Jann

Gorgeous! WTG! =D>

Go get them, gals! Remember to walk tons to get rid of residual gas! Run back and tell us all about it. We're waiting for you! Take good care

Oh, you must be too excited. I'm wishing you all the luck I can manifest! You'll do fine!!!! Let us know how you are!

I read somewhere that the pre-diet is actually to rid your liver of fat and sugar as the organ hardens over time and it's difficult to move for access during surgery. The pre-diet helps to make it more malleable. I started liquid vitamins and liquid calcium, citrate to prep. I want as little organ tugging as is humanly possible! hehe I'm SO excited for you! WOOT!

OooOOoh I hope so!

Hiy Wa! No, I tripped over that site last night while I was looking for baratric stuff on the internet. It is really an exceptionally well done site imho! J

http://www.5daypouchtest.com/ Does my pouch still work? Have I broken my pouch? Am I doomed to be a failure at this too? Can I lose the weight I've regained? Is the honeymoon period over? I never made it to goal weight and now I'm gaining. Help! If you are asking these questions then the 5 Day Pouch Test is for you

http://bariatricradio.com/page/brn/home and http://www.blogtalkradio.com/TheWLSCoaches How interesting is that?

Developing Discomfort Tolerance (Something to try when you get hungry) By: Warren Huberman, Ph.D. One of the most common questions I am asked by patients prior to surgery is “What do I do if I want to eat something after surgery when I know I’m not hungry?” This question stems from anxiety regarding emotional eating and the possibility of weight regain. Many patients recall that these thoughts and feelings triggered relapse from previous efforts to lose weight. There is also the growing concern about what is being called “addiction transfer.” Patients are nervous that if their ability to eat is inhibited by the surgery or by efforts to avoid eating that this urge will somehow morph into some other maladaptive coping mechanism like consuming alcohol. Interestingly, despite much anectodotal discussion about “addiction transfer” there is not much clinical support for such a phenomenon. But the question remains…”What do I do if I want to eat after surgery and I know that I’m not hungry?” Many patients tell me that they have tried at least one of hundreds of suggestions to cope with hunger…drink some water, go for a walk, eat something healthy, do a crossword puzzle, call a friend…and the list goes on and on. One suggestion that is seldom discussed is to do nothing at all, but rather to try and understand and tolerate the discomfort. Perhaps this sounds shocking to you. Our culture places such a premium on being comfortable that we seem to have lost the ability and the skills to tolerate discomfort. We have 26-way adjustable seats, televisions in every waiting room, drive-through pharmacies, and remote controls for every electronic device. Heaven forbid that we experience any inconvenience or discomfort! Where did we get the idea that we must be comfortable all the time? Why do we believe that we must deperately try to distract ourselves away from all sources of discomfort such as hunger or emotional distress by talking with friends, taking walks or doing crossword puzzles? These activities of distraction, although not harmful, are a means of escape. By engaging in one of these activities we are essentially telling ourselves that “I can’t stand the discomfort of being hungry…I must find something to distract myself away from this absolutely intolerable feeling…danger, danger, danger!” It’s simply not true. The next time you experience the urge to eat something when you’re not truly hungry, instead of engaging in an activity to escape from the discomfort, sit with it for a few minutes. Examine the feeling and ask yourself just how intolerable it is. Consider rating it on a 1-10 scale and ask yourself if you truly “can’t stand it!” Is it a mild discomfort or genuinely painful and intolerable? Try sitting in a chair and taking a few deep breaths over the course of two to three minutes and see if you can manage to reduce the anxiety and discomfort. Sounds crazy but at times it will most certainly work. By practicing this exercise and gaining some mastery and control over your response to the discomfort of hunger, you learn that you can actually tolerate the discomfort. Therefore, it is less likely that you will feel anxiety the next time the hunger occurs as you will know that you can “stand it” and that you don’t have to run away. This is how we develop discomfort tolerance and the ability to take care of ourselves despite the presence of discomfort. We try very hard to teach it to our children as we do not indulge all of their crying episodes and tantrums. We teach them to try and cope until the discomfort subsides. It is a great skill to learn to tolerate discomfort and ride it out until it subsides. Try it out!

