Tomorrow I have been "sleeved" for one month.

It's such a relief that this surgery is in my past now and Im not pining toward it for the future. No, it didn't take me long to actually get it done once I set things in motion (thank you Blue Cross) but I had contemplated it for over two years. And yes, Im quite grateful that once I had the courage to pick up the phone and get a date and time for a seminar, the process went very quickly. I think I did my time as a fat person, it's OK the journey is what it is for me.

So as of this morning, and according to my scale Im 30 pounds lighter. It just feels like a relief, every time I see the numbers go down. Like someone set me on a path out of prison. I know I have to follow some rules and "be good" to stay out of it and not be a repeat offender, the but the door has been unlocked and someone has pointed me the exit sign.

That may sound harsh to some. However, I chose what I put in my mouth, and I chose to cope with my emotions with eating. To me, if I say I am a victim and claim no responsibility for how I got to this obese place, then Ill never truly be free.

I have this aunt, and she is very (an understatement) attractive. I look at her in awe (along with some other relatives I have) and think, "we really share the same DNA?" She might be a size 6, but has always watched her weight, and been very devoted to exercise, yoga now being her favorite. She recommended the movie "Fed Up" and strongly encouraged me to watch it. I took that because as beautiful and thin as she always has been, she also made me feel completely loved no matter what my size was and only offered me kind advice, one of them being don't wait to get thin to have children (which was great advice, because I may have never had them!)

So I finally found it on VUDU and spent a few dollars to rent it. Its all about the amount of sugar that present in processed foods, and how our diets just have WAY too much sugar in them. Sugar ignites the pleasure center of your brain, and people get really hooked on it and it's difficult to reduce your intake.

It makes a lot of sense. First of all, I checked my kid's juice boxes. It's Capri Sun Roaring Waters, and each pouch has 8 grams of sugar in them...when I think Im giving my kids a healthy choice. The recommended amount of sugar for children 4-8 is 24 grams (with fruit sugar found naturally being OK, but NOT juice). Never mind the other processed food I give my kids all the time...

Then I thought about it. The two times I was REALLY successful losing a large amount of weight I was on a a strict diet for gestational diabetes. Yup, lost 50 pounds my last trimester with my daughter, and ate enough carbs to support my pregnancy, but just enough.

I think some people are probably NOT as susceptible to the amount of sugar in foods, but I don't think I fall into that category. I think with the amount that is present in a lot of foods it's like shooting a basketball into a hoop in the game of obesity..some of the balls make it in and a lot miss.

So Im definitely going to watch my sugar intake from now on, as well as my children's. It just can't hurt....it means eating a lot of whole foods and spending more time in the kitchen, but that certainly won't be a bad thing. If Im going to change things I might as well grab it by the horns and really kick obesity's ass....