The way they say "that surgery" you'd think we'd eaten a child or something.

Well, I love telling my story and I love fixing things, including people, yet I would *never* walk up to someone unasked and start telling them about the surgery. So, if I wouldn't do it, I think that tells you something about how unacceptable that kind of interference is. :) I do tell anyone who asks about my surgery and I include it in the list of things I did to lose (and keep off) weight. Plus I blog. And I'm writing a chapter in a book about Ironman experiences. So obviously I tell people all the time. But it's never me *confronting* someone who hasn't opened the door in some way. That's just rude and uncalled for on every level.

Oh the fake threat to sue you. I love that one. Some moron on Obesity Help is always threatening to sue me. Except she hasn't even figured out my real name or my email address. LOL

Even if you don't dump, 14 g of sugar is a LOT. I won't buy my kids a cereal with more than 12 g of sugar and even 12 g is high by my standards for healthy eating. I would say you want to keep the sugar grams under 10, myself, and lower if you dump. As for "protein" bars, if they have more carbs than protein, then I don't consider them a protein bar. And a lot of them have more carbs than protein.

But you're cuter.

Oh and read this, Beth: http://www.chucklorre.com/index.php?p=322

She is sick or at least she was. She recently had surgery for an ailment she isn't naming.

I hate it when I finally go to the doctor after dragging my feet for ages and then they make me feel like a hypochondriac. It adds insult to injury.

It's because they know WLS works. So they want to associate their dumb-ass products with a proven winner.

With my first kid, I had just lost 70 pounds (though I was on my way to gaining everything back). I used the pregnancy as an excuse to eat all the stuff I hadn't been eating for the past two years and gained 50 pounds. Baby was healthy but born via c-section due to being bigger than my hips and I had lost 30 lb. at 6 weeks out (at least 10 of the 50 pounds was due to edema I developed in the last two weeks of the pregnancy). I was overweight at the start but not counseled to gain less than someone who was a normal weight. With the second, I was in the process of losing weight to get pregnant so I was still obese. I was told to gain as little as possible. I ate mostly healthy foods and really watched what I ate and I gained only 23 this time but baby was even bigger than the first and still ended up with a c-section. I was below my start weight at 6 weeks out. (Which means I was no longer obese since I was on the border line to start.) In both cases, baby was healthy and I was fine, too.

MM - A friend of mine had a fibroid on her ovary that grew to the size of a softball and pressed up against her kidney and that's when she finally had symptoms including horrible pain and peeing blood. So, yeah, fibroid can cause pain if they get big enough and/or are in the right place.

This reminds me of the convo we're having on Weighty Secrets about whether or not people can't get dates because they are fat and no guys can or do love fat women. I have wanted to ask the ones who are insistent that anyone who believes differently isn't living in the real world what their excuse is going to be for not getting dates once they lose the weight?

I listen to this song all the time in the car and I must be getting immune to the f-word because when you said it was NSFW, I was thinking "huh?" I really didn't remember there was cursing in it. Actually, them saying the n-word offends me more.

Huacuz does advertise on OH. I've seen his ads just a month ago. His ads do disappear for a while now and then but they always come back. He's a known butcher and the people who say they are going to him on OH are told over and over not to use him and they GO ANYWAY. This really frustrates me.

Another reason not to change is because these people telling you that changing will bring you more success are just flat out wrong. The thing is, most people are scared. They think if they play it safe in life, that it will stop bad things from happening to them and maybe even bring them a few good things. So nothing drives them crazier than someone who isn't playing it safe, especially if that person isn't getting slapped down by their "unsafe" choices. I've been told all my life that I wouldn't be successful if I did what I wanted to do. If I didn't go to a certain school, if I didn't work in a certain place doing certain things. If I didn't get married by a certain age or have my kids at a certain age. If I don't work out a certain way or eat a certain way. People are constantly telling me my choices were/are wrong yet I continue to have a great life full of many successes and, yes, some failures, but not the total failure and lack of success that is constantly being predicted for me because of my unconventional choices. Your blog is full of advertising, you have sponsors, you actually make some money off it. This is as successful as it gets for most bloggers. How much more successful will you be if you stop cursing occasionally or stop saying things some people don't want to hear? I don't think you'll be any more successful. IMO, if you want to make enough money with your blog to make it as lucrative as a 9-5 job, then what you have to do is start a line of products branded as your own. Not stop saying "fuck."

So do you think they'll get their head out of their ass about low fat, low protein, vitamin D and 10 other things I could bitch about if I had time?

Morphine makes me high. As a kite. I was fun in the hospital after surgery.

This is a great triathlon song. I'll have to add it to my playlist for getting through hard workouts.

This is my take on Debbie Downers: Some people love to be unhappy. They revel in it. If their life is going too well, they do something to sabotage it. Because they can't stand being too happy. They are more comfortable being miserable. It's their equilibrium. THOSE are people you should run from. Fast. You can't fix them (if you are a fixer like me) and they not only don't like to be happy, they don't like other people to be happy either. So they'll suck the life blood from you, if you let them. Don't let them. Neither Jack nor Jane in your story seems to be a Debbie Downer. They are just telling their experiences. But some people, as you say, will label Jack one because they don't want to hear it. That's a problem. OTOH, another problem is that a lot of people seem to think that only negative stuff is honest. Anyone who is happy or positive is just faking it. Negative people are "keeping it real" -- even the Debbie Downers who aren't the least bit real in their unhappiness. And those people will point to Jane and say: FAKER! And that's not right either. I guess the bigger problem is that humans suck. :D Let's face it: we like to label and judge. If we didn't, The Star would go out of business!

I am glad that she's presenting her story as "this is my story" and not as "this is what bypass is like". I hate it when people try to universalize their personal experience! OTOH, if she refers to her surgery as "gastric" constantly in her book, there is no way I will read it because that gets on my nerves. :)

This makes me happy.

Yes, I break blenders! I've killed two Magic Bullets and one immersion blender. My Hamilton Beach Wave Action blender is still going strong but clean-up is too much and many days I go to make my morning shake and it's still dirty from the day before. :(

I forgot to say that I don't think VSG is any more radical than having your gallbladder taken out. The way I look at it is: my stomach was broken. It made too much ghrelin and was never satified no matter how much I ate. VSG fixed that - I now have normal hunger (perhaps slightly less than normal) and I am satisfied after eating a reasonable amount. My surgeon calls it "right-sizing" of the stomach. When you look at it that way, it's not radical at all. After all, no one really needs a stomach the size of a football unless they live somewhere that food is scarce.

"Does that "feeling" of 1-2 ounce fullness last forever?" Nope. By 6 months (if not earlier) most of us can eat about 4-6 oz. of food. It seems to stay that way forever though many of us do get lax about things like "protein first" and, if you do that, or drink with your meals, you will be able to eat more. Plus, certain foods grind down to nothing so you can eat more of them. But eating an 8 oz. steak? No way unless you take 2 hours to do it.

"But what about the people who are harmed by WLS" Your article makes it seem like people are being forced to get WLS. All that is happening is that the state has added WLS to it's list of covered services so that people have a choice. How can that be bad?