To Die or Not to Die, that is the question?

The first of November I was working towards a monumental goal: 40 BMI. For people who are not conversant with that term, your Body Mass Index is based on your weight and your height and anything over 40 BMI is considered morbidly obese. For me the scale had to read 233, not 233.2 but 233 to be just plain obese, so on November 2nd I weighed 234. For several days, I would sniff my goal and inch closer and closer to my goal, but it kept eluding me. On the 15th of November, I weighed 233.2, but the very next day, I scored! And weighed 232.4! Yeah! I’m obese! But the next day, I went up to morbid, and for three weeks I have been fluctuating between death and plain fat, but today, December 10, 2010, I think I have turned the corner for good. I have lost 95 pounds and weigh 230. This is an important milestone or “pound”stone because it was a year ago that I was preparing to have bariatric surgery. I was determined to lose the 10 pounds before surgery so my liver wouldn’t get in the way and I was hoping that this last ditch effort would turn the tide in my constant battle of the bulge. It has been a year now since I received insurance approval for my lap-band and next Friday will be the first anniversary of my surgery. I am hoping that before the year is out, I will have reached that magical three-digit goal of losing 100 pounds! For me a hundred pounds is monumental. It means I am halfway to my ultimate weight-loss goal. I have lost a third of myself and I am no longer in the double digits of weight loss. I have never lost 100 pounds in one chunk. I have lost the same 10 pounds a hundred times or more but this has given me incredible hope that I will make all the goals I have set for myself. I have lost “Alexa” aka 235 was my pre-pregnant weight with Alexa, and now I am headed towards “Stephanie” namely 215 and then Jackie, 185 and another 25 pounds to get to my pre-pregnant weight with David. My doctor and his nurse are both very pleased with my weight loss and told me that usually lap-banders only lose 50-60 pounds after the first year of surgery. I told Dr. Clinch that I was determined to lose 100 pounds and he said, “90 is good!” But I said, “100 is better!” After 25 years of trying to lose my “babies’ fat” I believe that 2011 will be the year to get back my body. It is getting back my body that has made me ponder on truths that I didn’t understand, comprehend, believe, or even think about. And for lack of a better name, I call it is “The doctrine of ‘the body.’”

We came to earth to get a body. If that were the whole purpose of earth, we all could have just been born and died seconds later—we just would have had to have had one committed mom who would have kept pushing out babies. But I think there is more to understanding the purpose of this body than just to be clothed in a mortal tabernacle, I believe it is what we do with this mortal tabernacle that sets us apart. In a sense, I believe that the Parable of the Talents should be renamed, The Parable of the Body. In the parable there are three servants or “slaves” may be a better translation who were given 5, 2, and 1 talents
Matthew 25: 14-30
For the kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods. and unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability; and straightway took his journey. Then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same, and made them other five talents. And likewise he that had received two, he also gained other two. But he that had received one went and digged in the earth, and hid his lord's money. After a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them. And so he that had received five talents came and brought other five talents, saying, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents: behold, I have gained beside them five talents more. His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. He also that had received two talents came and said, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me two talents: behold, I have gained two other talents beside them. His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed: And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine. His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed: Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury. Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents. For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Here’s another way of looking at it, the Lord gave “every man according to his several ability.” In D&C 46 it says that everyone has a gift. And in this parable it says that every man gets something. The one thing we all have in common is that when we came to this earth we all got bodies. So what if this body is our talent. The fact that the first one got “five talents” or what could be said another way, “five senses.” With those senses he was able to enlarge upon his gifts and add additional insights, SENSItivities, or skills. I think of how meditation is one common denominator to all religions. We take time to ponder, to think, to meditate and commune with God. He enlarges our sensitivities to the spirit as we ponder. The more we try to listen to our body, the more at one we become with our spirit and our body. I have read how when we are born our brains can connect to many different nerve endings, but as we grow older the “juice” that enables these connections and helps us to learn and remember diminishes and we become more set in our ways and in our mid-twenties the connections are basically “soldered” and we discard connections we weren’t using. That is why chickens are pretty much up and moving as soon as they can, while baby crows take more time to develop. Higher intelligence brains need the flexibility or the risk factor to help develop imagination later on. We need both, both the flexibility and somewhat recklessness of our youth to come to wisdom in our fifties. Unfortunately, some of that recklessness we had in our youth damages our brains so much that we never get to that place where wisdom can develop. So in a sense we “bury” our talent through addictions, drugs, food, alcohol, video-gaming, pornography, whatever deadens the brain and body from sensitivity. But ultimately, we are to learn from our bodies. It is not enough just to learn how to walk and talk, but how to communicate body to spirit.

This parable has always upset me just a bit. Why was the one with one talent so castigated and cast out to outer darkness, while the one who earned 10 talents gets another talent. It didn’t make sense that a loving and kind “Lord” wouldn’t want all his children to enjoy the talent no matter what they did with it. Why did he want the one talent servant to “put his ‘money’” to work? But if you realize how important a body is, then it makes more sense. I admit that throughout my lifetime I have not appreciated and cherished my body. There have been many times when I have hated my body. I think Satan wants us to hate our bodies. I think he wants us to denigrate, destroy, and dismiss the importance of a body. He hates us because we have a body and he doesn’t; and so he is trying to convince us how unimportant and unnecessary a body is. But recently, I have thought about how we “remember the body of Jesus Christ.” Why? Why remember His body? Why not focus on His atonement or His loving-kindness or forgiveness, why remember the body? Joseph Smith when he saw God the Father and Jesus Christ said that their bodies defied all description, that they were brighter than the noonday sun, and they emanated light. How did that happen? How did the body become transparent and glorified? Their bodies were urim and thummins, lights and perfections. I think it was magnifying their talents while here on earth. When the one talent servant didn’t appreciate his body, when he degraded it and ended up burying it in an early grave, the whole purpose of this earth life was frustrated. He was supposed to learn from his body, grow and develop and make his “talent” something more and if he had used his body instead of abusing it, then he would have received some maturity and wisdom as he got older, but he didn’t. He “dissed” his body and buried his body and when the resurrection came, there was nothing to fill with glory, no light, but just ingratitude for a gift that had eternal consequences. I think that is why the “lord” is so disappointed with his servant. He knew that if he had just allowed the natural course of growth and development to occur he could have gained wisdom, he could have made more out of this earth experience, but instead he buried it.

As I have been going through my metamorphosis with my body, I have come to appreciate how important the learning is we are gaining from this body. There is a need for our body to degenerate. It is a part of life’s experience. In a way, our lifetime is like a chiasm. Our learning curve spans from infancy to senility, and our greatest understanding and growth arrives around our midlife crises. During our lifetime, we undergo experiences that heighten our understanding and appreciation for this gift or talent. My father always said that you never really appreciate something until you lose it. The one-talent servant never really appreciated his talent until it was given to another and he was cast out. He had made a big mistake. I am coming to value and appreciate more and more the marvels of the body and spirit connection. I have come to see that as I shed the weight, there is a different person inside. And I’m coming to like that person more and more. I believe that I am killing off the natural or the fat part of my life and coming to the light. My body is shining forth and as I communicate with it more and more, it gives me great light and truths.



:;Alexa's note:: MOM IS SOOOOOO TINY!!! This picture was taken from Alexa's phone so sorry it may be a little blurry, but still you get the image that she is has gotten so tiny! Also when I got home I could wrap my arms around you and squeeze her! Even if you say that "a picture adds 10 pounds" well mom has lost almost 100 pounds! you go! I love you! ::End of Alexa's note::

Communicating Body To Spirit

When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings

Shakespeare, Sonnet 29

There is some speculation that prior to coming to Earth, God informed us of the trials and problems we would carry in this life. Some have suggested that we were given a choice to carry the burden God designed specifically for us or pick up another’s “thorn in the flesh.” After looking around at everyone else’s burden, we all ended back with the original trial God gave us to carry. In my mind’s eye, I can see God saying, “Marilyn, you’re trial will be that you will be fat.” And I said, “fat? Fat?? I’m going to be fat? While others are paraplegic, blind, mentally challenged, starved, poverty-stricken, diseased, or abused, I will be fat? Yippee, I vote for FAT!” I have voiced this scenario several times to friends in a comic relief way, but several years ago, I thought, “And Marilyn, how are you doing with your challenge? What have you done with the “one talent” God gave you? Have you overcome it? Have you learned from it?”

Several years ago I went to a kinesiologist with the burning question, “Why can’t I lose weight?” I felt I was exercising, eating right, and every time I would lose 30-40 pounds I would boomerang right back up and even higher. Why couldn’t I lose weight? She translated what my body wanted to tell me and that was that I wasn’t listening to my body! I was having a “hate-frustration” relationship with my body. My body was upset that I wasn’t listening to it, so it made me fat. As ridiculous as it may sound, I could see my body’s point of view. I was only focusing on the one thing I hated about my body, but I wasn’t appreciating it for all the things it could do. I thought here I have been griping about being overweight while my body is pretty remarkable for all the abuse I have put it through. I remember one day Rob said, “If I weighed as much as you do, I’d be dead!” And I thought, “Yup, you would be.” He has high blood pressure, vaso-vagal, wears glasses, and takes medication. Whereas, I’m almost 58 years old and I don’t take any medication. My good cholesterol is high, the bad is low, I’m not diabetic, have a great heart, 117 over 58 blood pressure, I have very little gray hair, great teeth, can still read without glasses and as my doctor said once, “You’re vanilla; there’s nothing remarkably “sick” about you; you’re like a cockroach in a nuclear war, you will survive.” So why wasn’t I grateful? Why wasn’t I listening to my body?



