As a compulsive/emotional eater and bulimic, there are more excuses to eat than reasons not to. My weight loss surgery was just a tool in the toolbox and not a cure for the obsessive-compulsive that runs around inside my head some days and tells me I need food to stop her from going insane. Sometimes I hear this voice inside my head that almost sounds like Audrey, Jr. from the musical version of "Little Shop of Horrors," telling Seymour - "FEED ME!" The problem is, just like the plant - I'll grow exponentially if I give in to the whims of the voice.

I go to my annual post-op check-up on Wednesday, and just like I have for the last 8 years, I'm already planning my post visit binge. I told myself today, that's not going to happen. I'm not going to stop and eat over the fact that I'm up 5 pounds, or the scale isn't showing exactly what I want it to. The inside of my head is like it's own asylum and the squirrels have been let out of their cages. The irrational thoughts, wrapped around food are amazing sometimes. I wonder what Freud, Jung or Adler would have to say about the need to control what I eat, how I eat it, when I eat it, and whether or not I'm in the company of others when I do. I've read differing opinions about addiction to food and eating disorders that I can surmise and analyze all I want to. It all comes down to the fact now, that I have no choice in (eating). Self-knowledge avails me nothing. I have had WLS and have this tool, but choosing to use it is up to me.

I belong to a 12-step recovery program that allows me a daily reprieve from my obsession over food, alcohol, sex, and people/places/things. Somehow I haven't seemed to be able to turn my food addiction, and obsession over in surrender. Although I know that drinking alcohol won't solve anything, somehow I still compulsively stuff my emotions down carbohydrates as if the sugar will be like "momma kissing booboos," and everything will be all better. The only thing that changes is my obsession gets worse, the scale jumps upward and my obsession over the weight gets worse. I get back onto the rollercoaster I thought I jumped off in 2004.

This year, my goal is to stay off the rollercoaster and start walking beside it. My daughter and I have been riding bikes, walking and doing yoga. I am a compulsive eater/bulimic and a work in progress. I'm giving up control today and sharing my obsession with you in hopes that I can walk through this week without binging/purging or stuffing my fears.

Nine years ago today - WOW - nine years ago today, I went under the knife. The memory is still so vivid, I see myself so clearly in the size 3X denim jumper toddling my way into Spectrum Hospital in Grand Rapids, I was so prepared and so sure that that was what I wanted and needed - finally - I had arrived.

it wasn't so much the walk up to the old hospital building that meant I'd arrived on time, nor the pass through the doors to admissions, it was the journey to get there that began when I was a pudgy child put on my first diet. At the behest of my mother, I went to the doctor at about age 10 for a booster shot, (back then we could go by ourselves) and on the way out the door my mom said, "ask him to put you on a diet when you leave." Being the dutiful child and always wanting to please my mom, I did. I got a 1200 calorie diet and jumped onto the roller coaster. That day is etched into my memory as clearly as the day of my surgery - as are many others just like it. They represent the milestones on the path toward recovery from my food addiction, bulimia and alcoholism. It still amazes me how God works to build me back  into someone He knows I already am, but who I worked so hard to tear apart.

The journey of my addiction didn't end the day I walked through the doors of Spectrum Hospital either, it was a new beginning. I've seen those billboards for bariatric surgery clinics that claim to give people "A whole new life," a claim never more true. This most certainly gave me a whole new life. And, I knew it was coming. I just didn't know how. From the moment the priest came into my room that morning, anointed me with holy oil in a ritual we Catholics call Sacraments of the Sick, I was at peace and knew that my life would be different from that moment. It certainly was.

I quickly lost 100 pounds, but I also lost my best friend. I didn't know fat could be my best friend, I didn't know food was either and I lost that, too. I didn't know so much about myself, and I found out the hard way. I wouldn't have it any other way. If it had been easy, I might not have kept the weight off for the past nine years, nor found the rest of the tools I needed to keep building the path forward. The things I've found on this journey have been incredible, and if I'd seen them immediately, I would have taken for granted the gift and tossed it aside. I think this way - the gift has been much easier to hold onto - to take from as I have been able to understand and to receive as a gift.

This has truly been an incredible journey, and one I know will not end anytime soon. The surgery was a milestone on the path - a big milestone, and one I couldn't live without.

For all of the years I was obese, I was never shy about putting on a bathing suit. Of course I wore the kind that had some kind of skirt or blousy top to make a vane attempt at hiding what was underneath, but I am a water and sun lover. I scoffed at those skinny women who would say things like, "I just can't even put on a swim suit until I lose 10 pounds." Bologna! I needed to lose a hundred, I'd laugh, but that wasn't keeping me off the beach! I'd even go so far as to be indignant about it. "I'll show you," and off I'd go in something designed to tuck and cover, but not really. I knew I wasn't hiding anything.

Since my surgery, I have put on my swim suit every summer, and remember the first time I was able to put on a two piece for the first time. I felt like I was on top of the world. I wore a top that barely covered what really shouldn't have been hanging out, but I felt so wonderful I did it anyway. I got sun burned in places that had never seen the sun before. Since I still had skin hanging in a few places I didn't want anyone to see, my choice of bottom still had a skirt, but I almost couldn't contain the rush within me that I was wearing a two-piece suit.

Somehow that message from when I was about 6-years old, when my mom went and bought my sister and me our summer swim suits had become such a deeply engrained resentment, it was like I was finally vindicated. We were in the backyard of our house, the grass was freshly mowed, the summer sun was peaking and my mom came home with a two piece for my sister and a pink tank-suit for me. "You're too chunky for a two piece," she said to me. My sister, a year younger, and only about 10 pounds thinner, got what I thought was a cute little swim set. I loved the sun and I loved the water, but I really loathed those snarky comments about being too "chunky," or "chubby," or needing to "lose 10 pounds,"

I'm almost 9 years post-op and have kept off all but 7 pounds of my 100 pound weight loss, and I still like to wear a two piece bathing suit. I've had the skin removed from around my mid-section, but I still have extra on my thighs and upper arms. My love of water hasn't changed, either, and I recently decided to take scuba diving lessons. I don't have to worry about looking good in a wet suit - nobody does. Now that I've lost the weight, become more active and am enjoying life, I have found something else I love, though.

The water is a whole new adventure now, and in learning scuba, I also find I have a bit of a buoyancy issue. My extra skin and that remaining fat, floats. All those years of being told I'd be so pretty if I'd just lose 10 pounds, the dive master actually told me the first night of class - "Let's put some more weight on you!" I nearly drowned laughing.