Unraveling the Myth of Willpower By: Warren Huberman, Ph.D. I’ve always despised the term “willpower” because it’s one of those words that seems to say something, but says nothing. Applied to weight loss or keeping weight off, willpower is always cited as something you must have to be successful. When patients struggle to lose weight, they tell me it’s because they have no willpower. Willpower is spoken of as if it is the secret weapon in the battle of the bulge but nobody seems to be able to define what willpower is or how to acquire it. What truly bothers me is that willpower is often explained as something intrinsic…that you either have it or you don’t. This is utter nonsense. Anyone who has ever lost weight can recall at least one time when they thought “This is it! This is the time I’m really going to keep it off!” You felt as if you were in a groove. You turned away from cake and potato chips. You said no to second helpings. You were invincible! You even bought the smaller jeans to punctuate your accomplishment! But then there was a wedding, or a cruise or just a little, harmless piece of chocolate that you let yourself enjoy. Suddenly, your “willpower” seemed to be gone and you didn’t know how to get it back. Well that ends today. I have news for you. Successful weight losers do not have more willpower than you do. Unsuccessful dieters do not have less willpower than you do. The popular conception of willpower is nonsense. There is nothing magical about willpower. It is not something that you have one day and lose the next. I’m going to teach you how to make your own willpower. First, let’s expose the myth of willpower. Willpower found! When you lost all that weight way back when, it began with a conscious decision and a few key factors lined up in your favor. While it may seem that you suddenly had the willpower to start the diet and successfully begin to lose weight, what actually occurred was that emotion (motivation) and an awareness of the positive and negative consequences of weight loss were both in focus. Often by chance, the emotional energy to persevere is so strong that we tolerate hunger, frustration, cravings, etc. You might think that you were not feeling hunger, cravings, or frustration when you were losing the weight but in fact you were. They were simply dwarfed by the high level of emotion and motivation you had to tolerate them. Willpower lost! Unfortunately, this initial emotional thrust eventually wears off if there’s nothing else to give it more fuel. When willpower seems to suddenly disappear what has happened is that the equation has shifted. Reasons to eat the chocolate and the desire to eat it are suddenly greater than the initial emotional thrust to tolerate this discomfort. At this point, you begin giving yourself permission to go off track. You find yourself in an environment where temptations seem greater than before. You tell yourself things that enable a setback. Willpower didn’t go anywhere. And as you well know, from that point on, it was only a matter of time until the weight returned. You probably remember that awful feeling of powerlessness that you couldn’t grab hold of the reigns and turn things around. Of course, there are also times where an overwhelming emotional event may occur that throws your motivation out the window. 9/11 was such an unfortunate example for many of my patients. Making your own willpower Whether it is losing weight, quitting smoking, or accomplishing any other endeavor, there are a few specific actions that successful people take that make them successful: 1) Create measurable goals and write them down. If you’re not willing to write them down then you’re not really serious about success. Keep reading your goals every day or they won’t stay in the front of your mind. If they’re not in the front of your mind, they’re in the back of your mind. If they’re in the back of your mind, they’re useless. 2) Motivate yourself to accomplish each goal. Ask yourself “What’s in it for me (WIIFM) to accomplish this goal?” Then ask yourself “What is the consequence of failing to accomplish this goal?” Identify short and long-term goals as well as short and long-term consequences. Don’t dance around this issue…be honest. There are real negative short-term consequences of dieting and keeping weight off. Hunger, feelings of deprivation and temporary emotional distress are a few. Fear of being without food as a comfort is another. Having a clear list of benefits that you will gain in the future in exchange for tolerating these negative consequences in the short-term can help you through these tough times. Ask yourself “What do I stand to gain, both now (within a few days) and in the future if I stick to my goal of losing weight.” This is the real definition of willpower: being able to tolerate frustration or discomfort in the present in exchange for a desirable outcome in the future. Perhaps a better phrase for willpower is discomfort tolerance or frustration tolerance. Take your time with this step. Remember, in order to have the ability to tolerate frustration and discomfort when they strike, you need to be acutely aware of “what’s in it for me?” 3) Make clear action steps that you plan to take to accomplish the goal. The goal itself is not as important as understanding the behavioral steps you plan to enact in order to accomplish them. Ask yourself “what am I going to do to accomplish my goal. Also ask, “What do I need to stop doing or do differently if I am to accomplish this goal. For example, don’t ask yourself “How am I going to find the time to exercise?” Ask yourself “How am I going to make the time to exercise.” Then take out your blackberry or schedule book and figure out exactly what you are going to shift around to create the time to exercise. 4) Practice your strategies. Ever notice that the best athletes practice almost EVERY DAY?! Batting practice, free throw practice, the driving range, and on and on. Practice is what makes people successful. It’s not willpower. In case you’re telling yourself that it’s the money, you’re mistaken. There are plenty of highly paid athletes that are bums. Our favorite athletes are generally the ones that practice the most. They try harder and give a little more than the “prima donnas.” We tend to like the players who are shorter, slower, injured, or who are older but simply refuse to give up. Its constant effort, and a refusal to quit, not talent that makes the difference. 5) Think like a winner. When a winner has a setback, they don’t pack it in. They start over. Don’t “catastrophize.” Don’t categorize everything into good or bad, pass or fail. Stop being critical and demeaning of your shortcomings and missteps. If you have a bad day at the Chinese buffet, it’s just one high-calorie meal. It doesn’t mean a thing…unless you tell yourself it does. If you tell yourself it’s a bad day, it becomes a bad day. Tell yourself that your Chinese meal ruined the weekend and you’ve ruined the weekend. Suddenly you’re telling yourself that Friday is a wash and that you might as well give yourself the weekend to have some fun promising that you’ll get back on track on Monday, only Monday never comes. How you think is everything. There you have it…the mystery of willpower unraveled. The power to make real change and MAINTAIN real change is well within your grasp. You don’t suddenly get it and just as suddenly lose it. Make a commitment to your goals, write them down, document what’s in it for you, read your goals daily, diligently engage in behaviors that support each goal, think like a winner and you will be successful. I know that some of you are reading this and sighing, saying that it’s not so simple. It doesn’t have to be so complicated either. Take a bold step. Start writing some goals down right now and follow the steps I’ve outlined above before you log off. You have the power to change right at this very moment. No willpower required!

