Monday was a very laid back morning compared to the others. I took my time getting ready… my flight was at 4, which means being to the airport by about 2:30. I was going to catch an early lunch with an old friend that’s now living in Vegas, then he was going to give me a ride across town where I was going to meet up with Connie Stapleton for a bit before heading to the airport.

Going to do and getting to do ain’t always the same thing though. It should have been a sign of things to come when I woke up to discover the sheets on my bed were… well… the wrong ones.

Now overall, the Palace Station wasn’t a bad place. The food at the restaurants was top notch, the service from the people I came across was always great. But I kept hearing about little things people were experiencing that are the sort of thing that just leave an odd after-taste in your mouth. Would I stay there again? Well, let’s just say it wouldn’t be my first choice. Maybe third… or fourth.

Anyways, I ended up catching a late breakfast with Alli and crew because my friend was having car trouble and likely wasn’t going to make it. But… while it meant not getting to catch up with him, it did give me an opportunity to see the lovely Sarah (aka SarahWillBeSkinny) one last time as she was nice enough to come give me a ride over to Connie’s hotel.

She kind of owed me anyways for bailing on the roller coaster ride we were supposed to go on… (just kidding Sarah!). Though she promised me next time… I’m just thrilled for Sarah. She’s the first reconstructive surgery grant recipient from the WLSFA because of her part in setting up the first Meet & Greet, which pretty much directly led to the formation of the WLSFA in the first place. Can’t wait to see her again after her surgery.

So anyways, she gave me a ride over to the hotel where Connie Stapleton was staying at… we’d been talking a bit via email about the obesity issues she tackles with her training programs and how I wanted to find a way to work with her on some of these things. We talked for a bit over an hour before I had to catch my cab to the airport… and while in a way it felt sort of like an interview, it was also just a great conversation that I hope will lead to some great things down the road.

I get to the airport and since I had printed my boarding pass I headed straight for the gate. That’s then the fun begins. See, like a good bariatric patient… I carry a water bottle with me just about everywhere I go. This trip was no exception. It’s easy enough, bring an empty bottle, get through security, hit one of the fast food places by the gates and fill it up for the flight.

Empty is the operative word there.

I get through the body scanner (it was kind of over and done with before I even realized it and had the chance to decide if I wanted to opt-out or not…) but then on the other side of the conveyor they ask “Is this your bag?” holding up my backpack. “Yup.” I say… “Do you have a bottle in here that might contain a liquid?” the nice security lady asks. “Crep!” is what I thought… (well, something like that), “Oh, yea… sorry, I thought it was empty.” is what I actually say.

Honestly, I hadn’t thought about it. I didn’t use my bottle at all on Sunday… and when I was in the process of switching rooms I put it in one of the outer pockets and hadn’t really thought about it since.

So, I get escorted out and around the security area towards the restrooms where I need to empty the bottle and then come back through security. Not a big deal. I even get to go to the “employee line” instead of going back through the general line. So in no time flat I’m back at the x-ray machine… I don’t have to go through the body scanner, just a metal detector this time. Then it’s back to the other end of the x-ray machine waiting for my stuff when I hear the nice lady behind the screen call out “bag check!”.

“Crep.” Again.. it’s what I thought (or close enough), but I didn’t say it out loud.

So I get brought over to a table and my backpack and carry-on duffle get the body-cavity search, which is better than me getting it. What was the problem this time? A small snow-globe.

Yea… I didn’t think much of it. It was small, it was going to be a gift for G’s youngest daughter that has a small collection of them. It was one of those $3 trinkets that said “Vegas Princess” in it and was filled with water and glitter”. I figured it was smaller than my bottle that had my body wash in it, so it must be under the 3-oz limit, right?

Well, technically… yes, but apparently you can’t bring any sort of snow globe on a plane. I had sorta scanned the TSA website before leaving Minneapolis, but I was mostly looking at the stuff on how to pack my toothpaste and such. Never saw the section about snow globes.

On the plus side, this all chewed up a fair amount of time, so by the time I got to my gate I had just enough time to grab a sandwich and sit for a few minutes before they started boarding the plane. I had an aisle seat for the flight home… and also had a front row seat for this…

Yea, they’re making repairs to the plane while we’re boarding it. Ok, in all fairness, all he was doing was fixing the headphone jack in the armrest. Apparently someone had broken off their headphone plug in the jack. He got it fixed in plenty of time for us to get packed in and the flight to take off on time. This pilot wasn’t as much of a lead-foot as the guy that flew me out though. We got in ahead of schedule, but only about 10 minutes or so this time. Which worked out just fine as I was walking through the baggage claim area to the pick-up area just as I got the text from G that they had just gotten there as well.

