Pre First Lighten up meeting

Next week I will be going to my first lighten up meeting. I will go to these meetings once a week for six months. It seems like a long time.  I am not excited or scared, I am bored already. I don't know what to expect but I think it will be just a hurdle to overcome really, a test of my patients.

I must have some feeling about it otherwise I wouldn't feel the need to write this post. I am not sure what it is. The longer I type the more anxiety I feel. Not about the class but more because I can't point to what I am feeling. But what is the saying? You can't reach a goal you've never reached before without doing something you've never done before. (Or something like that.)

Getting my feelings out is helping. I am feeling hope that this process (start to finish) is actually going to work. But I don't want to have too much hope as what if it doesn't work? But it has to right? Yes that is what I'm feeling. The beginning of something new. Something that will be hard and scary and exciting and boring. A journey I'd never thought I'd have to take but have chosen to. In some ways I feel like I don't have a choice, in other ways I know I always have a choice.

This will be a long journey. It will have high, highs and low, lows. I am committed to see it through to the end, whenever that may be. I am fully aware that there may never be an end in this life. Yet I know there will be an end and I have to finish this time. First I have to start and that is just what I am going to do.

I tried to explain to my kids, a little bit, about what I am going to do. They are 11, 8 and 4 they understood for their ages. I don't know what else to tell them or how else to prepare them. I feel like I'm a little lost myself so I certainly can't lead someone else along. Hopefully it will only affect them in the best way. I hope we can make this a positive experience and learn from the hard parts: whatever they may be. 

Well here goes nothing...
I have been obese for almost 16 years now. It is a story with lots of details and heartache, ups and downs; I can no longer run from the realities this puts in my life. Maybe at some point I will write about what has gotten me here. Right now I would like to share this part of the journey that starts now.

I have had my first appointment about bariatric surgery. I am 90% convinced I will go thru with it. I am scared of dying too soon. If I make it through the surgery and aftermath it will give me a longer life. I feel at peace with this decision. I am a religious person. I have prayed about this and feel like my Heavenly Father has answered my prayer.

I will begin taking classes for weight loss in October. It is a formality I have to impatiently muddle through. I am a smart person, I have many accomplishments, and yet I can't translate what I know scientifically about weight loss (eat right and exercise - no big mystery) into something my emotions can understand. So the first step is to make sure I know how to loose weight. I am trying to go into the classes as open minded as possible. Maybe this will help. Maybe I will have a moment and I will change. Maybe I will be bored to death, feeling like my intelligence is being insulted. We shall see... I will do my best.