Will Emotional Eating Sabotage Your Success? Three Things You Need to Know By: Melissa McCreery, PhD The term emotional eating is thrown around a lot, but not everyone understands what emotional eating really is. Emotional eating is eating and overeating that occurs when we use food as a way to cope with a feeling, situation, or a need that is not physical hunger. Emotional eating is eating that happens when we want to eat but our bodies don’t really need the fuel. Common kinds of emotional eating are “nervous eating,” eating when you are bored, using food as a “reward” (to feel good), or eating when you are lonely. Because this kind of eating isn’t tied to a physical need for food, it can easily cause weight gain. Here are three things EVERY weight loss surgery patient needs to know about emotional eating: 1. Many people don’t know that they are emotional eaters. How’s that? Well, emotional eating isn’t always as straightforward as feeling a feeling (“I’m anxious”) and then making a choice to eat. Here’s the tricky part. Over time, if you’ve learned to use food as a way to cope with certain feeling states or situations, your brain can stop identifying that you are eating for emotional reasons. Here’s an example. If when you’re stressed, you reach for a snack to comfort yourself, over time, your brain stops telling you, “You are stressed and you are going to try to cope with it by eating a cookie.” Over time, your brain may start skipping the emotion and move directly to interpreting that stressed feeling as physical hunger. You might not even realize that you are feeling stress. Your thinking will go like this: Something stressful will happen and you will start wanting a snack. You might even feel physically hungry. Food, not stress, will be the central thought in your mind. If you are someone who feels hungry “all the time,” emotional eating could very well be playing a hidden role. 2. Emotional eating and self-blame, shame and guilt go hand in hand. If you are feeling “out of control with your eating,” odds are that emotional eating is happening. The problem is, if emotional eating goes unrecognized, or if we don’t take it seriously, it’s easy to fall into a trap of guilt and self-blame for not being able to “stay in control” of your eating. Shame and guilt are never helpful when it comes to long term weight loss. They tend to breed isolation, negative self esteem, decreased hope, and ultimately more emotional eating and self-sabotage. If you are struggling with emotional eating and you don’t learn the tools you need to cope with the feelings, the odds are that you will continue to feel out of control with food. 3. If you don’t take control of emotional eating, it can take control of your weight loss plans. Research studies of individuals trying to lose weight find that people who eat for emotional reasons lose less weight and have a harder time keeping it off. The journal Obesity recently published an article concluding that successful weight loss programs should teach clients how to cope with emotional eating in order to improve the clients’ ability to lose weight and not regain it. The risk of weight gain is not the only reason that emotional eating is important to address. Failure to address emotional eating—using food to cope with feelings and needs and circumstances other than physiological hunger—can also contribute to difficulties with cross-addictions after weight loss surgery. If emotional eating is something that you struggle with, it’s important to know that no diet and no weight loss surgery will fix that for you. Taking control of emotional eating requires learning new effective ways to cope with your emotions. It’s not about the food. It’s also important to know that learning new tools to cope with emotional eating can be one of the most rewarding and life-changing gifts that you can give yourself. Learning new ways to cope with life issues and feelings allows you to tackle life head-on. When you do this, food becomes simpler, and your life grows bigger, and ultimately, more rewarding. Melissa McCreery, Ph.D. is a Psychologist and Life Coach who helps her clients create and live the life they crave. She is also the creator of the Emotional Eating Toolbox 28-day Program for Taking Control and Moving Beyond Dieting. Sign up for a free 5 part Self-care Package Audio Course at: www.enduringchange.comor visit her blog Peace With Cake.