So that pretty wraps up the trip. Mostly. I still have lots of thoughts about things from last weekend going through my head that I hope to address. Plus, there’s vendors to talk about… stuff to review… and just other “stuff”. I’ll try to trickle that stuff out to you over the coming days and even weeks… so stay tuned!

Yea, fine… I haven’t updated anything much for awhile, but guess what… I did a video update! And it’s a two-parter! Check it out below.

Part 1

Part 2

Be sure to check out the WLSFA (wlsfa.org) and get your tickets for the 2011 Meet & Greet

(Be sure to read Part 1 of Larry’s Story first…)

My wife Beth and I discussed having weight loss surgery in early 2008.  We had heard good things, and bad things about it.  As far as I know, we only knew one person who had actually had weight loss surgery.  That person was not very compliant, and didn’t receive much education about her procedure and follow-up.  She didn’t have a very good result, in fact she ended up having her band completely drained and is living with no restriction at all… and consequently little to no weight loss.

We didn’t want to be like that.  We didn’t want to fail.  From our research online we found that people who have gastric bypass surgery lose weight!  Compliant or not, they lose weight.  Not saying that a person couldn’t drink milkshakes and eat cake and ice cream, and defeat the surgery, they can.  But, a large percentage of people who have gastric bypass surgery lose a significant portion of their excess weight.  We knew that we aren’t the most compliant folks you’ll meet, so our only choice was gastric bypass surgery.

Prior to that time, our insurance company didn’t cover any “elective” surgery, such as weight loss surgery.  One day I was going thru the insurance companies website and found that they had changed their policy!!!  They had some stringent guidelines, but it was possible to get the surgery covered!

We started talking to our primary care physician about weight loss surgery in earnest in about July of 2008.  At the end of July, the company I work for announced that beginning January 1, 2009 our insurance was going to change.  We were being forced to change insurance carriers, to one that didn’t cover weight loss surgery.  We had about 5 months to jump through all the hoops and get the surgery done!  During this time we discovered the YouTube WLS community.  Going online and watching people tell about their trials and tribulations made ours a little less stressful.  Just to know that someone else had already been down this road.  We started our own YouTube channel.

It was a hectic couple of months.  We both were denied for surgery, but our surgeon personally called the insurance company and we were approved.  We ended up having our surgery at the end of the year with time to spare!  December 16th, 2008 was our rebirth day.  Our Surgeversery.

I think Beth and I are a little special.  We’ve been together since late 2001 and when I say together, I mean together.  We are basically inseparable.  There are other couples who have both had weight loss surgery, but I don’t personally know of any other couple who had their surgery on the same day.  It was pretty cool.

Because we both “deflated” together, she has lost over 100lbs and I’ve lost almost 150lbs, we didn’t have many of the issues that people who have the surgery alone do…  If someone flirts with Beth now, it tickles me almost as much as it does her.  And when some woman shows me a little extra attention, most of the time Beth has to point it out to me.  She loves it…  ( I’m oblivious to that sort of stuff…  I never had it before so I guess I failed to learn how to detect it!!!)

Weight Loss Surgery has been the best thing I’ve ever done for myself in my 54 years of life!!!  I’m totally prescription free…  Other than the vitamin supplements I take daily I’m done with meds…

Oh!  And I had those damned eyes fixed!!!  Laser surgery!  I haven’t tried yet, but I wonder if I could catch a baseball now???

Ok, a bit of an update for my 1-year post-op mark.

Be sure to check out the WLS Foundation of America, and keep your eyes out for more of my videos on BariatricTV.

Here’s my latest YouTube videos…

Cari (gastricbypassbarbie) tagged me in one of her recent videos, so besides a lil update on some stuff I tag three others…

I tagged Diana (dianilu), Kelly (smashed2k) and AJ (watchmegetskinny)

I also plug solo debut at BTV solo debut and the ourwls.com blog site.

And if you’re looking for a place to set up a blog, visit ourwls.com

Here’s my Week 51 Update…

Besides a quick update, I give some info on other projects I have going on…There’s the new features I’ll be doing for BariatricTV of course… so watch for more stuff there.

