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I got the call this morning that will change my life forever - I'm approved for weight loss surgery. It's scheduled, in pen. I'm not turning back now. It's time. Time for me, time for change, time to get healthy. No more size 20 pants. No more hiding in cover ups when I'm in my humongous bathing suits. I'm done with the way things are and so happy to be on this new road.

Even this far out from surgery, I still have problems eating slowly - especially if it is something that goes down easily like peanut butter. By accident I found a way to train myself to eat slower. It's chicken! My stomach doesn't seem to like ground up chicken and I can feel the gurgles and gas building after a bite or two. So I figure, why not use that to my advantage? So I'll be eating more chicken. Knowing that I have to stop eating after a bite is going to force me to lay the spoon down between bites. Anyone else have a food or foods that cause them to have stomach gurgles and gas?

And So My Journey Begins..Today is August 1st, 2013. I have been on my pre-op diet for 1 week now and am down from 230lbs to 219lbs. My highest weight being 233 3 months after my daughter Gianna was born. I was diagnosted with PCOS at the age of 21 after years of searching for an answer to my irreguar cylces. From then on My weight continued to climb from 145lbs and creeped up to 185lbs pre-pregnancy. Seeing as I had Pcos my only option at a sucessful pregnancy was IVF. It worked on our first try and my husband and I were expecting Twins in mid October 2010. A few months before my due date I went into the hospital not feeling well and the next day my twins were delivered by emergency c-section. My son was alive for 7 days until he passed away with kidney malfunction. My beautiful daughter Christina Marie stayed in the Nicu for 5 weeks and came home with us on an apnea monitor. I had gained a good 50lbs and been diagnosted with pre-eclampsia and gestational diabetes..A few weeks after pregnancy my weight leveled off at 210 lbs. When my daughter was 5 months old we tried again, and once again successfully conceived my daughter Gianna who is now 21 months old. I had gained another 50lbs with that pregnancy despite normal eating habits. I lost 30lbs 3 weeks after effortlessly, but the last pesky 20lbs wouldnt budge. (Partly due to Pcos, Partly due to my love of carbs) So here I was at 233lbs. How did this happen, how did I become "The Fat girl", the fat wife, the fat mother. All of the things I never wanted to be. I am truely blessed with a great husband, two gorgeous healthy daughters and have never been happier but at 233lbs I felt like I just wanted to hide under a rock. Everytime I saw a picture of myself, it was as if I was looking at a stranger. Who had I become. I tried the Atkins diet and stuck to it religiously for a month only to see a 1lb weight loss. i carried on with it a bit discouraged but managed to lose another 9 lbs over the course of 5 months. In June 2013 my husbands friends wife came over who had had the lap band. She said she couldnt be happier with her results and the band in general. That was it, that was my ticket, my way OUT of this unrecogizable body. So I quickly set up my consult my Dr Barkan at Winthrop. He recommended the sleeve for me. My mind was already SET on Lap band. I left a little confused and scared of what my options were. The lapband seemed simple, easy, you were out of the hospital same day. After MUCH research I was alarmed by the horror stories of the band. I told my mom and husband that I had decided to do "The Sleeve". My husband was very supportive and my mom was a bit scared for me. Seems a bit drastic she said. "Just eat smaller portions like if you had the sleeve." Well why didnt I ever thnk of that. Of course I did. Nothing has worked and that was that. I immediately scheduled all of my pre-op appointments to get the ball rolling. I wanted out of this body as soon as possible. So here I am 1 week into my pre-op diet. I have broken out of the 220's and well on my way. I am hoping by surgery I will be at 215lbs. MY EXPECTATIONS. I expect to lose very slowly as I always have been a slow loser (Except on this starvation liquid diet : ) If I can be back where I was before my first pregnancy before the year ends (185lbs) ( 4 1/2 months)30lbs I will be thrilled. I expect this to be a long road but this road will not end the day I hit my preferred weight. It is a life long journey. This is NOT a golden ticket to effortlessly be thin over night. It will take will power and exercise to win this battle. I can vaguely see a future where I am a healthy and fit mother and wife. Where I take pride in my body and that confidence reflects on my 2 daugheters and teaches them to be confident young women with healthy self esteems. Where I feel confortable "being" with my husband wihout getting angry and frustrated with myself. I want to be a runner, a gym rat if you will. I can see it all in my future as I sit here in tears. Tears of sadness, tears of joy, tears of hope and tears of gratitude to be given this opportunity to become the self that I have always wanted to be, the self that I image deep in side, the self that I knew long ago. It is now Day 7 Of The Rest Of My Life!!

Today is a bad day physically. My right leg is in a great deal of pain. My knee feels like it has an extremely tight band wrapped around it. I can barely bend it and walking is very difficult. And my calf is radiating pain down to my foot. ( vascular) Yesterday I felt pretty good overall and I was able to go grocery shopping. I spent extra time looking at things and reading labels, which kept me on my feet longer. So needless to say I am paying for it today. I do not fathom how people live with chronic pain for years. While my knee has been pretty bad for a few years now, it was manageable. I could stay off my leg, ice or apply heat and take meds to keep the pain down. But since I can no longer take my anti inflammatory medication ( due to taking warfarin) the pressure and pain has gotten out of control. And add to that my new pain from vascular swelling...It is more than I can take almost. I am at the end of my rope so to speak. If I do not get this weight off and get some relief I could very easily end up much worse off. I would either become a pill popper with pain meds ( I can take those, just not the stuff that will actually HELP my leg!) or a cripple. Neither is an option as a single parent of a four year old. That is my main reason for turning to bariatric surgery. I need it. I have so much empathy for those who have pain that there is no cure or treatment for. Losing weight won't "cure" me, but I have no doubt it will vastly improve my situation. On the plus side, I have been making changes I need to for success in my future. Yesterday I started eating a lot less, making sure it was full of protein while low in fat, calories and carbs. This is how life will be post op, so might as well get used to it now. And any weight loss I achieve from changing now is just a step closer to where I need to be!

I found one of my trigger foods. It's spaghetti or more specifically pasta. My mom made some homemade spaghetti on Sunday (homemade as in, homemade from a jar, you know, the same line of thought as Olive Garden treats you like family). Really, Olive Garden treats you like family, I don't recall my mom ever presenting a bill at the end of a meal. But I digress. Any way, I took the leftovers home with me. For supper, I ate my normal portion, and a few minutes later wanted another portion - even though my stomach was telling me I was stuffed to the top. I wanted it so bad that I would have cage wrestled a bear for another bowl. It wasn't easy, but I stopped myself. The hardest part - and I can't believe it was so difficult to do - was to throw out the spaghetti. I kept telling myself that I could space out the spaghetti into several meals during the week. But, I knew if I left it in the house, I'd find some way to convince myself to eat more that eventing. There is a dog that trots through my yard daily, so he may be going into insulin shock today! Only 1 other time have I wanted to eat something so bad - it was a banana laying in the fruit bowl. So adios spaghetti noodles, I'll eat you at mom's house, but you won't be coming home with me anymore.