Right before Thanksgiving of 2013, I was having a pity party for myself for not finding the motivation to go to the gym more than once or twice a week and because I was convinced that my schedule of working 60 hours a week (sitting, mostly) was going to cause me to never be able to lose weight. Yes, I know these are all excuses. I knew it then but still couldn't shake the disappointment or opportunity to mope.
Even though I am usually a positive person, on an occasion like this when I am down in the dumps, Spike really hates seeing me like that. So this night he brought up the surgery for the first time since we had discussed it before our wedding. I had been thinking about it a lot, but just had some reservations about the whole thing.
I could say it was because of the drastic lifestyle change that comes along with lap band surgery or the surgery itself that was scary, but what I was really most concerned about was that I was a failure. I had tried everything, but I wasn't good enough or disciplined enough to lose weight on my own. If I had this surgery, I would be taking the easy way out. (Oh boy, do I know that's not true now!) But at that moment, I just felt like one big FAT failure. Pun intended... or whatever.
"What I was really most concerned about was that I was a failure."
Now comes the part that has convinced me if I didn't have this wonderful man who loves me every day no matter what mood I'm in that I don't think I could have made this life-changing decision. After I laid out all my arguments on why I would be a failure if I had the surgery, Spike said to me, "Don't think of it as failing. This is an opportunity to get healthy. If you found out you had cancer, you would, without a doubt, go with the best and most effective treatment out there to get your health back. Why is this any different?"
I'm not sure if it was the analogy he used or just the fact that I could finally hear him for the first time that made me come to my senses. He was with me no matter what and because of that I could never fail.
Once that conversation happened, I was on a mission. We were living in Iowa at the time, but I was soon going to be interviewing for work from home jobs with IBM so that we could move back home an hour South of St. Louis. I started looking up places that did this type of surgery and that's when I found the "My New Self" program at Des Peres Hospital in St. Louis. I read every word of their website and called to find out what I needed to do.
The requirements for this surgery were...
--I had to be 100 or more pounds overweight-- check!
--With a Body Mass Index(BMI) of at least 40-- check!
--At least 18 years old-- check!
--My serious weight loss attempts have had only short-term success-- double check!
--Not currently pregnant-- check!
And the last one...
-- You are prepared to make major changes in your eating habits and lifestyle.
I paused at this one and then thought back to all of the "first days" of diets and exercise routines, to all the adorable clothes I couldn't wear or that didn't come in my size, to all the day-long walking trips resulting in me walking funny due to the chaffing of my thighs, to hating every single picture that had ever been tagged of me on Facebook, to the fact that I was the heaviest I had ever been on my wedding day and could barely fit in the harness when we rock rappelled into a swimming hole on our honeymoon. It was time to erase all of that... to replace those memories with the good things that happened on those special days.
I've never said "check" so quickly or sincerely in my life.
I made an appointment to attend their next seminar on Saturday, December 7th and I'm pretty sure that is all I thought about for the next three weeks.
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