Today I am sitting here at my desk at work thinking back over all the things I had to go through to get to this point in my weight lost. This has not been an easy road to travel, but I thank God every single day for the endurance to follow it through. My first initial visit with my surgeon seemed like yesterday! I was explained all the things I had to do in order for my insurance to approve my operation. I felt so doubtful once I left his office about having the surgery. I've learned to pray first to seek God's will for my life, and I knew something needed to change in my life. It was not the will of God for me to continue to be over weight and so very unhappy with the person I was. I asked God to give me the strength and the will power to do whatever it took for my insurance to approve my surgery. Once my appointments were made with the different offices, things started to roll by pretty quickly. The longest process for me was the six month weight lost requirement. I was really angry for some reason with the fact of being on another diet! I knew diets did not work for me on a long term basis, therefore I really thought it was a waste of my time.(LOL)

To be perfectly honest, I just wanted to be banded and start my new life. Looking back now, there were a lot of things I should have done differently and taken the advantage of but I didn't. One of the main steps in my pre-lap band process was my psych evaluation. I was told from the very beginning the hardest part in this process was going to be the mental aspect. Surely, I was mentally prepared to handle having the band and everything that came with it. Looking back now, I was not as prepared as I had convinced myself to be. I really learned a lot about my band the hard way. I had to learn a lot of different things by trail and error.

I would read so many blogs and hear others say to listen to your band. I really had no idea what they were talking about, but thank God today it has all made sense to me. Having this band for me is a day to day learning experience on what I should or should not do. I am finally to a point that food is not controlling my life, and I can say no to food and be okay with that. I have learned to eat only what I need and it's okay to save or trash the rest. I no longer feel obligated to eat every single thing that is placed on my plate nor do I feel like dessert is always eaten after a meal. My quality of life has changed so much in many ways. I do know that I have to finish this race at my own pace and continue to be focused on my food choices. This is really a life style change and there are no quick fixes to losing the weight. Today I am very proud of what I have accomplished. I have never lost 50 pounds in my entire life, but today I have done just that.

Hooray for ME!