Change is coming and I am excited. And scared. I've decided to pursue bariatric surgery in order to get rid of most (if not all) of my excess weight. We're talking a potential weight loss of 150 pounds...more than half my current body weight. With surgery, a lot of it will come off very quickly. Very quickly. I'm going to start counseling with a woman Pam Blum that several members of our family have counselled with. She's great and I already know her, so that makes me feel safe.
Why changing my physical appearnce makes me start looking at various areas of my life is interesting to me. Maybe because things are going to change...radically...and I want to be able to look back on each area for answers to how I got to where I am at so that I never go there again. The surgery will make it nearly impossible for me to get back to where I had been because my stomach pouch will nearly be the size of a small egg...and my intestines will have been re-worked so that much of it is bypassed (hence gastric "bypass") and fewer calories (and nutrients), making it impossible to absorb much of what I eat.
Why such a radical decision? Well, I finally faced reality and since I've been overweight since well, as long as I can remember it became very clear to me that dieting is not the method for me. I've dieted on Atkins, Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, low fat, high fat, low carb, high carb, fasting, etc., and yes the weight comes off...but it comes right back on, too. So my pursuing a physical deterrent (egg-sized stomach pouch), I will be forced to eat less and also forced to face whatever issues arise in my life (present or past) that cause me to want to shove food into my mouth. Should be an interesting journey.
I anticipate some profound thoughts and realizations to come up regaring myself, my parents, my friends and society in general as I embark on my journey to thinness and I want to document those as much as I can.
I think the thing that pushed me to the edge is after buying our new home (not "new" but "new" to us) I'm just exhausted physically and I want to be able to keep up with life and all of the things it has to offer me. I am tired of the physical barriers I experience because my body is huge. I'm going to be 50 in 12 months. I'd like to live the last half of my life in a body that helps me to be who I really am. So in shedding pounds, I'll also be shedding emotional issues.
On Fri Jan 5 I meet my surgeon. He is world known and directs the bariatric surgery department at Mills Peninsula Hospital, a center of excellence for bariatric surgery. They even have a bariatric wing. Gaurantees the gowns and bathrooms will be large enough for an obese person! Ha!
I also have to meet with a nutritionist who will go over the diet I will have for the rest of my life. I have a good friend whose had this surgery by the same surgeon, so I've got an idea of what it's going to be like.
So the journey is about to begin. In fact, I'm supposed to start eating differently now so as to weigh less at surgery and make my liver shrink so that laparascopic surgery has a better chance of occurring as opposed to open surgery. That means 2 weeks off work versus 4-5 weeks. Hmm. I could get a lot done at home in 6 weeks.
I'm studying the South Beach diet now because it sounds like a great diet and one similar to what I'd be on post-surgery.
More later!
