Calling all Feb. Bandsters! Tell us about yourself!

[marathinner 1]

I'm 37, also live in San Diego and getting banded on Fat Tuesday!! I've been married for 5 years and am hoping to have kids one day. I work in public relations and absolutely love my job. I weigh 245 and hope to get to 140'ish. Started my pre-op diet today and looking forward to the support and sharing this journey with all of you!!

Amy

[jaunderwood 0]

Hi all of you,

Gibson Woman I'm also from Kentucky .I'm from a little town about 60 miles south of Louisville,I am to have my surgery with Dr, Kasa in Elizabethtown,Haven' received final approval yet ,but all my preliminary things are done.I am divorced and a mother of 2 sons.I love this site!!

jaunderwood

[GreenChrysalis 1]

I am 30, living in Georgia. I've been married for 12 years and have three cats. I weigh 302 lbs and my goal weight is 175 (I'm 5'10"). I have been overweight my entire life, eat emotionally, have a very supportive husband & I'm only telling a few friends (no family for various reasons -- see my thread in the Rants section). I'd link to it but I'm feeling lazy.

I like pina coladas and getting caught in the rain, I'm not much into health food, I am into champagne. OK, I actually like a lot of "health food" and I don't drink pina coladas, although the occasional glass of champagne is good. I do like cheesy music. I just feel silly talking about myself and it turns into a weird personal ad. :rolleyes2:

[ronwifey 0]

HI, I hope to be banded in Feb too. My psych eval, dietician appointment and appointment with the Dr. is 2/1 so hopefully it will go as smoothly as others with same type of insurance (BC/BS Federal Basic) and only have to wait about 2-3 weeks.

About me: I'm from CA but have lived in TX for 5 years now and plan to stay. I have 2 kids and 2 dogs. Oh yeah....... a husband too, lol. He's been great, loved me at 150 and seems to love me more at 240, lol! He thinks I'm perfect the way I am which is great but makes dieting very hard. I am fat now because I love to eat. I eat for every occasion, feeling, mood I'm in, you name it I'll eat for it. I remember a while ago a co-worker told me it was "talk like a pirate day" and I immediately thought, well gotta go to Red Lobster tonight then. I find reasons to Celebrate and eat. The dogs birthday I make a cake, if I have a "good" day at work we go to a chinese buffet. Like I said you name it I eat for it.

I'm so glad I found this message board. It has been so helpful in so many ways!

[valvinnek 0]

Hi, my name is Alyssa. I'm 35 and a stay at home mom to my 4 children (3 boys and 1 princess). I've been married for 9 years. I was a gymnast until I was about 18, at 19 my parents got divorced and I got comfy with my dh (boyfriend at the time) throw in hashimotos/hypothyroid and 4 pregnancies I got to my highest (non-preg) weight of 260. I hover around 245 now, but my surgery is scheduled for Feb 25th. It's my time now!

Best of luck to all of us!!!!!

Alyssa

[Dx MOM 0]

Well, I'm 34 years old from Oregon. I have been married for 10 years together 16, we have 2 children that I'm very proud of. A 8 year old girl and a 5 year old boy. I am a RN and work in L&D. I 'm 5'2.5'' current wt 217 highest ever 232, my goal under 150, my fantasy 135:tongue:. I am self pay Puerto Valalrta, Mexico. Band date 02/01/08. MY goal is to be healthy all of the gals in my family are obese smoker's who have highbp,high cholesterol, and all have had heart attacks. I already have high cholesterol and obese so I will break this cycle for my self and my daughter.

So good luck to you all.

[CynthiaMcC 0]

I'm Cynthia in St. Louis. I'm 35, no kids, a great dog, and a career in public relations. I've always struggled with weight, and after seeing the impact of life long obesity on family members, I've decided to embrace health. I'm scheduled to be banded on the 1st.

[4jin 0]

Hi All!

I am married. Have two children in the home running around. I am employed in the city of Atlanta. I live in the North Suburbs of Georgia. I moved to Georgia from Ohio. Love Georgia, the people, the weather, and most of all the traffic(not just kiddin' on the last one).

But the positive outweight the negative!

I am currently 230 lbs. My first goal is 195lbs. My second goal is 175lbs. My third goal is 155lbs. My fourth goal is 140lbs and my Ultimate goal is 127lbs. I don't remember the last time I weighed 127lbs. But it was back in 2005 when I excelled at a medically supervised diet for 10 months before going on a caribbean vacation. When I got back I had gained 10lbs...and just gave up and gained all right back and about 15 more.

230 is my ultimate highest weight ever.

Let's turn this scale around together!

[Angie4b1g 1]

I guess I should jump in here.

I'm 37, does that make me on the old end? Like Erin, I used to always be the young one. When my oldest started school, I was the youngest mom by far. Now I'm older than many of the teachers, and still have one more to start kindergarten! How'd that happen??

I live in Cleveland, my surgery is in Cincinnati. Still working on the logistics of that and how I'm going to get home, but I'm sure it'll all work out so I'm trying to go with the flow.

I have 5 kids, ranging in age from 3-15. Seems I've averaged a 20lb gain with each, but that's not exactly how it went. I held on to 20lbs with the first, and the same 20lbs with the 2nd and 3rd (which isn't bad considering I gain 60-80lbs with each pregnancy! lol). So after #3, I was about 40lbs overweight - 20 from before kids and then the 20 I held onto after. Joined WW, made goal and then lifetime. Was revoltingly thin, still thought I was fat.

