Things are going well here. Finally just joined a gym, so I can get back in the swing of exercising. Up to a few weeks ago I was walking between the cold and traveling for work my schedule is all screwed up! Great way to kick off the new year. For those who dont know, I have been "Addicted" to exercise in the past. Ironic, no? It's one of the main reasons I believe  my last weight loss attempt failed. I set myself up in such a way that I was exercising 1 to 1-1/2 hours per day, 7 days a week. When I could not longer maintain that pace, my weight loss blew up and so did my weight. I have been very reluctant to make exercise primary in my plans for that reason BUT the Dr. says do it and so I am going to incorporate exercise in some reasonable manner.

This being the holiday season I thought I'd get by just fine, bot was I wrong. Head Hunger is king. I have never been so frustrated before. Like I said I thought I had things under control. We have a large family and we entertaine folks this time of year. That means lots of food, all my favorite dishes. Or what WERE my favorite dishes. Now even if I try a lil here or there, I either can't eat it physically or I just don't want it. Of course no problem eatin BAD cookies, so i have to physically seperate myself from them to keep from eating more than one or two (3? in order to maintain complete honesty). Definitely a non-no. This too shall pass.

Hope you all are doing well this holiday season!

If Attitude and Knowledge are at the top of the list, then building a Support Network is next. It's imperative that you do this. I can't tell you how many times that has saved my ass. I know that we all come from different places. All support will not be the same or from the same place. Regardless you need to build this up as much as possible before surgery. I spent lots of time with folks who already had this operation and asked tons of questions.

In my case my support network started with my wife and kids then expanded to:

Close Relatives
Close Freinds
Boss and Managment
Work Friends
My Surgeons Support Group
Local Support group
and of course OH



Like I said it has helped a lot. Now I have hit over 100 pounds lost since my first consult. About 50 before and 50 after. Funny how it took 5 month to lose the first and 5 weeks to los the latter :). My pouch continues to change and develop. Lots of fun. Ugh! Believe when people say this is hard, but worth the effort.

New update. It’s been a few weeks since I last posted on the blog. So far so good. Yeas I would do this again and no it wasn’t as bad as I thought, just harder.   I’m down about 91 pounds since I started my pre op back in May, 37 lbs since surgery. Right now I’m losing about 4 lbs per week. I’ve lost something like 30% of my excess body weight so far. Way ahead of the goal the Dr. set for me. As of yesterday I am on Stage 5/Maintenance per my NUT. This means that I am on my own cut loose and looking for trouble lol.   If Attitude is the number one thing I think you need, then next comes information. If you are looking into this surgery educate yourself. Talk to pre-ops, post-ops, Drs. Nurses, read the websites get your facts straight. This is no easy way out BUT it is a great tool to be used to change your habits and ultimately your life for the better. There is so much info out there I learn new stuff every week. Plus it’s way different when you are on the inside looking out.   In my journey I realized very quickly my Honeymoon period is a little shorter than some others and I am dealing with that now. I’ve had very little in complications. I can eat almost anything. Scares the hell out of me. However one thing I can’t do, is eat much of anything. So I’d say the last week has been a great introduction to what not to do: Don’t eat too much, too fast or too big. All lead to very uncomfortable circumstances. In my mind all good, because it is teaching me to follow the plan, but at first I had such trouble I fell back to shakes.   The NUT knocked some sense into me and now I’m back to food with a new attitude, working through the hard part. Long term I’m told the shakes are a poor substitute for food and will lead to less weight loss or more weight gain if I don’t watch it. Too much of a slider food. Too easy to get easy calories. If I took advantage of or abused that I could double my intake of food and still be hungry. Then over compensate by eating more food.   That’s it for now! w/b

My back story is that I have always been obese for as long as I can remember, except this one time in 1999 where I determined I would lose weight since I didn't want WLS. I lost over 100 lbs at the time. As in the past I couldn't hold it and ended up gaining weight. My last know weight after that time was july of 2002 at 359. Well today I officially have rolled bac k the clock to 2002, I am now at my lightest weight in 8 years.

It's interesting to me how "the same" I feel. I am approaching a big milestone of 100 pounds lost on this journey. Well I am at over 80 now and assume I will be at 100 in the next several weeks. Yet I feel "the same". Sure there are little things and big ones too that I can clearly see. Like tons of clothes that fall right off me now instead of packing me like a sausage. So there obviously is progress, but so much of this is in the head.

Regardless 2002 I salute you!