Feeling Comfortable In Your Skin

Being back at school means trying to keep off the weight that inevitably comes with having to eat school meals. Today my boyfriend and I went grocery shopping with the intent of buying healthier foods. We both want to lose weight and working together will make it easier than working alone.

So far we've cut out sodas entirely, and our snacks now consist of celery, hummus and goldfish. We won't know if this will change until November, when we'll both return home to our scales and finally...weigh in.

What's my motivation behind this? Well, it all has to do with my mother. I've kept track of her photos over the years, and I can see that at my age she didn't look bad. But now, she never lost the baby weight, she doesn't stick to diets and well, she's a borderline diabetic. She is my motivation to not end up like that, and also have to spend who knows how much money on all the different pills she has to take and other medical related expenses.

I've talked to her before about obesity surgery, aka gastric banding, and it doesn't look it'll happen anytime soon. Looking at our financial situation at the present time I can't say I blame her for not wanting to seriously look into it. Also, by most accounts she's not obese, but she is quite overweight for her height. It's clearly affecting her health and well being. I don't want her to develop full-blown diabetes, I know it runs in the family but she can avoid it if she works hard.

Also, thanks to America's lovely obesity problem more and more surgery centers cater to that population. A simple search online can lead you to these places, like Journey Lite, which works on making their patients feel comfortable. There's a lot of support there too, including message boards, tips for success and recipes to help ease through the process.

I may mention this to my mom. Gastic bypass surgery is not an end-all solution, but it is a step toward a less expensive and more fulfilling life. My father and I would love to see her back in shape, and I know she would love to have more options in fashion and not spend as much time taking pills.