Member Services’s Posts
Due to technical problems, we will be launching the updates at a later date. The website is temporarily running slow. If you have any questions or need assistance, please let us know.
Thank you for your patience.
Due to technical problems, we will be launching at a later date.ObesityHelp.com is back up but temporarily running slow. Thank you for your patience.
The Early Bird discount ends Friday, 3/27. If you're going to attend the 2015 OH Conference, take advantage of the savings and buy your tickets before the discount ends.
Not sure yet? Check out what it is like to attend an OH Conference from the #2014 ObesityHelp Conference photos.
Time is running out
Registration for Super Early Birds ends Friday, January 23rd, 2015 at 11:30PM EST.
For a limited time – Super Early Birds get $25 off.
Not only will Super Early Birds get the lowest ticket prices, but you’ll also be entered into a drawing for a FREE 3 night stay at the Embassy Suites Raleigh-Durham during the Conference.
Reserve Your Tickets NOW
Do you have products that you use and recommend to your friends, family and other OH members? Are you looking for a protein shake, vitamin supplementation products or protein snacks and not sure what to buy?
Check out the OH Products Directory and leave reviews of what you think of the products plus assign star ratings so other members can make better decisions on what they purchase.
If you're going to purchase any products such as protein products, desserts, cereal, vitamin patches and supplements, check the OH Products Directory first to see what other members think on all sorts of products.
If there are products that you buy that aren't on the directory and you think they should be, let us know. Please add the manufacturer/company and the name of the product as a reply to this post. It would also be helpful if you added where you purchase the item, i.e., the name of the retailer or online (with the URL).
There are many people, members and non-members, that come to the OH community wanting assistance to have weight loss surgery. One of the challenges many people encounter is "The Medicaid Maze" so we wanted to provide information about the difficulties for those people and from two leading bariatric surgeons.
We welcome your experiences by leaving a comment at the end of the article.
We are honored to announce our keynote speaker for the ObesityHelp National Conference 2014. Our keynote speaker is the one and only ....
We encourage you to join us as we celebrate ObesityHelp in 1998 and now. Many members will remember the screens shown in this video and will enjoy the walk down memory lane. If you're new, you'll like the strides and successes we've had during our 16 years with our members.
Please like and share on the video from our OH Facebook page.
We proudly present "Making the Journey Together for 16 Years" . . . . . . . .
ObesityHelp Staff are celebrating today and we would like for you to join us.
It was 16 years ago that our founder, Eric Klein, launched ObesityHelp.com. From January 9, 1998 through today, his mission has always been to the education, sharing of information and the support of our 700,000 members. Eric was a pioneer when he created ObesityHelp. ObesityHelp was created before Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. Eric had a vision long before these sites were thought of.
The journey of ObesityHelp through the past 16 years has been rewarding for those of us that support Eric's mission. ObesityHelp was created, and still remains, dedicated to you, our members.
Please share what ObesityHelp has meant to you by replying to this post.
We've launched exciting upgrades to our Photo System. Among the upgrades you can vote (share the "Love" - 
) on member photos. We've also updated the comments area too.
Celebrate our OH community members that upload their photos by using your vote. Upload your own photos so members can celebrate and support you too.
More upgrades to OH are coming.....
Let us know what you think by contacting us at [email protected]
As we welcome the 2014 New Year, it is a good time for reflection and renewal. OH's Goal System is a great way to start the New Year.
What are some of your goals for 2014? Share your goals here and post them in the Goal section of your profile. With the OH Goals System, you can make your goals private or public so other members can support you.
Let's reach our 2014 goals together! 
Do you know......our founder, Eric Klein, created ObesityHelp back in 1998 and we've been the source of information, support and education for bariatrics since that time.
Do you know.....that ObesityHelp organized and hosted the first ever National Conference for pre-ops, post-ops, and individuals considering weight loss surgery?
Please join us as we celebrate our history with the OH community of 65 events in 26 states since 2004, and our 2013 Event on October 4-5, 2013 in Anaheim, California!!
Come to Atlanta, GA and ask our panel of experts the questions you want answers to! If you are unable to atend the event, email your questions to: [email protected] and we will ask the experts to answer your questions and then we will post them on the message boards after the OH event!
Click here to reserve your tickets today! We hope to see you there!
