By: Sandi Henderson

Here we are, at the tail end of another year.  Wow, was it really May of 2004 that I walked into surgery weighing 424 pounds?  I am having a hard time remembering what that was like.  I am so incredibly grateful to have my life back with only those restrictions that I choose to set for myself.  There, I've said it again and I do mean it, just as I truly am grateful for being able to pay it forward and share what I have learned, what I am still learning, and what I have yet to learn with all of you, the Banded Living community.  OK, that's it.  My reflections on the past are in the past and now I am facing forward, looking at the year about to begin with great anticipation.  I have been given this gift of a New Year so what will I do with it?  What are my goals, and what are my plans for reaching my goals?

For all of us who hope for things like world peace and brotherly love, and cures for horrible diseases and the like, hope doesn't make wishes come true.  It feels good to say it and write it, but ACTIONS are what make it happen.  Start however small and grow your actions as you meet your little goals.  You want world peace?  I know I do.  What can you do in your community to promote it?  Can you reach out to someone "different" from you (whatever that might mean to you) and have a cup of coffee and a conversation with them?  That would be promoting world peace on a very small scale, but it would be moving in the direction we need to go to attain the greater goal.  Brotherly love?  Reach out to someone you got angry with and haven't spoken to in a while.  Cures for horrible diseases?  Put one dollar in a box collecting for THE CURE.  Small steps, but if each and every one of us takes the small step the universe always presents the next appropriate step.  We just have to be listening.

Now, you want to know, what does any of this have to do with me and my lap band and the new year?  First of all, it's called living.  I have been given the gift of truly living my life again and I can now be concerned about the world in whole.  My life is no longer driven by what pill I need to take or how can I climb that flight of stairs, or will I be able to find a parking spot close enough....  My life is now full of ACTIONS, of doing both for myself and for others.  I can take my grandkids to Disneyland and have a great time, I can attend a concert with my husband, I can work for a charity.  I can choose to do what I want and have the time, energy and physical ability to do so.  That's what it all has to do with my lap band.  Before surgery my life was small, getting smaller every day as I died a little bit at a time.

Now my goals for the new year:

• I will laugh every day.  A good, loud bit of laughter that energizes my soul;
• I will smile at strangers and say hello;
• I will tell my family that I love them;
• I will exercise for 60 minutes more per week;
• I will reduce my coffee to one cup per day;
• I will finally get to take a hot air balloon ride (I've had 3 trips cancelled);
• I will not snack while preparing dinner;
• I will limit after dinner snacks to 100 calories max, if necessary at all;
• I will lose that 10 pounds I've been talking about;
• I will find something good in every day. 

Other than the hot air balloon ride, no really lofty goals.  I feel very good about this list.  I don't feel like these are New Year's resolutions, (to be broken on January 10^th or so) but rather a list of some of what I'd like to accomplish and some of how I'd like to be.  All reachable, all reasonable.

Laughing out loud every day can be simple - as long as I am smiling I can find the humor in any situation.  Smiling at strangers and telling my family that I love them is easy.  I just have to remember.  I'll put a post it in my car, on my mirror in the bathroom and on my monitor in the office.  Exercising 60 minutes more each week is only 10 minutes more per day and just means leaving for the gym or on my bicycle 10 minutes earlier.  Reducing my coffee to one cup per day means cutting out that second cup which I just started having.  It's too much caffeine for me and my body is letting me know that so I will listen to it.  Taking that hot air balloon ride has been on my "bucket list" for years and I will sit down with my husband this weekend and plan where we are going to try for it this year.  Not snacking while I prepare dinner and keeping after dinner snacks to 100 calories max just means going back to the plan I had been following for years, that I allowed to slip.  It means taking a walk after dinner, and not into the kitchen.  It means having a cup of flavored herbal tea after dinner.  It means organizing my dinner prep time so that I can get my gym bag ready for the morning while dinner is cooking rather than before I get it started.  When you add the additional exercise, the not snacking while I prepare dinner and the 100 calorie max for after dinner snacks then the 10 pounds will drop before I know it.

Finding something good in every day will take thought each and every day and perhaps get me further into a grateful mindset.  This is the mindset that brings wonderful things into my life.  It opens me to turn every lemon into lemonade and allows situations to present themselves that I would have previously been blind to.

It's worth it!  I'm worth it!

Share your goals for the next week, the next month or the next year on our FORUMS

Remember, YOU"RE WORTH IT!

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