The 6-Month Medically Supervised Diet Begins

I have re-set my weightloss ticker (look to your left) to show my starting weight for the 6-month medically supervised diet, which began today with a visit to my internist. Have I mentioned lately how much I adore my doctor? No? Well, I think Blogger puts a limit on my posts, so I probably don't have room here. Suffice it to say that I am extremely fortunate that my doctor is also a Healer. Do you have any idea how rare that is? Believe me. It is. I don't know if anyone out there remembers Richard Simmons' "Deal a Meal" but the first doctor I had as a newly insured person seemed to follow that approach. In his mind, he'd put my characteristics on cards: I'm overweight, I'm a woman, I'm (well was then) under 30, et cetera. Then, he'd just pluck one at random and that's what he'd hang whatever it was I'd come to see him on. Sometimes it was a weird combo and I wondered how he could even come to that conclusion. For example, did you know that more women than men suffer from plantar faciitis? You didn't? Me either. Okay, really we do, but that's not the point. I'm not a high heels wearing fashionista so blaming my plantar faciitis just on the fact that I have two X chromosomes is just silly, don't you think. Needless to say, just about any doctor would've seemed heaven-sent after that guy.

I think I'm edging a bit far afield here...

So, I met with the doc and he seems to think I have a decently well-thought out approach to this. He said we'll see how I'm doing when I come back to see him in a month and if it's working, we won't try to fix it. If it's not, then we'll tinker. I did find out two good things today. Thing 1: he'd already sent my surgeon's office a letter of medical necessity so that's one more check mark. Thing 2: my anti-depressant is one that has been shown NOT to cause ulcers, so I should be OK with taking it post-op. While I do hope that my increasing wellness of body AND mind will assist me in going off of all my medications, knowing that I can still take it if I need to is comforting to me.

Next week is my first appointment with the psychologist. Expect nervous rambling about that for the next few posts, especially as we get closer. I've never been to a psychologist, so I am a bit anxious. I think that I'm afraid that he'll tell me that I can't have the surgery for some reason. I know that thought is rooted in fear, but I can't help it. Maybe I need to get on the message boards and see what I can see about that.

TTFN!