Then I’ll be on Backstage Pass Radio next week…

And finally there’s ourwls.com – I’ll be talking more about this to come, but for now I’ll let you know it’s a blogging site I’m working on where the common thread is weight loss surgery. In addition to individuals, blogs can be set up for Meet & Greets and other WLS related events that will allow for multiple admins to post updates for an event in a central location.

So watch the video, and check back here for more info on ourwls.com to come soon like.

Sort of by accident I came across this site a few weeks back, and then suddenly she’s popping up everywhere. Who? Diva Taunia, that’s who.

Here’s a copy of her bio from her website at divataunia.com

Diva Taunia is a professional vocalist, radio host, and activist for the weight loss surgery community.  For most of her adult life, she was morbidly obese at 300+ lbs.  It wasn’t until her weight began seriously affecting her health and her music that she began researching weight loss surgery.  After six months of research, she chose RNY gastric bypass and on 3/25/08 her surgery was performed by Dr. Donald Hess at Boston Medical Center.  To date, she has lost over 165+ lbs and continues to document her weight loss journey on her website, blog, and YouTube channel.  To watch Diva Taunia from 300+ lbs to now, please visit her YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/divataunia.

Now, on top of her YouTube channel, her official website at divataunia.com (where you can find out about her live musical performances), and her blog, you can also find her every Monday from 7-8:30PM Eastern doing her live talk radio show, the Backstage Pass Radio Program. Each week, the show features new music that showcases the Diva’s wide range of tastes, live interviews, weight loss surgey and gastric bypass topics and discussion, prize and contest give aways, product reviews, and much more.

Melting Mama is one of her regular guests (sometimes live, sometimes pre-recorded), and recently Antonia has been appearing to give updates on various Meet & Greets being planned. Another of the regular features she has is where she has on someone who has had WLS for her “WLS Lovely” segment. It’s a mix of interview, spotlight and general discussion about that person’s WLS journey.

Then there’s a portion of the show devoted to a specific topic and how it relates to the lives of those who have had weight loss surgery where listeners can call in and participate.

If you can’t catch her show live, shortly after it’s over you can catch it streaming, and there’s a full archive of past shows to spend time getting caught up on. You can also download the show and listen to on your portable player.

It’s a great lil show worth catching, and if all the stuff I listed above ain’t enough of a reason for you, be sure to check out the April 12 show when I’m scheduled to be on as the WLS Lovely.

Even though I’ve done a few videos with recipes and some other stuff, this is my first video update…

I give a bit of an introduction as well as giving some general impressions on my progress as I approach my 11-month post-op date. Oh, and talk about some NSVs I had out in Vegas.

There’s not enough time in the day for me to keep up with all the reading I like to do online… be it the WLS forums, paintball, tech stuff, food and cooking. Now you add in YouTube videos from all the WLS people I’m getting to know through twitter and such… and it’s… cripes… I need to win the lottery so I can do nothing but exercise and browse online.

Speaking of YouTube, I’ve contacted a few WLS type dudes on there to see if any would be interested in contributing stuff to the FFD site. It’s still my goal to bring in others to contribute here cause mine is not the only perspective on this. And as part of that, I’m also going to try and start sharing some of the videos I find while browsing around over there.

AJ, better known as watchmegetskinny, did a recent video that touched on the importance of support when going through .. well, whatever you’re going through basically. And since I’ve been focusing on that in preparation for some support group facilitation stuff I’m doing, I thought I would pop it up here.

His attitude on this topic does mirror mine quite a bit, and I’ve started bugging him to maybe do some regular contributions here on FFD… either writing or videos, he’s much more adept at the video thing than I am I think. He actually found me after I posted my applesauce demo video on drinking and eating, and is looking at doing his own take on it I believe.

So yea, I figured I’d try and nudge him a bit by including one of his other videos here for now.. heh.

This came up in a recent comment – someone asking if I had a YouTube channel… and, well, I do. You’ve noticed a few videos I’ve up up here (I hope). I had a personal page, but decided to do one specifically for formerfatdudes.com – which coincidentally enough you can find at http://youtube.com/formerfatdudes

Right now it’s just me – but I hope to entice some others to both write for the site here and add videos… so we’ll see. I’ve also contributed, and hope to do so again in the future to another channel started by Melting Mama – The WLS Reality -  that’s where the refried beans recipe is posted (linked to my channel via the favorites).

So go check them both out, and if yer a dude looking forward to, or looking back at your own WLS and would like to do a video for FFD, let me know!