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"You are beautiful. Your beauty, just like your capacity for life, happiness, and success, is immeasurable. Day after day, countless people across the globe get on a scale in search of validation of beauty and social acceptance. Get off the scale! I have yet to see a scale that can tell you how enchanting your eyes are. I have yet to see a scale that can show you how wonderful your hair looks when the sun shines its glorious rays on it. I have yet to see a scale that can thank you for your compassion, sense of humor, and contagious smile. Get off the scale because I have yet to see one that can admire you for your perseverance when challenged in life. It’s true, the scale can only give you a numerical reflection of your relationship with gravity. That’s it. It cannot measure beauty, talent, purpose, life force, possibility, strength, or love. Don’t give the scale more power than it has earned. Take note of the number, then get off the scale and live your life. You are beautiful!” Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

Previously I cut all ties with my publisher for personal reasons. So I decided to submit my manuscript to one of the hardest to get published, publishing companies in the United States. I did this about six weeks ago and figured well they said I would hear something in two weeks. So I gave up. I continue to write everyday because I love to do it and well..... I think I am pretty good at it. So today came the email and I didn't want to open it because I knew it was a rejection email. After all this time it had to be right? WRONG WRONG WRONG! Not only did they accept my manuscript but said this: Congratulations Cheryl! Tate Publishing has accepted your book,"The Prevalence of Love" for publication. This email is to inform you that we would love to move you to the next step in this process and get you a contract to look over. I have been reading through your submission and I am certainly impressed. This is a project that we are really interested in taking on. I just want you to know upfront that I really enjoyed your work and we are excited about this opportunity. Please take some time to read through the material and let me know if you have any questions. It is important that you know what it is about your book that caught our eye and you need to realize that a lot of time and effort goes in to each review of every submission that comes to us. Your book has been chosen on the basis of writing ability, concept and most importantly- marketability. It is with great pleasure that we welcome you as one of the 4% chosen out of tens of thousands each year to become a published author with us. Congratulations![/font] I was moved by your short stories and the encouragement that radiates in your writing. We are very honored to have you come our way and look forward to working with you on this project. [/font] Yes they read every single submission they get and my book was picked! Over the years my writing has improved drastically. I not only just produce books but I write for Yahoo Voices, The Examiner, Angies Diaries and many other websites. With perserverence I have been given an opportunity that most authors never have the chance to get. It is hard to get published and while I have been publshed for quite some time by another publishing company that is being sued by many authors for their lies and deciet, I have broken through to a publisher that is by far hard as hell to get published by. So today I do my happy dance and now you all know what I do instead of thinking of food. I write.[/font] TIME FOR A BIG HAPPY DANCE

I think I have a clot in my nose... if I take a picture can you tell me what you think I should do? Also, I ate chips and salsa in my post-op phase, do you think I hurt my band? Can you tell me what to eat? Why is my cat losing more weight than me... We eat the same diet? OMG PEOPLE... GET SERIOUS. This is not a game. I get so depressed reading this crap! I think I will take a mini vacation. I need a tranquilizer to keep this crap from driving me insane. Do these people think we are not working our butts off to do this? Who the F U C K told them it would be easy? Rant off... sorry having a bad morning... hope yours is better!

