Waiting for the journey to begin

Hello! You can call me JB and I live in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. After a lifetime of struggling with my weight, I am currently camped out at 250 lbs, and at 5'4" that means I have a 42 BMI(click on link to determine your BMI and to use an online calculator to determine your realistic ideal body weight.

A BMI of 42 catagorizes me as "morbidly obese" and I've come to live with that label. Most people know I'm fat, but wouldn't think I held such a title as morbidly obese because I am active and live life to the fullest. I've been told I "carry the weight well". However, that doesn't mean that my body doesn't know what's going on... it knows very well and reminds me about my extra 100+ lbs with little daily things like aching knees and twisted ankles (and bruises from falling from the same), shortness of breath and a heart rate that sounds like a race horse -- when I'm lying down!

I've tried several of the popular diets, including Weight Watchers, Slimfast and Nutrisystem. I've always been successful on the diets and lost 20lbs or so over the first 4 weeks. Once I even lost 40 lbs and got down to 200lbs. Everyone said I looked great. It only took about 12 weeks. But, as always, my metabolism went into overdrive and although I carefully continued the diet the pounds stopped coming off... then a few weeks later the scale started going up again. STILL ON THE DIET! It's always that way. My metabolism is so efficient I just can't seem to overcome it for any length of time.

So I started my journey to weight loss surgery early this year (2006). I went to my doctor and told him I wanted a referral to a weight loss surgeon in Edmonton as he specializes in laproscopic surgery. The research I had done to date had shown me that recovery time for a laproscopic procedure are quicker than for open surgery, and being only 32 I don't really want to live with a huge scar on my stomach. My dear doctor recently made a little "punny" at my expense and said to me that it wasn't a decision that I'd "gone into lightly". I had to laugh with him on that one... it's the truth! I've agonized over this decision... is it a "cop out" like I'd thought for years? Or is it a little light of hope? Should I beat myself up over this inability to overcome and succeed? Or should I accept that this is a "disease" that needs aggressive treatment? I will address these thoughts individually over the next few days so you can see my logic in the decision to go for a risky and frightening proceedure... with the hope that the 6-12 month window of opportunity it provides will allow me to make a radical and permanent change.

I hope my journey and my honesty about the trials, troubles and triumphs of weight loss surgery will help you with your decision, or with your own journey.