It comes back to the “trials” of life. God gives us experiences so that we can become “better” people not “bitter.” I believe we came to the earth with a gaping hole in our soul that yearns to be filled with the light and love of God. We feel the hole, feel the emptiness, but we condition our bodies to think that a quick fix like food, drugs, shopping, projects, sex, work, money, etc. -- those countless physical addictions/distractions-- will fill the emptiness and make us whole. But God gave us the “hardship” to turn us to Him and ask our body what is it you really want? If one of the primary reasons we came to this earth was to gain a body, then it seems to me that there is more to understanding our connection to our bodies than just teaching it how to walk or talk. In some way I think our body is our own personal urim and thummim that helps us to translate life’s experiences or maybe “record” those experiences in physical, tangible ways.

The reason I am even blogging about this is because I think that there is a definite connection between body and spirit and as I have struggled to put the pieces together of what has made me fat, kept me fat, and now in a sense released me from the need for filling my body with food, I find that I am pondering and grateful for how long my body has put up with my ingratitude and childishness. Man shall not live by bread alone, but the spirit can feed the soul in ways that food never could.

As I lay on my back, trying to keep the migraine away, where a few days before I way lying down to keep the pain from a spinal bulge and pinched nerve away, I now think, “What can I learn from these experiences?” First off, I have been surprised that I definitely don’t like being a couch potato. I do want to be active—big surprise for those who remember the “Eula Varner” in me. Second, I realize how much others have endured. You never really appreciate something until you lose it and for someone who never has a headache, this has been a big wake-up awareness and empathy call to me to have compassion for those who don’t go a day without severe migraines. I think of Ryan DeGroot and his bout with a broken skull and my admiration grows and grows. And finally, I have learned to allow others to serve me. It has been a blessing. I think of my dad in his last months of colon cancer eschewing morphine shots because he wanted to have clarity and I never knew the magnitude of pain he was enduring. It helps me to appreciate his sacrifice and how much I want to “fight the good fight,” to be upbeat and positive. The body is a gift. I’m starting to appreciate it and thank God for the gift of “Fat” that has made me stop “beweeping my outcast state” and start focusing on Him.

9 months later...

Dec of 2009....

Today, 9 months later on September 26th, 2010.

Jackie's note: Mom - this is so wonderful!! CONGRATS!!! You can do 100 lbs in the year, I just know it!! 20 more lbs! YOU CAN DO IT! Love you - Jackie

How do I feel?

Today is September 13, 2010; it has been 75 days since I blogged and in those 75 days, I have lost 25.6 pounds or basically one pound every 3 days. That is a shocker! Because although I have seen a decline, it hasn’t been as precipitous as I would like it, as we always know, one can never have too much money nor be too thin—at least not me! So today on September 13th, I broke the 250 and weighed 249.6! I am closer to 200 than 300, it has been many years since I have seen this weight, over ten for sure, so it is a red-letter date!

It’s not surprising that one of the first questions a person will ask me or more than often it is a rhetorical question—I bet you can really tell a difference! I have thought about that question and to tell you the truth, I have lost over 75 pounds, but I really can’t tell a big difference. I mean I realize that my clothes are hanging on me and that clothes that I bought ten years ago that were a little tight and I told myself then that I would lose weight to get in to them, now fit. So I do notice that my clothes are roomier and that my face looks thinner, but the question or statement—don’t you feel so much better, I honestly have to answer, “Not really.” I mean I am still morbidly obese so it is not like I feel thin or anything, but I just feel like me. I never saw myself particularly as grotesquely overweight, simply because in my mind’s eye, I’m pleasantly plump.

I have noticed some interesting things though. I have ankles, my fingers are thinner, I still walk slowly and I still pant. I believe the moment I can sit down on the floor and get back up again without feeling like a cockroach on its back will be the day that I will say, “I can feel the difference.”

I love the lap band! I love it because when I have an insatiable appetite, and fill up my dinner plate with mashed potatoes, gravy, salad, and chicken it pulls me up short with a quick, “You didn’t really think you could eat that, did you?” And I smile and say, “You got me!” I eat about three bites and say, “I’m full!”

These past few days I have been in agony. More than likely I have a slipped disk, bulge on my spinal cord, whatever, and I can only be up for about five to ten minutes and then I am back to being prone. With my being flat day in and day out it has made me aware of what people told me happens to your aperture when you first get up. They say that it is difficult to eat first thing in the morning. I never had a problem, because I go directly to the gym for three to four hours, come home and then I eat, so this having difficulty with your first meal never fazed me. But now because I am on my back a lot, I just don’t feel hungry. After two or three bites, I find that even a salad is sometimes too much. Yesterday, I was really in a nut mood. I wanted cashews or mixed nuts or something. So I asked my sister if she had some and sure enough she brought me a small bowl filled with cashews. Imagine my surprise when I ate about eight cashews and said, “I’m full!” So now I understand why I have been losing weight while being a couch potato. I’m just not hungry! Who would have thought that being on your back could curb your appetite.

Not me!

Breaking the 'Pound' Barrier

Today, June 30^, 2010, I stepped on my nemesis (aka the scale) and was surprised to read 275.2. I looked at it, studied it and thought, “There’s something different about those numbers.” My mind pondered, “5, 5, 5,” “Yes, it is the FIVE that it different! It says ‘275.2.’” Could it be true?! Am I actually seeing a 5 where just yesterday I read an 8?!! So being a person of great faith, I stepped on the scale 10 more times. And yes, it read 275.2--275.4--275.2--275.4--275.4--275.2 ad nauseum. And so I wondered, “Have I really done it? Have I lost FIFTY POUNDS?” I mean do I need to be at 275.0 to qualify? It was at that point when I realized, “I would have been happy with 275.9! Just to see that number 5!” And so I am taking the honor, glory, fame, and admiration! I have lost 50 big ones! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!! And despite the numbers going down, it has been a very UPHILL battle! But for the first time in a long time, I feel hope. I feel like I have been having a stare-down with my body and the body blinked! Sure, tomorrow I will weigh 276 or 277, but for one brief shining moment I was 275! Yeah!

Naturally, I am not going to be content with 275, I want MORE, MORE, MORE! I want 250!!! I want to be closer to 200 than 300! I want 225, a number I haven’t seen since 1991! And, of course, my Christmas present to myself is to weigh less than 200! Naturally, I expect disappointment, but it’s not going to stop me from being hopeful. My lap-band has truly given me that—HOPE! In previous attempts, my discouragement and despondency was so profound, I would literally throw my arms up in the air and grab anything to put in my mouth and show my body was who “boss”—It was! And so I binged and gained more weight. But now with the lap-band, I go through the same motion, but I can’t binge. It won’t let me and by the time I have calmed down, I thank the lap-band for giving me restraint and trudge on to figure out what I need to do next.

I am in the process of trying to find the perfect solution to my body, I am playing “mind games.” Is it the protein? Is it the grains? The vegetables? The fruits? The Lemonade Fast? The order, portion or proportion of food? Is it the mind, is it the body? What really keeps a body from letting go? What is a “set” level or “set point”? I’m still trying to find that “philosopher’s stone” that will turn fat into muscle and flabby into lean. It is the quest for the fountain of youth or the holy grail; to find that one great truth that makes everything fit, including a size 6!

But for today, I just went Mach 10! And I broke the pound barrier!

White Sugar--The Real Culprit

Years ago before I was married, I read William Duffy’s book, Sugar Blues. It was such an extraordinary book and it scared me so much that I didn’t eat sugar for almost a year. I still remember the opening story about Gloria Swanson “hissing,” “That stuff is poison, I won’t have it in my house, let alone my body.”

Several years later when I felt inherently that sugar was bad for me, and wanted another fix to get me off the stuff, I reread it, but it didn’t make half the impression as when I read it the first time. I thought of the famous quote by Alexander Pope:

Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,

As, to be hated, needs but to be seen;

Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,

We first endure, then pity, then embrace.

Intellectually, I knew sugar was not good for me, but I had become inured to its evils. I felt I would be a fanatic to drop white sugar from my life—I mean everyone eats it! Sugar is in everything! And so even though I wished, wanted, and yearned for a beautifully thin body, I wasn’t willing to give up any of my habits. I felt I could overeat with impunity, gobble up white bread and ice cream and somehow it would all work out. I felt a c-pap machine was the ticket, and then the lap-band was the answer, but they were all pieces to the puzzle. I counted calories and felt if I just ate fewer calories then things would come together and I would lose weight. But last week after visiting with the family of my daughter Stephanie’s former companion, Ashly Gross, I started to rethink. As they say, two crop failures and an imminent drought got the Smith family to move to Palmyra, a convert usually has ten to twenty contacts with the church before really listening to the gospel, and me, well, I looked at Ashly’s mom, Lori, and I thought, “Marilyn, you are either serious about losing weight or you aren’t.” Lori hadn’t eaten white sugar since 1996 and she looked fantastic. She wasn’t always that way, but her husband introduced her to eating well and she went from there. After our talk and visit, I thought, “Marilyn, you have always known sugar was bad for you.” As Lori said, ‘Sugar is just one step away from alcohol. It is an addiction.’” And so I decided to do an experiment. I would go for one day without eating anything with white sugar. That meant NO yogurt, NO skinny cow ice cream, NO chocolate covered acai-blueberries, nothing! Basically, I had an omelet, cottage cheese and pineapple, chicken and vegetables. I wasn’t giving up the fat and salt (the other two addictions that Rob often mentions as the triumvirate of what food manufacturers lace their products to win American appetites—sugar, fat and salt) just sugar.

