I'll Try Anything Once. Unless It Smells Bad.

When I was a kid, I hated mushrooms. Loathed them. I used to pick them off the pizza my mother would make for dinner and lay them on the plate of whatever unsuspecting adult happened to be sitting next to me. Once that person happened to be a new friend my mother had invited over for dinner for the first time. Luckily, she had a good sense of humor. And, I was pretty adorable.

A morel is a variety of mushroom, a rather tasty "gourmet" variety, but a mushroom all the same. I think it's a fitting name for someone who spent her life living in the dark of obesity and being fed all that bull#&$! about how diet and exercise are the key to weight management. Diets fail 95% of the time. Recent and optimistic studies like to chirp out that if we redefine "success" as losing 10% of initial weight and keeping it off for 1 year, then as many as 20% of dieters might be successful! Oooooh! 1 in 5 people might be able to lose 10% of weight and keep it off a year. Well, if I lost 23 pounds, you know what? I'd still be severely obese (lucky, lucky me would be able to fall out of the "morbidly" obese category with that kind of loss, but just barely. And you know what would happen? My doctors would still ask if I'd "ever considered trying to lose some weight."

"Oh, no, Mr. Doctor Man!," I would reply with wide eyes and breathless gasps, "I've always LOVED being fat! It makes me so happy to be ostracized and bullied and held up to ridicule! Not to mention the joy of having my feet hurt after 10 minutes in heels, and the way I can't shop in regular clothing stores but have to order almost all my clothes online, because those are the only places that sell my size! I love it! I love the constant fear that diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure lurk just around the corner! It's like a dream come true!"

Anyway, that's my bitter pill, and I'll swallow it. Since I don't want to be that mean, nasty, sarcastic person forever (well, the sarcasm is likely here to stay. It is the lowest form of humor, after all, and I am incredibly short.) I decided to do something about it. Something big and something permanent and something that actually has a chase of helping me to change my life.

On February 1, 2012, I got a lap band. Actually, I got a Realize band, but like Kleenex and Band-Aid, "lap band" is just a lot easier to say than facial tissue or adhesive bandage, so lap band it is. This is the place where I hope to work my way--intellectually and emotionally (and likely occasionally completely irrationally)--through that experience. I can't guarantee to delight and amaze you, my dear imaginary readers, and I can't even guarantee that I'll post more than once ever 3-4 years (since I suck at this kind of regular newsyness) but today, this feels like the right thing to do.

So, hi! And thanks for sticking it out if you made it this far. If you didn't, then please know that those rumors about how you pick your nose in your car when you think no one is looking? I started those.

Have an awesome day.