Well Good Morning to all of you LapBanders! Are you having a wonderful day, are you having a successful lap band journey? Well I am choosing to have a wonderful day and I have had a wonderful lap band journey. If you can't answer yes to both of those question, you need to ask yourself WHY the H E L L NOT! Hi, my name is Diane, Love to all my BFF's on lap band talk. I have been banded since October 2010, and yes I am a successful lapband participant. I set her dormant most of the time, surfing the site, occasional liking a post or making a comment. I don't really get caught up in all the Bull S H I T that goes on in the blogs or on the forums, because honestly people are going to do what they want and you can't fix stupid. My philosophy on life is to live to the fullest and you get out of life what your willing to put into it. There are times in life when we all ask the question,"Why is this happening to me?" God, why do you put so much burden on me? Seriously, how much more can I take or can I do? Seriously folks don't ask those questions because, life is just that LIFE and it will always throw you curve balls and it will always put obstacles in your path, it is how YOU chose to deal with the curve balls and the obstacles that defines your path. If you want to be successful or optimistic about anything it is your attitude that is your defining grace. Let me explain: What is a pessimist? a person who habitually sees or anticipates the worst or is disposed to gloomy. What is an optimist? the tendency to EXPECT the best and see the best in things, hopeful, confident. Now I want you to read both of those definitions and take a good internal look at your self, stand in front of the mirror and ask your self, Am I a pessimist or an optimist? If that person staring back at you from the mirror is a pessimist, I am here to tell you, YOU WILL FAIL at this WL Journey. You will never lose all your weight, you will struggle at every obstacle the band throws your way. You will whine about being hungry, you will whine about being stuck, you will whine about not losing weight, you will blame the band, the surgeon and everyone on this sit who has been successful or is really trying. Face it everyone, trying to lose weight sucks, and it is hard whether you have Lap Band or some other tool helping you. It is going to be hard work but if you believe in yourself, NOT the BAND, you can and WILL be successful I know because I was and am! So the next time life throws you Lemons, instead of crying over split milk, Make a nice cool, refreshing glass of Lemon Ade sugar free of course. Today, I dedicate my blog to my mother. My mother is 84 years old and is dealing with Dementia. Well maybe I should say we are dealing with mama having Dementia. Honestly I never thought we would be here, my mama was always such a vibrant lady, always a on the go, the life of the party. But now she is scared and lost and what is the saddest is she knows she is lost. She woke up yesterday morning at my house and walked out of her room like a frightened 2 year old waking from a bad dream. She was disheveled and crying. "Di, how did I get here? I went to bed in one place and woke up here? How did I get here?" She was sobbing, it broke my heart to watch. It took us the better part of the morning to reconstruct the night but with time and patience she was able to put her night back together and realize why she was with me instead of at her place. You see we are relocating my mama to be closer to me and my brothers, she had spent 4 days of hell, saying goodbye to all her old friends, her great grand children and grand daughter. She had packed her 84 years up in boxes and loaded them on a big truck. She spent the night in a hotel, had lost her suit case and drove for 8 hours, unpacked a truck into her new home, went to dinner in a strange town, went to bed in a strange bed and woke up scared. Now I ask you, What would you do or feel? Lost, scared, unsure of what is happen, Yes you would and so would I. I told my mama it was going to be OK! She said to me" Di, it may be OK but it will never be the same!." WOW what a powerful statement, and you know what she is right, it will never be the same. But it will be OK, and why will it be OK, because we are choosing to be optimistic. We all know the end result of Dementia, you slowing lose your present, live in your past and forget that there is a tomorrow! So why not make the most of what time you have left of today and continue to enjoy life. We could all give up on mama and just pretend this isn't happening or let others deal with it but is that really fair? So you see, life has now thrown me another curve ball or more lemons, I have whined, I have cried, I have asked those questions, Oh why me and my mama but today, today I am choosing to be hopeful and confident that my mama will slowly descend into the shadows of darkness known as Dementia, I am choosing to be hopeful that she can remain independent with minimal assistance from her family. I am choosing to make Lemon Ade. I know the odds, I know what the final outcome will be but it truly is about the journey and I am choosing to make this a wonderful, hopeful journey for me, mama and my family. So friends I ask you again are you a Pessimist or an Optimist and if you are a pessimist may I suggest you look really long and hard at that person staring back at you from the mirror and ask WHY?