You can imagine my surprise when after the first day, I lost two pounds and then Saturday night, another two pounds, so that today, Monday, June 21, 2010, I hit an all-time low for my weight since my lap-band, 276.0, I am one pound away from having lost 50 pounds! That is amazing! It’s a wonderful event because whenever I get within sniffing distance of 50, I hit the wall and now I believe I have found the “culprit.” Sugar! White, granulated, C&H sugar! I didn’t want to believe it and the question now will be, how long can I stay “on the wagon?”

Surprisingly, it has been easier than I thought. Before I would start craving things and then sampling things to figure out what it is I wanted. But now my grazing is pretty limited, in fact, what used to be “grazing” is now breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I don’t have that same rapacious thirst. And I definitely do not have the “stomach” to “stomach” it anymore.

My Gold’s Gym buddy, Laurie, tells me that whenever she goes on vacation, she eliminates sugar from her diet because she can’t exercise and invariably, upon her return she weighs less. When I was on my mission, I did Atkins, which I wouldn’t recommend to anyone, but I lost a lot of weight, and one of the premises is that you can’t eat sugar. I believe my body is allergic to sugar and when I eat it, instead of getting rashes or anaphylactic shock, I get fat. Some people can smoke and live to 100; others can drink without serious consequences, and others can eat sugar and it not be a problem, but I can’t. Just as a celiac has to avoid gluten like the plague, it is now evident to me that sugar is my nemesis. I once asked my friend who had hypoglycemia how he could forgo the donuts, brownies and other treats, and his response was, “The consequences are worse than the enjoyment.”

Life is a series of delayed gratification. Like the “Marshmallow Experiment” those children who could not wait to eat the marshmallow struggled later in life and had more behavioral problems, while those who waited tended to be more positive and better motivated, have higher grades and incomes, and have healthier relationships. Those children who were told the marshmallows were “yummy and chewy,” broke down in five minutes. But if they coolly thought of the marshmallows as “white puffy clouds” they could wait an average of thirteen minutes. Some children could wait almost eighteen minutes simply by pretending that the treat before them was a picture. In contrast a preschooler shown only a picture of a reward but asked to imagine that it was real lasted less than six minutes. Imagining the treat in all its proximate glory triggers an emotional response, while thinking about the reward in cool, distancing contemplative terms makes waiting easier.” (See Distracted, page 229)

So in order to overcome an addiction, I have to distance myself from the “drug.” I have to be cool and detached and look forward to the ultimate reward. A great tool has been the lap-band because it has given me the ability to think, think in a detached, calm manner. My object now is to strip away the glamour of chocolate and ice cream and calmly see them as the “vice,” the monster, the addiction that has controlled my life for lo, these many years. The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step, and for me this is Day 6 of no sugar! I’ll just have to keep on walking.

How Many Times Do You Chew?

How many times do you chew your food before you swallow? This is a quiz! So leave a comment and let me know.

Chewing has never been my prime interest in “dining.” The object has been to get the food in the mouth and down the gullet as fast as possible, because somehow there was a belief growing up that if I didn’t eat it first someone else would get it and the goal was to eat something as fast and as much as I could so that someone else didn’t eat that last piece of pie or that last scoop of sherbet. However, since my lap-band I have discovered the new world of chewing. I chew approximately 28 times a bite. I have to chew it a lot because if I don’t, it will come back to haunt me! So when I am thinking—and that is the prime directive—I actually have to be thinking about my food, not mindlessly shoveling it in—about my eating and actually concentrating on what is the best thing I can do, it boils down to chewing. If I masticate something until it is basically liquid, it will flow nicely through my alimentary canal. However, if I forget about eating and just revert back to “the get it before it’s gone” mentality, then my lapband lets me know in its own charming way, that I made a BIG mistake! That “wake-up call” has really helped. It hasn’t lessened my desire to eat everything, but it has forced me to actually think about what I really, really, really want to eat.

In talking to my friend, Margy Rockenbeck, at the pool she told me about a book by Leonard Pearson, The Psychologist's Eat-Anything Diet, in which her friend, Dr. Pearson, who is a thin person, made a study of how people eat and the difference between thin and fat eaters. One of the things Margy said was, “Thin people are pretty discriminatory about their eating.” They can discriminate between their body asking for water or food, for sleep or exercise, between something sweet or something sour. They actually listen and can translate their bodies’ internal messages. Meaning that when their body says, “I want ice cream! Their bodies actually say, “I want Haagen Dazs’ amaretto almond crunch.” They are better able to understand and translate what their bodies are actually saying. Whereas I am a person where food goes good with anything. I mean, “Am I tired?” I should eat something so that I’ll be energized. “I’m sad.” Hmm, a subway should answer that problem. “I’m thirsty.” I know a good cheesecake that has raspberry drizzle on the top. Food is the be-all and I Ching of any question. Whereas Tom Hanks in You’ve Got Mail thinksThe Godfather has that spot, I am conditioned to believe that any problem or celebration goes better with food. Not just a discriminating haute cuisine, but a flat-out, fun-filled smorgasboard of delights! The more the merrier.

So yesterday as I was trying to “chug-a-lug” a shrimp salad, I was telling my friend, Elaine, the petite thin woman across the table, that it takes me forever to eat; I have to chew everything 28 times (like I wanted sympathy or something and I wanted her to say, “Oh you poor thing having to masticate for that long, it must be a terrible burden!) Instead she said, “Only 28 times! I chew my food 100 times a bite!” “Really!” I responded! “Yes, I was always the last one out to recess and eventually I just gave up finishing my food.” Now that is the difference between a fat and thin mentality. A fat person would NEVER leave his or her plate partially clad—that plate better be licked clean and totally naked! But Elaine just got up and left the food and went outside to play with her friends. Rob would think that was the better answer to “cafeteria food” but then he is thin whereas I paid “good money” (I think it was 35 cents) for that school lunch and I better eat every last bite. Rashid was sitting on the other side of Elaine and said, “I had to gobble the food down; I didn’t want to miss it. I eat fast.” It is important to know that although Rashid is thin, she is also from India where my mother was always encouraging me to think of the poor starving children in India and somehow my cleaning my plate would give Rashid more food—never figured that out! But I did clean my plate. So there we sat as Elaine chewed her food and told stories of wonder how anyone could eat a piece of steak in 4 or 5 bites. And I’m thinking, “Just a piece of steak, the whole 12 oz. steak could be inhaled in 4 to 5 bites!” So I end where I began—how many times do you chew your food?

Struggles, Stress, and Sabotage

My friend, Barbara, commented during our scrabble match, “You haven’t blogged in awhile.” And I admitted that my life had been under attack from various angles. First, my dishwasher blew up or as Rob puts it, “Someone let the smoke out.” There was a telltale burned scorch mark on the outside of the dishwasher and when he investigated, he discovered the guts of the circuit board had been fried. I can live without an oven, I can live without a cooktop stove, I can even live without a sink, but take away my dishwasher—and them’s fighting words!

So Rob said, “Guess you better do some research and see which dishwasher you would like.” Luckily, just a few weeks before I had been listening to my friend, Lori, sing the praises of her new dishwasher, a Whirlpool Gold GU3600XTVY, so I called her for the make and model. Her praise was so amazing, I immediately searched every store, dealership, and vender, I could find, and guess what, NO ONE HAD ONE! They were all on back order. Rob said, “As long as we are getting a dishwasher, we may as well get an oven to replace ours that goes ballistic every once in a while.” So for the past two months, I have been hunting for the best product and deal around. I called all my friends and asked them about their dishwashers. Rob wanted the same manufacturer so the appliances would look the same, but he was convinced that Whirlpool didn’t make ovens or at least if they did, they weren’t very good. So after calling my friends, copying pages out of consumer reports, and reading customer complaints and praises on the Internet, I passed on the Frigidaire and Kitchen-aid, and bought the Whirlpool Lori suggested at the beginning of my search from Frederick’s Appliance for the best deal--$500 for the dishwasher and $2000 for the oven, but they were both great deals, free delivery and free 2 year warranty.

Unfortunately, the oven was not on back order and so we got immediate delivery and because Rob was opposed to replacing our 24-inch oven with a 24-inch oven—it’s too small for the pans he bought me years ago and wanted to show me that his gift was very thoughtful--he insisted on getting at least a 27-inch built-in double oven. So since the 27- and 30-inch were the same price we went for the 30-inch double oven.

Getting a larger oven necessitated remodeling. Now, I don’t know about you, but somehow I started going through post traumatic stress meltdown when I have to work with Rob on any project but especially a kitchen project! Argh, that’s my home territory! And I knew that Rob would take forever, so how was I going to keep the wheels turning, the meals coming, and the clean-up going when my kitchen was torn up and in chaos? The first weekend, after Rob had taken all the cupboards and cabinets out and crowded them against the sink and cooktop and pushed the refrigerator against the cabinets blocking the entry way into the kitchen and making it impossible to open the fridge door, I said, “Darling, I can still reach the microwave. We can have Lean Cuisine frozen entrees or eat out at Las Margaritas!” When Jackie saw the pictures of our torn up kitchen, she said, “I guess you’re going out to Las Margaritas a lot!” But in truth, we only went out once (to celebrate Jackie’s birthday)—she couldn’t make it, so we celebrated her birthday with her in absentia.

