January 3, 2015 - My story
I didn't always struggle with my weight. Through my mid-20's I was a perfectly healthy
weight. I am 5'2" tall and until my mid-20's I weighed around 115lbs...wore a size 5/7...and pretty much ate what I wanted. I exercised at a gym, but not regularly. I loved hiking, dancing, and hanging with friends. I never really gave much thought to my weight.
I got pregnant with my first child at 28. I gained a LOT of weight. I knew I shouldn't, but I was suddenly hungry all the time, and tired all the time, and that was a brutal combination. When I gave birth, I had ballooned up to 175 lbs. Needless to say, I did not have a 60 pound baby...so I had a lot of weight to lose. I thought the weight would fall off. I had never "dieted" in my life and didn't pay a lot of attention to nutrition or calories. When I finished breastfeeding, I had only lost 25 lbs. After baby #2, I was out of control. My weight had jumped up to 200 lbs and had no intention of "falling off".
And that is when my battle with the scale began.
Over the next 20 years, I tried it all. Nutrisystem, Weight Watchers, Diet Pills, Fasting, Adkins, HCG injections, you name it and I have probably tried it (or at least read a book about it). I am a really good dieter. Put me on a diet and I will stick to it and I will lose weight...until...I don't. I could never find the balance where I could lose the weight and keep it off for any reasonable period of time. I learned the term "yo-yo dieter" and it described me to a tee. I would lose 25 lbs but then gain 30. Up and down that scale went until last year it settled right around 220.
I now know that I am an emotional eater. It sounds silly, but until a few years ago I didn't know that about myself. I lost all sense of non-food rewards. Good times equaled good food...bad times equaled good food...food was always there for me - no matter what. It was my angel and my devil. For a long time, I functioned well as an overweight person. I was active with my kids in Girl Scouts, church, soccer, etc. I didn't hide, I was right there with them cheering them on. I felt some guilt, being the "fat mom"...but didn't let that stop me from being a supportive and loving mom. But as the years went by, my body starting telling me that it was time to make a change. Sore back, knees, ankles, etc. and then the big one - my doctor starting talking about diabetes. Throughout this time, my husband was in poor health. Brain surgery, heart attack, seizures, there wasn't time for me to think about myself. I needed to be wife, mother, coach, teacher, nurse and work a full time job so that we had money and insurance.
One year ago, my husband died of heart failure. Suddenly, I was alone. Kids grown up or away at college, and no excuses as to why I couldn't eat right and exercise. Except I didn't. That old friend food kept me company and let me hide my sorrow and frustration and grief from the world. I had all but given up when a friend invited me to a weight loss seminar where they were going to talk about a weight loss surgery called a Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy. I had never heard of this before. I knew someone who's mother had Gastric Bypass Surgery several years back but she was more than 200 lbs overweight. I did some reading about it at that time and my weight was not high enough to qualify for the surgery. Besides, that seemed really radical - couldn't I just knuckle down and do it myself? After going to the seminar, I was very interested in the VSG surgery. Unfortunately, my insurance does not cover any type of weight loss surgery for any reason. At the seminar, they said that the surgery was around $17,000 - way out of my price range. Another door closed - or was it?
I starting reading and researching VSG surgery. Complications, outcomes, clinics, doctors, you name it and I read about it. I watched people's YouTube channels where they told about their weight loss journey and showed amazing before and after photos. I also really liked how they all said the the surgery was a tool that they had never had in their previous attempts. A tool that physically limits the amount of food you can eat at any given time. I read about the side effects - hair loss, low energy, pains after eating or drinking, etc - and I grew more certain that this was what I had been needing to help me get my strong healthy body back. I even starting looking into borrowing the money somehow. But with a daughter in college, it just seemed so incredibly selfish to spend that much money simply to help me control my eating. Can't I just eat less and exercise more? No, I can't.
I then found out that someone I knew had gone to Mexico to have their VSG surgery - at a fraction of the cost of having it here in the states. At first I thought she must be crazy to go somewhere that you can't even drink the water and have surgery!! But the more I researched and then actually heard from her the details of her experience, I began to believe that I could do this. And before I could find a million and one reasons why I had lost my mind...I booked my surgery.
I will be having a Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy Performed by Dr Jaime Ponce deLeon, Chief Bariatric Surgeon at INT Hospital in Tijuana Mexico on February 5, 2015 - just 33 short days away. I intend to make this blog my personal journal of the experience. I don't know if anyone will ever read this or not...but if you stumble upon this and want to ask any questions or tell me about your own experience, please do. And if no one ever reads this and it ends up being the ramblings of a 54 year old widow who is trying to turn her life around before it's too late? Well I'm OK with that too!
Happy New Year
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