At the moment I have half a dozen blog ideas running around in my head, some of which include the current state of my NaNoWriMo writing and my recent experience with getting HD cable. But, since there’s really only one thing I can think about for more than two minutes at a time right now, I’m going to write about that instead.

I’m hungry.

In November of 2007, I had lapband surgery. Three years later, the magical weight loss I was promised never happened — and I’m to blame. No matter what else I write after this, keep that in mind: I’m to blame. I am overweight because I choose to take in more calories than I burn. Period. I know this.

That being said, my lapband has never functioned like I was told it would. Prior to having the surgery I was told that I would feel full after eating only 4 ounces of food. I have yet to experience that. To achieve this, the patient has to eat the right foods (meats and vegetables), and the doctor has to adjust the lapband accordingly. After a few months of being told I “wasn’t trying very hard” by my doctor, I quit going. As a result, my lapband is mostly open, meaning I have (at best) inconsistent restriction (my term, not a medical one). While four ounces of food will usually fill me up during the first meal of the day, by the time lunch and dinner roll around I’m starving, and four ounces quickly becomes fourteen.

I have become one of those people I didn’t understand. Prior to having the surgery I saw people at a support group who had fallen back into their old eating habits. I was shocked that anyone who would take the drastic measure of having surgery would sabotage themselves in such a stupid way. “Not me,” I said. “That’ll never happen to me.”

Well guess what, buddy. It happened to you.

On occasion, the lapband pushes back. Sometimes that little pouch in my stomach fills up unexpectedly and halfway through a meal I realize that not only is my food not going down, but it’s most likely coming back up. There’s nothing more awesome than having to excuse yourself from the dinner table to go to the restroom and get sick. It’s disgusting and it hurts and it makes me feel like a complete failure. And after I’m done I have to go back out to the restaurant and rejoin friends and put on a smile and make up some bullshit excuse that no one will believe about how I had to suddenly pee during lunch. It totally, totally sucks. It’s embarrassing and depressing.

What sucks even more is, I’ve watched other people have great success with the surgery — Susan, for one. Susan dropped over a hundred pounds and everyone expected the same results for me. When it didn’t happen I became the (perhaps literally) elephant in the room.

But Susan had her surgery at a different hospital with a different doctor who had a different approach with dealing with his patients, too. After not having visited a bariatric doctor since the spring of 2008, Susan convinced me to go see hers last week.

The visit was good. The doctor spent about an hour talking with me, and after we got the whole “you’ve been a bad boy” conversation over and done with, we talked about successes and failures, and ways to help me succeed. He agreed to work with me if I agreed to work with him. We shook hands on the deal, and got down to business. After a few x-rays he told me what I already knew (my band was restricting only the densest of foods), so I had a band fill that day (by adding saline, they tighten the band). I also briefly met with a nutritionist while I was there, who informed me (again, stating the obvious) that I’ve spent the past three years eating completely wrong. I corrected her; it’s been more like thirty, hah.

And so they put me on “the reboot diet”, which consists of three protein drinks and two protein bars a day (around 700 calories, maybe a little less). You can also have all the sugar-free popsicles you want. So far today, I’ve had seven. Sometimes when I finish them, I eat the wooden sticks too. I’m starving. And, in a revelation that should surprise no one that passed mid-high science class (and there’s no non-gross way of saying this), take in mostly fluid enough days in a row and, well, that’s what starts coming out the other end …

As for the weight loss, it’s working, obviously. I’ve dropped about ten pounds in the past week — not surprising, considering my calorie intake. This is by no means a long term solution — it’s just a cleansing, a reboot, a reset or whatever you want to call it. It’s a way to kick old habits and then start building new, better ones.

Next week I have another appointment with Susan’s doctor. I’ll be back on regular food and I’m going to try, try, try again — really, really hard. In the end though, as Gersham Bulkeley wrote, “Actions are more significant than words.” There’s nothing I can say or promise anyone that will speak louder than actually losing the weight. And that’s what I intend to do.

Did I mention there’s a giant sack of Halloween candy on our kitchen table right now? Kill me.