During the time of the kitchen chaos, Alexa’s boyfriend, Brandon, came for a visit and that in itself was stressful, not his visit per se, but the gut feeling that this was an impending train wreck waiting to happen. As I struggled to keep myself calm, pleasant and understanding while my whole body is poised to attack like a mama bear protecting her cub, I realized that stress is not really a good thing when you want to lose weight. In fact, for some stress makes them lose weight, but for me, it is like a natural defense mechanism and the body will store fat forever! And so when I was in sniffing distance of my 50-pound weight loss goal, 1.4 pounds away, I hit the wall and whamo! Gained 5 pounds in 4 days! It has been ten days since that major debacle and I am proud to say I have lost .4 pounds in 10 days! That is the story of my life! I can work and exercise, diet and count calories, lift weights, and swim laps, but when my body says, “You ain’t going nowhere!” Nowhere is where I go!

On Tuesday, June 8th, I went back to see Dr. Clinch (we have a meeting every six weeks wherein he asks me how I’m doing). I explained to him that I hit that plateau of plateaus. I hit this plateau every single time I want to lose weight—WeightWatchers, FitDay.com, doctor-directed diets, whatever---I lose almost 50 pounds, like 2 or 3 pounds away from it and my body stops losing weight. It is the weirdest thing; however in diets past, I have been rabid! All I could think about was how hungry I was. Not literally, but mentally. As I said in my previous blogs, the voice of the siren was overpowering. I had to “jump ship” and run to the fridge and gorge. But now, the sirens are somewhat silenced and although my frustration level is high, I say, “Oh well, it’s a plateau, let’s see who can outwait whom!” The good thing is that lots of people are noticing I look thinner and have been commenting on it, so even though I am frustrated, I have decided that my body is in “tightening mode” and so I just keep on keeping on. The bad thing is that I am not losing weight. Dr. Clinch said, “It’s not the numbers on the scale; don’t focus on that. If you are going down dress sizes and losing inches, that’s what you should be happy about, I mean people don’t notice how much you weigh, but how you look.” (I am thinking, he is missing the power of the scale, I’m sorry, but when one is morbidly obese NUMBERS do matter!) Then I told him that I don’t understand it, I lift weights, work out on the cardio machines, swim laps, and count calories! And Dr. Clinch says, “Oh, well if you are lifting weights, you are gaining muscle and muscle weighs more than fat!” I WANTED TO SLAP HIM!!! I have been lifting weights for 3 years!!! But I didn’t slap him, I only smiled and said, “Yeah, right.”

So my struggling has caused me stress which in turn has made me want to sabotage myself. I think, “Why not treat yourself to a dark chocolate acai blueberry treat?” or “A delicious skinny cow chocolate/vanilla ice cream sandwich.” Albeit these foods are not as death-dealing to my diets, as others have been in the past, but they keep me away from seeing progress. Dr. Clinch told me to aim for 1000-1200 calories, and I’m thinking, “I carry around an extra 150 pounds, shouldn’t that count for something?” I mean when I was going to Weight Watchers the more you weighed the more points they allowed you because you were exercising every minute you stood up or walked. And then when you lost weight, you had to cut back on the number of points you could eat. So if I cut back from 1500 to 1200, does that mean when I have only 30 pounds to lose, I’ll be eating 400 calories?

At this point, I try to get an eternal perspective and come up with some great eternal truth. The fact of the matter is that sometimes despite our best efforts, things don’t work out the way we want them to or the way we have planned and that somehow even with the monkey wrench jammed into the machine, there is still something that defies our understanding. We feel like we should be able to make some sense out of the problem, but instead it makes no sense. That is how I feel. Why do I need to struggle to reach this goal? Why couldn’t I just eat less, exercise and lose weight on a consistent basis. Why do pounds stop dropping and things look like I am failing? The reason is that I need to look outside myself. Stop stressing. Forget myself, keep struggling and working out and keep at it. Persistence is the final push. It is enduring well, despite the discouragement and depression. It is overcoming the obstacles and still smiling. Losing weight has never been easy and being on a plateau is definitely the pits, but for now, it’s slow and steady wins the race despite how slowly the tortoise crawls, he eventually will cross the finish line as long as he keeps on going. I am discouraged, but not despondent; I am depressed, but not demoralized, I am disheartened, but I still have hope and that is finally the ultimate gift—HOPE! I hope you all keep on struggling, because in the end, the joy of the journey is in the doing!

Tightening and Thinning

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that before babies can grow they have to get fat. I have determined that the opposite must also hold true, before a person can “thin” they have to “tighten.” At present I am in uncharted territory. It has been at this plateau in my life where I throw up my hands and say, “I give up; I surrender to the constant message in my head.” If I am not going to lose weight, what is the point of “hanging in there!” In previous attempts I have lost 40 or so pounds and then it is like the entire system stops, breaks down, doesn’t move. I just sit at whatever weight I land on after losing 40-50 pounds and just circle around two or three numbers, going up and down one or two pounds for about 4 months, even though I am eating the same, exercising, and following the same regime I had when I started dieting. And yet, I just sit. It is always that this point that people come up to me and say, “Wow, I can tell you have lost weight!” How much?” they question?” And I am chagrined to say, “Nothing for the past month or so. “Well, you look great!” I feel like I am taking borrowed feathers because I haven’t lost anything, but now, since my mind isn’t screaming at me, I can think a little clearer and I think I am definitely “tightening” up the loose skin around my face, legs and arms and it is those changes that are quite visible. Hence the myriad of comments. So I am getting positive feedback, just not on the scale where I want it!

In some ways, we have microcosms of life or types and shadows if you will, where we get the message that “enduring to the end” is part of the great truths we have to learn. Not only to endure, but endure it well, cheerfully, upbeat and positively, so to speak. When things seem to “weigh” down on us, we have to stop mummuring and whining and “keep on trucking!” That was my mission motto, “keep on trucking,” i..e “keep on going” Keep up on keeping on! It all means the same, when things aren't progressing, you’re depressed, discouraged, keep on going through the night because there will be “joy in the morning.” Lose yourself in projects, in getting out of the box, in thinking of others, in lifting and lightening the load. Whatever it is, stop focusing on the negatives, accentuate the positives. There are so many clichés that obviously this is a universal message and a universal hope. My dad always said, “As long as you have health, you have everything. And if you don’t have health, you can always have hope.” Hope is the mainspring, the constant nourishing food, the hope, faith, belief that things will get better. If we can just get to the top of the hill, it will be downhill and we can rest. So, I just want you all to know that “I’m going to keep on going!

What is food? Really?

When I studied Latin in college, along with the language we studied the culture and I learned that Romans had not only dining areas but also a “vomitarium,” an adjacent room, where people threw up what they ate. Gluttony was in high form. Several years ago we had a Murder Mystery Party about the Titanic and wanting to be very authentic, I found a book that listed what the final meal was aboard the Titanic. After reading it, I thought “Titanic” was an apt name. I turned to my daughter, Stephanie, and said, “Well, after eating all that, it’s obvious why the ship sank!” But that was in the Edwardian days when eating was an event that you dressed for, had your hair coiffured, your body bejeweled, and your best manners “spit and polished!” There were established rules of conduct, specific courses with particular utensils, and a host of do’s and don’t’s. Dinner was a ballet--a pageant of colors and tastes for both the eyes and the palate. The more ornate and spectacular, the more your dinner parties were talked about and that was the object and goal of every aspiring woman of society—to have a dinner that knocked your socks off!

While watching Julie & Julia, I learned that Julia Child was trying to create a cookbook for the “servant-less American housewife.” And it crossed my mind that that was a turning point in our history. We felt we could do it all. We could cook the dinner, dress for dinner, serve the dinner, eat the dinner and clean up the mess. And these would not be the macaroni and cheese casseroles for the hoi polloi; no, these would be the Beef Wellington and Chicken Cordon Bleu dinners for the upwardly mobile Americans who had an inferiority complex about not being “noble-born.” We would show them, our dinners would rival the elite of Europe! Naturally, when women discovered that they couldn’t do it all, even with automatic dishwashers, bread makers, rice cookers, microwaves, and salad spinners—restaurants and McDonald’s, showed us how to eat. Unfortunately, instead of the home-grown vegetables and whole wheat bread, we got canned, processed, packaged, and partly hydrolyzed food. Selling the food became more important than whether the food was good for you or not. Businessmen needed a product that “you couldn’t eat just one.” They wanted a product that was classy and addictive, and so food became loaded with salt, sugar and fat. We won’t buy organic because it costs more and why should I buy one tomato at $1.99 a pound when I can buy 12 huge tomatoes for $5.99. Gluttony has always been a deadly sin, but it came out in force in the United States and we have become the fattest nation on earth and one of the nations who abhors it the most. So we have a love-hate relationship with food. We love to eat it, mounds and mounds of it, but we hate what it does to us. We want them to invent a food that gives us the feeling of fullness without any calories.

