DAY 1

My entire life, I've heard how "pretty" I am. You know those condescending and well-meaning comments?

"You have such a pretty face, if you'd just lose weight" or "You would be the most beautiful girl I've ever seen, if you would lose weight".

And, my whole life I've believed that. Yes, I'm pretty... or I would be if I weren't fat. I've also been told how smart I am. Like that will make up for the fact that I'm overweight. It doesn't.

I've told myself so many times that I'm attractive, and smart and I deserve to have happiness in my life. But, it's easier to believe the people who are outside of my head.. or maybe it's the voices inside my head that are sabotaging me? I honestly don't know. I have spent so much time, and money and effort trying to figure out what I can do to both live a normal life, where I don't over-analyze every single bite of food that I consume but still manage to maintain a healthy weight loss.

In 2007 I had a lap-band implanted. It worked a little bit.. I lost about 50 pounds. Then in 2008 I ended up having a hysterectomy. Afterward I lost another 40 pounds. So at one point, I was 90 pounds lighter than I had been.. and now I've basically gained most of it back. But, I'm still 20 pounds lighter than I was when I originally had the lap band surgery. Now, I'm doing all the pre-work to get revised to a duodenal switch with biliopancreatic diversion.

I've got to do 3 months of medically supervised nutritional classes. I've done one of those. I had to have a barium swallow, and an EGD. Both of those requirements are now done. Two more months of nutrition counseling, and I should have met all of the insurance company's requirements. I'm aiming to have my surgery done in the first two weeks or so of September.

I've lost about 6 pounds this month, just by walking a little bit more and trying to cut down carbs. We'll see how this goes.

The main thing I think that I need to do though, is find someone who can do some counseling for my huge amount of self-loathing.