I will be on a flight To Orlando as you folks read this on Thursday, September 25, 2014.  WLS Success Matters is exhibiting at this year’s OAC (Obesity Action Coalition) Your Weight Matters Convention.  We are excited.  If you are in the area please stop by booth 213, and say Hi to us.

I am also excited because on Wednesday, October 1^st I get to start fresh.  Just what does that mean?  It means that after a year of testing, retesting, and consideration (most of it was consideration on my part) we found out that my band, my 10 year old band, had a leak and needed to be replaced.  More details on the how, what, where, why and how of the leak will follow my band removal and replacement.

My surgery for removal of the old and placement of the new is Wednesday, October 1^st and I am like a little kid thinking about the new start I will get.  Not having my band to help control my satiety has created a situation where I have been white knuckling it for quite a while.  I don’t want to be “on a diet”, but I don’t have the help of a tool limiting my portion sizes, and to answer a question asked by many doctors, nurses, dieticians... YES, I can eat too much firm protein.  LOL.

Many who have issues with their band need to point blame, rant and rave, and generally be unhappy and angry with the world.  Often times, it is not the band that is the root cause of the issue - it is user error.  I don’t think this is the situation with me, but it really doesn’t matter.  Am I frustrated?  Yes.  Am I angry?  Only if I react from a primitive emotional state.  Who or what am I angry at when I am angry?  Me, the world, the situation, but I got past all of that pretty quickly.  

The bottom line is I want a working tool to help me with satiety so that when my emotional eating tries to kick in I am not fighting both physical hunger and emotional cravings, My emotional hunger is much less rampant than it was 10 years ago, but it still happens.  Yes, I am human.

My decision was simple.  My choices were limited.  I could choose to:

• Do nothing and struggle forever
• Remove the band and have a different procedure- VSG or Bypass
• Remove my old band and replace it with a newer Lap Band

This was easy for me.  The least invasive procedure worked the first time to the tune of being the tool that helped me lose and maintain a loss of 250 pounds.  WHY would I choose a more invasive procedure?  When I signed my pre-op papers with Dr. Billy two weeks ago his final words to me were:  “You will do just fine.”

I KNOW I will do just fine because I have previously, and I trust the process!

So October 2^nd’s newsletter will be a new recipe and some In The News info as I take a furlough for a couple of days post surgery. 

I’ll be back on October 9^th to chat about starting mushies and what it’s like to be a newbie the second time around.