A New Blog, A New Chapter

I will explain more, but I have a friend waiting on going for a walk with me. For now, I'm posting two posts...one that was posted on a blog over on my myfitnesspal account yesterday and one that i will be posting today. I'm hoping this will be the first of many as I hit the "home stretch." I've missed you guys...

I’ve been blogging for several years as I worked my way through the difficulties of trying to shed weight the old fashioned way…diet and exercise. I had several health problems that made this difficult. Don’t get me wrong, I got to my top weight because I had horrible eating habits, used food to cope with a variety of emotions and stress, and led a very sedentary life. The health problems (PCOS and chiari malformation) facilitated weight gain because they made it difficult to exercise without causing symptoms and contributed to a ravenous appetite. Throw in a few personal tragedies and it just made for the perfect storm in terms of weight gain.

My old blog chronicled approximately a three year period where I discussed and explored how I arrived in super super obese territory, how it affected my life and how difficult it was to claw my way back to the land of the living. I finally made the decision to go ahead with bariatric surgery June 30th, 2010 when it became obvious that I just wasn’t going to be able to do it the “old fashioned way;” I was too beat down, overwhelmed, call it what you like…but I just couldn’t sustain the motivation necessary to achieve the kind of momentum I needed to tackle a 300 lb weight loss.

 I don’t regret my decision for a second. Since my surgery (gastric sleeve), I’ve managed to lose two thirds of the fat person I carried around with me for most of my life. Over the last 3-4 years, I’ve had to re-discover myself and deal with issues that my weight had insulated me from for years.

 For about the last year and a half, I’ve been in kind of a holding pattern. I think I may have been taking some time to assimilate all of the change I’d gone through, physically, spiritually, and emotionally. I really needed time to “take stock” of who I was, who I was becoming and who I wanted to be. Which brings us to now.

 I’m not sure I’ve figured all that out quite yet, but I’m getting there; I don’t really expect to reach a destination where that journey is concerned though…really, should we ever reach a destination when it comes to personal growth? All I know is that I have come a looooooong way in self-acceptance and self-awareness and think I’m ready to get this last 100 lbs off.

 The other day, I logged my weight and adjusted my ticker so that it would read the amount of weight I had left to lose instead of the amount of weight I’d lost up to this point. Seeing that number – 91lbs.- it hit me…how “close” I am to reaching my goal. For some of you, 91 lbs is a LOT of weight. Many people start their weight loss journey hoping to lose a total less than that, but for someone who began this journey needing to lose 300 lbs…to have less than a 100 lbs left to lose is a milestone in and of itself. Surgery or no surgery, I know this last 100 is going to be the toughest to get off, but I’m hopeful that I’m finally in the frame of mind I need to be in to handle the joys and challenges the next year will likely bring. I suppose I’m hoping this new blog will chronicle the next chapter of my life. We shall see ;)