rickpete

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Today I feel better physically and emotionally than I have since I was 25 years old .  My weight has continued to decline slowly since my one year WLS anniversary a few months ago.  I have dropped 10 lbs over the last 2-1/2 months without trying to do so.  My diet and calorie intake have remained relatively constant for the past 7 or 8 months and I have been exercising a lot , mostly walking and bike riding. It would be fair to say that I am exercising more and more as a way of dealing with stress rather than eating myself into oblivion.  This has been a particularly stressful year with the protracted illness and passing of my mother-in-law, the death of my dear old dog, increased conflict at work, and constant worry about friends who are sick or troubled.  Yet it is the stress I have imposed on myself that I am struggling to manage.  I have come to accept that I am a different sort of guy than most and, as such, I have more emotional needs than some would deem seemly in a man.  If I am to thrive as a thinner person, I know that I have to find a way for more of those needs to be met or I will risk falling again into despair and my old eating habits.  The internal stress comes from recognizing the need for change for the sake of my own emotional well-being while also seeing that making those substantive changes in my life will likely diminish the lives of those I hold dear.  At present I am looking at interim solutions and incremental changes in my day to day life that I hope will one day give way to more dramatic changes.  I am convinced that somewhere along the way a more comfortable balance will be reached.  For now I am actually healthy and feeling hopeful about my future. 

In the past month I have gone to two WLS seminars to answer questions from prospective WLS candidates about my experiences.  Those have been very positive experiences, albeit with a couple of unexpected moments......my surgeon wanted to show people my laproscopic RNY scars and one woman wanted a closer look......like from less than a foot away.  After that particular seminar, another woman wanted to feel the loose skin around my middle.   I didn't scuttle away in embarassment in either case and for a guy who couldn't stand to even look at himself in the mirror two years ago, I must say that I handled myself pretty well.  I plan to continue going to those seminars as a way of giving back because so much has been given to me on this journey.   It is a journey I would gladly take again...only sooner.

RP