Loooooooooooong overdue

I emailed my MD this AM to make an appointment to get a fill in October when I have insurance again. As mentioned above, it is looooong overdue - as in a year overdue.

I can't believe I let a whole year go by. It's just about the 2 year anniversary of the start of my liquid diet (9/4/07), which started my whole weight loss journey. At this time last year, I was pretty confident that I would be hitting goal within the next year...nope!

In order to stop the cycle of not losing, and even gaining, I need to examine what went wrong. Here goes:

• Gallbladder disease/surgery
• Repeated knee injuries
• Trying to find an MD in NH & non succeeding
• No longer working in MA, and not getting down to see my MD down there as a result
• Gaining weight and not wanting to face my MD until I lost the weight
• Gaining and losing the same weight over and over again
• Working from home; not having a routine
• Having trouble staying with a consistent work out regime (sometimes related to injury, sometimes not)
• Not consistently following lap band guidelines
• Not always tracking food, although most of the time I still do
• Not always making my health a priority
• Not measuring my food consistently
• Eating out too much
• Traveling constantly
• Following weight watchers for too long, even though it made me gain

I think today I'm up 20 lbs from my lowest. That's annoying, but it could be worse. A lot worse.

We didn't have any food in the house since we're leaving on a trip today, and by the time we decided we needed to get dinner, the only thing that would deliver was Chinese. I didn't have that much of it, but I had it again for breakfast, as it's the only thing in the house, and now I feel totally sick to my stomach. That was dumb.

I'm going to be traveling for the next few days, and whenever I travel, my band gets tight. I don't know why, but I am very limited on what I can eat, which makes it hard to make healthy choices, since meats and veggies are difficult to get down when I'm tight. I'm going to do my best, however.

I start my full time job officially this next Monday, and I'm going to finally enter a routine again. I'm hoping to be down at least 10 lbs from where I am today by the time I see my MD, but either way, I'm going for my fill.

What's the point of having a lap band if I don't use it? It has been a fantastic tool for me, and if I learned anything this year, it's that even though I have changed a lot, I still need this tool to keep me on the straight and narrow. It doesn't make me weak that I need it, and it's not a crutch, it's a support.

So, as I enter year three, I do so with eyes wide open. I know that if I'm not careful, I can gain all of my weight back. I also know that I refuse to let that happen. Once again, I have a lot of competing priorities in life. I start school today, meanwhile, I'm working a few jobs and traveling to FL to present at a National conference that I just found out about yesterday...

I need to slow it down. I say that a lot. I'm going to say it again. Slow. It. Down.

Ahhhh. That's better.

I'm not putting off getting healthy until Monday, but I know as of Monday, I'm going to give my health a much larger chunk of my attention. I'm going to work out every day, plan my meals, measure my portions, use fitday consistently, not drink while I'm eating (or for 30 minutes after), eat out a lot less, blog regularly, and lose the rest of my weight.

Year three is going to be magical. I just know it. :)