...and the journey begins!

I've always been successful at anything I've put my mind to. If I decide I want to do something, I work hard and I get it done. I want a great marriage. I work hard and am super intentional, therefore I have a great marriage. When I was working, I worked hard and would knock it out of the park. I work really hard to raise respectful children with good manners. My kids are great kids.  I wanted to be a homeowner, so I saved, got really disciplined and bought a house. Now I'm not saying all of this to be boastful. I know that I could not have done any of these things without Christ being the center of my life, but had I not done my part I wouldn't have gotten far at all.

With all of this success, I still struggle with my weight. It's the one thing that no matter how hard I try, I can't seem to get control over.  I can't even count how many journal entries I have that start with "This is it." Shortly lived, I get back into my old habits of eating the wrong things and not exercising. Now on top of all that I deal with several diagnosis: fibromyalgia, bursitis and arthritis. These things keeping me in terrible pain almost always. I fight through and go to spin class at 5 am and eat all the right things for the rest of the day. Then I wake up the following day and my body is angry with me. None of the pain meds work that will allow me to function throughout the day and I refuse to lay in the bed all day. So I push past it. This works for awhile until it gets unbearable and I have to lay in the bed. Feeling like a failure I almost always turn to food. My comfort.

This has become my pattern. So about 2 years ago I started to research bariatric surgery. At first I wasn't interested, thinking that this was just the easy way out. After my research I realized that it wasn't the easy way out at all. In fact, the only easy part was the surgery itself. After the surgery, was the hardest work ever! So I prayed and I asked God if he was cool with this (I mean I was reorganizing my piping). After I got His okay, my husband and I talked about it at length. He was also in full support. I went to therapy to change my thinking about food. Before I decided to do this I needed to get my mind ready for such a dramatic change. So after all of this I started the process of approval for the surgery 9 months ago. Fast-forward to today and I have been approved.

On October 27, (6 days) I will be having gastric-bypass surgery. I don't want it to be a secret, so what better way to get the word out then through a blog. I know some of you will say, "I don't think you should get it. Your so tall, you don't look like you need it. When I think of gastric bypass, I think of those really heavy people." Well, I have become one of those really heavy people. No matter what your shape is and how you appear to look to others, there is nothing like the sting of getting on a scale and it saying...320 lbs. That's my reality people and I've decided to do something about it...and the journey begins!!!!!