5th Janurary 2011 - 18 months post operation...

My name is Adrian and I have a problem... the hardest words I have ever spoken, harder than reading at my grandfathers funeral, harder than speaking in front of 300 kids in high school, harder than playing music in front of 100 people at the local pub.

Start Weight @ August 9th 2010 218kgs (479.6lbs) - date of the operation
Todays Weight @ Jan 5th, 2012 130kgs (286lbs) - and counting!

Everybody loves before and after pictures, add me on facebook and take a look for yourself!
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=628854255

Firstly I'm not great with words, I'm not great with grammar (as I'm sure you can tell) and I can sort of go all over the place, jump from one example to another, I would be writing a book if I could perfect this not write a blog, let's remember that shall we? I'm just here to tell you my story in hopes that it may be able to assist you with your issues, inform you on decisions you may want to make or just to brighten your day.

I've been one of those "big all my life" people, when I was a child I was bigger than my big brother, wider too, I found myself being an A+ student till half way through grade 5. July of 1993 I found myself starting to fail subjects, I would get mad at students and throw tantrums, why you might ask? That was when the kids in my class found out hurtful words that would cause me to rage at them.
I was on the road to success, who knows where I could have gone if this teasing did not occur.
Each and every semester you would see my grades go down faster than Paris Hilton .. uhh sorry I'm trying to keep this clean, ... fast from A+ to D- in 6 months, this continued to Year 12 when eventually these people grew up and finally stopped with all that childish behavior.

So many memories of school, so many bad memories that is. I've managed to block out most of my childhood because of these 7 years, this means that my mothers two amazing parents who passed away during this time are just a flicker in my mind. The two most beautiful people in the world, they cared for everybody and never had a bad word to say about anyone, a smile on there face and a warm hug for me every time I was near them... at least that's what I've been told, I've forgotten them, I can barely remember there faces, when I try to remember there are too many bad memories that cloud my vision, so I don't try anymore, I've accepted it and it's just another burden I will carry throughout my life.

(This would make for a good song hey? It's too bad my MetalBilly band don't sing about this sort of emotional stuff, wait a second.. actually we do! Vent Time!)

I've been asked many times since the operation as a child growing up were you over fed by your parents? Did they feed you bad food and is that what has caused you to be this big?
My reply to this has been and forever will be "since I was old enough to understand what is right and wrong I take full responsibility from that point to today, from that moment I made the choice to continue knowing the consequences", before that time, well like I said I don't remember much however I cannot and will never "blame" anybody for what happened to me, one of the first choices to losing weight is to take responsibility for your actions, unless somebody is forcing you to eat then it's your own damn choice to eat!

So why the blog? Why start so far after your operation?
I did not want to blog at the time because it would be all about how I "felt" how I was "coping" with the operation and it felt too much like a diary to me than a story. I do actually regret not doing this because post operation the one thing I have learned and experienced from this is to listen to my body, to listen and feel my body's reaction to everything that is happening around me.

It may sound a little corny but when you hear about the whole "one mind, body and soul" I can understand this now, pre operation you would never hear me giving a toss about subconscious issues or metal stress, if it wasn't physical it didn't exist, and I sure had enough physical problems back then so that was enough to keep me busy complaining and hating myself.
These days though, well let's just say that my body and soul are one in the same, spiritually I always had a firm grasp of what I believe in and how I want to portray that in my life to others and toward myself and as for my body, well let's just say its like taking the dog out for a walk and the leash is the connection, you would never take the dog off the leash (not in the suburbs anyway, that's what I'm going with here) because it can lead to bad things, I would never go out and not consider the possibility of food getting stuck or perhaps just changing the texture of food to allow easier decent.

Before I wrap this first blog up -some- topics I will cover over in future blogs.
2005 - Heart attack scare (turns out it was acid reflux)
2006 - Weight Watchers! Let's lose weight and count Points!
2007 - Ups and Downs to weight loss.
2008 - Losing weight with a mate!
2009 - Backed into a corner, nowhere to run!
2010 - Acceptance, the hardest decision made!
2011 - The 16km (10mile) hike around Glacial Peak to Currey Village (Yosemite National Park)
2011 - The journey takes a big turn, wow did I really lose 65kgs (143lbs) in one year?
2012 - So what happens now?

Ok so that was a little taste on what's to offer from me and my life, for a read on what operation I had was you can take a look at these two pages.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastric_bypass_surgery#Dumping_syndrome
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastric_dumping_syndrome

Dumping syndrome is a side effect of the operation and something you (may) have to life with for the rest of your life. Just one of the many changes you must completed and unconditionally accept before even considering any type of operation. Lap Banding has its side effects, stapling is just barbaric and sleeving doesn't leave much after they cut half your stomach away.