ObesityHelp

My life is good: It's been two months since I started this Blog and yet I have only posted once to date. Today I hope to change this poor trend of mine and start posting my daily ranting.

Background on me: I am married to a ZenBot and happy. I have a monster of a daughter with her that just turned 2. I also have a step-bunny-daughter that just turned 11. I work in IT for a large company and go to school full time working on a degree in programming. My current BMI is 51.1 and I am not happy about this at all! See below -

The Truth of me:

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My Current Thoughts: Three months ago I started having serious thoughts about Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery. I have always had those easy out thoughts; sure, but when my second doctor brought up the surgery as a means to losing weight and getting my life back in order, I had to take pause and give this option a serious investigation. This is not an easy road for me nor an easy out as some would say. The post-surgery diet sucks along with all of the possible side effects, but my fears of dying young, of not even being able to chase my 2 year old down the beach, and always waking up in pain, etc, is worse.

My insurance company demands I spend 6 months under a doctors care to lose weight before they will sign off on the surgery. The simple fact that I have been talking to my doctors about my weight for years as my weight goes up and down does not matter. The simple fact is they are out to prevent us large boned people from getting the surgery and make us jump through hoops to get it. Six months of doctor’s visits only to talk about diets, exercise, BMI’s, and my new goals. There is also a format to this madness and if you miss a month or the format is done incorrectly, you need to start from scratch again and do another 6 months. I am currently in my 4th month and starting my pre-surgery tests and procedures. Once my 6 months are completed they look at my doctor’s reports, review, and then grant or deny me the right to get the surgery. I am one of the lucky ones who only need 6 months of these visits. Some of the insurance companies require you to do 18 months of time before they will even review your request and again, 15 months in and you miss a visit, you would need to start over again. I am hoping my process goes smoothly as I have read some horrible insurance stories about having to fight for the right to get this surgery. We shall see.

The Near Future: I need to start eating and exercising now before my surgery just to get my body into shape for the post-surgery work I will be required to do. I have foot problems due to a tendon injury and need to get to a point where I can walk the night of the surgery for 15 minutes even in all of the pain. I need to get my body acclimated to not having the Coke and crap I shovel into my mouth daily. I need to get my cardio up for my coming work outs and get myself acclimated to moving more, not being that couch and computer spud that I am currently. Life needs to move forward and I need to prepare myself for my post-surgery lifestyle.

My family and I signed up for a gym membership back in December of last year and I went daily for awhile. I was very excited for this new possibility in my life, working out and feeling better about myself, and dived right in 200%. I ended up hurting my foot within two weeks and in the end stopped going at all. Swimming I love because my foot never hurts when I swim but the gym did not have a pool so I went and hit the treadmill walking for about 30 minutes and then tried the other tools of the gym as well but nothing serious. I did not have the will-power to really give it my all but I did try. We just cancelled the gym membership a few weeks ago but I am paid for the next two months so maybe I will find the motivation to get there and do what I need to do to make my post-surgery life easier on myself now.

Ok, that is all for now, I am baking a chocolate-chocolate-chocolate cake with my step-daughter (she is baking it really), and I need to get back just to make sure we do not burn the house down.

Piecing it all together, one can of Coke at a time. I am fat, ok obese; we shouldn’t start this out with a lie. I am 400 pounds of fat; a wee BMI of 51 at 6’4 (maybe 6’2 since it seems my fat is dragging me down) and life is good in that not out there running 10 miles a day sort of way. Let me start by telling you I am healthy, mostly, and that which has gone wrong with me is due to my poor eating habits, lack of exercise, and horrible will power around food when stress, anger, or any non-funny emotion is running wild.

My weight has been up and down my entire life, sometimes good, sometimes bad, but almost always something to be working on. I claim the Atkins way of dieting and have had good success in the past. On December 1 st, 2001 I kicked off my last good diet run and went from 450lbs down to 309lbs by April 1 st, 2002. After I was down to 350lbs I started scuba diving on a weekly basis and found great joy in an active life. Shortly after this I met my wife, fell madly in love, and she soon became pregnant with my amazing daughter which is one of the reasons I am starting this site. The nine months of pregnancy was rough and the first six months after even more so. I soon started gaining it back and here we are now in 2006 and I am once again at that 400lb mark looking at my options once again.

So here I sit putting together a site to chronicle my choices in the coming months. Let us begin… Jan 06'