Looking Better, Feeling Better

By Ben Rogers on September 26, 2010 at 6:59 pm

Life is good, my friends. Life is good.  Since I was first motivated by the remarkable weight loss progress of my friend and co-worker Nate Newton, and mustered the courage to set up my own free consultation with Dr. Kim, my life has done a complete 180.  Instead of being in the worst shape of my life as I turn 40 years old, I’m suddenly on my way back to what I weighed 15 years ago.  I’m already closing in on being 60 pounds lighter than I was when my marvelous Dr. Kim adventure began, and in case I’ve failed to mention it, life is good.

Depending on what I’m wearing when you see me, you may or may not be able to tell how far I’ve come.  For that matter you’d also have to know how out of control I was at my worst.  But most days I’m wearing clothes that are so baggy that it’s hard to get a handle on my progress.

I’m in an interesting situation with regard to my wardrobe because like I said, everything I have is too big — and everything I’d like to go out and purchase at this point will soon be too big as well.  So for now, I’m going baggy unless I stumble across something that is either on sale or from my extremely limited — and dust-covered — “Skinny Ben Collection”.  Trust me, it’s all relative –that collection is not for anyone who is flirting with being skinny.

My waste is down six plus inches and counting, and my shirts are no longer a Big and Tall store ONLY proposition.  This weekend, I had the pleasure to perusing the thread offerings of the masses for the first time in several years as I now find myself back in the 2X shirt size market — as opposed to the 3XLT area I’ve been camped out in for some time.

Funny, but I browsed with zero anxiety this weekend.  I didn’t realize it til I was halfway through.  At one point I noticed that something was very different as I looked around, but I wasn’t sure what it was.  Then it hit me.  The reason I never liked shopping for clothes before is that it was always quite stressful.  Few things fit me, so my selection pool was minimal.  On top of that, I felt guilty for being in that situation.

Every time I shopped in the Big and Tall department I wanted to get in and out as quickly as possible like it was a bank robbery and my get away driver was anxiously awaiting my exit from the store.  I made little eye contact. I didn’t want to see another soul.  Worst of all was finding something I liked and then having to roll the dice on whether or not it would fit.  Most times it wouldn’t.  My confidence was shot.

That’s what was different.  I’m not bogged down by any of that guilt/shame drama anymore.  I feel good, I feel different.  I feel like myself.  I’m not burdened with a lot of the overweight anxiety that used to weigh me down even more than the extra weight did.  I’ve now realized that Sleeve procedure is not only helping me lose unwanted pounds, it’s helping unload unnecessary mental baggage as well.

Don’t get me wrong — I have a long way to go on my weight loss journey, yet.  There’s no question about that.  I’m roughly half way to my goal weight range.  But in terms of how I feel right now… all I can say is… life is good, life is good.

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Recently some people have reached out to me with questions about the Gastric Sleeve procedure.  I’m no expert on this by any means, but I’m happy to share with you what I’ve experienced — and try to answer any of your questions that I can.  I highly encourage anyone who is considering this procedure to come in for a free consultation with Dr. Kim.  He’s a great guy and I assure you that you’ll instantly feel comfortable with him.  But if you’d like to fire some questions at me before you go down that route, please feel free to email me your questions to ben@benandskin.com.  I’ll post questions anonymously and do my best to answer them in an email grab-bag blog entry soon.

Thanks for reading this… oh, and by the way, if I didn’t make myself clear – getting the gastric sleeve procedure from Dr. Kim is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made for myself.

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