A New Journey?

My band was removed Monday, February 23rd.  Avery unceremonious way to end a 5 year journey.  I highly recommend if your band needs to be removed (and you're not revising the same day), try to find a doctor who can do it endoscopically.  Other than having a REALLY sore throat for a few days, no stitches, no incisions, no staples, no cutting.  I felt really good.  It's interesting to take a pill and not worry about it getting stuck.  It's weird to be able to drink carbonated beverages again.  I had my first beer in 4 years and it was GLORIOUS.  It's weird that it's gone and other than those little things, I don't feel any different.

Not unsurprisingly, I can eat anything and as much of it as I want.  And I am.  Despite my best efforts, I just can't seem to stay on track.  I need to bite the bullet and purge my house of any unhealthy food.  I need to FORCE myself to go the gym.  But going to the gym hurts.  It's hard on my knees, my lungs, my ankles, my arms and it hurts.  I remember it hurting.  I also remember it NOT hurting after a year of going religiously and taking 2 classes a night just because I wanted to challenge myself.  I remember it NOT hurting to walk miles and miles or even run a few of them.  I remember it NOT hurting to lift heavy things and lift my body weight on a rope.  I don't know what hurts most now…my pride or the joints.

I have decided to attempt to get insurance approval to a revision to a gastric sleeve.  I was unsure of how I felt about undergoing yet another weight loss surgery.  The lap band was my "last ditch effort" after everything else had failed and as invasive as I was willing to go.  And it failed.  I failed.  I think a part of me believed I didn't deserve another chance of getting help with this.  A part of me believed that I now needed to sink or swim on my own because even surgery couldn't help.  It was illogical, I realize that but I think I was punishing myself.  I'm done with that.  I need help.  I'm not saying I could never do it completely on my own but I remember how good it was having help.  I want help again.  My current insurance does cover a revision but I have to jump through all the same hoops as I had previously.  I have to do a psych eval, dietary evaluation (nutritionist) and a nutritional class to talk about preop/postop diets.  I have to prove my diet history and have all my records faxed over again.  Doc wants to let the stomach heal from the erosion for at least 4 months.  That gives me plenty of time to jump through the hoops.

I'm actually not holding out much hope that insurance will pay for it.  I had to fight like hell the first time and I don't think I have that much fight left in me but it's worth a shot.  I'm going to do all I can do.  It's a new and different journey.  But as long as I'm walking down a path, I'm going to hope it's the right one.

Do It Well

"In many lines of work, it isn't how much you do that counts, but how much you do well and how often you decide right." - William Feather

This quote really hit me yesterday.  This is taken out of my Leadership planner so it's not specific to weight loss or anything like that but it got me thinking.  If we take just the "how much you do well" piece, I feel it encompasses so much of this journey.  Obviously, how long you spend working on something isn't going to make much of a difference if you aren't working hard or well.  You can go to the gym every day but if you don't push yourself each time you go, you won't get faster, stronger or better.  You'll just stay the same.  Obviously, there's a peak physical place you can be but I doubt most of us are there.  There's always room to do it better.  Then there's the "how often you decide right." This right here, is HUGE.  It's all about the choices we make and how often we make the right one.  Do I eat the piece of cake?  Do I opt for a lean protein snack instead of chips?  Do I go to the gym today?  Every single decision we make counts.  We're not always going to pick the right one even when we know we're making the wrong one but what REALLY matters is how often we decide right. How often are we making the right choices day in and day out.  Out of 15 choices in a day, how many are you choosing correctly?  If you chose correctly 13/15, I think you're doing pretty great!  If you chose correctly 2/15, you've got serious work to do.  

So how did I choose yesterday?  Not nearly as badly as I had the week before.  I chose to stay under my calorie limit and I chose to go to the gym.  I pushed myself at the gym after walking 3 miles, opting to ride the bike for awhile as well.  I opted for a healthy dinner and no snacking after that.  Yesterday was a good choice day.

I used to love trashy TV for entertainment during cardio.  This time around, I have been downloading movies and TV shows to watch on my phone.  In some ways, it pushes me to go longer so I can see how they end.  What tricks work for you?

SIGH

Weigh In: 213
Loss From Last Week: GAINED 3.5 lbs
Total Weight Loss: 0

Impressive right?  So I went off the fucking rafters last week while in Atlanta.  Then I got home to a pretty stressed out husband and kiddos.  And similar to what alcoholics or drug addicts will do, we enabled each other to keep right on through our food binge through the weekend.  And somehow gained every last ounce back.  Chances are a lot of it is water as I drank virtually no water and a lot of booze so obviously dehydrated but still.  Just INSANE.

So am I feeling good about myself today?  Of course not.  Am I ready to throw in the towel?  No on that one too.  I'm resetting...got my meals planned again and here we go.  The only reason I'm posting at all is for full accountability and disclosure.  If I disappear, I've given up and blissfully happy in the land of denial.  Instead, I'll stick to misery and reality.

In other news, it is time to buy new cell phones again.  I hate buying new phones because it always begs the question about finding a different carrier.  Honestly, I could've done all this a year ago... there are some people (smarter people) who re-evaluate their carrier/phones every time their contract expires. I don't because I hate doing it.  I find it all very confusing and time consuming.  I currently have an iphone and I like it.  I don't LOVE it anymore but I like it.  I'm considering going with a Samsung or LG BUT all my other stuff is mac...desktop, laptop, ipad, kids' ipod, etc.  I love how easily everything syncs.  A lot to consider.

In other news, we're talking about getting rid of cable.  We've BEEN talking about getting rid of cable for over a year now.  We do this from time to time but instead of going without entertainment as we have in the past, we've been looking into alternatives like apple tv, roku, chrome, amazon's thingie, etc. We finally talked to a guy at radio shack to learn how it all works and it doesn't seem as difficult as I had made it in my head.  We may be ready to pull the trigger on this in a month or so but we want to keep exploring the home phone piece first.  Right now we bundle with the internet company but we want to get to where we ONLY have internet through them.  I have to keep my home phone for work so we're getting there.

If anyone has any opinions/advice about those last two items...please let me know as I'm open to anything.

Hope y'all have a great week!