My Trip to Skinny

I have decided to begin a journey, one so hard you may think some days I am attempting to scale Everest. People who have never struggled with weight, will find some of my entries...silly...contrived...stupid. But those of you who have marched this line will understand, appreciate, share my experiences, laugh, cry, and triumph (hopefully) together. Some back ground, I have been struggling with my weight, approximately 13 years. i have had ups, and downs. In September of 2009 I decided to have weight loss surgery, after a lot of research, I decided the best option for me was to travel to a highly regarded hospital in Mexico (I know what your thinking) and have a lapband procedure. Low and behold within about 6 months I was down about 40 pounds. The problem you might ask??? to continue to lose weight with a lapband, one needs to have regular fills, during my research, I had found several viable options for fills and did not think this would be a problem. After travelling across the border to a cosmetic Surgery facility in Detroit (I live North of Toronto in Canada) I was informed that my port (the place a doctor would insert the needle to fill the band with Saline, thus making it tighter) was very deep and hard to manually find. What does this mean???? I would need to travel to the closest facility that offered Fluoroscopy(def: Fluoroscopy is an imaging technique commonly used to obtain real-time moving images of the internal structures of a patient through the use of a fluoroscope). What this meant to me??? A drive from my home across the Border into Buffalo New York ($60), park and fly at Buffalo airport ($30), catch a flight to Tampa Florida ($240 return), Rent a car($35), drive to the doctor for a fill ($185), stay in hotel overnight ($80) drop car at airport, fly back to Buffalo, drive home ($60). Cost of a fill??? approx $700. Time involved???approx 30 hours. Therein lies my problem...time and finances have been a roadblock to have these fills as often as I should, therefore, I am merely in a holding pattern for my weight loss, no more loss...not much gain, more or less...the same. So...what should i do??? I will supplement my fills with a Diet...yuck...that is why I got the band in the first place...to do away with dieting forever, yet here I am again!!! On Tuesday January 18th, 2011 I will step foot (once again) into my local Weight watchers. I believe this is the only plan going that truly teaches people how to eat, rather than excluding foods until the dieter can either no longer stay on the regimen and gives up, or loses the weight, then slowly gains it back once they start to eat normal food again. I will also state for the record that I have tried almost every fad diet going over the years, and the only one where I saw any results that seemed to be sustainable was the Weight Watchers program. my failing in the past??? laziness, lack of motivation, plain old stick-to-it ness. Hence the blog, if I write about my journey, i will (hopefully) feel an obligation to stick it out ot the bitter, skinny, end!