I'm sure many of you have been haunted by these words throughout your lives.
And if you're anything like me, you cringed more and more each time they were said!
Well, here's a little bit about me and my struggle with obesity.
I'm 26 years old and have been fighting with my weight practically my whole life! I was a normal sized baby and stayed that way all the way up until about the age of 8 or 9 in which case I started "blowing up" if you will. My weight constantly went up and down and up again. Although I was an active child, for some reason that didn't seem to stop my weight from slowly climbing the death ladder. I have an older brother who, like me, had to deal with his weight for several years. I'm not sure how, but the lucky boy managed to concquer his dilema with weight, where as for me, I continued to struggle.
Growing up was hard for me. My father was in the military and we moved around about every two years. Sometimes we moved after only one year. It was hard for me to develope good friendships with anyone cause I knew I'd be leaving soon. So I was always in some kind of dance class, whether it was ballet, tap, jazz, or whatever. Anything to keep my going. At least my mom helped to keep me busy and as active as possible. I went swimming all the time, but yet, my weight still kept rising. I guess when I look back now... I would have to say I developed a close relationship to food.
I didn't have a "middle-school" time cause my family had moved to Germany. The high school there went from 7th-12th grade. So from elementary school I went straight to high school. Yeah, I was cool! Haha, only kidding! But let me back up. Before I moved to Germany, I was living in Wyoming for two years (5th & 6th grade). In my school we had sports for those 2 grades, volleyball and basketball, both of which I participated in. I was quite good too I might add, at least in volleyball. So you'd think being active in sports one would, at that age, be able to control their weight. Um...apparently not! I had a few kids poke fun at me sometimes. I tried not to let it bother me too much though. They were dorks anyway, at least I thought they were! So, moving on to Germany. This, I thought, was going to be cool! A whole other country! What an experience!
We move. It's a beautiful country. A beautiful country that I'd be staying in for the next 4 1/2 years! This was the longest I'd stayed anywhere. Right away I started making friends and going out doing different things that I had never been able to do before. Now for 7th and 8th grade I just went with the flow of things. But as soon as I got into 9th grade I was able to get involved in sports again. I was still a little "chunky" but not to the point that I couldn't join sports out of embarrassment or something. So once again I played volleyball and basketball. I got to travel alot with the team and just overall had a really good time!! I had boyfriends and best friends. I went to dances. I basically participated in everything I could! I was for once REALLY enjoying my life! Then it came time to move away. This had to be the worst thing that could've happened to me in my life. For once in my life I felt like I had a home...and now I was being stripped from it.
During my 11th grade year, we had moved back to the states. We moved to Virginia, which is where I have more or less stayed since then. The move here obviously was NOT an easy one for me. I had gotten so home sick that I was literally sick for several months after coming to this place.
I decided I was going to try to make the best of my last 2 years of high school. Even though I hated where I lived, I hated my school, I knew I had to do something. I didn't want to just sit there and feel sorry for myself. So I got out, I met people, made new friends and tried to enjoy myself. I also got a membership (my first one EVER) at a fitness center. I worked out on all the equipment every other day and the days I didn't I was in aerobics. Not to mention the fact that I also ran at least a mile every day. Even though I was overweight, I was solid and in shape! The sports I had been in managed to keep me fit. But I still liked my food! As if that weren't obvious!
I'd have to say that my last 2 years in high school were the years I looked my best! I thought I looked pretty good! I also thought Reeses peanut butter cups were God's gift! So, there I was, healthy, fit and happy, well...for the most part (even though I preferred to be somewhere else), and yet the weight gradually krept up and up. I never thought I actually had an eating problem though. I knew that once in awhile I liked to BINGE... but other than that, I didn't do anything out of the ordinary. Or did I? I guess I should add that I also got a job working as a waitress in a restaraunt, then later became a manager at another restaraunt and stayed there for 3 years. I guess all that food around me all the time wasn't so good in the long run, huh? Anyway, when I graduated, I was weighing in at approximately 225. Although if you were to see me, you'd never have thought I actually weighed that much. You can see my senior pic at "Our Photos." Basically as the years went by, I tried every kind of "fad" diet and pills and everything else you can think of. I had stopped working out. I was "too busy" for it. I was going to college full time and working full time too. So when I wasn't at work or school, I was at home asleep. So slowly that solidness I had was getting a little bit jiggly everday. I went to physicians, had tests done to find out if I had hypothyroid like the women on my mom's side of the family. Nothing ever panned out. Hmmpf!
So more years go by, I get married & I get pregnant. Before I was pregnant I weighed 298 lbs. At nine months I weighed 312 lbs. After my daughter was born I went down to 289 lbs. I was pretty happy about that! While I was pregnant I had seen this ad about these pills that were supposed to help with weighy loss. They're called Berry Trim Plus. So after I gave birth, I decided to order some. I actually lost 30 lbs in 2 months. I was actually pretty excited about that, cause the first 20 came off really fast. But then those damn plateaus! I hit it and hit it hard. So naturally I gave up after that and gained the weight back.
So here it is, almost two years later and I'm scheduled to have Gastric Bypass! I have been researching it for several months now. I actually came into contact with an old friend from Germany, Janet (check out her site too),who had had WLS and was telling me about it. I had heard about it in the past but didn't even think twice about it. But this time I decided to look into it, see what I could find out. And what do you know, it sounded like the perfect thing for me. I didn't have any insurance though, so my husband got some through his work. I went and saw the surgeon a week after getting insurance and they submitted the paperwork in 2 days after that and I was approved within 4 days! Couldn't get much better than that!
