I have decided to come out of retirement

From the looks of my blog you would think I had suddenly passed away right after my first/last post. I am, in fact, alive and well and in reality just lazy as far as the blog goes. To tell the truth, I just don't really know what to write and I'm pretty sure most of my posts will be pretty short but we'll see how it goes.  I think that many of my future posts will also revolve around the changes in my life that will be starting officially tomorrow morning.  I am going to have the Lap-Band procedure in an attempt to lose weight.  I have been overweight since I was about 8 years old and obesity wasn't far behind.  I have done a number of diets, mostly weight watchers, and while the diets would work initially I would find myself stuck in the same ruts of eating the exact same thing for most meals and I would get bored and frustrated and ultimately just give up.  One of my biggest problems with my eating habits is portion sizes and the Lap band is perfect for this problem.  But there are also ways to "eat around" the band, mostly by eating sweets or having high calorie drinks.  Since there is no dumping syndrome like with gastric bypass surgeries and every calorie consumed is absorbed there isn't the deterrent from eating the bad stuff.  But luckily I like bulky foods too and this will be to my advantage.  The one thing I will miss will be bread, apparently  bread doesn't go down very easy.  But it's a small sacrifice.  So the topic of my future posts will probably revolve around my weight-loss journey, the struggles and the successes and hopefully I will figure out how to put up pictures so you can see the change as well.  ...Update 10/3/08 as you can see I have added a before picture for you, this is my sister and I at the Dallas zoo hanging out with our friend Terrence the tortise :)