I am sitting in my truck in Norman Regional Hospital’s parking lot. It’s Saturday morning, 10:23am. “Living Our Dream,” one of the several Oklahoma Weight Loss Options support groups, doesn’t meet for another 40 minutes. With the radio off, the only sound inside the cab is the occasional rush of wind blowing through the slightly cracked windows. For the next 40 minutes it’s just me, sitting in silence, wondering how on earth things got to this point.<\/p>\n

Attending this meeting is a prerequisite for having lapband surgery, which I have elected to do. The surgery takes place December 4th. For 10 days prior to the surgery I will be restricted to a liquid diet. I chose the date I did so that the liquid diet would start two days after Thanksgiving. A shrink would have a field day with that decision.<\/p>\n

I have so many thoughts and feelings about this surgery that I don’t even know where to begin, but the one one general feeling that invades all of them is embarassment. I am embarassed to be this overweight. I am embarassed that I have to resort to such drastic measures in order to lose weight. I am embarassed about the way I look. I am embarassed that I cannot control my eating. I am embarassed about what size of clothes I wear. I am embarassed that I have failed so many diets and exercise plans. I am embarassed that I cannot seem to win this battle. Ultimately, I am embarassed that I am having this surgery. I don’t like to talk about it and I don’t want to talk about it, but assuming I see weight loss similar to Susan (who has lost over 130 pounds now since March), I suspect I’ll be forced into talking about it. There won’t be any hiding that.<\/p>\n

On the heels of embarassment is fear. I am not afraid of the surgery itself, at least not the physical aspects ot it. I am afraid of its long-term affects on my life, particularly social ones. Food is such a big part of all of our lives. I fear the awkwardness that is sure to arise the first time I go out to eat with friends or family and I cannot join them. I am afraid of what people will say. I worry that I am making the wrong choice. I worry that I will make meals awkward for others around me. Sometimes it seems like the only way I know how to socialize with friends is over a good meal. I worry about how this will affect that.<\/p>\n

As I weigh the pros and cons of this decision, I actually begin to come up with a few positive things about being overweight. Ultimately I know I’m kidding myself, but the list is somewhat entertaining (at least to me). The list of the effects of morbid obesity are printed on the list in my hand. Some of the things like “degenerative arthritis” and “heartburn” make me think, “I can live with that.” As the list gets more serious — diabetes, heart disease, shortened life span — it becomes harder to wave them off. <\/p>\n

“I wonder if they’ll have snacks at the meeting,” I think to myself, cracking a nervous smile. They may take my gut, but they will never take my sense of humor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am sitting in my truck in Norman Regional Hospital’s parking lot. It’s Saturday morning, 10:23am. “Living Our Dream,” one of the several Oklahoma Weight Loss Options support groups, doesn’t meet for another 40 minutes. With the radio off, the only sound inside the cab is the occasional rush of wind blowing through the slightly cracked windows. For the next 40 minutes it’s just me, sitting in silence, wondering how on earth things got to this point. Attending this meeting is a prerequisite for having lapband surgery, which I have elected to do. The surgery takes place December 4th. For… (read more)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}