Aug. 4, 2004 -- Has dieting got you down? Concentrating more on your behavioral patterns and less on your middle may help keep off the pounds for good. A study published in the July 2004 Nursing Science Quarterly reports that 18 women who lost 10% of their body weight and kept it off for at least a year did so by embracing six behavioral patterns. Study author Diane berry, a postdoctoral fellow at Yale School of Nursing, evaluated the weight loss experiences of 20 women, aged 33 to 82, who were enrolled in Weight Watchers or Take Off Pounds Sensibly (TOPS). Berry questioned the women about their childhood, their relationships with others, stable periods of time in life, and major life-changing events. Ninety percent of the women successfully maintained a weight loss of 15 pounds to 144 pounds for a period of one to 27 years. Those who were successful exhibited six common trends. The patterns involved an initial period of chaos, followed by a time of conscious decision-making, and the development of new behaviors. In pattern one, women exhibited self-consciousness, low self-esteem, and a high sense of vulnerability before losing weight. They were also naïve regarding events that contributed to their weight gain. Pattern two involved problem recognition and a readiness to change. Making a decision to lose weight gave the women more overall energy, according to the study. Pattern three revealed the women taking control and engaging in behavior change. During this phase, women felt empowered and experienced a new sense of control over their lives in general. Pattern four showed women regularly incorporating the new behaviors into their life, such as routine exercise and food portion control. All women reported an increased awareness of food. Pattern five showed that social support was immensely valuable in reinforcing behavior change. Attending weekly weight loss meetings offered comfort and helped foster new friendships. Some women required more support than others. Pattern six brought increased self-confidence, self-esteem, and weight loss maintenance. Positive energy abounded across the group. Once women reached this step, weight loss was maintained. While many diets can help shed pounds, most provide only short-term success. Researchers say close study of the six patterns may shed new understanding on why some women can maintain weight loss while others cannot.

Wow,everyone on this board is so nice. Thanks for all of the replies and advice. I plan to have another child if possible but if not, we will adopt because we have always wanted to anyway. There are so many children out there who need a loving stable home. We already decided there is no use in spending all of our money again by having IUI, when ultimately we concieved our son on just Clomid alone, not to mention all of the emotional stress it put on us. We have a four month old son so we dont plan on having another child anytime soon. I plan to get to my ideal weight first which will be at least a year or so I am sure because I am not even banded yet. To answer your question Blacknamaste, there are many symptoms of PCOS, some of which include, Hirsutism, which is excessive hair on the face or other parts of the body where women do not typically have hair, depression,irregular menses or absence of menses, absence of ovulation, weight gain and obesity, infertility and many other symptoms but this is all I can think of currently. PCOS can only be diagnosed by having a transvaginal ultrasound which can be done by your OB/GYN or reproductive endocrinologist. If you have PCOS there will be what is commonly reffered to as a "string of pearls" around your ovaries which are fluid filled cysts which can prevent ovulation. This will be easily seen on the monitor if you have it. IF you feel it is possible you have PCOS you should request an ultrasound by your doctor. Lets hope you dont have it but is very commen and it can be treatable. Hope this helps.

Just to give you a different perspective! I had lap RNY 2-1/2 years ago. I have recently gotten banded on top of it because I began to gain with the RNY. My stomach grew and my system got used to whatever they did. I find the weight gain and diets a common theme after 2 years post op!! With the band, you just get a fill.

I haven't posted in quite a while and decided that as I start this year "anew", I needed to post again to signify my "new"/"renewed" start with my band journey. I was banded 8/03 and have basically done quite well. In fact, overall, I've lost 115 pounds. However, after having almost no problems for the first 10 months or so, I have been struggling for quite a while. I have been on a major (6-7 month) plateau. I then had problems with reflux and difficulty tolerating food; had tests for a possible slipped and/or eroded band (which so far shows that it has not slipped and there is no sign of erosion); got an unfill a few weeks ago (which eased the reflux); and as of today, got another fill and am starting "over". In the meantime, after a long plateau, while I had a 3 week period of an unfill and while I was away on a 10 day cruise (I just got back on Saturday night), I gained back 12 pounds! Although I am not happy about the weight gain, I know that it WILL come back off. I think I really needed a period of not feeling so restricted. (And, fortunately or unfortunately, I wasn't restricted at all while I was away!!!) One of the things that was certainly reinforced for me is how important the band is as a tool. Over the last 16 months, I have certainly worked with this tool - I basically followed the bandster "rules"; I made generally good food choices; I exercised regularly; and I went to support groups. However, it is clear to me these are NOT permanent changes. I worked "with" my band, but I certainly do need the band. Having little or no restriction showed me how easy it is to go right back to "old" ways. So... this critical little "tool" is still the essential ingredient for helping put it all together. As of today, January 10, 2005, I am using this post to publicly re-commit to a new start and to moving forward with my banding journey! I have worked too hard and have come too far to gain it all back! And I have experienced too many of the hard won "rewards" of weight loss to not keep going forward. I've come a long way - but I still have a long way to go. And now I am on my way. I'm attaching a new before and after photo update. The 1 month pre-surgery photo was taken on a cruise - at my "ATH" weight. The 1/05 photos were just taken on another cruise - showing a 115 pound weight-loss. Wishing myself - and all of us - a good journey in 2005! Mary