Pictures...Naked?!?!?!?!?!

...Said my husband, with a great amount of alarm in his voice. This was his response to me asking him to take "before" pictures of me for my blog. It's predictable hilarious that nudity is the first thing men think of...EVER. But never fear, this is purely a PG-13 kind of blog and I am pretty sure no one in their right mind wants to see that ;)

To anyone who is embarking on the journey of weight loss, I strongly encourage taking "before" pictures, well.....BEFORE you start. I don't know why I didn't. Probably because I want concentrating on not eating everything in the house while on the liver shrinking diet.  I can scrounge up pictures of me at the beach this summer for comparison but, as anyone who is overweight will tell you, I had become incredibly good at taking pictures (or not ever) of myself from the chin up. What I need is full length pictures to show my progress. While I am not happy with the way I look now, I am super pleased with my progress. Frankly, I have not been happier.

A few blogs ago, I said I might share my heavy weight to you three readers. I have put a lot of thought into it. On one hand, it's incredibly mortifying and, honestly, it's none of anyone's business. I thought of the friends that I had shared my blog with and was afraid of the judgment. Then, a few days ago, I was talking to a not-so-close friend who had not read my blog and not remembered the address. This actually felt liberating. In my brain, if my friends love me enough to keep up with my blog then they love me enough to accept my faults and not judge. If you don't care to keep up then you won't ever know since I don't post personal business on facebook out of professional respect for my clients. To the strangers who may read my blog (yeah right), they may need motivation. They need someone in their corner and that's going to be me. So here it is, my heavy weight was:


284

That's right. 284. I was heavier than my husband which, again, is mortifying. With all that weight comes a huge slice of shame and humility. By deciding to do something about my weight, I essentially outed myself to everyone I loved. Admitting to a weight problem is like waking up from a daze. It's horrific and freeing. Then there's more shame like, "how could I let myself go," "what do people think of me." In the end, I just told myself to shut the f*ck up and do something. Fight the fight. Oh and who the eff cares what other people think?

So what am I at now? 257!!!! My goal is 170. AND I don't even have any fill in my lap band which made my husband ask, "why did you even need the lapband to begin with?" Well, that's a very interesting question.

By admitting that you have a problem that needs drastic intervention or essentially hit the bottom of the well. By going through the acceptance process for the lap band, you go through a lot of evaluations. Nutritional, Psychological, Surgical.  If THAT six month process doesn't wear you out and make you quit, then you must be motivated and you must be ready to change. Hmmm. It's almost like they know what they're doing. :) In the end what you are looking for is a permanent tool that kicks in when will power gives out. When life gets tough, you have something backing you up. In the back of my mind, I know that all the money that I and the insurance company poured into this means I must really believe in myself. I will not fail. I will not let myself fail and, for the first time, I believe that.


So here's a timeline so far.

Pre liver shrinking diet weight: 284  08/27/2012

Pre surgery weight: 270 09/04/2012

3 weeks post op: 257 09/30/2012

So this is me at 284

And this is me at 257. I don't really see much of a difference but there is since it's 27 lbs. 

87 more to go. 

Sigh.

Notice the Tank, naked with only Thomas boots on? Well, that's would we roll in our house. That's right, begin this post with naked and end it with naked. 

p.s To anyone who doesn't have well intentions and feels the need to gossip, shame on you.