Anyone thats ever had a traumatic event in their life can relate to what I'm about to say. I spent a lot of time in the counselors office talking about forgiveness. Forgiving your abuser and those who supported the abuse, either by denial or by complacency is more about healing you than giving that other person anything. I never once in this whole process ever thought about forgiving myself. I was watching a recent episode of Heavy and one of the counseling sessions was about forgiving yourself. There is so much guilt associated in childhood trauma, at least there was for me. I can honestly say that I have forgiven those involved, but I have never forgiven myself. Part of this journey for me is to work through the reasons I turn to food for comfort. Part of my realization is that I have not forgiven myself; I did not allow myself to break free from my abuse because of the guilt. I feel responsible for what happened, because I didn't speak up, I didn't tell anyone, I didn't make it stop. Why didn't I? Logic sets in and tells me it was because I was only 2,3,4,5,6,7 years old but my memories are processed through my mind, an adult's mind. I am mature enough to know it is wrong..now! But then? I remember saying " this is wrong" and him saying " why?" and I couldn't answer him because I didn't know. How could I not have known? These are the things I am working through...it's not a sob story, so don't feel bad for me. It's just my reality, one that I've lived with my whole life. I'm working through it now. I have no choice because I can't consume large amounts of food anymore to avoid working through them ( thank god!) I'm just telling myself every day that I have the right to what everyone else has and that.... It was not my fault! It was not my fault! It was not my fault!

Expectations. I think one of the biggest problems with my gaining and losing weight over the years is my expectation of the situation. Reading the forums here I see that I'm not the only one who suffers from expectation problems. For example in late 2012, I joined Ideal Protein. It's a medically supervised low carb, high protein diet that garners relatively fast results. I was expecting to lose weight quickly and I did. What was the problem? I expected to lose it faster than that! I expected to lose 100 lbs in under 6 months and when I had successfully lost 75 lbs I couldn't really consider it a success. I wanted to but I didn't make my goal. I didn't live up to my expectation. Had I looked at the reality of the situaton: I LOST 75 LBS IN 6 MONTHS perhaps I woiuld've been more gentle with myself. Perhaps I would have taken more pride in my accomplishment, perhaps I would've care more or acted sooner when I started to feel the weight start to slowly creep back. My reality was that I had already failed at this process and so the 5 pound gain that turned to 10 which quickly morphed to 50 lbs was simply more failure. With this process I'm trying really hard to have zero expectations of how it's going to work out but that's easier said than done. From my first meeting the expectation was that it would take months to fulfill the insurance company requirements. I wasn't going to let that deter me. Just proceed on and understand that this could take a while. Nutrition and Psychology and the toughest to schedule with people waiting MONTHS to get appointments. I was prepared. I had zero expectations. My psychology appointment was booked on a Wednesday for the following Monday. WHAT? When I discovered that my 6 months at Ideal Protein covered my nutrition requirements and I only had to see the nutritionist twice through the surgeons office I was pleasantly surprised but I was told that scheduling them could take months. I had my two appointments within 30 days. That was better than any expectation I could've set for myself. As of yesterday, I have fulfilled all of my requirements for the insurance company submittal process so now I have to wait. I know that it can take up to 7 weeks to get an answer from my insurance company but I plan to just continue to have zero expectation of time. It will unfold as it has to unfold and I will yield to the time gently. I'm going to carry this out to my surgery and then to my weight loss following surgery. I know that there are many people who have lost extraordinary amounts of weight in short periods of time. I know others who have had more stalls than a football staduim's restroom but I am neither of those people. I am me and my weightloss will be unique to me. My goals is to: Follow my surgeon's instructions Make my meal planning a priority Keep my body moving Educate my family on what this surgery is doing for me Not compare myself, my diet, my surgeon, my instructions to any other persons Have zero expectations of how this wll play out but know that if I just follow the rules it will play out as my body needs it to. Tha'ts my new reality.

The surgery yesterday evening went well, they were able to get the kidney stone out, so that's good. I'm still uncomfortable, and running a fever on and off due to the infection it caused. My blood pressure is kind of all over the place, one reading high- the next might be low- the next normal...so between that and the fever, they're keeping me one more night to make sure they get all the antibiotcs on board that they wanted to. (P.S.- these liquid meds TASTE TERRIBLE! lol) As much of a bummer as it is to have kindey stones, I really took a lot of comfort in knowing, I have no remaining issues from surgery. The pain I thought I was having b/c of it turned out to be kidney stone, so I'm completely healed and doing well with my sleeve itself. I've also found now that the stone is out- and the pain is down, I'm much better at getting my fluids in- still working on the protein angle, but it's hard to fill that order at the hospital- I've been using muscle milk for now- just to get something in. Thanks all for the support and well wishes the other day! Best of luck to the rest of you sleevers!

