I am down 40 pounds since I had my lap banding surgery done last year.  I feel significantly thinner and healthier.  I believe that this surgery turned back my life years too.  By this I mean that I will get to live a lot longer than if I would have kept going on and accepting the status quo.  

I am glad that I went ahead, but there are weird things that I did not expect to see and that I am not happy with.  Recently I asked my doctor for a referral to a medical weight loss centre so that I can, hopefully, deal with some of the oddities that I am experiencing.  I don’t know if they will be best dealt with emotionally, physically or psychologically; this is why I feel that I need some help because I am not sure what to do about these things or even if anything needs to be done at all.

The weird things are that I don’t know what hungry feels like – I have a very difficult time recognizing what real hunger feels like.  I am forgetting to eat now because the stomach does not send any singles to my brain, I think.  Anyway, what is happening is that I go from zero to 100 in three seconds.  In other words, I don’t know that I am hungry, I have forgotten and then suddenly I am so hungry that I can’t wait a second to eat, it is difficult to take the time to chew my food.  If feel ravenous and like I could eat like a dog!  Just one or two big gulps of whatever I can sink my teeth into.  I think this is weird.  It does not feel normal to me.  Is it?

The other thing that is making me uncomfortable is that my sugar addiction has not gone away but rather it has intensified.  I eat a lot of chocolate.  A LOT!  10-20 full sized chocolate bars a week.  I would like to stop eating sugar, but don’t know how to do this… I know, I know!  It is not good for me! I will become diabetic!  It is bad for your teeth!  There is no food value!  Chocolate is a food that is connected to the suffering of third world peoples!  It gives you pimples!  

I have heard it all!  I can’t even justify it by saying that I love dark chocolate which of course has some health benefits… no, for me it is Cadbury milk chocolate… This is my absolute favorite yumminess!  I would like to get away from it – but for me one is too many and a thousand is not enough, and I have tried quitting and failed so many times… maybe a doctor can help me?

The next issue is that I am sagging – I have a little neck waddle and some little jowls beginning.  I also have a lot of extra skin on my tummy which I think when I lose 10-20 more pounds will be totally empty dangling skin, that will flap around in a wind storm like a flag announcing my patronage to the food like some inappropriate connection to the illness that I have always suffered with.  

Anyway… still, it is 40 and there is still some to go… so I will see how the appointment goes and see how the rest coming off affects me.