Well, aside from the fact that I was miserable and tired of feeling like my outsides didn't match my insides, there was two other factors.  My grandmother, who had always been extremely large, had finally become ill enough to be in a nursing home, and then in the hospital.  I saw how even when she soiled herself, it would take hours to change the sheets and clean her up because it would take 3 people all at once to be able to switch the sheets.  It wasn't that it was poor care, it was that it's just difficult to find 3 people who all have the time to take care of her at once.  She was so miserable, and I could just look at her and see myself if I didn't do something.  Then my mom's best friend Sandra (her daughter is Diane, and she sent me these two Christmas 2003 pictures) decided to have the gastric procedure done, and began researching doctors.  She had her surgery shortly before Thanksgiving of 2003, and seeing her results was the final straw.  I started going to her support group meetings to learn more, and make sure it was the right thing to do, and then my mind was made up.  I was scared, sure, but I knew that risking my life was well worth saving it.  I didn't have any serious health problems at that time, but it seemed like high blood pressure, diabetes, and sleep apnea were all just inches away.  I felt like having the procedure done BEFORE all of these morbidities took hold of my body would only aide in my recovery. 

Surgery was tough.  No doubt about it.  I had had my tonsils taken out a few years before, but other than that, no major surgeries, and I did not know what to expect.  I walked and walked at the hospital though, and drank as much protein as I could stand.  Within two weeks, I could not believe that I had undergone such major surgery.  I still had some pain, but it was not at all consistent with what I thought it would feel like to have this type of procedure done!  I was tired, and fought the 'anesthesia blues' off for quite some time, actually.  It seems like the longer you remain on the pain pills, the longer it takes to get all of that depressant type crud out of your system.  I don't think I really felt like my old self until May, when I started going out on my friends' boat and having fun again.  Until then, I was excited about the weight loss, but mentally I was still depressed about my life.  Of course, I was going though several other things besides the surgery at that time as well, so I can't attribute it all to the procedure itself.  I went to a casting call about two and a half weeks after surgery, just to get out of the house, really, and going through that process really gave me something to look forward to as well.  Even though I thought that the odds of me getting into the house were slim to none, it was still fun to wait for the call, and the trip to L.A. was a rare treat!!  :)  

Wow!!  I have gotten this question a lot!!  I hear about some of you who think that because you have a man who loves you, that there is no real need to find the motivation, even though you are unhappy.  I have read about some of you who are either eating right, and not working out, or working out and not eating right, and can't seem to find the motivation to do both.  I hear about women who want a man to love them for who they really are, not what they look like.  I have even gotten an e-mail from someone who says they don't eat right, and don't work out, and just can't make themselves do either!  I can hear myself at different stages of all of these, and it shocks me to realize that everyone out there makes the same excuses that I did, and still would, if I allowed myself.  It comes down to two words.  Commitment and priority.  If you make something a priority, you WILL find time for it in your day.  If you are truly commited to something, then no matter how difficult it seems, you will take it one step, one day at a time until you reach that goal.  Rhonda used to tell me to look at every time I exercise or choose to eat right as an act of self love.  That worked okay, but what really makes me stop and remember myself is to look at NOT working out and eating right as acts of self destruction.  It makes so much sense to me.  After all I went through to find my emotional eating triggers, and just plain realizing that they were there at all, well I can easily see now that most of the time when I make a poor choice, I am inflicting pain upon myself.  And that's not at all what I want from my life.  I fight it everyday, even now.  The urge to eat junk food and lay around all day is just too great to go away completely.  Sometimes I indulge myself, but mostly I just think about how desperate I was to have a healthy, happy lifestyle, and that carries me through.