chrissylu

Well banster family, I hit a new milestone today I wanted to share. I had a check up with the doctor and when I weighed in today, I am no longer obese,I am now just over weight. Now only my bandster family can appreciate what that means. I started this journey 14 months ago and at that time by the charts I was considered morbidly obese. Needless to say I am very excited. To reach my goal I only need to loss 12 additional pounds, now to no longer be considered over weight I would need to loose an additional 26lbs. My doctor and I decided on a weight based on my bone structure and muscle mass. Now that being said I never started this journey to be thin, my Goal; was to be healthy. It feels good to have energy and not longer have knees that hurt all the time. I feel very blessed to have done so well this passed year and am thankful for my supporting husband and family and for my wonderful surgeon for always being understanding. I never considered skinny and me in the same sentence and it still bothers me when people say I am skinny. I am by no means skinny, they were just so use to seeing me "Healthy" aka Fat that I do look "Skinny". Today people said," now your not going to lose more weight are you because you sure look skinny". So I replied, Yes I do plan to lose a few more pounds because I am still above the goal my physician and I have set. Well that just lead to well, you don't want to lose too much more, you don't want to look old. OMG! Did the forget I am old, and I would rather be think and old than obese and old. So I ask "What does skinny actually mean?" Below are the definitions for Skinny and Overweight.

Definition of SKINNY Definition:
 
1: resembling skin : membranous
 
2 a: lacking sufficient flesh : very thin : emaciated
b: lacking usual or desirable bulk, quantity, qualities, or significance
 
Definition: Overweight refers to an individual weighing 10% or more of what is considered his or her recommended healthy weight
 
I actually think I take more offense to being called skinny then to being called overweight.... emaciated. Boy I never thought anyone would use that word to describe me. When I think emaciated, I have an image in my mind of a someone who is so thin you can count their ribs. Now I may be thinner but believe me you can not count my ribs and baby still got Back! Now for those of you just starting your journey, you are probably thinking what is this women ranting about, but seriously can no one give a compliment these days. If you can't say something nice to someone just keep your mouth closed, thank you.
 
Well I feel better now and I will continue on my journey and will stop losing when my physician and I feel I am at a healthy weight for my body type.
 
Thanks for Listening and allowing me to rant.
 
Good luck to all of my bandster family, keep motivated, focused and all dreams can come true with dedication and time.
 

I am down to 210 this morning! That means I've lost 49 pounds since the beginning of my pre op diet which started November 11th. I am sooooo happy!! I am going to buy myself a pandora bracelet along with two charms. I want to buy myself a charm for every 20 pounds lost.
I bought myself a couple pairs of jeans. Not only were they on clearance (only 14 bucks for 2 pairs of jeans!!) but one was even a size 14!! I cannot remember the last time I was in a size 14!! So exciting!
As my last post stated, I just received my second fill last week. So far so great!! I know I'm most likely still swollen, but I have great restriction right now as well as little to no hunger. Next week will be the deciding factor on whether I'm in the green zone or not. Happy V Day everyone!

I have heard many people on this board getting so upset about weight gain and lack of weight loss. And don't get me wrong, I completely understand. I have gotten on the scale myself and had that sinking feeling in my stomach when I saw the number. I have wanted to scream and cry when I saw the number go up. Trust me, I understand. But there is something that I was missing, and that was Godly love.
 
I accepted Jesus into my heart when I was four years old. I don't remember if I even understood what that meant at the time, but it was what the grown-ups wanted from me, so I did it. I went to church with my mom until my pre-teen years. But then things started to fall apart in our family and we all lost our way. I don't want to get into it all right now, but there were many things that happened that were emotionally painful, and I felt like God had turned his back on me. I felt lost and abandoned. So I gave into the world's way of living, doing basically whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. I still felt like I was a good person, and I believed in God, but felt like he didn't want much to do with me.
 
After years of living this way, I noticed that He was showing up in my life more and more. Little things that would happen, little comments that people would make. I felt the need to go back to Him, but I didn't. I thought that after all of the bad things I had done, all the commandments I had broken, that there would never be a church that would accept me. After all, you can't be a Christian without going to church, right? But God kept insisting, kept calling me. Eventually I went out and bought myself a Bible and started to read.
 
It took me a while, but it finally dawned on me that I didn't have to go to church to be a Christian again. I didn't need other people to accept me to be a Christian. I didn't have to be perfect. I didn't have to have a perfect past. Jesus did most of His work among the people who the church considered "undesirable," like prostitutes and tax collectors. If Jesus could accept them and love them, maybe He could love me too.
 
Several months later, I was watching a television show on Daystar network, a Christian station. The woman who was speaking was talking about God's love. She said something that changed the way I looked at myself forever. "God loves you just the way you are," she said (paraphrasing.) "You don't have to lose ten pounds, you don't have to do anything different for him to love you." The woman was Joyce Meyer, and I have watched her regularly ever since. But that message really opened my eyes.
 
It's really true. God loves you exactly the way you are right at this very moment. He loves you just as much as he loves anyone else. You are His child, and he made you knowing that you would be just who you are right now. He knew you would do everything you have ever done, good and bad, and he loved you just the same. When you feel the most unloveable, He still loves you just as much as He ever did. Even if you don't believe in Him, He still loves you! How wonderful!
 
If you take anything at all from this blog, I want you to know that you are loved. You are loved more than you know, more than you could ever believe possible. And this love is not dependent on how much weight you lose, what kind of clothes you wear, or even how you act. You are loved simply because you exist, and you are important simply because you were born. God does not do things by mistake, and He would not waste time creating something that He was not proud of. It is important to take care of your body and make sure that you stay healthy, because our bodies are our home until we are done with our journey on the earth, but your weight is not everything. It is part of you, but not the thing that defines you. Even if you never reach your goal weight, God sees you for the beautiful creation that you are. And I hope that you do too.

I have...at least that's how it feels right now, but at least I have my band. Surgery took about an hour, no hernia to fix and I'm told my liver was shrunk nicely. Also, I hit my pre op weight loss goal of 20 lbs., score! I cant say I'm digging the soreness right now, but i will say there is no way I'm going back to fast food after this; its not worth the pain.