New Year

I can't believe it has been almost 8 months since I posted here. Several reasons/excuses:

1. I went back to school. I am working on a master's degree in Counseling Psychology with the hopes of going on to a doctoral degree and becoming a psychologist.

2. (and the main reason) I got very LAZY with not only maintaining the blog but with life in general and with my life after WLS. I stopped doing all of the things I was suppose to be doing. I stopped working out. I stopped drinking my protein shake/coffee because I couldn't bring myself to spend $50 bucks on the tub. I slowly stopped having my yogurt everyday. I also stopped taking my vitamins! Really? Those are less than $10. Pure laziness. My diet/eating spiralled out of control. I started eating what ever when ever. I think I gained 5-10 lbs. I'm not 100% sure because my scale broke and I stopped paying attention. I weigh about 183 right now. My old scale said 173 one time only, so I have gained 10 lbs at the most. Still HORRIBLE since I am only 18 months post op. Anyways...

A few weeks ago I stopped and evaluated where I was at. I was feeling out of control with my eating and my emotional issues surrounding food were making me feel like a crazy person. I sat down with my journal and started trying to see what was going on. I realized that over the last few months I stopped doing all of the things that made me feel good, mentally and physically. I had stopped making my health a priority. It didn't happen over night, but slowly but surely I just stopped caring. I realized that what I needed to do to get back on track was pretty simple. So for Christmas I bought myself a big ole' tub of protein and some vitamins! I started making my protein coffee and taking my vitamins daily. I stopped taking the elevator at work. I am trying to work out 20 minutes a day but that hasn't been working out as well. I have a treadmill but it needs some servicing so Sears is coming Thursday to give it a tune up. I am trying to get back to where I was and go farther to get myself healthy and on track. I also made an appointment with my bariatric doctor to talk to him about plastic surgery and my struggles and an appointment with my therapist to start to work through my food issues.

Today is New Year's day and I have been thinking a lot about what I want to do in this new year. I would like to lose another 10-20 lbs but honestly I am less concerned with that as I am about not gaining any weight. I want to stay healthy and get healthier. I have been thinking a lot about creating a set of rules to live by. I feel like I need to set some guidelines for myself to keep myself in line. I started doing this last year with the protein and it really helped. I want to write about my experiences here. I want to create a list of strategies I can pull from when I am struggling so I can keep on track. I don't want to just focus on my eating but that is where I will start since that is what occupies the majority of my thoughts.

I will try hard to keep posting here. It is therapeutic for me. It feels like a creative outlet and I really like it. Happy New Year!