Once upon a time, I was an egg. 8 months later, I was born, yay! 5 lbs. I was so cute.
A few years later, I was a kid. I wasn't as big kid yet, but I saw my
really big Mom, and a couple really big aunts, and put two and two together. When
I grew up, I was going to be fat.
Fast forward to High school. I was at 160 lbs. I thought this was fat. I
thought this was my fate, and did my best to accept it. I didn't think I
was ugly, because I still had pretty good success dating. I was a
resolved and proud BBW. At the time, my younger sister wasn't far
behind. I just thought it was something to be accepted. It was in our
genes.
Onto College years. I was a starving artist with no car, so I got down
to a nice 140 lbs. Too bad I didn't appreciate it, because I had a
roommate with body image issues that rubbed off on me. In pictures, I
see that I looked amazing, but I didn't feel amazing then. In fact, I
was in such a bad place mentally, I had to leave college early and take
medications.
Then, I moved back home from college. Yes, home to Mom's and Sister's
cooking. Combining good food with different mental medications, I went
up to 170. I thought, "Okay, this must be me fat now. I'm gonna be okay
with this, accept it and be proud to be different."
Then, I got a job in a cubicle. The money was great, but my weight was
not. I got up to 210 lbs. I was very upset. I busted past 200. But I was
in a very committed relationship, which helped me accept it. My fiance
was wonderful to me, and called me beautiful every day.
Notice I said fiance? That's right, a wedding was coming up. And we were
both quite overweight, so we counded calories for the months leading up
to the wedding. He lost 25 lbs, I lost 10, but it was something. It was
just enough to make me feel beautiful again for our wedding.
The year following our wedding, things went to hell. My mental illness
got incredibly worse, what I thought was just a couple stomach bugs due
to stress turned out to be a full-blown permanent problem, adding more
medication to my list. I went through tests after tests, and they found
nothing. So they blamed my weight. Then I had another medical scare, a
bump was found and they had to do a biopsy on it. And, since I missed so
much work because of all the medical crap, I lost my job.
Back to my parents' house. Back to 210 lbs. Back to misery.
Then, my husband met a guy at work who had the Lap-Band surgery a year
ago and lost 100 lbs. He learned that the guy was very happy, and that
the same health care we had paid for it almost in full. My hubby brought
this information to me and asked me if we should do this together. The
only time I ever said yes faster in my life is when he proposed to me. I
didn't pause, I didn't mull it over. I wanted it more than anything.
So we made our first trip to TrueResults. The people there are very
nice, and very informative. Sadly, I was 2 BMI points under what
qualified according to our health insurance. I had to gain 16 lbs. I
thought it would be fun. I started by having an extra treat here and
there. But I wasn't gaining the weight fast enough. Eventually I was
eating candy and fast food every day, drinking more soda than I could
stand, and I will hate Twix for the rest of my life now. But after 6
weeks, we went back, and my BMI read 40.7. I did it. But then my mother
suggested we see other doctors too and learn more about things. Around
this time, I started walking every day with my mother and sister.
My husband and I went to a few other doctors and found one who was less
nice and harder truth. And instead of gaining weight, they want us to
lose weight before the surgery. Instead of the Lap Band, they recommended the Gastric Sleeve. We were given a strict diet and careful
directions to follow. This was good, because I ended up gaining more
weight and was up to a 41 BMI.
And that is where my journey began...
Good luck for the surgery. I'm nearly twelve months out from gastric sleeve surgery and it has been the best decision I ever made. I've got a blog loseandhope.blogspot.com if you want to take a look. It's definitely tough in the early days but its worth all the hard work I promise!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much! I really appreciate the support and I love reading people's blogs. :D
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