ObesityHelp

At the age of 22, I weighed almost 350 pounds and I was a size 28. I was living with my mother and drowning in my own depression. I felt trapped in my own body. I had struggled with my weight my entire life, endured abusive relationships, and had allowed myself to be life's victim for a long time. I had settled into a routine working at a small call center. I was comfortable with my life and I rarely ventured out of my routine because I knew the people I came in contact with every day accepted me. I was offered a job working for an insurance company but the idea of working in a building filled with six hundred plus new people, and knowing just the walk I would have to take every morning from my car to my desk would leave me breathless, scared me enough to almost turn the opportunity down.

The Journey Begins
As soon as I accepted the job offer, I started working towards having surgery. Having any weight loss surgery is a process and not an easy one. People seem to have this idea that it's an easy fix and convenient, but it's a lot of work from start to finish. Just researching what I was about to go through took a lot time and effort. After I attended the required meetings and support groups, I still had many tests and appointments to get through before I would be given a surgery date and the entire time I was scared to death. I almost felt like I had myself caught up in a pipe dream and it was never really going to happen. I just couldn't believe anything could help me gain control of my battle with obesity. I tried two different programs but both required I lose 10% of my body weight before they would give me a surgery date. After two years of research and trying to lose weight, I finally found a surgeon who understood that if I were able to lose weight on my own, I wouldn't have wound up in his office asking him to reroute my intestines. I finally had my surgery date set for April 29, 2008.

It Wasn't What I Expected!
Even with all the information sessions and support groups I had to attend, nothing could have really prepared me for what I was about to go through. Especially as a young woman, I had no idea mentally what I was getting myself into. I had followed many blogs and videos of women in their twenties whom had already had surgery, but now that I know what this journey really takes, I just don't think there's enough honesty in any of them. People seem to only share the best parts of their weight loss and leave out the battle you go through mentally. Still, having the surgery was the single best decision that I have ever made in my life, but it was not what I was expecting! I'm thankful now that I've pulled through and been able to pass my surgeons goal, not transfer my addictions, and really learn the lessons from the tool I was given, but it wasn't simple or easy and I will fully admit that I failed before I succeeded. This is why I feel so strongly about sharing my story and letting others know that you don't have to hate yourself for not having a perfect journey and if you've fallen off track, no matter how far out you are, you can pull yourself back up and get back on track. If you are strong enough to make the decision and actually go through with this surgery, you are strong enough to make your tool successful.

After The Surgery
After trying different diets and going through a two week liquid diet, I was just over 300 pounds on the day of the surgery. The first three weeks as a post-op were the hardest of my life and pure hell. I fantasized about food constantly and stayed away from everyone because it seemed like every time I was around anyone, they were eating, and I couldn't. I watched the food network and commercials for fast food and thought, I'm never going to be able to taste that again and I'm never going to feel normal again. I wished more than anything I could take it back and not have had the surgery because the truth is, when they wheel you into surgery at 300 pounds, they wheel you back out at the same weight and you are still trapped in that body. The only difference is, you can't deal with it by eating. Once I got past those first few weeks, the weight started coming off and I was so distracted with watching the sizes go down and by the changes my body was making, that before I knew it, I did feel normal again.

Another Dream
My weight loss was great at first. During the first six months, I lost 95 pounds. I had been single for two years by this point and as soon as I started getting attention from men, I lost track of everything. I fell for the first man that treated me with any respect and by the time the weight loss stopped I was consumed with my new relationship. I kept expecting the weight loss to just start again and when it didn't I just ignored it. I pushed him into moving to Las Vegas because he played poker and I had us both tied up in another one of my dreams. At that point, all I wanted was to have another dream to work on and something to take the attention off of my own failure. We only lasted five months in Las Vegas, he agreed to go but once we got there he didn't do anything. He was content with letting me support him so he never looked for a job and only tried to play poker 4-5 times. Every relationship I had been in up until that point had been extremely abusive and I was so determined not to be physically abused again that I never worried about other abuse. During the five months we were in Las Vegas I was with him almost 24 hours a day and slowly he gained complete control over my everyday life. He became mentally, emotionally, and verbally abusive but I thought I was in love and I blamed myself for never doing anything right. I started to fall apart before we even left Las Vegas. Towards the end of our relationship I was so deep into my depression that I didn't even realize how much control I had given him. A few months after we moved back from Las Vegas I let everything go and by the time our relationship ended I was barely able to get out of bed.

