HELEN:

 

  Spring is finally here! My family and I took a walk for the first time this year today and wow did it feel great to be outside with the sun shining and in the fresh air again.  It sure seemed like the winter would never end! 

  It's odd. Up until this year, the winter time was always my best time to lose weight. For as long as I can remember I would do awesome at losing weight after the holidays and until summer. This year is the opposite and I think I'm becoming more like a normal person in that regard.  Most people seem to lose weight best in warmer weather months. I've always been a little odd in being opposite :)  I think I made the switch last year when I got fit enough to start riding my bike a lot, walking a lot more and getting a lot of outdoor exercise. So now this year I've been at this stand still this winter and have been completely freaking out about it in light of my surgery that's coming up in just 10 more days.

   Anyway...I did not lose the weight my surgeon had wanted me to and it definitely was not for lack of trying , let me tell ya. So I find myself extremely nervous about it all... I feel like I let myself down, I feel like I let my surgeons down and have made their jobs more difficult but at the same time, I've tried so hard and worked out so hard so how much can I let myself beat up on myself about it, ya know?

  In all honestly, this past week I have been off track with my eating, but the majority of the winter I've been on track and workout out like a crazy woman.  One of my favorite aunts passed away last week.  Her funeral was just the other day.  I've been comfort eating to block the stress in all honesty and I'm trying hard to get a handle on it and undo any damage this 10 days as possible. So when I screw up, I will readily admit that.  But my screw ups have been few this year and with all the working out I've done I should have dropped a ton of weight anyway, but here I am...stuck and looking at only 10 days till surgery and completely stresssed out about it.

  All kinds of things are going through my mind. Will my surgeon really believe that I honestly have been trying hard to drop more weight before surgery or will he have the preconceived notion that I tossed any efforts to the wind?  Will the lack of lost weight create problems for him during surgery? Will he get into the hernia repair and decide it best to not have the plastic surgeon go ahead with the panniculectomy? Will I be ok with anesthesia? Is my current weight acceptable for a successful surgery for both the hernia repair and the panniculectomy? What if something goes wrong...my husband and son need me...  yada yada.  I lay awake at night worrying about all of this the closer the surgery date gets.

  But any rate....

  I'm going to try to devote this next ten days to eating as sensibly as I can and working out as hard as I possibly can and try to get as healthy in this short amount of time as I can.  Not really all that unlike what I have been doing anyway (apart from last week) but I guess you never know when my body may decide to cooperate finally and let me drop some weight before surgery.  I'm up a few pounds as a result of my botched week last week and I want to try to undo the damage of any regain before surgery.

  The beautiful day and the walk out in it gave me a little boost of motivation, so I hope the nice weather holds out a while.

  I'll try to post a few more times before my surgery date but after that of course, it will be a week or two probably till I get back online.

  I have one appointment with the plastic surgeon a few days before surgery and I'm really glad about that so that I can express my concerns and fears to him and get his input.  The surgeon who is doing the hernia repair is a bariatric surgeon and is the one who was the most concerned about my trying to get more weight off before having the panniculectomy part, which the plastic surgeon will be handling.  So perhaps talking to the plastic surgeon before surgery will help me to sort out my fears and concerns.  My thinking is that if the plastic surgeon had many concerns about my current weight, he would have expressed it to me during my consultation with him, but he didn't. I've seen pictures online of people bigger than me who had the panniculectomy.  I understand my bariatric surgeon's concerns too though... sigh...I'm just confused and really stressed...

  Ugh. What a mess my emotions are lately :)