The Preparation

Because my insurance required three monthly visits, I immediately scheduled my first visit with a dietician. I met with Leslie Flory, RDN and immediately learned something so important. She asked what I had eaten all day and I told her, one bag of reduced fat potato chips. It was 2 o'clock in the afternoon and that is all I had eaten. I was busy at work and felt like I was having a "good" calorie day.  Leslie said, "if you want to be healthy, you have to make food your priority". Interesting. While trying to avoid food all day, I was actually starving my body and making my cortisol levels rise and causing more stress on my body, which in turn made me eat more and make poorer choices later in the day.  Food should be my priority.  Plan ahead. Make healthy meals and snacks that are easy to grab out of the refrigerator.  Most of the time when I was making terrible choices, it was because I was STARVING and I would grab the easiest thing to eat, which was usually pre-packaged chips, cookies or other unhealthy snacks.

Over the next few days, I scheduled my lab work and ultrasound and waited 30 days until my next visit with Leslie. I managed to incorporate all of my requirements in between my dietician visits so that when I had my last visit with Leslie in January, I would have everything ready to go for insurance approval.  

Once I made the decision to have gastric bypass, I never looked back. I felt a sense of freedom as I finally had an answer for this life-long struggle. About two weeks later, I had been approved for Gastric Bypass surgery on February 23, 2021!