Back To Old Habits
After my failed relationship, I was back in my mother's house. At the time I was completely heartbroken which sent me even further into my depression. I was convinced I was the only reason that relationship had failed and refused to see his faults. Still my heartache wasn't the biggest reason for my depression I was gaining weight and I knew I had failed at this miracle surgery. This was supposed to be the answer to all my problems and I guess I thought it would just do the work for me. I had slowly allowed myself to sink back into old habits and by the time I caught myself I was back up to 220 pounds. It took me months to really start to get out of bed every day. I was slowly losing weight, but then gaining here and there, so not really getting anywhere. I will also admit that the real reason why I was losing any weight was because for a short time I had become bulimic. I couldn't stop myself from eating things I shouldn't and after realizing what I had done, I would purge and then eat more. It's not something I'm proud of, but it happened and I think it's not that uncommon among weight loss surgery patients, it's just not something that's talked about.

Turning Point
My battle with bulimia was my turning point and soon, I experienced the most important time in my life. I started dating again and met an ex-marine. He was tall, dark, and handsome and in perfect physical condition. He spent hours at the gym every day and he was one of the most handsome men I had ever seen. The truth is, my self-esteem wasn't much different than it had been at my highest weight and I was blown away that he even wanted to be seen with me, never mind how infatuated he seemed to be with me. I think he was infatuated with my potential which led him to slowly start talking to me about how he stayed in such good shape. He talked to me about taking my vitamins, eating right, and working out. He changed my life just as much as my surgeon had because if he had never taken the time to explain what I was doing wrong the way that he did, I really don't believe I would have ever learned anything that this surgery was supposed to teach me. He ended up showing me the most important lesson this surgery can teach you. You have to live for today and make every day count. The first thing he drilled into me was that every single day counts, every calorie counts, and every time you go to the gym, it counts. Your body changes every single day and you have to make it all count because eventually it will all add up. You can't put things off for a tomorrow that never comes which I think anyone who deals with obesity has a problem with. You have to live for today and every day you have to do something that's going to make tomorrow a better day. It all starts with one day and if you keep saying that day will be tomorrow, then it will never start. It has to start with today.

Living For Today
Instead of thinking tomorrow I'll take my vitamins, go to the gym, or eat better, I started with one day and I made that day count. I only focused on getting through one day at a time. At the end of that first day, I was proud of myself and I woke up the next day focusing just on that day and before I knew it, I had been back on track for a week. The more time that went by the more I focused on what was in front of me and stopped putting everything off. I forced myself to go to the gym and found a personal trainer to show me how to use the equipment. I never left the gym until every muscle hurt and I had sweat dripping off of me. I didn't care how out of breath I got or what I looked like because another secret he let me in on was that the gym is not a place to impress anyone. I took my glasses off so I couldn't see most of the faces around me and stopped trying to figure out who might be watching my body jiggle or what they might be thinking and I pushed myself as hard as I could. I was finally proud of myself for the first time in my life.