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Mixed Q & A Panel, |
Friday 2:00pm - 4:30pm |
Performing operations laparoscopically since 1991. His practice offers Gastric Bypass, LapBand and Sleeve Gastrectomy options. Also an Instructor for Quarterly In-Service Program of Bariatric Surgery at Emory Dunwoody Medical Center and Northside Hospital. |
Jim lost 215 pounds and found a love for running. With 58,038 Race finishers at an avg time of 01:17:35, Jim finished the 2012 Peachtree Road Race (10k) in 1:07:57, a goal he's worked towards since having Gastric Bypass. |
Dr. Williams principal clinical and research interest include minimally invasive techniques, and the surgical therapy of morbid obesity. He has been involved in training surgeons in laparocopic techniques in the United States and the Caribbean. |
Blogger, & Founder of Bariatric Bad Girls. "Melting Mama" as she's known through her blog has been blogging about life since her WLS in 2004. Her witty, honest approach to life after WLS has inspired and supported thousands. |
Double-board certified, plastic and reconstructive surgeon and a board-certified general surgeon. In 1995, he created and began sponsoring Pink Ribbons, an annual October event during Breast Cancer Month to benefit breast cancer organizations. |
An active OH member for 5 years and a frequent poster on the VSG forum! She's bringing her post-op experience as a Lap Band to VSG Revision. Courtney has lost 170 lbs and is training for her 1st half marathon in October. Her goal is to complete an Iron Man in 2014! |
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Professional Q & A Panel |
Saturday 10:30am - 11:55am |
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The 3rd surgeon in the world to perform the totally laparoscopic DS and the 1st bariatric surgeon in the world to present the Hand-Sewn Duedenal-Ileal Anastomosis technique. |
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Fellow-ship trained advanced laparoscopic surgeon. A member of the American College of Surgeons and the ASMBS. 
Meet Our Speakers: Colleen M. Cook
Hope & Help for the Pain of Regain
Join 17 year WLS veteran Colleen M. Cook for both a shot in the arm and a kick in the seat as she shares lessons from long-term losers and imparts insight, inspiration, and hope for WLS patients struggling with extended plateaus or weight regain. Her thoughts, stories, and personal experiences will inspire and motivate you to reach and maintain your optimum weight loss.
Also, don't miss her Keynote on Friday: Nothing Succeeds Like Success
We hope to see you in Atlanta, GA October 5th and 6th! Click here to book your ticket today!
Fast Facts About Colleen
-Colleen is the author of The Success Habits of Weight Loss Surgery Patients.
- She is the president or Bariatric Support Centers International, a company that specializes in providing education and support services for weight loss surgery patients and the professionals who serve them.
- Colleen currently serves on the National Advisory board for the Walk From Obesity.
-Known as Ms. Enthusiasm, Colleen helps men and women from all walks of life recognize their extraordinary potential and then inspires then to aspire.
On a daily basis we get calls from members in desperate need of surgeons that will accept Medicaid and or Medicare for Bariatric surgery. It breaks our hearts when we have to say "we don't know of any surgeons in your state we can refer you to".
Can you please help us? If you know of any surgeons in your state that accepts Medicaid and or Medicare, will you list their:
Name
If they accept Medicare and or Medicaid
Phone number
Facility
Address
This list will remain here for our members to access and use.
Thank you so much!!!
ObesityHelp,
Member Services
Mega Holiday Perks!
Each month we work with generous sponsors to bring 3 lucky OH newsletter subscribers a perk giveaway. A BIG thank you to all of our 2009 sponsors! Here is what was a part of our past perks: Celebrate Vitamins, Bariatric Advantage Vitamins, Chef Dave’s Cookbook, achievONE®, CLICK Espresso Protein Drink, Dr. Garth Davis’ Book, Chike, and Just The Cheese.
But we’re not done yet…To finish the year out, OH went holiday shopping!
For December, we have a special MEGA holiday perk line-up for OH Newsletter subscribers.
So far we have…
1 - Nintendo Wii Game Console + Wii Fit board & Game
3 - 10mp Kodak Easy Share Digital Cameras
2 - Apple iPod Nanos
2 - Tanita Scales PLUS Body Fat and Body Water Monitor
3 - MIO Heart Rate Monitor Watches
5 - Emsa Perfect Measuring Beakers
To be eligible for the holiday perks giveaway please make sure you are subscribed to the OH newsletter by December 9th. Winners will be selected at random from the OH newsletter subscribers list. Winners will be announced in the December issue.
