Ok I have been reading posts and blogs lately and it seems like right after getting banded a lot of people go through an emotional upheaval and wonder if they can do this or if they have done the right thing.

I'm not banded yet so I can't begin to understand that...or wait...maybe I can't understand the banded part but I really can understand overwhelming decisions. Not the same but maybe this will help.

I was a 2 pack a day smoker for 19 years or so. I smoked through both pregnancies (which still makes me cringe) and I didn't care until I realized that my oldest son was sick all the time. I was at the end of my pregnancy with the youngest, it was November and cold as crap, and I knew I was having a scheduled c-section. So I asked my parents what did they think about coming to my apt and getting all the ash trays and lighters out while I was in the hospital. My thought was if I was going to be in there not smoking for 5 days then what would be the point of keeping it up after I got out? I knew I wasn't going to haul my butt downstairs and out the door to stand in the cold and smoke after just having a c-section. So that's what I did.

And then I came home to the reality of taking care of a 19 month old and newborn after just having surgery and all by myself. No help. It was nightmarish honestly. I had bad postpartum on top of the quitting smoking. There were times when I could have cheerfully strangled someone for a smoke. I cried a lot and asked what did I do to myself? My best friend said she couldn't do it because she just couldn't fathom not ever being able to smoke again for the rest of her life...and then the light came on...

My Dad offered me a lot of really good advice that he has gotten from being in AA. He's been sober 14 years now. And he told me not to look at the big picture but only look at what I could handle today...can I say that I am not going to smoke for the next 5 minutes. I could do that and the picture looked a lot less overwhelming. Now I can say almost 4 years later that I am still a non smoker and I'm pretty sure that I won't have a smoke for at least the next few days. Can't garuntee longer than that because I can't predict the future.

Where I am going with this long story is this is the same approach I am using now in my pre/pre op diet that my doctors want me to work on. I can say that in the next 5 minutes that I will not eat half a pan of brownies. But I'm not going to say that I will never eat them again because that is just too much for most of us to handle. So if you can say that you won't eat the bad, and keep eating the good in whatever increments of time that you are comfortable with, it just might make ever thing seem doable.

The approach works obviously a lot of people have quit drinking with those tools. I am thinking that with the band it would be a bit easier because I won't be able to eat half a pan of brownies. Or a whole Big Mac. And later on down the road when me and food have come to a better understanding instead of a co-dependent relationship, then and only then, will I contemplate maybe having that brownie, but only a small one.

Just like my philosophy with stopping smoking, I am not going through all of this for nothing. I want results and I am determined to get them.