Hi Donna, Things happen in our lives that cause the weight to go up and down. I hope you are feeling much better now. I am just glad to hear from you. I have missed all of you and we need to gather the Mayers and get them back on here because I miss all of you. You are all my support and keep me going, You are doing such an incredible job of losing weight and it will keep coming off. Thank you so much for responding. Love and hugs, Esther

So glad your grandson is doing so well!!!! Sorry your family has gone through so much. I have not weighted as the scale went up a little for me. But I had unexpected emergency surgery Monday which now has me home this week. So I am back to the basics nd getting back on track. Sat night after dinner I was in horrible pain that would not stop. Now that think about it I have not felt well for some time after eating. It was my gallbladder and my bariatric surgeon took it out Monday. The on call wanted to take it out Sunday but I called my surgeon and they ended up admitting me for a day of antibiotics and he worked me into the surgery schedule Monday. And I actually came home Monday night. He peeked at all his handiwork while he was in there and said all looked good and now I have scars on the right that mirror the ones on the left LOL! I feel really good now though and could probably go back to work tomorrow but my dr says not until monday. I am still pretty sore so I will comply. I am trying to get back to the basics and back on track while I am home. Donna

Such good news about your grandson. Your entire family must be estatic to have him home and doing so well. I agree w/ Cyndi. Most of our Mayster Family has moved on to enjoy their new lives. This includes me. I am not here as much as I used to be, but never do I forget anyone here. The encouragement and support I have been given remains priceless to me. Never was this so true last month with my mother's unexpected death. Several of you messaged me to express support and sympathy or offered me their email addresses & home phone numbers if I neeeded them. My sincerest of thank yous to all. Love & misses, April Post op = 259 Today = 156 Lovin' my RNY

Hi Friends, Well this week I finally started losing again but for a difficult reason. My 20 month old grandson was diagnosed last week with a brain tumor. Thank God because of all the prayers, the tumor was surrounded by a cyst and the doctor said it was like pealing an oranger and the pealed out the cyst and the tumor popped out. The tumor was the size of a marble and it was benign and the type tumor that never grows back. He had an MRI on his entire body and had no other tumors anywhere else. He is home, walking all around, laughing and loving life and so are we. Prayer is powerful. It sure knocked the socks off me though. I couldn't eat and lost 3 pounds. Before surgery 279.5 Last weigh in 158 This week 155 Total week loss 3 pounds Overall loss 124.5 I love you all and miss you. Love and hugs, Esther

Hi all, We just got back from our summer place in Michigan. As you may recall from last summer, we spend some time at our summer home there and have to come back in time for the boys to start football. I know that several of you have asked for an update on Christine and we appreciate your interest. You can always count on the Maysters of 07 to be kind, caring, and considerate. Christine has had a rough go of it. Her first couple of months were less than perfect and she has been pretty miserable. She expected a textbook case like mine and she just couldn't get things pointed in the right direction. The first thing to know about me is that I'm a rule follower. The first thing to know about Christine is that she is NOT a rule follower. If there is a new path to get somewhere, that is clearly the path she will take. She would get sick on almost everything that she ate early on. I tried to be a good coach, but all I could see was the 20 grams of protein she was getting each day and the damage I felt she was doing to her health. One night we were lying in bed and we both just agreed that we were very frustrated. I was frustrated that she was not eating much of anything and not following the rules of the pouch. She was frustrated that I was not more supportive. I couldn't be supportive of the path she was taking. She had tried two protein drinks and decided that she couldn't drink any type of protein. I was so willing to get more flavors for her to try, but she would have none of it. Anyway, that night we talked for almost 2 hours and it really seemed to help. One of the things that we both concluded was that she needed to get more protein in. She was able to do it by adding more slider foods into her regular meals. She began eating NSA applesauce with all of her protein sources and things began to look up. Now she gets about 40-50 grams of protein a day. She is still far from the 70-80 that I was getting at that stage, but I'm just so happy that she seems to be putting more of an effort in to become a rule follower. She is getting her strength back and she even wants to go on walks in the evening. The more she walks the better she feels and the better she feels the more she wants to walk. I'm afraid that she will have major hair issues, but she has accepted the fact that her early low protein levels will take their toll on the hair. On a more positive note, we did have a real vacation where we left the kids with my parents and we took off for 4 days on a getaway. We rented a nice motel room with a jaccuzi overlooking the Lake Michigan sunrises. What a great time we had. We have not gotten away like that in almost 15 years. We sipped coffee and shopped. We also stayed at a casino motel and they gave us $80 in tokens that we were able to turn into $33 in cash. That more than paid for our 3 main meals each day. We find that we can eat out anywhere for about $10-$13 (even includes a generous tip). It shocked us to see so many people pumping their hard-earned money into those machines. I guess if we had won big, maybe the bug would have bit us. For now, you can count us out of the group that loves to gamble. Anyway, that is about all for now. I'm sorry that I didn't get a chance to check in. I've had a small gain of 5-7 pounds and I'm ready to get back on top of it. I'll keep you all updated a bit better in the future. Also, Christine has lots 40 pounds in the two month process. She thinks it should be dropping off faster, and I tell her that she has done very well. Keep up the good work!!! John (and Christine - the one who forbids me to "exploit her on OH" as she says...LOL)