Kicking the idea around and the background

I should have started this blog months ago. I thought about it frequently, but I never was sure if I had that much to say. Turns out, I do have A LOT to say! Not just about the physical part of this journey, but about the emotional side of things too.

Let's start with a few basics. I had gastric bypass on April 20th this year. It was not a decision I came to lightly. It was something I declined to do for years actually. But the sad truth of it was I was getting bigger and bigger, I was out of control. I needed help! I started using my husband's health insurance and it would pay for the surgery. I could say that I agonized over the decision for days or weeks, but that would be a lie. One day, I looked at myself in the mirror and said ENOUGH! I called and made an appointment the very next day.

That was in January. The day after my initial consult, I met with the nutritionist who laid out a plan for me. I needed 2 months of medically monitored weight loss, during which I would need to actually lose some weight. I needed to prove to the doctor and my insurance company that I could follow a diet plan. She gave me one simple task for the 1st month... to cut out all soda. I did that and more. I was so eager to prove myself that I dove into living a low carb lifestyle, which is what my surgeon says I need to follow. I started that new low carb lifestyle after the Super Bowl.

You may notice I keep using the word lifestyle. It's not a diet. It's a major lifestyle change. It's an overhaul. It requires different thinking and a different mentality. It's certainly not easy. I LOVE carbs, more accurately I LOVE chocolate and ice cream and sweets.  But somewhere along the way I made the decision that those things were not as important to me as getting healthy. I was tired. Tired of taking blood pressure pills, tired of being tired all the time, tired of being the fat girl, tired of wondering if chairs could hold my weight, and so on. It was exhausting just to get through each day.

This feels like my last chance. If I don't get control of my weight now, it will kill me. At 330 pounds, with high blood pressure and a history of diabetes in my family, the decline was inevitable. I knew what was in my future without a drastic change.