Meanwhile, I was still in my crappy marriage. Then, I got pregnant again. I was NOT happy about that and combined with the bad marriage, it just sent me over the edge. I gained 80lbs with that one, and only lost about 40 of it after he was born. So, there I was back at my 185-190 range, which by this point I had convinced myself was just my body's happy range. I wasn't that terribly unhappy with it, so I just decided to leave it be.

Then I got remarried. We decided to have a baby. Then it all went to hell. :redface: I'm up about 50lbs from when we got married 4 years ago. In fact, I'm heavier now than I ever was WHILE pregnant. Sigh.

My 40lbs turned into 85lbs, and my quick intro seems to have turned into a novel.

Anyway, my husband loves me either way, but I'm just downright tired of being fat. Tired of being tired, tired of being winded, tired of having to rearrange my fat rolls to get comfortable in bed. So, with his support, I decided to go for it! I'd been researching WLS for over a year, gave WW one or two last tries (I can lose 20lbs easily, then I fall off the wagon. Then it backs over me twice.), and here I am. We have an exclusion on our insurance policy, so I'm self pay. It has its good and bad points. The bad being the $13k I have to spend. The upside being not having to jump through all the hoops to get the insurance approval.

I go for pre-op on the 29th and then surgery on the 12th of Feb. Pretty fast considering I went to the seminar on Jan 16th.

There can't possibly be anything else you need to know. LOL

[DebbsHereNow 0]

HI Everyone I am not sure what the title of this thread is, but since I have been reading it I feel like jumping in. I am divorced and 52 years old. I was in an unhappy marriage for 23 years. I have since found out he is gay and that is why we had very little sex, which is so important to me that I ate myself to happiness, a whopping 325 ( I am now at 250), we all know how that is, right? Anyway I had 2 sons by miracles,lol, they are now 28 and 21. I am in a fantastic relationship with a wonderful Firefighter who is the man I have been waiting for all my life! He has an older daughter and two special needs kids at home. I am back to the role of mom again, which suits me just fine. I lost 85 pounds about 5 years ago but seems the scale keeps going up. I pleaded with my family doc to approve of this surgery for me because I need this tool. He said you have lost in the past you can do it again, but I said but I keep putting it back on. He finally agreed. So I have gotten a few test done and am waiting for insurance approval ( wish me luck everyone, Please). This is so hard for all of us and we all need to make life style changes, but we are also lucky that this is available to us. I hope to get down to around 140. I am 5'2. Good Luck to everyone! We are all in this together!

[Mel119 0]

Hi, I'm Melinda from Hickory, North Carolina. I just turned 44 years old...wow, that sounds really old!! =0

I'm divorced with two daughters. One is married and expecting a baby any day now. My other daughter is 15 and a sophomore in high school.

I have one dog, one cat and one hamster. :]

I work in Human Resources and have been in the same job for 19 years. I guess I like it pretty good (most days)!! lol

My pre-op liquid diet begins February 18th, and I will be banded on February 27th.

Here's to happiness and better health in 2008!!

:]

P.S. I currently weigh somewhere around 280 lbs (5'5"). My goal is 150 lbs., but I would be happy at 175 lbs.!!

[mikey155734 0]

Hi! My name is Mike from MN, I am 32 years old, and I am happily married to my beautiful wife, Laura! We have been married 2 years now. We have 3 cats, Toby, Zac and Sneakers, who we adore. No children ... yet!

I have had weight problems all my life and have a BMI of 41, I recently got it down from 45. I just had my last psych eval and hope to be banded in Feb, if the insurance doesnt take too long to come back with their decision. I weigh 278 pounds, down from 308 in October,as I had a attack of Pancreatitis. I am diabetic, have acid reflux, depression, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and high triglycerides. So, I can hardly wait to get rid of some of these health problems!!!

I know so many people who have had success with this surgery and I cant wait to be one of them!! My father passes away at the age of 50 years old, and my Mother has more health problems than I can even begin to explain, so I thought I would do something positive for myslef so that I can live a long, health life! My Dad's father also died at 50, so I want to live long after 50!

[mikey155734 0]

my wife and I also have 3 cats! Aren't they the cutest?

[mikey155734 0]

WOW! That is fast! I went to the seminar in June, and just finally had my last appt this past wed and now am waiting for insurance approval!

[Shinyhappymommy 2]

Hi, I'm Melissa. I'm 35. I live in rural Kansas, came here from St. Louis (Hi St. Louisans!:rolleyes2:) but I'm originally from northern Utah. My husband's job will have us transferring a couple more times, so who knows where we'll end up.

I run a day care from my home and have three kids of my own. My youngest, a boy, is 11 months old and then we have two older girls, ages 7 and 9.

I'm having surgery in Denver, CO and I'm really stressed right now because I haven't been officially scheduled. It's supposed to be on February 8th, but the pre-service review approval letter hasn't arrived at the Surgeon's office yet and they can't schedule me until they have it in hand. We did already arrange for my dh to have work off, so if the date has to change it will really be a problem. He's planning on being there for the surgery (not literally) and then being off work for an additional 6 days off. He'll be able to help with our baby and even with the daycare kids if I decide to have them back that soon.

I'm blessed to have good insurance that will cover 90% of the surgery. I'm also blessed to have a surgeon who only charges 10K. That helps make my 10% not be so much.

I have a BMI of 41, I think, and I weigh about 300 or 302. At 5 ft. 8, I think my goal is 160 lbs, though like many of you have said, I'll be glad with anything significantly less than I am now. I can't wait to see Onederland again.

I have a wonderfully supportive husband as well as family and friends. I know this journey won't be easy, but neither is being fat.