I am having my surgery Aug. 1 2011 and I couldnt be more excited!

I feel fairly preapred for what is to come physically.....

But then my roommate brings me back down to earth saying things like just because you are thin doesnt mean everything will be great in regards to self esteem. So for anyone that has changed a lot on the outside, does the brain follow, or do I run the risk of keeping my "fat girl" mentallity???

Any thoughts are appreciated! Thanks

thats VERY...

•deep

•scary

•true

food has always been my best friend and enemy. i can be so depressed & food & a good movie will lift my spirits. whenever i am dieting & i get stressed or depressed, i jump

right off my diet head first!

its going to take a lot of self digging to pull thru it all.

In some ways, losing the weight makes life harder, not easier. My top weight neared 300 lbs. I got down to the 180s with the lap band, regained a bit when I got it removed and am now back on my way down with the sleeve. Over the journey of weight loss, I have discovered that food has played a significant role in my life that had nothing to do with food or weight and everything to do with all sorts of things.....things like rebellion/control issues from parents who hid food from me, from pleasure I learned to associate reading and eating popcorn at the same time as the ultimate in self nurturing stress relief, etc. It masked a problem with major depression for me and kept me company when I was lonely. I have had t learn how to redefine what being in control really means (no, "they" don't win if I am thin by choice); I have had to learn better ways of dealing with stress and I have had to sit within a sense of loneliness and learned I won't die from it and that food doesn't take away whatever is causing it or even really comfort me from it. I have had to find other ways to wind down and de-stress and before I could do that, I had to FEEL the stress that food numbed away from me.

So yeah. You will carry a lot of this with you even as the weight comes off. That being said, it doesn't mean you are going to fail, be miserable, suffer or hate your life or yourself. You will find strength in yourself you didn't know you have and you will learn new ways to cope. It isn't easy, but the hard makes it great. Don't look at just the weight loss - you become healthier as much from relearning how to use food as you do from getting the physical weight off your body.