New Year, New You, Part Deux

So, I've been a bit behind, but I wanted to kind of pop in and do a belated follow-up to Ally's post. I too am doing this whole new year new you thing, though I already set it in the works late last year. I have decided to pursue a gastric sleeve procedure/operation.

I've put a lot of thought and soul-searching into this decision. I don't have a surgery date yet, but I am going through the Comprehensive Obesity Management Program (COMP) at the Greater Baltimore Medical Center (GBMC). It's a 3+ month process, with lots of testing and information. They have a whole team of dieticians/nutritionists, doctors, nurses, psychologists, and generally just friendly and compassionate people and faces.

In the meantime, I've been checking in regularly with the forums on gastricsleeve.com, as well as doing buckets of research and being very inquisitive of all the people I interact with. I'm worn out with how much it's taking over my life a little bit, but I know it will be worth it, even if I'm becoming a bit more terrified as things progress.

I am contemplating starting up a blog as well solely for my gastric sleeve journey. Since there's a lot of things that would help other "sleevers" or possible sleevers, and it would be a way I can actually look at what I'm doing. Unfortunately, I am kind of like, "Meh? Meh. ...Meh" because of being so exhausted. So, who knows. Maybe not.

A New Year, A New Me?

That's a question, not a statement. Though it's not really a question either. The first part of my new year I spent celebrating with friends. I threw an awesome party, if I do say so myself. The decor was especially good. I made an awesome banner, which there may or may not be a tutorial of in the future. We'll just have to wait and see. Hopefully I can get myself together and write it. I also saw Wreck-It Ralph with friends on New Year's Day. It was pretty cute.

I know people usually make new year's resolutions, but I'm not really the sort. So I didn't make any, but I have been thinking about something for a long time. My weight. It's kind of a big number, it's the highest it's ever been and I don't love it. Mostly because I'm not fitting into the clothes that I love any more, which sucks. So I decided to be a little proactive and get on the weight loss bandwagon. And so far I've lost 2.8 pounds. Which is pretty great considering all I'm really doing is tracking my calories.

I use myfitnesspal, which is a smartphone app for android and iphone that tracks your food intake. You can also connect it with fitness apps to automatically log your exercise. I have my account linked to my runtastic pedometer app. I haven't really done much other than track calories, which apparently was enough incentive for me. When you make your account for myfitnesspal, you set your weightloss goal. The more you want to lose, the less calories you get for the day. I want to lose one pound a week, so the app says I get 1770 calories a day, if you exercise you can technically eat more than that, which I often do because I love food. But it does keep me from mindlessly snacking which is great and probably the place where I needed the most help anyway. I'm actually a pretty healthy eater, I love vegetables and I'm not a fan of red meat. But snacks, man do I love snacks. This helps me curb my snack enthusiasm, or at least makes me ask myself is it worth it. Most of the time, it is as long as I know I'll have time to exercise later.

I'm looking forward to seeing if I can keep up with this weight loss. My goal is to drop about 20 pounds. If I manage that, maybe another 20. But, I'd really be perfectly happy with just losing 20 pounds and being able to keep it off. I've never tried to lose weight before, so here's hoping this works!