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Well - this is my first posting and first blog so here goes! I feel lately I have had a lot of firsts....first major surgery, first time putting myself first, first time owning my health, etc I have to say that it definitely is hard to choose yourself first. Anyone with children, a spouse, family, etc knows what I mean. You feel as if you are cheating them out of being there. It has taken me many years to come to understand that what I thought as putting them first was actually an excuse for me to continue to be unhealthy. How was I putting them first if I wasn't taking the best care of myself? This is a VERY hard lesson to learn. As I look around at my family members and family history of chronic weight related issues I put my foot down. There was a voice deep down saying "me, me...did you forget that I am here?" This time I chose to listen. I have not always been overweight...alright "morbidly obese". This is something that has been rolling along pretty much for the past 15 years. You know the story....get married (get comfortable), have children (more comfortable with a few pounds) and before you know it you are a shell of the person you once were. Years go by and you lose a little and gain more and back and forth. Many of us have the same story. My weight loss surgery journey originally began two and a half years ago, Dec 2009 with a seminar for the lap band. I went and listened and then said I will give it another try of doing it myself and bailed on following through. Two years later I found myself at the seminar again with a firm grip on my nerves and actually listened with more conviction about choosing me first. After going through the 3 months of NUT, psych appointment, surgeon visits and pre-op testing...I took a leap of faith with myself and God . I had clear liquids 24 hrs before surgery and was officially sleeved on 7/17 at 10am. I am currently 10 days post-op and completely intrenched in the full liquid diet. What can you say about liquids? Not a whole lot . Anyway, I am just passing time until Tues when I get to start the greatly anticipated puree stage. Never thought I would be so excited about eating food the consistency of baby food. But here I am and readily counting the hours. This past 2 weeks has given me time to do a lot of thinking!! Sometimes I wonder if the liquid stage is just as much for learning to listen to your body and conquering some of your food obsession as it is about letting your body heal. I have found that everyday that voice is getting a little stronger and I can't wait to begin to have NSVs and see the weight come off. I will take each day of passing time to consider the gift I have been given of my life, living longer, spending more time with family and friends. I am 38 years old and have a lifetime ahead of me and plan to make it the best I can!!

Well, I returned to work, arrived early - 7 AM, since I had insomnia last night - I figured I'd make the most of the day. After I got my walk on with the love of my life. My hubbage has been super awesome supportive. I am blessed. I keep my big GNC MIO flavored water at my side where ever I go, and I have a bottle of Isopure on my desk. I sip, sip, sip and that does the trick. I had egg-salad at my desk - started at 12, and finished at 3 - I took my sweet time eating bit by bit. I'm so afraid of feeling uncomfortable and visiting up-chuck city at work that I would rather slowly pace myself. Granted, it is HARD AS HELL. The shadow man from stress eater land is lurking over me all the time. It is so wierd to want to eat but to not be hungry. I think that is the biggest challenge for me. Recognizing and listening to my stress triggers and not immediately thinking FOOD. I find so much support, positivity and community on this site - thank you who ever reads and comments, you are lifting my spirit as I work through this life change. Every smiley face is getting a smile right back. I talked to my HR Director, she did not turn over the paperwork to my boss, kept it confidential as requested, fully supported me. (I LOVE WHEN HR DOES WHAT THEY SHOULD). I met with my boss, the good news...well she told me about my "bonus" for the performance year - we did well. However, she "negatively modified" my bonus because she felt I "struggled" this year. Let me define the struggle. An anonymous complaint to HR w/out facts, inuendo and no specific examples to substantiate the claim. I've asked time and again - but to no avail. And I got "dinged" because she did not feel I had as outstanding of a year as my peers. She smiled the whole time she said it. She's inspires me to be a better person. Even though it was a small "ding" - it is the point none the less. I've been working on my Resume - time to be successful somewhere else. Some day. I love my staff, my team, the work I do. It is challenging, fun. I've got AWESOME health bennies. So, I shut up and put up, or I move on. I don't think I could handle moving on so soon. So I will vent, and deal. And wish the flees of a thousand camels infest her pants.