As babies our comfort was to be held AND fed, and somehow, it got into our psyches that if we wanted to feel safe, secure and happy, there better be food. No party is a party without food, even pity parties! And so food became my safe haven. I lived to eat! And I loved it. Now with my lapband, food no longer has that allure. I mean I love food, but because I’m limited I want something I really want, not something just to “fill the space, the time, the moment.” I find myself thinking and pondering more about what I truly want to eat and a lot of times it’s cottage cheese and pineapple. Sometimes it is raspberries and grapes, but usually it is my “New Whey Protein Drink.” An incredible find, only 3.4 ounces that has 42 grams of protein for only 180 calories, no fats, no carbs, just straight protein, and believe it, it tastes horrible! But I feel great when I have a day with over 100 grams of protein.

Unfortunately, the one food I can eat that would be better if I dropped from my diet is sugar, and nothing goes better with sugar that chocolate. I love the scene in Ever After where the “wicked” stepsister has the prince put a piece of chocolate in her mouth and she has this look of ecstasy and says, “Delicious!” I think there were a lot of women in the theatre rushing out to get some Junior Mints or Milk Duds! So chocolate is the one food that has no problem with a lap-band. In fact, if you are a candy-holic, then lap-bands aren’t for you. In talking to my friends, I have found that bread no longer has an allure for me, I can eat it; but it doesn’t like me very much. Before my lap-band, I never thought I would ever be able to give up bread—Bruce’s rolls, French bread, croissants. But, voila, is isn’t fun to eat bread!! And so when I eat, I have to ask myself, “What do I want to eat? What can I eat that will make me feel good? And feel satisfied.”

Last week, as I was getting the dinner for David and Rob ready to take the temple, I opted to just have a salad with shrimp. Alexa was packing it for me and she asked if she had put in enough shrimp and I said, “A little bit more for the guys, I’m fine with what you have.” And she said, “Are you sure there’s enough, Mom?” And I said, “Haven’t you noticed I can’t eat large amounts anymore?” And she said, “No, really?” And I said questioningly, “Yea, really?” “No, mom, I haven’t noticed that you can only eat two bites of something, that you only fill your plate with about one-half cup of food, No MOM, I haven’t noticed! Of course I have noticed!”

It is very interesting to me. What I think a portion is, now. Before my plate was bulging with food, now I take one large tablespoon each of salad, fresh fruit and scrambled eggs, and sit down and Alexa says, “Are you going to be able to eat that, Mom?” And I say, “No, but I want the visual and I’ll give you the plate when I’m finished.” And 40 minutes later, she finishes it off. Last Sunday, we drove up to Ferndale to watch the temple dedication and afterwards, I invited Bruce and his family to eat the chicken-salad filled croissants I had made. I made one for everyone, including myself and Rob looked at me and said, “You’re not going to be able to eat that.” And I said, “I know, but I like to think I could.” So three bites later, I passed it back to David to finish it off.

So what has a lap-band done for me. It’s taught me what a portion size is, and you know what, it is LOT smaller than most people think. I go to restaurants and the sizes are over the top. About twenty minutes into the meal, I look around at everyone’s plates and they are all empty while mine is still 90% full. In some ways I’ve gone back to the Edwardian time where you ate one course, and then another, but the serving sizes were very small, and people took a long time to eat, talk and converse—I mean those corsets were the external lap-band! But for the future, it will be interesting to see how long the wedding feast will be and how much, but for sure, all will be filled and there will be enough and to spare whether it is two fish and five loaves or twelve baskets.

Setpoints and Setbacks!

I just returned from a trip to Utah where I watched my “honorary adopted” daughter, Virginia, be married to her prince, Scott Richins. I also used this time to visit my mom and sister and some friends. It was a good time and I went to the gym 5 out of the 7 days I was there. I wanted to eat healthy and well and when I returned home, I had my first opportunity to step on the scale and see what had occurred. I was shocked, surprised and delighted to see the scale read 281.0 I couldn’t believe it! I had to weigh myself FOUR more times just to verify its accuracy. 6.6 pounds in 7 days! I was elated, jumping up and down. I LOST WEIGHT on VACATION! Could anything be better, “I submit it cannot”! Today I stepped on the scale again and read 283.0. I was blown away! How could I have gained two pounds in one day when I only ate 1448 calories and exercised for almost two hours for 901 calories spent (according to Fitday.com, of course, but what do they know). But there it was--two pounds up! Why? Why???? Why!!!!! Water retention? Muscle gain? What?

Here again, the almighty scale is pre-dominant in my thoughts. Again, I try to figure out what is going on. I should relax and be happy. I mean originally I only wanted to weigh 290 by the end of March, and then 285, I would have been very happy, but by dangling 281 in front of me, I found myself unsatisfied for the 283. This is so much of a game of cat and mouse. I think I’ve got the problem solved and licked, and it comes back to bite me in the foot. My emotions are intertwined with the scale. It doesn’t matter how many people come up and tell me that I’m looking great, that they can see I’ve lost weight, etc. I want validation from the numbers! Today a woman I don’t ever remember seeing came up to me and said, “I’ve been watching you for three years and I just want you to know I can tell you have lost weight.” “Three years,” I thought, “She couldn’t have said that unless she knew I have been going to the gym for three years.” The tragedy is that I weigh what I weighed when I started at the gym. I had gained 40+ pounds and I finally had lost it. In another ten pounds I will be at my lowest point in the past 10 years, and then as each new set-point is reached, I will say, the last time I weighed this was 1997 or 1991 or 1985. The numbers are a carrot being dangled in front of me.

I started this blog the first week of April and here it is the day after taxes and I still haven’t finished it. I went to the gym this morning and watched Julie & Julia and it was so mesmerizing that I had to work out for 35 minutes on my favorite bouncy elliptical, 35 minutes on the bike and 35 minutes on the treadmill and finished off the total 123 minute movie in the women’s locker room changing into my swimsuit. It was wonderful. I was right there with her making Lobster Thermidor and Boeuf Bourguignon and tasting the raspberry crème and thinking this is wonderful, this is grand, this is life! I couldn’t help feeling like Julie, an unpublished writer, who is trying to define and find herself and does it through food. I thought maybe I would define myself by “not eating food.” And write about my experiences of losing weight, but I realized another interesting component in the movie and that is the crucial difference between a fat and thin person. “Self-absorption.” Not saying thin people can’t be compassionate, caring, and nurturing, nor that fat people aren’t selfish and narcissistic, but it was the original reason a blog had a little or no interest to me. Writing about me all the time is overwhelmingly shallow and uninteresting! Talking about the frustrations of being fat and trying to lose weight is even more tedious! At least I think it is!
But there is so much more and so many more ideas that come to me when I ponder how I got to this point and what I am learning from it and then I wonder, “What’s the point of writing?” And I realize it is somewhat cathartic, but it also enables me to verbalize and visualize my angst as I’m going through this becoming a new person.

Many people when they lose weight all of sudden have lots of people acknowledging them and admiring them and they get hurt because they feel, “I was always inside here, why didn’t anyone notice me?” The problem was they noticed the fat person and all they could see was the fat. “She’s so fat” jokes and all kidding aside, being obese is seen as a crime. People look at obese people and think, “How did she ever get so fat!” “How can she stand to be seen in a swimsuit!” “Doesn’t she know her clothes are bursting at the seams?” “Why doesn’t she lose weight!” “Why is she eating chocolate!” It’s like a fat person is “weighed” in the balance, tried, convicted and sentenced among a group of her thin peers and we ALL do it! I am just as guilty as the next person of condemning a person for being fat! I used to dream of being Tongan where fat is seen as a sign of wealth and status, or in a Rubens painting—now there are some voluptuous curves. But try as we might to see fat as positive, we live in a world where even the most beautiful women are “air-touched” and enhanced to look more thin and beautiful, and so we all have self-hate issues, where we look at our physical features and condemn then for not being perfect.
For the past several years I have made it a practice to see people, really see them. I think it was after reading The Anatomy of Peace and Leadership and Self-Deception and the desire to be “out of the box.” In the Anatomy of Peace they talk about I-It and I-Thou and I guess I skimmed over it and didn’t really read it the first time, but this last week as I was reading it again, it struck a responsive chord. I realized that many, many times I see people as annoyances to my personal space. For example, I am planning on going in the hot tub for a final “massage” and comfort spot and voila someone steps in the tub just when I wanted to and I think, “Get out, I want it all to myself!” But then I think, “Okay, Marilyn, let’s really see this person and listen to his or her story.” And you know what? Every single time I have done this, I have been so grateful for the connecting with another human being and my heart has been softened. It is literally amazing to me.

Recently, I decided to make an effort to talk to a man I watch almost every day coming into the pool. He seemed very self-absorbed and into himself and so I started talking to him and he immediately warmed up and smiled. I discovered that he is from the Ukraine and can barely speak English and now every time I come to the pool and see him, he smiles a huge smile at me and waves. And I think there was a very lonely man who everyone ignored and now he has a friend. Will the scale ever be my friend? Doubtful. Will I ever be able to look at a weigh fluctuation and not get depressed? Not likely! No-“I-Thee” there, the scale is definitely an I-IT!!

Is it easy or is it hard?

Losing weight is like walking a tightrope. Some days you have the grace and style that enables you to walk effortlessly across the rope without a quiver or a stumble. Other days, life is out of balance and even one step across the rope portends an imminent fall or crash. People ask me how the lap-band is doing and honestly it is one of the easiest weight loss tools of my life. But on the other hand, it still takes commitment and dedication.

