When I look at childhood pictures of when my family lived in Rochester, New York, I see a little girl, under eight years old who had trim little legs and a small body. Then I wonder to myself, “What happened?” When my family moved to Baltimore, I think I was alright weight-wise for about a year. Then the pounds started showing up around the age of nine or ten…definitely at ten. I remember all the students being weighed in my fifth grade class and me being nervous about getting on the scale. As all the students told their weight to each other, I did not expose mine. For at the age of ten, I believe I weighed approximately 120 pounds…probably more. I have a fifth grade school photograph in which I am dressed as a little girl but my breasts were a 36C. So, around fifth grade is when the teasing started. The teasing was about my size and weight, about my skin color, about me speaking with a New York accent, and because my family was extremely poor…about the way I dressed. That made me very shy and introverted, without many friends. So people teased more. As a high school senior, age 17, I weighed 187 pounds and wore a size 16. I thought I was fat then. Oh to be 187 pounds now. These days, I am ok with myself. I am proud of my ethnicity and with my professional and educational status I have probably achieved much more than the people who teased me when I was a child.  However, my weight is still a factor. I am 5'3 and3/4" and on my surgery date of July 13, 2007 I weighed 284 pounds. My BMI was 49.5...only .5 from being super morbidly obese.  I squeeze into a size 22, I wear a size 24 and a 3X, but I probably really wear a size 26. I have lost weight before. But, I have always gained it back. The most I have lost was 70 - 79 pounds with Weight Watchers. I was 35 then and that brought me to a weight of about 200 pounds. At age 29, I lost 40 or so pounds with the Cabbage Soup Diet, again which brought me down to about 200 pounds. After having my son at age 30, I was 240. Within his first year I gained weight to the 260s. But this has been the case all my life…gaining and losing…losing and gaining. I have done Weight Watchers, cabbage soup, LA Weight Loss, Jenny Craig, Xenical, Dexatrim, seen a nutritionist and many other things. Now that I’m forty-one years old, it is time for a permanent life style change. I believe bariatric surgery (laproscopic RNY) along with proper nutrition and exercise is the way. I know being morbidly obese makes me at risk for many other illnesses. I have been told so all my life by my physicians. In fact, I am often quite tired and sweaty from activities such as stair walking, my hip joints often hurt, I get heartburn (acid reflux), I have been diagnosed with severe sleep apnea and my knees and ankles often swell. I would like to live a long, healthy life for myself and my son. This time I am going to do it! Follow me on this weight loss journey.