Staring fear in the face

I had an appointment with my therapist the other day.  We talked a lot about the good things I'm incorporating now into my life that will ultimately help me be successful after I have my surgery, such as writing down all of my food and exercising at least an hour (mostly) every day.  Then she asked me what fears I have around the surgery.  I don't know why she asked that ... perhaps she sensed something.

I thought about it for a moment and knew that it wasn't about the surgery itself.  The center that will be performing the surgery has a great reputation for excellence and the surgeons are tops in their field.  They are bariatric specialists, so I have every confidence in the world that they know what they're doing.  It is a major surgery, that's for sure, and I don't take that fact lightly.  They are going in and taking about 85% of my stomach out and there's a weirdness factor to that.  Yet, I'm okay with the surgery itself.

Where my fear comes up is about failing.  I really don't want to be one of those people that has surgery and then learns to eat around it, going back up in weight to where I was before, if not worse.  That seriously would break my heart.  Having weight loss surgery is a decision most people make because they have tried everything else, so it's a last resort in many ways.  I know that is the case for me.  I have tried many, many methods to lose the weight.  My doctor has seen me go up and down like a roller coaster year after year.  I fear failing because, let's face it, I've done that before many times.

I can say that something feels different this time.  There's an internal switch that has occurred in me that I have never had before, even when I was on Optifast and was so successful in losing weight there.  I have a level of accountability I haven't had in the past.  If you are my friend over at MyFitnessPal, then you know exactly what I have to eat every single day.  I put it all in there because it keeps me honest, more with myself than with anybody else.  Even when I had too much to eat during Easter, by God I logged it all.  I have purposely not chosen certain foods to eat because I knew the calories were high and it just wasn't worth it to me.  And my fabulous little Fitbit keeps my shrinking butt moving.  Except for maybe two or three times, I am exercising at least an hour a day.  My little gadget motivates me to reach my goals.  The competitor in me (a la Kickass Kathy) strikes when friends get ahead of me in steps.  If someone is 2,000 steps ahead of me for the day, then I'll keep going until I have 2,001 so that I can be ahead of them.  It's friendly competition, but I love it.

While I do have a fear of failing at the surgery, I can clearly see that I'm not just sitting on the sidelines worrying about it.  I'm taking action and doing things to help me be successful, even while there's a part of me that wonders how I will do.  I'm choosing to focus on being in a positive place.  That makes a huge difference in life.  I'm finding that the more positive I am, the less loud the voice is that tells me I will fail.  I like that.

Water Challenge Day 89:  Drank 144 of 178 ounces