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Okay, venting shall now occur and I consider this fair warning! So I realize that I should be grateful that (for the most part) my friends, coworkers, and family are behind my 100% on this surgery. It definitely takes down the stress level and for those who look down on me for it I have no problem walking away. I've been going through the hoops and am almost done with all my classes/tests. In fact, all I have is the EKG (Monday!) and the support group meeting (3/8!) and I'm done pending final clearance by the insurance company. So why am I all "bitchy Lyra" right now? For the last few weeks all any of my friends want to talk about is the surgery. Again, I tell myself that I am happy that they're so curious and supportive...but it feels that anytime we get together somebody brings it up and they continually ask me if I'm scared/nervous/excited. They can't seem to believe me that no, I'm not scared. They ask me if I'm going to miss eating, etc. I dont really want to talk about how I'm worried that I might have emotional upheavel for awhile afterwards as I go from food being my emotional blankie to just something that I eat to survive. I feel so mean spirited and hypocritical, but I'm getting really frustrated with them. I am more than just a weight loss surgery. Talk to me about horrible monster/zombie movies, my art classes, work, my hobbies, my bucket list, my desire to play the violin...anything other than my surgery. I have this nagging fear that after it they're going to want daily updates on my weight loss. I know that it's up to me to have boundaries but this is just maddening. I love these people dearly and don't want to snap at them but I'm so irritated right now. Perhaps there is such a thing as being too supportive? God, what an oxymoron. Anybody else have this happen to them? Okay, rant over. On the flip side I had my chest xray done yesterday and had a funny conversation with the technician. Tech: So this is pre-op for gastric bypass? Me: No, it's for the vertical sleeve gastrectomy of the stomach. Tech: So its for the bypass. Me: No, there is no bypassing. It's a VSG. Tech: So its a lapband. Me: ....no. Personally I think it's more disturbing for them to totally bypass your stomach or to have a plastic thingy in your side where a surgeon can influence a choke-collar on your stomach. This woman was horrified at the idea of someone cutting part of your stomach out, which to me was the saner choice. Po-tay-toe, po-tah-to.

I've always said, I will not listen to anyone giving me advice who hasn't been through the same journey. I hope that my story will add some credibility to my posts and inspire someone considered WLS. I'm on a quest to find the woman I lost years ago. She's somewhere in this body, I know that, I just haven't seen here in almost a decade. I'm almost 300 pounds on a 5 foot 7 frame. My family medical history is like Wal-Mart, you name it someone has it. I want to break the cycle of high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, etc. . I can't get back the years I've already lost, but I can make the years I have left that much better. I have a carb addiction, disillusion about the amount of food I should be eating, and an emotional eating habit. I was taught as a child to clean my plate, I remember at 8 years old looking forward to going to my grandma's because she always had pound cake made, and dinner consisted of meat, a few veggies, heaping mounds of carbs (rice/potatos) and rolls. 20 Years I've been addicted to carbs. My mom and I could go to a restaurant and finish an entire basket of rolls before our food came and still eat everything on our plate, plus another basket of rolls. Needless to say, I've never had a good example when it came to eating. Fast forward through middle school, when at 5"7 and 130 lbs I was the tallest girl in my entire school. Talk about a complex. At 9 I thought I was fat. Junior high, I'm still tall and muscular but everyone else is catching up. Rumors start that I'm taking steroids. Hence another complex about being "thick" and muscular. High School, the Revolution Years. I rebelled against EVERYTHING! Stress at home= emotional eating. I remember coming home from school and eating half a loaf of bread, toasted with butter and jelly because it made me feel better. Nutrition? What's that? It wasn't taught at our school. Lunch for 4 years, FOUR YEARS, consisted of chili cheese fries with extra cheese and sweet and sour dipping sauce, juice or soda, and some other high carb or fried food. FOUR. YEARS. I do remember a salad but it was far and few in-between. I think back on this and I cringe. What the heck are we doing to our kids??? My saving grace was band. The amount of practice we did counteracted some of the weight gain. I stayed around 180-200 lbs. College, the fittest years of my life. I decided to major in Nutrition, the one thing I had no knowledge of. Freedom to come and go as I pleased means more time in the gym. HBCU band practice consisted of intense PT at 5 am and intense practice from 3-7. I was at my fittest ever. I wouldn't believe it myself if I didn't have pics to prove it. Grad school I continued my good gym habits, but even a nutrition degree can't combat the psychological condition of emotional eating. I started gaining weight. Then I got pregnant. My weight shot up to 230 with the first pregnancy and miscarriage and I gained 20 more from the stress. Pregnant again at 260 with the help of pills. I went up to 285. Lost 20 and have been stuck at 270 for 3 years. This brings us to today. 