Laparoscopic Gastric Banding – The Preparation Phase

When you have read my previous articles that lead you through my history, my choice to have Laparoscopic Gastric Banding you will gather an insight into who I am and why I made the choice.  If you haven’t read the previous articles then I encourage you to do so now before you read this, after all to make an informed decision requires you gather all the facts.

It is imperative that before you embark on any life changing experience you owe it to yourself to research options and understand fully what is associated with each option.  Keep asking questions until you are 100% comfortable with the answers.  I was lucky that I worked in a wonderful hospital and was surrounded with amazing Nursing staff and Doctors that shared all their knowledge with me, they explained in detail the operation, the complications associated with any surgery, what would happen after and so I was very well equipped to make the decision.  If truth be known by that stage it was a no brainer.

As I mentioned in a previous article when I had all the knowledge about the operation and the aftercare I was lacking one crucial piece of the puzzle.  The people who had already had Gastric Banding.  The people already in their transformational stage.  That came soon enough and then the time came to make the decision and commit 100%.

After hearing success stories and seeing the proof I noticed a mental change in my attitude, I took on a more positive aura and other’s started noticing a change in me.  My friends started watching me closely and became a serious part of my journey to the extent that they too have decided to have Gastric Banding and within the next few months I will share their amazing journey as well.

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Laparoscopic Gastric Banding – My Choice

My journey began a long time ago.  I had intended it to be a solitary journey because I wasn’t comfortable with people knowing that I had undergone Laparoscopic Gastric Banding. A select number of people were privy to this information and were eagerly awaiting my transformation and I was happy with that.  Recently though people have been asking questions and I am now ready to talk to them, to answer their questions and as a result I have been made aware that lots of people out there in cyberspace are interested enough to hear my story and share my journey, so here goes.

My catalyst for change came about three years ago when I was working in a surgical ward of a wonderful hospital and I started meeting patients coming in for Laparoscopic Gastric Banding.  I didn’t know much about the procedure but I was thankful that I worked with an amazing team of Nurses and Doctors who shared their knowledge with me, so I started a quest.  Every patient that came in I would ask their permission to share their story about why they had decided to have this procedure, after all it is a surgical procedure and all surgery comes with risk of complications.  When I stopped working in that hospital I had gained all the knowledge I needed to know that this procedure was what I wanted and needed to have.  I just had two problems to overcome. 

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Laparoscopic Gastric Banding – My History

To understand me and why I am where I am in my journey of life, I feel obliged to share my story, my history so to speak.  So that you can gain an insight into why I made the decision to have Laparoscopic Gastric Banding done.

I have been large for as long as I can remember.  As I grew up I was always the largest in my peer groups, not overly large, in fact if truth be known I wasn’t large way back then but because my friends were paper thin I perceived myself to be large.  I ate a healthy diet (there was no junk food during my childhood) in fact I was not introduced to McDonalds until I was about 22 and thankfully I didn’t like the taste. 

During my teens I developed quicker and became more rounded than my peers and that weighed very heavily on my conscious.  This is when I started my battle to lose weight.  So although believing that I was overweight back then, my weight problems became a reality in my early 30’s after I had my children.  Then became the endless battle to shed those extra kilos. 

I began a process where I would start a diet (whatever the fad was at the time) and I would give it 90% sometimes I would lose a few kilos, sometimes I wouldn’t lose anything.  What I did notice was that I ran a strategy. I would jump in boots and all and with a gung ho attitude I would follow the diet and if I didn’t see any results quickly then I would lose heart and sabotage all my efforts.  Then I would beat myself up with a string of negative self talk.  You may have heard these sayings before I believe they are quite common.  Things like “I knew you couldn’t do it”, “You loser”, “You are fat and pathetic”, “Look at yourself, who could possibly like you”.  It pretty much stands to reason that as a result of all that negative self talk that I would hate myself and of course I had to talk myself into believing it. 

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