My first week

I'm on the beginning of my 6 month or more, journey to live a healthier life. First a bit about me. I'm 60 years old and have type 2 diabetes. I've had it for 10 years and was pre-diabetic for 10 years before that. I'm married(40 years) have 2 children and 5 grandchildren. The main reason I'm doing this is because I want to enjoy my grandchildren and participate in activities with them for as long as possible. Right now I have arthritis and have trouble walking any distance. I am a size 18/20 and I'm 5'7". After I've lost about 40 pounds I'll let you know what I weigh. I'm in pretty good health right now and plan to keep it that way. I've been overweight since I was 11 years old. Of course I've done many many weight loss plans over the years, weight watchers, phen-fen, Optifast, you name it, I've probably done it. When I turned 50 and became an "official" diabetic, I stopped dieting. The diets worked but I didn't. I have never been able to keep the weight off for more than a few months. I feel lapband will be a good tool for me. We shall find out. Kaiser is paying for this and agree it is a good solution for me.

 I had my first of 24 classes last week. We are going to meet once a week for an hour and a half. There are 10 people in my class. Most of them are around my age, 60. There are 8 women and 2 guys. I was expecting to see really big people but they weren't much bigger than me. They seem like a nice group of people. Most have done Optifast, some have done it 3, 4, and one has done it 6 times! The first week consisted of filling out paperwork, introducing ourselves to each other, and getting a few basics of what to expect. Before any of us got to this stage we had to get approval from our doctor, do a bunch of blood work, attend a nutrition class for 3 months, and then get final approval from their gastric bypass doctor. What made me nervous was they can't or won't guarantee I will have lapband. They usually don't do lapband on diabetics as they have better luck with gastric bypass. That seems too severe for me.  Lapband is considered a procedure not surgery. It is also reversible. However their doctor said I may be a good candidate for lapband also. This will be decided later on. My classes are on Tuesday so I hope to update this blog every Tuesday night.