10 days from VSG surgery and positive about where my life is heading. I'm not one for sharing a lot of personal information, but I will try to keep this "blog" updated as I progress through. I need to learn how to let people in and break down this brick wall that I've built.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend and a wonderful relaxing Sunday. The day is beautiful here in SC, sun is shinning but it is still a little cool for the south. I don't know about everyone else but I can't wait until spring. I have so much more energy and motivation when it is warm outside. I find the winter months to be a little depressing and I do not feel as motivated to be outside and exercise. I am proud that I have went back to curves a week ago and have met my goal of going on Saturday mornings, and Tuesday and Thursday evenings after work. I need to set a new goal this week of at least doing 30 minutes of exercise daily of at least walking or something. I need my tread mill moved so I can use it, my son moved in late last year and it is in his room and a little hard to use. My husband says he has to take it apart to get it out of the room and has not done that yet. First thing that ticks me off lately. I go back to see my surgeon next week one , I had my last fill on Jan 30th and I am still struggling with solid foods most days, I do eat but it is usually late in the afternoons and evenings, I am getting all my protein in but with supplements. I keep thinking the band will loosen up a little and some days it seems to and others like yesterday, I just gave up and ate Greek yogurt and drank protein. I am still holding at 160 lbs, so at least I have slowed down on losing for a while. On the 30th I was at 175 which was up 5 lbs from before Christmas. I did find something good to eat this weekend, we ordered take out from the local Chinese restaurant and I ate a tofu stir fry, it was yummy and the tofu was silky soft and slide right down. I was only able to eat about 1/2 cup but it was yummy. I went out today and purchased a fit bit and tied it to my fitness pal account so I could track my activity and calories burned. I will let everyone know how that works out. I have been a little lazy lately and feeling a little frustrated with food and eating in general. I haven't felt this way in a long time but it is just so frustrating when one day things go down with out problems and they same things don't the next day. Welcome to bandster hell, I guess. The last thing that ticks me off today is people who use this site to promote sales of products. I was reviewing the forums and blogs this morning and found a blog that someone had started yesterday, she said she was 2 years out from lap band and had lost 150 lbs but was promoting a protein drink diet to get back on track. I thought to my self, every lap band patient knows that gimmicks don't work, diets don't work and getting the lap band has to be about changing your life and behaviors. Not sure why it pissed me off but it did, I feel we all work so hard on trying to live with lap band and trying to change out lives and live like others and the last thing I needed was someone telling me I could lose weight with lap band drinking yummy protein shakes. SERIOUSLY! I drink the damn shakes because nothing else goes down some days and this is not how I intend to lose my last pounds. I want to eat, enjoy my food portion. So shame on you if you are a lap band patient for encouraging us to drink protein to lose weight instead of change our behaviors and learn to live with lap band. I know we all have the freedom to post and believe what ever we want but SERIOUSLY give me a break. Ok, I feel better now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Lord's Day Family, Life Is Good! "Spiritual Vitamin" for today is C: CONTENTMENT Phillipians 4:11--- The apostle Paul states, "Not that I speak concerning my want, for I have learned, in whatever situation I am in, there will I be content!" Contentment means: to be satified, to be enough, to be at peace, to be full! How are we doing with our contentment as we go on this journey Family? Is God's grace sufficient enough? For us to be in full contentment, we must believe God will meet our needs, and that He will work out "all our circumstances" for His good and not our own! Remember, He knows how we have struggled with this weight and He has opened up an avenue (The Sleeve) for our battles to end. But, we must let Him lead us and be "content" with whatever big, small or no progress made, that we find ourselves facing each day. So let us take this Lord's day, to truly examine ourselves and when we are finished, Pray to our wonderful Father, and ask that He may search our hearts (mind), and take out those things which are preventing "our spirits from being content!" AMEN AMEN Much Love To You, Diamond :rolleyes:

Good morning my beautiful family , I hope you all have a relaxing, spirit filled day. Take some time to talk with the Lord, he's listening! Spiritual Vitamins: Proverbs 16:9 "In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps!" Vitamin S: Surrender When we first begin our journey we're excited! We decide the amount of weight we will lose, how long we think it shoulde take us to reach our goals by day, week, and month. We lose wonderfully at first, (hooray) and then we stall. OMG!!! Now what do we do? Do we panic? Stress out? Are we failures? No, we are human!! What we must realize is that we belong to God and he, in his infinite wisdom, will help us get to our goals if we would "surrender" our plans to him. " God intervenes without controlling, and cares without hurting." Be still in your spirit, do not be anxious for anything and watch God move!

