Yup--I'm Tired.

I have been away.  I hope you all with all the of the good news, illness and sad news are hanging on.  I find that after all of this time I now measure the changes this band has brought in years.

The band is there.  It does its job.   I find it a comfortable friend most of the time.  Occasionally I wish for the odd free day where I could just sit down to a meal and eat without thinking about the order of items, when/if I can drink something with my meal.  I worry at times that some hidden portion of the meal is going to cause problems.

When I started this whole process I wanted to find something that would make it possible to spend my day not thinking about food all of the time.  The reality is that I do think about food frequently.  Although there are periods of my day where I don't think about when my next meal is or what I will have to eat, the fact is that deciding what to eat and what not to eat and drink does take some effort, planning and care.

What do I want for breakfast?  What should I have for breakfast?  If I wait too long to have lunch then I am going to be hungry late in the evening.  If I eat too late I will have acid reflux in the night and not sleep well.  In addition if I do not eat dinner I will likely choose something ill-advised in my weak-kneeed fatigue and pay the price later in the early hours of the morning. Am I eating the right things?  or Why do I constantly choose the wrong things?

Despite the long road traveled there is still never a resolution.  The days tick by and as with life there are good days and bad days.  There are days when I am satisfied with my status.  I saw goal and am a bit above it.  I have clothes that don't fit in my closet and those that do just as was the case before the band.  Of course those clothes are all several sizes smaller than those jumbled in my closet of old.  Even satisfaction is sometimes relative.

The self-loathing i sometimes felt with myself  reappears occasionally when I make repeated and particularly bad choices in food or failed exercise.  Mostly though-that part of my life is gone.  I can definitely say that my life is forever changed and mostly for the positive.

 The world looks on the obese as second class, lazy, unintelligent and/or lacking.  I do know that many of those stereotypes are wrong but one at least for me was accurate.  I was lazy.  Not because I somehow didn't care or avoided work but because I was tired.  Bone-weary, cannot lift myself up to do anything tired.  I have not felt that feeling in years. I feel fatigue, I feel tired but the kind that involves taking myself to bed and going to sleep not the I am awake mentally but I cannot move my body another inch.  My body is always moveable these days.  That is absolutely due to this decision, the band and the weight loss.

 People look through you or out of the corner of their eye not directly. It is not right, it is not fair but it is.  The transition to being visible was quite uncomfortable.  I have adjusted to directly looks, smiles, eye contact and even physical tough from strangers.  I did not know or realize that I did not get them until the band.  Thankfully I did not realize my invisibility until I was seen again.  This is not right.  I have altered how I interact with others as a result.

Balance in my life as before the band continues to be elusive.  Where before I would stretch my attention, time use and yes consumption of food and drink to the limits now my food and drink are limited by the band I continue to stretch my time, work and life to even more extremes.  This of course is because with the weight loss I have more energy to give and I realize that just as I seem to have lived a life of 'too much' before the band I continue to push those limits.  just not in the food or lack of exercise categories anymore.  Do we ever find balance?  I guess I will continue to try but sometimes I wonder if the band has really changed all that needed changing and whether I have to mettle to finish the job.