The 2008 Raleigh Area Holiday Get Together was wonderful ... Looking ahead

Yesterday we had the Raleigh Area Holiday Party. LauraP ... not seen nearly as often as we'd like ... was incredibly gracious and offered her office conference room as a location for the party. We shared a number of WLS friendly dishes as we all enjoyed a lovely pot luck. There were sooo many goodies, but here are a few standouts that I enjoyed...

Dalton's Bar-b-que Meatballs

Susan's Tabouleh with lentils

Judy's fabulous chicken chili

Laura's lima beans

There were so many others, but unfortunately there were so many choices and so little pouch room...

We had a wonderful time sharing tips, challenges and successes. It was great to see some that we hadn't seen in a while and look forward to seeing more in the new year.

We will be having more get togethers in the new year and while we will continue the monthly General Support group meetings, we'll also be starting some new special interest groups as well. To name a few, we'll have a 

-  Grad's group who focus will be on issues that affect people who have reached their one year anniversary. They may or may not be at goal.

-  Over 50 (BMI) Group which will focus on the issues and challenges that those who start with high BMI's.

-  Banders Group which will focus on the challenges and issues specific to the bandsters lifestyle. They could be lapbanders, realize banders, vertical gastric banders, etc...

-  DS Group which will focus on their issues as they first try to access the surgery that is not as readily available through insurance and navigate the DS post surgical journey.

-  Scrappers Group for those of us who would like to document our journies ... scheduling a few scrapbook sessions at Archivers in Raleigh.

-  Walkers Group for those would like to participate in an 'activity' that isn't sedentary or food related. We'll look for and participate in local charitable walks. A great way to do good for others and take care of ourselves as well.

-  Cooking Lean Group which would be done as a 'gourmet dinner' group that will meet at various members homes as we gather to learn new cooking tips and enjoy each others company and recipes.

I am also looking into gathering some professionals from the community, such as mental health, diet and nutrition, fitness,  etc... that would be willing to come talk us about ways to maximize the potential of our WLS experience.

I hope that many of you will decide to join us as we enter the new year.

Please look for posts about upcoming events and if you haven't done so already, if you are interested in being notified about our events, please sign up at http://wls.meetup.com/101

Wishing you all the best,