It's nice to have another surgery date twin :)  Best wishes and good luck to you, too, Dolly!  Cassie

I am also April 24th :)

April 6 for me too!

I think I am supposed to start my pre-diet this Sunday. That's whay I am here; I have no idea what I am going to eat.

Over the past few weeks, I have had Pizza (for the last time in my life) about 6 times!
Last night I went grocery shopping. I was out of Peanut Butter so instead of buying the BIG jar, I bought the little one (because I don't think I will be able to eat it on the pre-diet, or afterwards).
I did, however, buy the BIG 1/2 gallon of cookies & cream ice cream. I don't know why; like I am really going to fini**** before Sunday!

This past month has been terrible for me. It may be psychological, thinking that everything will change once I have the surgery - or that I am going to get some sort of motivation after the surgery. I haven't excercised at all. I have been sitting at my job all day, then sitting in front of the TV all night. Needless to say I ache all over. My lower back hurts, my knees hurt - I feel like a 70 year old yet I am only 37.

Any help that anyone can share about the pre-diet would be helpful. Also I am trying to figur out what I will be eating after the surgery. I am confused about the protein. They say "Lap Band" people can't eat steak or chicken, so where do we get the protein?

My name is Stephanie. I am 33 and I have 7 children. I home-school them and of course I am busy.

I've fought my weight pretty much since I was in 5th grade. I used to be a skinny child then puberty hit and my mother mistook that as me being fat and repeatedly fed me negative self image comments. This led me down the path of over eating since it was the only thing I could "control", as I couldn't control my mother. Backwards thinking but I was a kid and it was subconscious.

So 7 kids and a miscarriage later I reached my higest weight and knew I had to turn things around. I tried dieting by myself but my husband is an enabler and I keep telling him this. He's working on halting his behaviour as I have to control my urges to give in to his temptations, as well as try to correct his enabling. Almost double duty, but we're working on it.

DH has gained 60lbs since we've been married and he's talked about how he wants to lose weight, but then pulls out a bag of chips and asks if I wants some. He was laid-off at the end of January so we've been trying to get this surgery done sooner rather than later.

I am approved and scheduled for April 24th, but we have to save some money for the COBRA payments even though the Stimulus plan has gone into effect, companies are allowed a 2 month grace period to implement the new system and insurance made it clear they plan on using ALL they time they can. So we're hoping we can scrape together the extra money we need for the COBRA payment to cover the surgery.

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