Sunday, January 3, 2010

The Serious Work Begins

I’ve been housebound for the last three days watching tiny little snowflakes accumulate over the foot of snow already on the ground. It has been gradual, doesn’t look like much but over three days we now have an additional 10 inches on the ground. It is sort of the same with gaining weight. A few extra bites here, a little there and before you know it 10 pounds have accumulated. The nice thing about snow is that it melts every spring and the grass turns green.

The extra 10 pounds doesn’t always melt off in the spring and usually more accumulates. February has always been my highest weight of the year, so it is probably good that I am being banded in February. Most years I would spend most of the spring, summer and fall trying to lose those extra 10 pounds without success. Three years ago, I just gave up. Funny, I have hovered around 205 for most of that time. People tell me 205 is my “set point”. Problem is I have had numerous “set points” over the years. I remember being stuck at 139, 155, 166, 172, 176, 194 and now 205. By the time I am in my sixties I was heading to 220…

I have set 144 lb (-65 lbs) as my goal by March 15, 2011 (my 57th birthday). A year is plenty of time to know if I have failed or not with this last straw—the lapband :-( . You see I have tried so many times, like the rest of you, to lose weight, but it is hard to get my head around it finally working this time. I am encouraged by all the other bloggers to think that maybe this time I will succeed so please know that I read and gain insight and strength from those that have gone before me. Remaking a line from Star Trek:

“Banding, the Final Frontier. Its continous mission: to explore strange new ways of eating; to seek out new life and new bodies; to boldly go where no one has gone before.”

I received my sick leave letter from the surgeon (I asked for 4 weeks off and still have plenty of paid leave left). Since I have told no one at work and do not plan to do so, he sent the letter without the office letterhead. I am having surgery at the Surgical Weight Loss Center in Mississauga, outside Toronto. If that was listed on my letter, it would be pretty obvious what surgery I was having. It is really none of their business. Our office thrives on gossip, so almost all of the 200 people I work with would be aware within a few hours. I don’t need the hassle right now.

I notice that a lot of you only tell a few people. I am an RN so many of my friends are in the health care field. When I told one of my best friends who is a Nurse Practitioner, she was not positive and suggested I try the exercise and dieting just one more time after Christmas. I guess after 40 years of starting and stopping diets and exercising like a fiend isn't really enough. Dropping $16,000 on uninsured surgery is something not to be taken lightly either. Don't they get it? This made me think about who really should know. My hubby and kids know but I also told only one of my sisters and my brother and my closest friend since University. I’ll play it by ear as to who else I will tell. The lapband is only a tool to help me lose and keep off the weight. It has no magical powers. I know I have to work with it for it to work for me.

More soul searching to come. This blogging is really helping me.

3 comments:

THE DASH! said...

Hi there, Sandy
First up, thanks for following my blog - I hope you get some things out of it :)...

I read your blog too, and though your RN friend may have tried to talk you out of the lapband.. stick with your guns - this is a great decision you're making - and really, it is the last and final straw so it's going to work!! It just will if you stick with the basic rules.

I look forward to reading more on your blog too. Keep on writing - we have a great little community here and us girls (and a few guys) constantly prop each other up and are there for one another. Everyone is so great (and do what you're doing too.. the quickest way to get your face in there is to comment, comment, comment!!!) You become known quickly then :)

The Dash saying up the top of my blog? Is there really a poem like it? Far out. I got the idea a long time ago reading a work of fiction and it stuck with me... just seemed so deep yet apt.. .and when it was time for doing my blog I remembered it and centred the blog around the saying lol. I honestly had no idea though there's a poem called the dash with the same content. Perhaps whoever wrote the book read the poem and so it perpetuated. Food for thought.

Unknown said...

Don't worry, you won't need a year... you will feel success, over and over again. It is hard to believe and I am still in that shock phase.

I agree...it is none of their buisness. I ended up telling a few office people who were concerned with my repeated dr. visits. I told them that itis not a secret, but I am keeping it fairly private. so far they have respected that. I had my surgery on Friday and was back to work on Monday so there was not gossip. I kind of tell people as I go, if I want to! If it is someone I don't know well or don't think should know, and they comment on my weight loss and ask what I am doing - I tell them "it is hard work, you know nothing new...just portion control, heathly choices and excercise! because that is what it is!

Hang in there and Feb will be here soon!

THE DASH! said...

Oh my Sandy,

I have never seen that poem before but it is JUST beautiful. Again, it makes me wonder if the writer(s) of the book(s) I read (actually, in hindsight, I think I read about it twice a long time ago in two separate novels.. different aspects but similar wording..) know about this poem. They would have to, I'm sure.

Thank you SO much for sending me this. I love it and I appreciate the time you took to post it.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...