I watched the weight drop off and slowly came into myself, my self-esteem grew and I went from being awkwardly shy and a very angry negative person, to a smiling warm and driven young woman. I finally liked myself and this was huge. Once my weight started getting close to my goal, I started working towards getting a lower body lift. The skin that was left was scaring me and it's another part of the surgery that they don't prepare you enough for. No matter how much weight I lost, I felt like a failure. The only time I would allow myself to be completely naked was in the shower. Every day taking a shower and having to look down made me want to fall apart. I was dating but small enough that you would never expect my body to look the way that it did underneath all of my clothes and that made having any intimate relationship hard. I felt like I had to explain myself to men and hope that they would accept me for who I was. The reaction I got was almost as though I had told them I was going to be fat again someday. I wanted them to see my strength and what an amazing woman I had become, but I was so insecure about my body I couldn't get past it, so really how could I expect someone else to look past it? The truth about the skin that's left at the end of the weight loss is that it's not going anywhere on its own and once you are no longer focused on the weight loss, looking down and seeing the same body you saw at your highest weight just deflated and even more saggy, is damaging emotionally and really kept me from truly feeling a sense of accomplishment.

Body Lift
Finally in October of 2010, I had a lower body lift. I was cut all the way around my waste and then straight up my abdomen. My surgeon had taken off 13 pounds of skin, I will never forget waking up and having him remove my binder for the first time. I looked straight down; saw this tiny little woman I had worked so hard to become and just cried. The recovery went by really fast and I lost another 15 pounds without even trying. Before having the lower body lift, I was a size 12 and once all the swelling went down and my scars fully healed, I was a size 6. It all hit me at once good and bad, for the first time in my life I felt a sense of accomplishment. I had taken on something huge and finally crossed a finish line. All my life I had been really good at starting things and taking on huge projects, but I always ended up getting lost along the way because I was always putting things off for tomorrow.

Embracing The Changes
Once I was healed from the plastic surgery I almost went into a state of shock. I felt like I had been in a tunnel for the past few years. It immediately changed everything from the way that I saw myself to the way that I saw other people in my life and my own past. For a while I felt like I didn't recognize myself and there where nights I would just sit in front of a mirror and stare at myself trying to get my mind to catch up to all the changes. As I started to let everything sink in and finally started to accept myself I was able to face my own past and all of the failures I carried around. The hardest part has been forgiving myself for allowing my life to take some of the turns that it had. I had to look back at everything I had been through and not only acknowledge that it happened but that I allowed it to happen and I didn't care enough about myself to protect myself.

The mental adjustment I went through once everything was behind me was much harder than I expected. Well I tried to sort out my past and find acceptance I was also adjusting to the attention I was getting from men. For a long time, I couldn't even get a man to hold a door open for me. In fact, I can remember at my highest weight having a man open the door for the skinny girls in front of me and letting it go in my face. All of sudden I was getting attention from men that I never would have dreamed at any size would be interested in me. At first it lead me to make choices I'm not proud of and I pushed away good men because I was caught up in the attention I was getting from others. I was finally able to go out with my friends and have men hit on me instead of being the lonely, drunk girl in the corner. The shame of not only living in that body, but allowing myself to reach that point, didn't just go away. At first I had to remind myself it was really over because going through life looking ahead at the world instead of in the mirror allowed my mind to slip back into that shame.

A New Beginning
I'm now 27 and for the first time moving forward in life. I finally feel like this journey is behind me. I went into this striving for the physical changes but in the end it's the mental changes I am most thankful for. I can have confidence in myself now because I know that ‘someday' always comes and if I don't make the right decisions and really focus on creating the life I want every day, then I'll never be happy with my life. I have finally let go of the shame I felt from reaching some of the points that I have in life just through accepting myself for who I am today. I was carrying around all of my failures and eating through the guilt instead of picking myself up and making better choices. I've realized that everyone has made decisions and found themselves in situations they are ashamed of that's just part of life. I've finally found closure just by recognizing that if I had never gone through this journey I would not be the woman that I am today and I would go through it all over again to reach this point. Every step seemed to teach me a new lesson and every failure pushed me to create even more change in my life. I'm grateful for being able to have this surgery and all the change it helped me create but it wasn't an easy journey and the changes didn't just happen I had to make them happen.