In some ways it is like Christ’s invitation to take upon ourselves His yoke. He says that His yoke is easy and His burden is light. But I don’t think anyone would disagree that Christ’s yoke is somewhat uncomfortable at times (I mean it is a yoke, right!) and easy is a comparative word. It’s easier than Satan’s bondage because it gives one peace and peace of mind is a great blessing. But also it is a long-term commitment whose rewards are not instantaneous, but rather accumulative. So I would say that a lap-band is like the still small voice that tells you to keep going and keep picking yourself up after tumbling into the net below. Unfortunately, because it is a still small voice, I can override it with my actions, so I have to be pretty committed and have to keep going and keep using the lap-band as a tool rather than the solution. Losing weight is work. And I am working hard, but with a lap-band losing weight is also easy and light.

Sometimes when I am very hungry or at least think I am very hungry and just want to gobble any and everything in sight, the lap-band will pull me up short with a terribly uncomfortable feeling that says, “Oh and by the way, you didn’t chew that enough, you didn’t eat slowly enough, and you definitely will be coughing and maybe coughing up what you thought was so vitally important to stuff in your mouth.” Then there comes that moment of illumination when you say, “Oh, yeah, right, I do want to lose weight and this might not be the smartest thing I’ve done.”

So it needs recommitment every day and it needs a moment or two to get back on track and say, “Keep going, overcome the plateaus, think past the moment frustrations, and keep working at it.” Whereas before the lap-band, my remorse at overeating occurred after I had eaten thousands and thousands of calories. Now, I do get an immediate sensation after only a couple hundred extra calories and that is a great blessing. As my stepdad, Bill would say:

Patience is a virtue
Achieve it if you can
Seldom found in women
And never in a man!

So I try to think of the ultimate goal and when I am hungry and want something like a Costco chocolate muffin, I grab the fresh raspberries and strawberries and say, “Not today!” It is hard and easy, a mind game and an impulsive thirst. But being able to have a non-human, unemotional device that reminds me, “HEY!! Stop eating!” in a very kind and effective way, makes it EASY.

The Almighty Scale and the Power of TEN!

It seems ridiculous that a mechanical weights and measures device can be so important when one is losing weight, but it is! And although diet books caution you against weighing yourself every day, I can’t help it. So every morning after my workout, shower and blow-drying my hair, I stand buck-naked on the Gold Gym’s scale in the women’s locker room and wait with anticipation to see if I have lost another tenth of a pound. On days that I do, I skip, I dance, I “yippee” and on days that I don’t lose anything, I murmur, “Oh well,” and on days that I GAIN---ooooh, that’s ugly!

Last week as I watched that scale descend bit by bit, every day was a happy day. Then on the weekend I wasn’t able to make it to the gym and I had to hope that all was well; however, on Monday rather than that descending ounce or two, I saw a TWO POUND increase! I immediately started my “Jeremiad” and lamentations! Admittedly, I did eat a piece of chocolate cake at Virginia’s bridal shower and a chicken-filled croissant, but on the whole a mere 1697 calories for Saturday and 1438 calories on Sunday do not constitute a two-pound increase. People tried to assuage my fury with comments about “water retention” and “natural rhythms of your body,” etc. but it was poppycock as far as I was concerned. I knew that I hadn’t been exercising that day and if don’t exercise, all food goes to fat. So for the next three days, I increased my activity and ate under 1500 and finally this morning, Thursday, March 11, 2010, I lost what I should have lost last week and hit 290.2 pounds. As the scale waffled between 289 and 290, I cheered for the straight 290.0 because no matter what we think and believe there is a huge difference between 290.2 and 290.0. It’s the power of 10! Being under 300 was a magic moment for me and somehow when one hits that 290, it’s another great moment. Every ten is ten pounds and no matter if you start at 333 or 327, or 224, it’s those ten’s, those zeros that somehow signal success. I don’t get it, I don’t understand it, but I know it to be true. My friend, Lynette wanted to lose 90 pounds and she hovered at 88.9, it’s just not 90, and another friend, Debbie, wanted to be under 200 pounds and somehow 201, doesn’t do it. No matter how much weight one has lost before unless one gets to one of those defining zeros, it is like life hangs in the balance.

Let me explain. In 1991, I wanted to get down to 180, but try as I might, after losing 69 pounds in 7 months, 182 was as close as I got and then I gave up. I joined Weight Watchers with my friends and it was a wonderful time, but try as I might I worked to get over that 50 pound weight loss mark and get the applause, adulation and a key chain token, I never made it. I lost 46 pounds and no further, and then I just gave up. In 2007, I started again to beat the dragon at 319.5 pounds and got to 271, 48.5 pound weight loss and then no further. What is it with 50!!! I would scream. But what was even worse is that from June 1st to October 1st (4 months) I lost 42 pounds in 4 months making 10 pounds a month. From October 1st to January 1st I lost only 6 pounds (2 pounds a month!!!!) I’m sorry, but it almost impossible to keep struggling to lose weight when there are no “scale” reinforcements! Yes, many may say, “I can tell you have lost weight.” And you just have to smile because you know that not an ounce has gone away and people say, “Well muscle weighs more than fat.” Yes, but there is so much fat can’t it take a vacation as well. A smaller dress size is a wonderful sign, but that “almighty scale” is what we want to read, SHOW ME THE NUMBERS!!! And what is even sadder is that we remember what we weighed at significant moments: when we got married, when we turned 30, 40, when we went to get our driver’s license, etc. It reminds me of the story of a granddaughter who was cleaning up her grandmother’s belongings after her death and took a picture down off the wall and noticed some writing on the back. Thinking it might have given more information about when and where the photo was taken, she looked carefully and read, “125 pounds.”

Yes, unfortunately, try as I might not to let those numbers mean anything, they unfortunately really mean the difference between my skipping down the stairs with a smile on my face ready to meet the world and my trudging along thinking, “Why, why, WHY!!!” Many say that the number on the scale isn’t that important, it’s how you feel, your health, wellness, etc., but sadly for me and my house, IT IS EVERYTHING!! When the numbers don’t appear, then the constant hunger pains, the passing up foods you want, and the hours of exercise seem to blur and you lose patience and focus and surrender to call of the siren. Food never tastes as good and the joy of being full again overcomes those feelings of guilt and pound by pound one puts back the pounds of struggle and effort. It is hard to lose weight and keep it off, but for me the lap-band is a tool that somehow quiets the siren and makes a weight gain less tragic than in years past.

This time, when I cross that 50-pound mark, I look forward to another 50 and then another 50. The lap-band has given me hope that I never knew existed. I find myself full on a “serving.” I can’t eat the large quantities nor do I hear the constant singing of that “food siren.” It is much easier to keep committed and to work hard when eating large portions is no longer satisfying, filling, or delightful. Gone is the feeling of deprivation and denial. I feel the way a thin person feels; I can’t eat any more, not because I don’t want to eat it, but physically, I just can’t eat it (something that NEVER occurred before the lap-band, there was always room for one more piece of pie, scoop of ice cream, or See’s chocolate.) I know that as one gets older, the body starts to metabolize differently and it is harder and harder to lose weight, but for right now, there is a great deal of hope and I can visualize success. I am happy, even with a two-pound gain (even though I still don’t think I should have gained it) because it increased my desire to lose. It made me realize that I have to have “faith and works.” It made me more committed to be more careful, eat more wisely, and exercise with more energy and gusto. Sometimes it seems that life is ruled by the numbers or as Rob would say, “Math is the language of God.” Who knows? I’m beginning to think Rob has a point. I mean with all the comments about being “weighed in the balance and found wanting” maybe there is some truth to it. Who knows, maybe God has a scale, too!

It's Faith AND WORKS!

Last Monday (February 22nd) I went to the monthly "Lap-banders" meeting and met Jana Sifuentes. She was at the original meeting I attended two years ago and learned that all the sensors that tell you that you are full are at the top of the your stomach and that the lap-band enables those sensors to be activated. It was an "AHA" moment I will never forget. So when Jana came up to me, it was very nostalgic. Jana had her lap-band in January 2009, a year earlier but due to two surgeries had sort of not been able to keep active and had lost only 50-60 pounds. To me she looked great and looked like she had lost a lot more. We talked about the monthly meetings and she said what they really should do is hook up an experienced lap-bander with a newbie. I turned to her and said, "Will you be my mentor?" And so together we are sending each other daily reports on our calorie intake and outgo and for this past week. With the daily return and report, I have had another epiphany.

Despite what I knew and had heard, I was hoping that the lap-band would be the final answer to a lifetime of being overweight. And in many ways it is. It is somewhat like the gift of the atonement of Jesus Christ. It is a free gift that enables us to change, repent, and become as He is. But for many Christians, the idea is that all you have to do is believe in Christ and you will be saved. Well, that's what I sort of hoped the lap-band would be. All I needed to do was to have it installed and it would keep me on the straight and narrow. But in the first few weeks after my first fill, I was still comfortable having butter on my Brussell sprouts and cream on my fish sauce. So when Jana and I decided to do Fitday.com every day, it brought me up to reality. I realized that I was eating a lot more calories than I should be eating and that I would need to work to stop letting these extra sins, extra calories, aka extra peccadilloes creep in the way. It was amazing. This week I have lost three pounds and can really see that my eating was inhibiting my weight loss. I realized that I need to aim for under 1200 calories a day and with the lap band that is not only a possibility it is a reality, but it takes work. You just can’t say, “I believe” and not keep the commandments. You have to conform to the program. You have to do your part and that is one thing I have learned. However, before it seemed overwhelming to fight not only the voice but also my natural inclination to want to “fill my plate.” Now, I think, I need to keep my calories down, so I will have strawberries instead of fried potatoes, I will choose the broiled fish instead of the fish in cream sauce. I still can only eat a small amount, but the calories have come down and with it, so has my weight. It is true. In order for the lapband to be effective, you have to work. It is only a tool. Likewise, in order to become perfected, you have to work and work hard. We are saved by grace after all we can do, but God expects us to do—He expects us to work! And losing weight is not just a matter of making your stomach smaller it is also a matter of making correct choices, just as in the game of life.

