Okay, Tuesday was so exciting and drama filled I had to break it into two posts. I have made entries about "you know you are fat when..." This week the opposite has happen. Twice in one day I was told I needed to be fatter. First, by a friend that said I had the perfect personality for The Biggest Loser show if only I was a little fatter. Huh? Is that good? What personality is that? One that would make for good TV? Isn't that the annoying, outgoing, loud, low filter, won't take any crap, like to scheme person.....oh I get it. Okay. Kind of like my friend Tamese that won't let it go until I officially try out for Big Brother. The thing about that one is it seems that a lotta naughty stuff goes on there. I may be snarky and talk a big game but getting caught on camera doing the nasty of some sort with a 25 year old, yikes, so not good for the career or marriage. I would be the one walking into the room yelling "really people this is not an audition for porn, you do know this is called "Big Brother" which means there are cameras every where. Do you really think America is so dumb that making a tent on the bed with the blankets and when it looks like the blankets have what looks like a one sided teeter totter under it, do you really think they don't know someone is getting shagged?" And that we are all yelling "sluts" at our tvs. So no I won't try out for that one. The biggest loser maybe, except I need to be a little more obese and I am not sure I could tolerate Jillian for five minutes. Now Survivor I could do if it was not for the not eating, the bugs and the no showers. So back to the second "compliment" that I am not fat enough. I attended a seminar on weight loss surgery Tuesday night. First of all I went to the wrong Swedish in Issaquah, where I found a gal my age and her mother and an aunt also looking for the meeting. Once we figured out it was across town I told them I would lead them over there. Except they moved kind of slow and that annoyed me. I don't think they were that excited about the meeting. Finally got there and it was similar to my cardiology appointments. At my pacemaker checks I always feel so youthful in the waiting room because I am usually sitting there with 4 or 5 folks over the age of 70. And if I bring my cute little 8 year old son, watch out, I am like a rock start amongst those folks! So at this meeting of about 10 of us I was by far the thinnest. I was super nervous to walk in late when I saw the attendees thru the window, I thought they might stone me out of the room or eat me. The doctor was dynamic and certainly talented, well respected and knowledgeable. He was detailed and I liked the way he ran his program. It made sense and seemed the prudent way to assure the best results for his patients. Clearly I was only interested in the least evasive procedure, the lap band. I have been trying and trying to lose the weight I gained this past two years. It is now a medical emergency, I have to get my blood pressure down and other health annoyance would be cured by dropping the pounds. The lap band unlike gastric bypass does not do the work for you, you still have to diet heavily and exercise but it gives you that extra tool to control your hunger. Plus I learned at a certain bmi with my health history I now qualify for the insurance to pay for it. About half way thru the meeting there were some side conversations going on and I was talking to the man next to me in the back row. He looked exactly like Santa, beard and all. He actually seemed to have been researching this and brought up some points I had not thought of and I was able to ask the doctor what I thought were important questions. One of the pack I led over keeps turning to me and she says "can you please stop talking and asking questions because you shouldn't even be here!" I looked at Santa, shrugged, said "no I won't stop talking", in my head I said "bitch, really, you must be hungry to be that cranky, and hey another person thinks I am not fat enough, yeah me!" After the formal meeting I approached the doctor who was talking to Ms. Old Cranky Pant's Daughter. He made a comment to her about that she seemed a good candidate for the surgery and would have good results. Hee hee, he had missed the part during the meeting where she shared that she was currently banded, as in she had already had the surgery elsewhere. She was there to support her mom. Funny, the doctor is saying she would totally be a good candidate and she had already had the surgery a year ago...oops. When I talked to him it became clear that my BMI has to be at least 35 for the insurance to pay and if it is under 40 you have to have certain medical conditions. I have those conditions covered. It also means you jump thru a bunch of hoops for 3 months with monitored nutrition counseling, exercise training, etc. Hello if I had those tools I would probably lose enough to put me below 30 bmi then I wouldn't qualify but I would still be above my optimum while fighting not to gain back with all the medicines I deal with etc. So sounds like a fiscious cycle to me. Plus if I put what height my license says and my weight I fall closer to 32. If shrink a little since I have always been on the shorter side of 5'8 and wear heavy clothes, shoes and maybe hold my purse (he also suggested not peeing that day), when I weighed in we can maybe get me to like a 34.7. Which means I would not be able to lose a single pound during that three month wait period which seems so against everything I am trying to do. So yet again too fat and not fat enough. I can't win! The meeting was fascinating and educational. I of course could not help looking around at these severely obese people and feeling thankful I was not there (yet). But I was really tired by 9:00 from my earlier Cagney and Lacey reenactment with Wendy and I was having a hard time keeping my snarky self in check. Cause when the 300 pound plus woman started asking what specifically the rules were for after surgery I had a really hard time not yelling "uh duh, less food, more exercise. or you will puke" Hello, did you not take an anatomy class in High School, look at the picture if your bowel is now in smaller three pieces and the food can only go to track one and intestine A is now only so short, gee what do you think will happen if you over eat? Then when we were told that we would be on a 3 week liquid only diet after the surgery (that pretty much rules me out cause if I didn't get to chew something for 3 weeks I am pretty certain I will commit a crime of some kind). One lady asked if alcohol, red wine of course, would count towards the liquid diet. Again, where did that snort laugh come from in the back row? Santa? nope, that was me.