RSVP in Place for the Big Event

I love planning parties, hosting parties, and attending parties. I love big events, holidays, and celebrations. My best event ever is in 2 weeks.  I have been planning for this event for 9 months. On November 7, 2019, I will attend a sterile gala to receive a major tool to complete the journey to tie my shoes. I am having Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, weight loss surgery.

Why gastric bypass?

I got on the scale in January of 2019 and read 294 lbs.  I am a mere 5' 2", and at that time only 6 lbs away from 300 pounds.  It was alarming but not unfamiliar. In the last 10 years, I fluctuated between 255 lbs to this profound 294 lbs. Like some of you, I have been on every type of commercial, doctor advised, and latest fad or popular restrictive diets. I was successful for a some good weight loss anywhere from 22 to 40 lbs. I spent quite a bit of money as well.  I paid for gym memberships for exercise equipment use along with exercise classes on foot and in water. My biggest obstacle was hunger.  My next obstacle was emotional eating. However, in January of 2019, my dignity and the reality of my future life came into clear focus.

The embarrassing details were as follows:

• Personal Hygiene
• Exhausted after each shower
• Short of breath while shaving my legs
• Unable to stand for long lengths of time in shower
• Sometimes not enough strength to wash hair but just my body
• Didn't want to takes showers anymore for the strain of moving my weight around
• Weight Fatigue
• No energy or desire to get out with my husband or family
• Somehow had energy to attend lunches with friends
• Relied on family members to retrieve things for me and get my meals
• Opted to have my husband dress me after a long day or in the morning due to heaviness of lifting limbs and moving my body
• Clothing Fails
• I was finally fed up with big solid single color, no print size 4x T shirts.
• My slip on shoes were splitting at the sides.
• I could not get warm enough in the winter because thick coats were uncomfortable and bulky.
• I chose to wear thin zip up hoodies or thin cardigans to not look so fat.
• I wanted to wear athletic shoes to walk and hold my feet secure but I couldn't bend or reach my shoes to tie them. To do so was quite the feat. 
• Vanity and health
• I desired to wear more modern and feminine clothing.
• I developed type 2 diabetes this year.
• I struggle with thyroid, blood pressure, Fibromyalgia, and an uncommon auto immune disease.  Weight loss could improve my symptoms.

Funny thing is overweight people have similar lists like I just gave, yet they like me find it hard maintain the focus and carry on to successful weight loss and keep it off.  There are many reasons but none that seem to matter to me, because truth is diagnoses, daily struggles, and shame were not enough to stop me from overeating and sticking to a healthy food plan. The truth is something just clicks in your brain and your mind suddenly is ready, and committed.  I wish counselors, parents, husbands, loved ones, and friends were motivational enough.  They just aren't.  You just have to wake up and know that the time is now.  Not "feel" it but "know" it.  

If you found this blog, and want to follow, you will have documentation of my journey to tie my shoes.  I will share pictures. I will share struggles.  I will share more background of this 9 month process to where I am today...Day one of my 2 week liquid diet prior to surgery.  A strict but doable diet necessary to shrink my liver in order to accommodate my surgical procedure.  

I hope you will find my blog entries funny, candid, entertaining and most of all inspiring for some of you considering Gastric Bypass or other weight loss surgery. It hasn't been easy. It has been revealing and difficult these past 9 months.  

Time for a luxurious protein shake with 1/4 cup peaches and skim milk, whizzed in my Ninja for a bazillion seconds so not a fleck of fruit is detectable.  

I hope to consistently post daily but for sure it won't be because life happens. However in saying that I may post 2 times a day.  This is really a diary and documentation of my journey to weight loss for me but if a few of you want to hang out to cheer me on or consider this procedure for yourself then please follow this blog. 

I love a good story....except mine will be true including the raw and real details here. I will share about emotional eating, family gatherings, and other experiences along the way.  

Just for Fun:

"I tried every diet in the book. I tried some that weren't in the book. I tried eating the book. It tasted better than most of the diets." Dolly Parton