Don’t forget to spread the holiday cheer and let others know!
Happy Holidays
Today we released a couple of major updates to Health Tracker just in time for the holidays (as we continue on the path to Health Tracker world domination :). These updates include, 1) Profile display of Health Tracker - If you choose to, you are now able to display/share your Health Tracker within your personal profile. This can be kept completely private, it can be shared with only your friends or with the entire ObesityHelp community. 2) My Workouts - You are now able to build and store custom workouts that can be used over and over again. My Workouts will allow you to log multiple exercise/activity items at one time so you don't have to search for individual exercises each time you want to log your activity or exercise session.
Profile Display of Health Tracker .
The profile display of Health Tracker includes Body, Food Log, Exercise Log and the Macronutrient Report. As mentioned above, this can be kept entirely private or you can choose to share your Health Tracker information with friends, family, your bariatric surgeon or other clinicians.
In order to see the profile view of Health Tracker, when viewing your profile or another member's profile, look for the Health Tracker link to the right of the avatar. If there is no Health Tracker link, the profile view of Health Tracker has been set to private.
The privacy settings for Health Tracker can be found in the "Settings" section of My OH. To access your Health Tracker setting click My OH at the top of any page on ObesityHelp, select "Settings" on the left, click the Health Tracker tab and choose the "Sharing" option. Or, just click here to access your Health Tracker Sharing options :)
Workouts
My Workouts makes it quick and easy to log routine exercise and activity. For those who perform similar exercises on a regular basis, with My Workouts you can create a workout consisting of a series of exercises you often perform and instead logging each exercise indivivudally, My Workouts allows to log a single item (a workout) that contains all of the exericses you have performed. Build it once and log it any number of times.
Under My Workouts you will see a list of workouts that you have created and saved. You can log workouts directly from My Workouts by selecting "I did this", choose the day and click "Save"
You can also search for workouts you have created directly from your Exercise Log.
Create your first workout now!
One other addition
For your convenience, in this release we have also made some changes to the account deactivation process. In case you ever have the need to deactivate your ObesityHelp account, you can access this function by clicking My OH at the top of any page on ObesityHelp, select "Settings" on the left, and under the "General" tab select "Manage". Instructions for deactivating your account can be found there.
Have a great Thanksgiving and look for more updates soon!
If you have any questions, comments or concerns about this release, please post them in this thread on the Main Message Board.
Last week we released two major updates. First was the public release of OH Groups where any ObesityHelp member can now create their own Group. Second was the addition of Activity Tracking to Health Tracker, which provides a robust and easy to use tool to track and monitor your exercise and activity. Today we have added My Meals and an Activity vs. Weight Loss Report to Health Tracker.
My MealsMy Meals allows you to group and store multiple food and beverage items as a custom meal that can be used over and over again. If you have meals that you eat on a regular basis, you will no longer need to log each food item individually. |
To access My Meals, go to your Health Tracker in My OH and click on the Nutrition tab. You will see My Meals listed under Nutrition. |
Creating a new meal works similar to your Food Log. You can search for food items on the right and add the foods to the meal on the left. A Calorie Breakdown chart and Nutrient Summary Label are also available for each meal. |
Once a meal is created you can add that meal to your Food Log from My Meals by clicking "i had this" or you can search for the meal from your Food Log. |
When searching for a meal to add to your Food Log, all meals will be returned when "My Foods" is selected in search. So, to "drill down" on meals that you have created, select to only show "My Foods." When a new meal is created it may require up to 30 minutes for that meal to be indexed and become searchable. |
Activity vs. Weight Loss ReportAdding to the Macronutrient and Export Reports previously available, there is now an Activity vs. Weight Loss Report. This report will allow to compare Average Time in Activity vs Weight over time, providing you with further insight into what impact physical activity as on weight loss and weight loss maintenance. In Health Tracker, click Reports and then select Activity vs. Weight Loss. |
| We hope these additions to Health Track reduce the time required to log your daily food intake and makes it easier to view how physical activity impacts your weight. Create your first meal now! If you have any questions, comments or concerns about this release, please post them on the Main Message Board. |
The last several months have been fairly busy ones here at OH and we are really excited
about this upcoming release. First, long overdue is the public release of OH Groups. You
will now be able to start and manage your own public groups. Second, is a major update
to Health Tracker....Activity! We are planning to release these new features on Wednesday evening, October 7, 2009.
