Coming up on 2 years...

Sunday is my 2 year bandiversary! Hard to believe in 2 short years I feel so much like a totally different person. Saturday I have my final "freebie" visit with my surgeon to review progress, etc. The first day of my consultation with the doc - 3 weeks before surgery, I weighed a hair shy of 257#. I had been struggling for the better part of a year trying to keep off the 70# I lost through my last attempt at Atkins and was failing. Yo-yo'ing up and down 30# and really feeling so digusted with myself. I swore I would never hit 300 again. So to date, I've lost 110 lbs with the band. I'm up about 3 1/2 lbs from my lowest of 143.5#...and I think that was from getting out of my routine from Jack's nursing home stint and then funeral. Actually I gained about 5-6 lbs during that period, but am working a bit of that off. My biggest fear is a pouch dilation, since the last flouroscopy I had he mentioned I had one but not significant enough to require any intervention at that time. I just wish I knew how to turn off the switch in my brain that keeps me eating even though I'm not hungry. That is the biggest struggle is getting my head screwed on straight..even now. I know what to do, I know what to eat, when to eat, how much to eat, when to drink, when to stop. It's just DOING IT that's the problem. Lastly and more importantly, a big Thank you all for your kind words in expressing your sympathy. It's been a trying time, but getting better. I'm very lucky and Hubby is very lucky to have such a wonderful uplifting family. No once did they sit around and mope about the death of their father. You see, Jack had been ready to die for the past couple of years. It was us that didn't want him to go. I spoke with him around Christmas time and he said what he was doing now what not living. At that point he was still at home, but slept and sat in his recliner with oxygen on. He only stopped when he went to the bathroom, ate, or walked into the kitchen to get a breathing treatment. He mentioned that he was a rich man...that they call Bill Gates a rich man, but Jack said he was more rich than Gates, because he had a wonderful wife, a great family, got to do everything he wanted to do...at least all the important things. Money meant nothing to Jack, or material things. As long as his family had enough to eat, were loved, and appreciated what they had...that was what was important. The fact that he was ready to go and made peace with it is why it is a bit less painful than it would have been. In the days before his funeral service, when we sat together as a family, it was a time of laughter, reminiscing, and support. Not doom and gloom. Jack would have hated that. And that it not what this family is about. I see Jack everytime we get together. It's in the way his kids talk to each other, in the way they treat each other and the way they take care of their mother. Along with the laughter, and one-liners. He's there. I'll let you know how the visit with the doc goes. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I know he's thrilled with my progress, I just haven't been totally honest with him about my mental struggle of maintaining and testing the limits. It's time to come clean and here some reality. Toodles!