Hey fellow losers! At 6 feet and still with an hour glass figure, I've always been able to get away with having some extra poundage...especially in the African-American community where a few extra pounds is considered sexy and desireable. But recently when the scale was just shy of 300 lbs, I was mortified. How did I let it get to this point? And to bring it home, a friend and I went to Cancun on vacation and purchased an awesome tour that included snorkeling, rappeling, and zip-lining. Then they said the dreaded word--"scale". All of us had to get on the scale in front of everyone else and when I got on the scale and heard a flury of Spanish, I knew it couldn't be anything good. So our tour guide tried to be as inconspicuos as possible (bless his heart) when he pulled me to the side to tell me that they had to go and get a special harness for me from a nearby park and that I wouldn't be able to do all of the zip-lines. Talk about embarassing. That was it. I knew then I never wanted to experience that again. So I decided to have the weight loss surgery (WLS). Of course my insurance didn't offer it, so I was going to have to be self-pay, which definitely was a factor in deciding on the surgery. Anyone that knows me will tell you that I research to death any decision before I make it and WLS was no different. I looked at them all from the gastric balloon to gastric bypass and decided that the VSG was the best option for me. I had the surgery on Feb 2 in Tijuana, Mexico with Dr. Ramos-Kelly and patient coordinator, Trish (Please, please, please believe the hype about this woman. She truly is a god-send). I'll blog about my specific Mexico experience later, but the goals I have set for myself are so much more than just weight loss. They are more like affirmations and they are sectioned off into groups: CLOTHES: 1) I will not have to shop plus size 2) I will not have to ask a new store what size they go up to anymore 3) I will not have tons of clothes in my closet that I adore but don't have the heart to admit that I need to give away because I can't wear them TRAVEL 1) I will be able to fly without wonderinng if the person beside me is going to mind if I need to keep the armrest up 2) I will not have to worry about whether this flight will be the one where I have to ask for an seat belt extender 3) I will not let my weight determine what activities I do on vacation anymore (I used to look at what things don't have a weight limit and then decided from those) SELF 1) I will re-establish that great relationship with that lovely lady in the mirror that it took me so long to create.

I'm 9 days post-op and feeling pretty good. Haven't had any pain (other than teh gas and indigestion of course) since leaving the hospital. Hot liquids have been a little weird for me, so I've been mainly doing cold liquids. Ugh. I think my tongue has frost-bie. Looking forward to the blended/pureed phase, because I am soooo tired of liquids. All in all, I'm 15 lbs down from pre-diet to now, so I'm feeling pretty good. Yeahhhhh me!