OH Groups
Getting to OH Groups is easy. Just click on the Groups tab at the top of any page on ObesityHelp. OH Groups allows you to start and manage your own groups, you can find groups that suit your interests and find support groups in your area. |
If you are looking for an OH Group that focuses on a specific topic, you can browse groups by category. |
Activity
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To get to your Activity Tracker, click “My OH" at the top of any page on ObesityHelp, select “Health Tracker" on the left and then click the “Activity" tab. |
Understanding your total daily caloric expenditure requires more than just knowing how many calories you burned on the treadmill. In your Health Tracker settings area you are now able to estimate the caloric expenditure of your resting metabolic rate (RMR) and lifestyle. These estimates are integrated and displayed with the caloric expenditure of the activities you have logged. |
Your exercise log allows you to search for and add strength training exercises, cardiovascular exercises and general activities to your daily log. Caloric expenditure is auto calculated for a number of activities already included in our database of exercises. Pie charts display details about caloric expenditure and time for each type of activity. |
Sets can be added and subtracted from strength training exercises. Reps and weight used can be entered for each set. |
A number of details can be tracked for cardiovascular exercises and general activities. Some of these variables include, time, distance, calories burned, average heart rate, average power, altitude gained and average grade. |
If you can’t find the exercise or activity you have participated in, you can also add your own custom exercises. |
| Other updates include the ability to create list of your favorite exercises, reports have been updated to include a number of activity items, the nutrition search has been enhanced and we have managed to slip in a sweet macronutrient report under the “Reports" tab. If you have any questions, comments or concerns about the features in this release, please submit those here. If your are new to ObesityHelp or have not used ObesityHelp's Health Tracker before, you can learn about the first release here and the second release here. Need help using Health Tracker? Click here for help. Enjoy! |
We are excited to announce a number of big updates to Health Tracker; the most exciting being the introduction of Nutrition Tracking. We are hoping to release Friday, August 7th.
Nutrition
While we may be a bit biased, we think the new Nutrition Log here at ObesityHelp manages to be one of the easiest around to use without sacrificing functionality. What sets it apart from the others? Most nutrition logs force you to search for foods on one page, provide the details for a food item eaten on another page, and yet another page to actually view the items you have eaten for any particular day. Bottom line, you can't search for and add items while also viewing what you have eaten. We have streamlined the food logging process so that you can find the food items you are searching for, add them to your food log, view your food log and receive summary reports all on one page. You can also build a favorite foods list, create custom foods and share your foods with the community.
Body
Body has a new look and we have added the ability for you to manage (add and remove) the variables that you would like to track.
Tickers & Widgets
You can now specify if you would like your tickers to display "amount to go" or "amount changed". Tickers can now also be automatically inserted into your messageboard signature and/or profile introduction as you create them.
A widget displaying your macronutrient breakdown averages for various date ranges has also been added. This widget can be placed on any personal website or blog.
Reports
Custom reports can now be created using any number of variables from body and nutrition. These reports can be downloaded as a spreadsheet and make a great document to share with your physician, dietitian, personal trainer and friends.
What Are We Working On Next?
Activity tracking and other oh so fun stuff! Until then, enjoy the new features!
Comments, issues or concerns? Click here to head on over to the main message board and let us know.
Due to scheduled maintenance, all of our web services will be unavailable on Thursday, March 26th starting at 11:59PM PDT lasting for approximately one hour. We apologize for any inconvenience.
Dear OH Members:
Metabolic diseases such as obesity and diabetes have reached epidemic proportions worldwide. As we continue our journey in the fight against obesity, it is important to recognize that we have valuable and important insight to offer in the development of new therapies for the treatment of obesity. Your feedback and personal experiences can prove to be essential in helping to pave the way for so many others who are battling obesity in the years to come, and at the same time, benefit you in the very near future! The manufacturer of new obesity technology is asking for your thoughts and opinions in the development of this new technology:
“Please help us as we develop a new technology to treat obesity. If you are struggling with your weight, or have a BMI greater than 30, please click here to take a survey about a product that is under development and that may, someday soon, be beneficial to you. We appreciate your opinions. Please take the time to let us know what you think!”
Click here to begin the survey.
Thank you for your insight and for sharing your thoughts and opinions!
Sincerely, OH Staff