The Call of the Sirens

Odysseus knew about the dangers of listening to the Sirens, but that still didn’t keep him from wanting to hear them, so he stuffed his sailors’ ears with wax, tied himself to the mast, and got his wish, to hear the song of the Sirens and not be killed. For me the call of the Siren has always been food. Sometimes it has just been a low incessant whisper, “you’re hungry, you’re hungry” that can be disregarded for a time but never ever completely ignored. Sometimes it comes as a loud booming, “gotta eat now, GOTTA EAT RIGHT NOW!” which can send me into a full-scale binge. But that consistent, insistent hum has never been very far from my brain. Therefore, it came as a delightful surprise in December when the music was turned off, and again in February, when the voice was silenced. But only 5 days later after my first fill on February 2nd, I found myself in the swimming pool, “wondering what I would want for breakfast.” As I waded through the water, I realized I was listening to call of the Siren again. I had forgotten the power of the call in just a few days, kind of like how moms forget how bad labor really is. The voice was strong and I found myself wanting to eat, looking for things to eat, and I thought, “Hey, what is going on?!” So I called up the doctor’s office to schedule another “fill.” Anything to keep the orchestra from playing; unfortunately, they couldn’t see me until the following week, so for almost 2 weeks, I have been listening to the “Siren’s call.” This lets me know exactly what a lap-band does, it silences the continuous drumming.

When my dad was in prison camp, he said the Japanese fed you just enough that kept you starving and craving food; whereas if you just stopped eating eventually you would have no desire nor ability to eat and you would die. But just a little here and a little there kept the appetite whetted and screaming, and the prisoners going crazy with hunger. Despite the Siren’s song, the lap-band has luckily prevented me from an all-out inhaling of food, but it did add a pound or two and definitely allowed me to eat more calories than I needed. This break from my “fill” has given me a reality check of exactly what my lap-band does for me. It turns off the SIREN! And that is wonderful!

Sometimes, I keep thinking how effortlessly it is to eat small amounts, when before if I started eating, I just couldn’t seem to stop eating; it was like a continual foraging for food. Yesterday, I went in for my second fill and it was miraculous, truly miraculous. Food had lost its appeal. I was downstairs in the temple cafeteria eating a chicken pot pie with David and literally I ate 5 bites, that was it, that was all I wanted, I was full. FIVE BITES! I had the same experience after my first fill, 4 ounces of salmon and two Brussels sprouts and I’m finished. It’s hard to believe that a cc of saline solution can have that kind of effect and give that kind of result! This morning when I went to the gym (as I always do, I weighed myself) and I had lost 3 pounds in one day. THREE POUNDS! For a week, I had been struggling to get back under 300 pounds and in ONE day without any effort at all or pretty minimal, voila, I’m 298. So what is it? In talking to Katherine, who injects the saline solution, it is a matter of timing and filling. The first couple of days your stomach may “swell” because it is being tightened and then it heals and loosens up, so trying to find that perfect sweet spot is quite the trial and error chore. I assume that I need it to be a little tighter than normal the first couple of days because it will relax and become “too easy” to eat. So rather than wait TWO WEEKS, I have scheduled another appointment for Wednesday, February 24th. Of course, Katherine says I am right on schedule (according to her) I have lost a pound a week—who wants to lose just a pound? I am voting for 2-3 pounds a week, but then I have never been one to be patient! She looked at my scars and said, “Oh, these are healing up quite nicely, you will have very tiny, almost unnoticeable little lines, you’re incisions are great.” And I counter incredulously, “Really, they’re healing nicely—they’re all red!” “Yes,” she smiled and answered, “but it usually takes 6 months for the red to go away and you’re doing great!”

So, although I am impatient patient and “short”-suffering subject, I am feeling hopeful. Today was another red-letter day. I needed a cookbook and our cookbooks are located above the fridge. Usually, I have to open the fridge get as close to the books as possible and tug, but I couldn’t see the “Slow-cooker Cookbook” I wanted and I had to make a decision. Do I get on a chair? That may sound pretty straightforward and uncomplicated to you, but I haven’t stood on a chair for more than two years--a ladder, a stepstool, okay, but not a chair, too high, too wobbly, too much effort and far too dangerous. But I wanted that book and I couldn’t see it, and so I grabbed a sturdy kitchen chair and hoisted myself up and I made it! It was amazing! A few minutes later, I did it again to look on the top shelf of the pantry. These are big strides! I have been enjoying a little more freedom of movement. This morning, I worked out on the “bouncy” elliptical, (it’s harder than the typical elliptical, more like you are on a trampoline) for 25 minutes and the stationary bike for another 25 minutes, increasing my cardio by 20 minutes, then down to the pool where I pushed myself a little bit more. It is those “baby steps” that make me feel hopeful and excited. Before, I worked and worked and struggled and tried, but it seemed like my body was on an unwavering set-point and determined to hold onto every pound. Now with very little “will-power,” “self-control,” or self-discipline, I am seeing progress. Another little indication of my improvements are my eyes. Last night one of the sisters turned to me and said, “I bet you have heard this before, but you have the most beautiful blue eyes.” I thought, “Not really.” Rob used to tell me that a lot when we were first dating, engaged and married. But to me my eyes become clearer and blue-er when they are healthier, meaning unclogged by a lot of junk, fatty foods, etc. So on my journey to a thinner me, these are great baby steps!

Now, I must add one more note. I recently received the insurance costs for the “hospital” for my lap-band. If I had had to pay for it, the hospital alone would have cost me $14,521.10, but Regence was able to whittle off a mere $5,464.04 and so only had to pay $9,057.06 which brings the total outlay for Regence for my lap-band was $12,737.05 whereas it would have cost me $28,041.10. So the hospital worker who checked me in for my surgery on Thursday morning when I told him that a lap-band procedure cost around $13-15,000 raised his thumb up and said, “a lot more” was right! I have looked at that hospital bill and for the 5 hours I was on their property, it would have cost me over $2900 an hour! Gee, and I’m excited when I get $40 an hour! It is sad that the price is so high because I believe it will be the chief factor to my getting down to a normal weight and I know many others for whom a lap-band is really the only way to silence those Sirens! Thanks for reading! Love, Marilyn

What a difference a new stomach makes!

When I stepped on the scales this morning, it wavered a bit and my heart leaped in my throat as I saw it go 296 and then waffled up to 299, but you know what? I was thrilled! Why, because I have seen it up to 333 and 299 is 34 pounds less. And being under 300 is a "mini" milestone. Many people ask how much weight I have lost and I always tell them that that is a bit of a conundrum. In order to be approved by my insurance, I had to maintain or lose (not gain) and the weight I was aiming for was 320, which I met each doctor's appointment, but starving to get down to it. However, when I saw Dr. Clinch on December 1st, I weighed 325 and that is where I take my bearings from. I had to lose 10 pounds before surgery so that my liver would be shrunk enough not to block a good view of the stomach. Every lap-bander and gastric bypasser says, "If I could lose 10 pounds, I wouldn't be getting a lapband!!!" But they say you can do it and so I did, (10.5, yeah!) Then I lost another couple more after surgery and by the time I went back to see Dr. Clinch on Feb 2nd. I weighed 307. So today, 6 days after my fill, I have lost 8 pounds! Does it work? Yes, it does!

As I have pondered about the last few days, all I can think of is I feel I have been reborned! In talking to my sister today, I said, "Our family was always about food. We would sit around the table and eat until it was all gone, whether, we were full or not, the object was not to have leftovers." My mom proudly told me that in Panama I would just devour banana after banana after banana, as though I were winning some Olympic competition. Eating became an art form and as the serving sizes continued to be super-sized so did our ability to eat more and more. My friend Corinne said her family motto was eat until your sick. On my mission food was the only "recreation" a missionary had, I mean we couldn't sleep in, we couldn't swim, go out, play around, etc. Eating was our only break in our day after day after day schedule, it became a wonderful moment to relax and eat. Now, I did lose weight on my mission because I did the Atkins diet which was a diet that said you can eat anything as long as you stay in a state of ketosis. But looking back, that was probably one of the worst things I could have done to my body, but wanting to be thin makes us do lots of dumb things.

As time went by, I would try to lose weight and diet and exercise and go to Weight Watchers and write down every calorie and yet I still had this overwhelming sense that I was starving. My brain kept telling me, "You're hungry, You're hungry" and no matter how many times I told myself, "You've had enough calories, you are NOT hungry," it would say, "Yes, I am!" So it became a battle of the brain signals and my mental arguments and you know what, it feels good to be full and to have your brain say, "you're full!" So I ate. It was like an addiction, but the problem is you just can't avoid a bar or a drug dealer, you had to eat to live and one bite generally led to another.

