Here I Go.....

Well after spending a lot of time looking for an outlet or someone to express what I am going through this is where I am. Having seen several others who have made the decision to take control of their life and talked about this way I have decided to follow suit. What you read here is my story, it's not pretty and not something that I am really proud of. But if this goes as I hope, by the end of the journey I will be a better person.

I will be having surgery, lap-band, on May the 5th, 4 days from now. I am nervous, worried, anxious and feeling a lot of other things. This has been affecting my life and relationships since the day I made the commitment to do this.

I am worried about the changes I have to make. I know that I have to do this, I would like to live a long life and the path I was on was not getting me there.

Time for some honesty. I weighed 352 pounds on the 28th of February when I went to see the surgeon. I don't know if this was the heaviest I have ever been, but it is the documented heaviest. So that is my starting point. I have to face the reality of it. That made me morbidly obese. MORBIDLY OBESE. You would think those words alone would scare a person into doing something, but those words have been associated with me for many years and I never cared. I never saw myself as fat. I thought I was just a big guy. I would move up in clothing sizes and would chalk it up to getting older not fatter. Basically I was in a lot of denial about reality. I enjoyed life and all it offered. I ate to excess, made poor choices about what to eat and sat around a lot doing nothing that just added to the mess.

My wife would point out to me in various ways how I was becoming fatter and fatter and I just ignored it. For that I have to tell her I am sorry. She cared about me and tried to help me but I didn't listen. Self centered I guess is one way to look at it. Stupid is how I care to view it. So Liz, I am sorry for not listening and doing something sooner.

So I saw the surgeon and started towards this week's surgery. First steps were relatively easy. Classes with a dietician, meeting with a psychologist and taking a class that teaches you about the surgery and what to expect. It was after meeting with the dietician that reality set in. She told me about my pre and post-surgery diets. Man what a change. But at the time I thought I can handle this. It was after this though that I began to change. I realized that I was indeed fat,I realized that I had an addiction to food and I realized that I was afraid to change. But I didn't let people in on this, instead I became angry about it and that came out to others. Not a good thing obviously.

After meeting with the psychologist I learned that this was something that people on this path often face. It has taken me 45 years to get here and basically overnight I am changing everything. Still that doesn't excuse the anger I projected out towards people.

So now I am here, talking about my problem and sharing it with anyone who cares to look in. Mostly I hope that I can talk about this with others. Maybe I can get things out on here and then move out to talk about them with people in my world. Feel free to comment on anything I have to say. I welcome the feedback.

I will end each of these with some stats. SW (Starting Weight)  CW (Current Weight) GW (Goal Weight)

SW: 352  CW: 314.6  GW:220

KUBob