I blog to remember. I have this amazing ability to remember all of the good things: good memories, funny stories, positive people. I also have an amazing ability to forget all of the suffering, sadness, and embarrassment in life. That being said, I want to document my first week (and beyond!) here so that I can both remember what I went through and hopefully share my story to help others.

First, a little history. I have been overweight my entire life. When I was younger (until I was about 17) I played softball year round so even though I wore an XL in everything I was strong, I was fast, I was athletic and active and toned. I didn't see a problem with who I was. I was made fun of on occasion (small occasions, really), but no one really escapes MS/HS without a bit of teasing. When I left school and entered the college/work period of my life from 18-23 I quit working out, quit running, quit playing sports, and was left with a sedentary lifestyle and my old eating habits. As we all know calories make all the difference and I was putting in thousands, and not burning, well, any. I ballooned up from 180/190 to 230/240.

I had great family members and super supportive and loving friends that never said anything--they loved me for me. I never experienced the "tough love" or fear or hate or judgement that people believe come with being overweight. I've been lucky to be defined as curvy--my weight is evenly proportioned and leave me with curves in the right places so that helped me to avoid the negative stereotypes as a whole. At 22/23 I began to want to change. To wear clothes off the rack, to dance all night without exhaustion, to, well, all of the superficial things that a 22 year old craves, lol. Thus began my yo-yo diet and exercise track that would last seven years.

I have done it all. Jenny Craig, Nutrisystem, Bars, Fasts, Cabbage Diets, Phentermene, All Diet Pills (OTC and Perscribed), Training after Trainer after booth camp after gym after gym after gym, online support groups, cell phone support groups, workout buddies, running buddies, snacking, grazing, 3 big meals, 6 small meals, shakes only, liquid diets, Paleo, Atkins, Sugar free, gluten free, carb free...and so many other things that I cannot mention. I fluctuated between 215 and 270 for seven years. Seven.

2013 was my highest weight at a start of 270. I was miserable. I was in pain. I felt like a failure--even with an amazing job where I was rewarded for my hard work, a master's degree, an amazing boyfriend, and great family/friend support structure, my weight was making me suffer. I hired a nutritionist and a trainer who i met with 4 times a week. Within 3 months I was down to 235 and six months later I was still at 235 but was officially running 3 to 4 miles an hour 4 times a week. I was strong. I was doing burpees and cardio sets, inclines and sweat sessions--It was amazing. AMAZING! At the end of the year, I had put in 16,000 and was back at 245. I had lost all faith in my ability to maintain a successful training habit because of the amount of food I was eating.

I knew something had to change. With that, I began to look into WLS in January. I knew my Achilles Heel: I can work out, I can run, I LOVE to sweat and to train, I can buy healthy food. My problem was in my inability to stop when I was full. To eat 1000 calories of healthy food makes them unhealthy. I researched multiple places and options and, after seeing that Gastric/Sleeve was too drastic for me, choose the Lap Band.

I went to True Results March 18th. Finished all of my test, pre-op appointments, psych evals by April 4th. I was out of town for two weeks, and then, on May 5th, had my surgery scheduled for June 4th.

My next blog is going to be all about the pre-op diet, the pre-op day, and the day (and night) of surgery!

Please feel free to leave notes/comments--all support helps!

JB