Now, it's like I have a new stomach (which of course I do) but a stomach that says, "you're full" when I've only had 4 ounces of food. And you know what? That is a fabulous feeling. I am no longer arguing with my brain, we are on the same page. This sense of having enough, of being full is a wonderful gift. In a way it reminds me of when my friend, Bill Bennet,t got a new kidney and he said, "I never realized how bad I really felt" Well, I guess that's what I've learned. I never realized how wonderful it is to have your brain, body and mind all agree, "I'm full!!"

To fill and to be filled! that is the answer!!!

I got my first "fill" on Tuesday, February 2nd, Groundhog Day! I admit that I wasn't upbeat and positive, in fact, I'm afraid I was a little "Rob"ish, simply because Dr. Clinch said, "We don't want to make it so tight that you can't swallow your spit" and impatient me is thinking, "Make it tight, make it tight!" So I admit that I wasn't sure this first fill would do much for me. Imagine my surprise, when I honestly couldn't eat and didn't care! To be full, to be filled! What a wonderful experience! YEAH!! I have lost 4 pounds in three days! without even trying! I am just not hungry. Most of the time I have to say, "Gee, it's time to eat, I haven't eaten for a while, I should eat, what should I eat." That's what thin people say or at least rumor has it. For me, it has always been "gotta eat, gotta eat, gotta eat NOW!" Gotta eat till I'm full and I'm never full. But now, it's like, I feel like I should eat one more bit of cod or brussel sprout and I'm looking at it and I'm thinking, "If I eat this will it be too much?" Too much is when you get this overwhelming sensation of "you shouldn't have done that! I got that experience on Wednesday. I was getting ready to go to the Ward Activity and I had made Baked Cod with Spinach and I ate, what I considered about 3/4 of cup and all of a sudden, I felt really sick, so I just had to lie down and let it pass. It took an hour. Then when I went to the activity there were hundreds and I do mean hundreds of cookies, all yummy looking but for me, it was "please don't show me any food, I can't eat it!"

Today, Friday, I went to Costco, and it was Super Bowl Snack Time, every dealer was there hawking their wares and giving away lots of free samples. There was ice cream with blueberries, three different kinds of chicken wings, canned chicken sandwiches like Stephanie makes, avocados, salmon, salsa, meatballs, pulled pork sandwiches, it was a huge free for all. I ate ONE chicken wing and said, "Yuck, I can't eat another bite!" I walked past the salsa, the hummus, the chocolate cake, the juices, and stood in the detergent aisle trying to get my bearings! When I left Costco there were only three food items in my entire cart, a salmon, some scallops and bananas, that's it! There were napkins and laundry detergent, etc. but everything looked overwhelming to me and I would ask, "Why should I buy that, I really won't enjoy it." Then I came home and had some yogurt, because it goes down nicely. Dr. Clinch would not approve, he wants me to eat protein first and foremost to get that full feeling, but sometimes, I just want to be comfortable and now "fulness" has a whole new meaning to me. To be filled is such a good feeling and with so little effort.

The best thing is that when I stepped on the scale at the gym today, I wondered if I would have lost any weight because I am eating and I am not hungry and yet, two more pounds from yesterday were gone and I'm thinking what's going on? Is this really true? It's too good to be true. I am feeling like I will be able to lose weight. Today I pushed myself a little harder on the bike and the up/down pedal elliptical and it felt good. I walked up stairs a little better and for the first time, I actually feel thinner. Now, since I first saw Dr. Clinch, I have lost 23 pounds. Before when I have lost 20 or 30 pounds, I have never felt it. But this time, I do feel thinner and the nice part is I honestly believe it will never come back. On to the fill!!!! I see Dr. Clinch in 6 weeks, sooner, if I feel stymied on my weight loss, and more than likely I will get another fill because when the lap band was installed, it was installed around a stomach that had a lot of fat around it, so as the fat disappears, the band will need to get an adjustment or a fill! This is a great way to live! To be filled is wonderful. You can see in my blogging, that Shakespeare has a lot of influence, or maybe just Hamlet!!! So to blog or not to blog, to be filled and to be happy! YEAH!!

The joys of having a "funnel"

When people have asked, "how are you feeling?" "how are things going?" I know they are being kind and curious, and sometimes I give long answers and sometimes very short. Today I have decided to give a long answer. Having a lapband is somewhat of a journey of discovery. Right now, there is very little difference between the way I was on December 16th and the way I am now, except of course, I weigh a few pounds less, but not because of the lapband, but because I am trying to be good until the lapband is "filled." When the lapband was first installed, I was really happy because I was not hungry. What I didn't realize is that feeling was temporary. The reason why I didn't feel hungry was because my stomach was swollen from the surgery and having a band tied around its neck. It was not happy. But a few weeks later, the swelling went down and all of a sudden I was hungry. What happened? Well, it is the story of the funnels. When one bottles peaches, there is a handy, dandy device called a funnel with a mouth almost as big as the bottle so that you can slip peaches or any fruit for that matter into the bottle without getting the mouth of the jar dirty. You need clean mouths so the lids will seal correctly, but I just wipe it clean and throw the peaches in and forget the funnel. But that funnel is pretty wide. I have another funnel that I sometimes use to fill ketchup bottles, but I discovered that using a funnel was very long and tedious. The funnel hole was so small, that it made more sense to just pour the ketchup in my large blue Tupperware pitcher and then pour it into the ketchup bottle and clean up any drips on the bottle afterwards. My stomach right now has a "peach" funnel. Almost anything can slip right through the funnel to the secondary stomach, which means that I would have to eat an awful lot of food for it to reach to my little stomach where the satiety sensors are. However, on February 2nd, Groundhog Day! I will get my first "fill." This is where they inject saline solution into the button on my right side and it goes through a small tube till it reaches my lapband where the inflatable tire gets filled. Now my funnel has the opening of maybe a small pencil and the food has to "drip" into the secondary stomach, but I will feel full and satisfied after only a few bites. So just imagine the ketchup going through a small funnel and that's what my little stomach will be doing after the fill. I can't drink water an hour before I eat or an hour after because they don't want to dilute the "ketchup." Makes perfect sense if you think about it. They want the "ketchup" to stay in your little pouch for two or three hours slowly leaking out so that you have a feeling of being full and no desire to eat. Last night I went to a meeting in the hopes of getting some good feedback, but by in large I felt I knew more and had come to a lot of the conclusions by myself. The moderator handed out a sheet for goal making and I thought, this is what I drove over at 5:30 in the evening to do. But I did get my questions answered and I'm happy, so we'll see how it goes.

The Cost of Medical Care

In order to get my insurance to pay for my lapband, I had to jump through a number of hoops. I had to see a clinical psychologist who had to certify I was not a psychotic schizo in quest for the next new medical procedure, I had to go on a 6-month physician supervised diet/exercise/behavior modification program where I could not gain weight, I could stay the same or lose but not gain, I had to have another co-morbidity condition like diabetes or high blood pressure or heart problems, etc. (I have sleep apnea, which considering the other choices was the best) and basically I had to sign my soul away that I would be a good candidate for a lapband and do everything that I was told. After jumping through all the hoops, I was denied twice and going in for the final round where they get nationwide Regence folk to listen to your appeal. Luckily I was able to forgo that step because an independent reviewer looked at my case and said, "She did everything, give her the lapband." And they had to comply.

So many people ask me, "How much does it cost to get a lapband." I said about $13,000. But when I was mentioning it on the day of my surgery to the check-in guy, he raised his thumb and said, "much much more." So I have been anxiously waiting to see what the cost for my lapband really was and yesterday I got I believe all the bills, not sure, don't know if there is a separate hospital bill, if there is, then for sure it will raise the price a lot higher. Also when I went to the seminar about lapbands, they said that the lapband itself is $3,000, so I will look and see, but for right now, I am giving you the huge dispartiy between what it costs and what the insurance paid. David was with me when I got the mail and he told a story about a mammagraphy clinic that has two doors, one for insured clients and one for pay as you go. He said the insured door is pretty generic, you wait for your mammogram, you undress and get one of those cotton unfashionable open ended hospital gowns, the lab technician does the work and says you'll get the results in a week or so. On the pay as you go, there is no waiting, you get a fluffy white bathrobe, exquisite attention, the doctor talks to you, after the mammogram, he comes back and goes over the results with you. The cost for the insured was $100, the cost for the payer was $600. Now of course, that is totally hearsay, but here is the reality from my bills.

My doctor charged $9,600 for taking care of me, but the insurance has negotiated at $2183.90 cost of which I paid nothing (yeah), the attending surgical nurse charged $2400 but Regence only paid $327.59. and the anestheologist (this is why they are the highest paid medical professionals) charged $1520 and received $1168.50. So if I had had to pay out of pocket it would have cost me $13,520 and I might have gotten the fluffly robe, but Regence paid $3,679,99 and I was happy with my cotton, wide open frock. When I realized how little it cost them to give me what I feel is a great blessing, I admit I was a bit miffed at how much work I had to go through to get it. I mean I think the cost of delivering my babies was higher and I had Alexa at home! So you can see my frustration. However, David says with the Obama plan there will no longer be a cap on your lifetime maximum and you can't be denied for pre-existing conditions, to which I said, "it very well maybe the end of clinical care as we know it, or the profession will have to wise up and start allowing more people to go to medical school." So whichever turns out, I'm grateful I had the surgery when I did and happy that I have insurance!