Obesity.. it came on me over the years and without any surprise really from me either. I have been a ravenous eater and a lover of food since I was a baby, according to my mom. I love to cook, I love to feed and I love to eat! As a teen I burned off my caloric intake. I could eat breakfast, lunch, a double quarter pounder from McD's and then go home for dinner. I was skinny - shapely and healthy! Adults always told me, "One day that eating will catch up with you" but really I didn't believe them. Why should I? I was thin and beautiful and there seemed no end to it. That was in the late '70s and '80s.
Life changed with the birth of my first child. Something clicked within me and my metabolism changed drastically. All of a sudden I had a tummy. A tummy that wouldn't go away with exercise. A tummy that just sort of led me wherever I went. I hated it. I remember feeling SO fat then. I weighed 150 lbs. A second child within 13 months only complicated the whole tummy issue and pretty soon I had even more tummy to deal with. I only gained 28 pounds with my first child and 22 with the second, so it's not like I was gaining excessive amounts of weight with them. I breastfed exclusively because I wanted my babies to have a great start, and everyone told me that breastfeeding would slim me down. Unfortunately, breastfeeding seemed to ignite a newer, even more voracious appetite. I was hungry all the time! I didn't eat junk food or sweets either. I ate meat and veggies and plenty of them! Unfortunately, I wasn't using all of the calories I was eating and the weight just packed on and on. By the end of 1990, I had given birth to 4 beautiful sons. I was a stay at home mom with a little bit of a neurotic cleaning need. My house was clean, my kids were clean and still I wasn't moving around enough to burn the calories I was consuming.
By 1991, I was dieting with all my might and attending Weight Watchers. I lost about 30 pounds eating the smaller portions, but I felt highly deprived and I quickly fell back into my old ways and portions when I quit WW. I had really raised my self-esteem losing that 30 pounds and I believe I was nearly below the 200 lb. mark at that time. I bought some cute stylish clothes and I felt pretty good. Gaining the weight back and then some left me sad and deflated. I felt like a failure and I felt like losing weight was pretty much a hopeless task. It was about that time that my husband whom I had always believed was my soulmate, frankly told me one day that he was no longer attracted to me. He broke my heart and I was totally discouraged. I always believed (and YES, I still do) that if one TRULY loves someone else, their weight is not an obstacle. His comment destroyed our marriage and my self-esteem.
I had another son in 1993 with my new husband and tipped the scales at about 230 lbs. Of course, I breastfed him and therefore lost nothing during that time period. Afterwards, I worked to lose some weight with different methods from Slim Fast shake meal substitutions and just cutting back on my portion sizes. I would lose a small amount, like maybe 10-15 lbs and then gain it all back and then some. I started to become keenly aware then of what seemed like a true need to be obese. I felt comfortable in my skin when I was fatter. I was fearful of the looks and glances from men that I got when I was smaller and the fat served as a protection against those looks. My fear of those glances is explainable. I'll leave that for another post.
In 1994 I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis. My pain was intense and I was told by my Rheumatologst that I would most likely be wheelchair bound by the time I was 40. I felt pretty darn defeated. It hurt too much to exercise so even my pathetic occasional attempts to ride an exercise bike were over. It seemed at that point that losing weight was pretty hopeless.
As the years passed by, I gained and gained until I was into a size 26/28 at Lane Bryant. I felt awful about myself and I knew that I had to make some changes. 1996, 1997, 1998 and 2000 brought more babies. My son born in 1996 died at 15 days of age from a rare lung protein deficiency and my daughter (the first daughter I had!) died in 1997 at only 13 hours from the same disorder. Then started a completely new chapter in my addiction to food. Wow... I just typed that. I am a food addict. I feel like I should stand up in a 12 step program meeting or something. I'm not trying to be flippant about this. I MEAN IT. I am a true addict and I am admitting this to myself right now, here. My extreme grief promoted eating for comfort. This new twist in my addiction was the most dangerous. I found myself sitting down for a lunch that consisted of a serving bowl FULL of mashed potatoes and gravy with of course tons of butter, regularly. Carbs and junk food and anything that temporarily would fill that terrible hole of grief in me. Of course, the food didn't fix it and just made me even bigger. I was 275 lbs.
I think I gave up about then. I ate as I wished and I entered what I call my "androgenous stage". I gave up on makeup, put my hair up all the time and wore flannel shirts because they came big enough in the big men's section to fit around me. I looked awful. My husband gave up on me about then and I can't say that I blame him. He didn't touch me unless desperate and I wasn't comfortable at all with my body or size, so it was usually ok with me. I felt unloved, unwanted and alone. I spent my time homeschooling my kids and volunteering as a Scoutmaster for a Boy Scout Troop. My sons loved the camping and activities and buried myself in being a "super volunteer". I also gave many hours per week volunteering for my church and I continued to gain weight.
By 2003, I was over 300 lbs and my health was really starting to suffer. My blood pressure was rising and I was easily winded. I was not a typical woman in my late 30's. I felt OLD. I was in daily pain from the RA and I was putting tremendous amounts of pain on my joints which only made me feel worse. It was vicious cycle of pain, depression, weight gain.
I started on a serious medication for my RA in 2006 which is actually a form of chemotherapy. Something clicked in me then. I can't really explain it, but I decided as I stepped off the doctor's scale seeing the number 333 pop up that enough was enough! I started on Atkins with my husband who was also obese and we did very well. I was highly disciplined and just watch as the weight dropped and dropped off of me. I felt SO proud when I was under 300 and I just kept losing. I got to about 275 and although I was still very large, I was feeling so much better about myself that I started buying some cuter clothes, tanning, wearing makeup and getting my nails done. I did my hair everyday and I was proud for the first time in a REALLY long time. I started to get some looks from a few men and some attention at my job, and I loved it. It was about that time that I decided that my sexless marriage was over and I divorced my husband. I found a sexy, handsome man and fell madly in love. My whole idea at that time was to continue to lose weight and feel even better. Instead, I fell off of the Atkins wagon and began gaining all of that weight that I fought so hard to lose back.
Luckily, my husband is my true soulmate. My weight is number one, irrelevant to him, and number two, he seems to be a bit of a "chubby chaser" as I lovingly call him. I have since developed many comorbidities to severe obesity though. I have severely high blood pressure, swelling on my knees and ankles (no doubt from the terrible force inflicted on them daily), migraines, severe GERD (acid reflux) and occasional congestive heart failure. I am a mess. I am ashamed, sad and angry with myself. I am taking a pretty serious blood pressure medication and GERD acid blockers and I hate having to rely on medications to be here and ok. I stepped onto the scale at my doctor's office a couple of months ago and saw that ugly number again.... 333.
I started right then researching, talking to doctors, attending a seminar on weight loss surgery and making plans to change my life. I am self-employed as a Realtor and I don't have my own medical insurance. My husband's plan is sparse and although it costs us a small fortune out of every one of his paychecks, it doesn't cover much and especially not weight loss surgery. I immediately sprang into action to start saving every dollar I could. I came across the Mexico option and made my decision that this was going to happen soon. VERY soon.
So I am now pre-op, waiting for my Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy. This blog will be all about my journey to surgery, my fears, my goals and all of the research and information gathering that I have done about this amazing surgery that will transform my life! It's a little bit scary, a little bit anxiety-provoking and incredibly exciting all at once!
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