Beautiful family and LOVE that dog! hehe -- thanks so much for sharing with us!

Congratulations on your decision!!! =D>

You are absolutely stunning! What a difference 31 pounds makes! WOOT! Nice work, Lady!

OMG, you are gorgeous! Nice work there, Lady! So many extreme changes and look at you go! 'Gratz!

It took a long time to get there! You're talking to a girl who spent $20,000 on liposuction for a loss of two to four pounds two years ago. Talk about desperation! And was Hubby ever pissed! hehe -- I think Sis will be impressed. It could be the start of her changing the way she sees herself and food and the opportunity for change this brings! YAY!

As someone who minute by minute is very conscious of weight and very food centric, I have to tell you it is really a good feeling. I don't know why I've reached that place but I'm definitely going with it. Even without the band I am less and less food centric probably from fear of what would happen if I deviated post-band! My sense is if I start proactively implementing what I will have to do post band, going through it when the time comes won't be so difficult. It won't be such a shock to the system. I don't find myself reaching when in the past I would have been there in a New York minute. I'm not even missing what I don't have. (Okay, I'm really insecure about that whole drinking while eating after banding thing!) I don't feel that urgency to go to the pantry or the fridge that I did before unless it's for water. I'm still very conscious of being "the fat girl in the room" clearly but having said that I also feel a real sense of freedom that I didn't have before. Perhaps I've just accepted that this is my path, that my family "is what it is and I can't change that" and it's time to move forward. Whatever it is and for however long it lasts I'm grateful to be in this place in this moment. There really isn't any miracle pill or machine or whatever to drop the weight and not all of us have the control mechanism to diet hence the band. In my opinion, it has to be a staged process, accept one stage and move to the next but at the end of the day you have to hit "your" bottom to propel you to make your decision. It doesn't sound like your sister is there yet. I've accepted that I won't wake up thin the day after surgery but the results, if only from the folks on this forum, speak for themselves. With work, dedication and life changes that the band helps to control this is my answer. I devoured the internet when I initially came to the conclusion that the band was an option for me. I went to You-Tube and watched every video, I went to every forum I could find, I went to every Lap Band Surgery website, I looked at all the before and afters, I looked at at the medical studies I could find, I looked and pros and cons and options, I ordered every book on the subject that I could find, I even went to the regular sized girl's clothing stores to see my potential future and I liked what I saw! I will never wear boxy clothes again! Perhaps baby steps with Sis, have her log in and read the forums here. When she sees the level of support, the wealth of information everyone here shares and the sense of comfort and belonging it brings, it may allay her fears or concerns and she'll catch the "band bug"! Maybe I'm just finally learning to take care of me instead of taking care of everyone else's needs first. Whatever the reason, for me, it's time apparently.

Nice job!

Wow, that was interesting. I don't do subordinate well but I can see the merit in what the study is saying.

That's so impressive that you are running the whole gumut on this. It's such a healthy well rounded approach! I'm definitely a self saboteur and it absolutely should have kicked in by now. I think because I resolved the key psychological issues (family) for the most part it's somehow made room for me to take this step. I'll be interested to see what next month brings. I have a strange sense of calm and centeredness that I'm revelling in right now. Let's hope it stays -- if not I'll for sure be following your path! I already gave my "old" trainer a head's up that I'm coming back but according to the Wii I have some serious upfront work to do first!

If you go to the same place where you got your first one (just click on your ticker here and it will redirect you) -- it will allow you to make another one. Hit HOME on that webpage go to vacations and travel and make a ticker the same way you made the last one. Then just double space in your signature line and add the code.

Awesome incentive! Mine was taken in Australia last year. Hubby picked it out. It was his contribution.

Strange how everybody is different, eh? I switched to a salad fork -- I'm working my way to baby spoon and fork -- hehe

Wow, Shrty! Love yer pic!

Wii fit was $99. Cdn. I think the unit was like $299.? I bought it a while ago.