I haven't posted anything on my blog for a while, because I always have to sit and get my thoughts organized and think about what I want to say. And quite truthfully, I have been to lazy to organize my thoughts and try to put them down in any coherant manner! But today I am taking a few minutes to sit and rest (have been cleaning house and baking all day long, preparing to go to work) and I thought, I really need to write down how I am thinking, doing, feeling, etc. It is Friday, and it is my weekend to work. Have to work tonight at 7:00 PM till 7:30 AM tomorrow morning, and again tomorrow night and Sunday night. So my weekend will be totally taken up with work. Will get off Monday morning at 7:30 AM, and have a couple of days off. I always get frantic before I have to work 3 or 4 nights in a row, trying to get my house clean, my laundry caught up, everything done that I know needs to be done, so that I don't have to worry about it while I am working, and think about getting it done when I get home. (I sleep at the hospital where I work when I work consecutive nights like this weekend. So won't even be home again till sometime Monday morning.) Today I weighed myself and saw that I am still gaining and losing the same 2 or 3 pounds that I have gained and lost a gazillion times since the beginning of December. And I asked myself "WHEN am I going to get serious and really TRY to make it past this stall that I have been in for almost three months now?" It is so easy to try "just a bite" of whatever is handy, or whatever I am baking, etc. And before I know it, I have eaten a couple hundred calories, just "trying a bite"! Today, I have decided that I need to get serious. I know, I have said this before, but today I mean it. I am starting to get concerned that I will never reach goal if I don't REALLY get serious about this whole weight loss thing. I mean, for YEARS and YEARS I have played the weight loss game. Lose a few pounds and then eat something that I know I shouldn't, and start the deadly weight gain again. So today, I went to the (dreaded, filthy, overcluttered, badly needing to be cleaned out) basement, and hauled my treadmill and exercise bike upstairs, where I would have to see them EVERYDAY that I am home, and get on them and do something good for myself! I just last week finished re-painting and decorating our bedroom, and there is now room for both of them in our bedroom. So I am placing them there, and going to MAKE myself get on each of them every day I am here at home. Furthermore, I am also going to start a log, and keep track of how much time I put in on each. I used to have a boss that always said "that which gets measured gets done", meaning the things that are important to you to accomplish need to be measured to make sure you are making progress toward getting them done. So fellow sleevers, wish me well! I need encouragement to get this thing accomplished. I REALLY WANT to make it to goal! I want to make a permanent change in my lifestyle and be healthier and happier. I just need to get off my behind and get serious, and get busy. That's it for today. Hope you all have a great weekend! (P.S. The baking I mentioned is for my daughter. I don't bake much for us anymore, cause I tend to eat it. I made pastries for her card party tonight, but they are ones that don't taste good till after they are baked, so I didn't even try them! Good for me!)

You know, relatively. First off, I feel the need to simultaneously thank and apologize to everyone who read through yesterday's bitter, angry rant. I did need to get that off my chest, but now Logical Me has woken up from the knock out punch she took from Emotional Me and is able to add a sliver of rationality to the discussion. Because there IS more to this than calories in and calories out, and I'm not in this for an overnight weight loss. I'm in this for the long haul. I really do appreciate everyone who took the time to point out all the things Emotional Me didn't want to hear, because I do need to remember all that, things like: we're more than an equation, plateaus happen, the band does work, calm down and just keep chugging along. I did need to hear that. I didn't really want to yesterday, but I needed to. One good thing--one really good thing--did come out of yesterday, though. I had my mad on yesterday, and I was plenty bitter. I had more than my share of "to hell with it" thoughts, and in previous years that would have equalled a cheeseburger at the very least. Instead, I just kept plugging. Yeah, I ate a few more calories than the day before, but I tracked them all and I still stayed below 1200, which in bandster hell is still something of a victory. I kept working, and even if I didn't have a smile on my face the whole time, the work is the important part. So today, I woke up and got back to it. Breakfast was a small protein shake and half a banana, and I already have lunch and dinner planned with lean protein and fresh veggies and the knowledge that I can't control the scale, but I can control my own behavior. Thanks to the band, that is. We just need to keep getting to know each other and figuring out how this all works. I think we can do it.