About a year ago I realized that my weight was out of control. I knew that if I didn’t change things drastically, I wouldn’t grow old with my husband or be around to see my children grow up. I realized that I had become a shut in, and that I was not the mom I had always aimed to be.  I was drowning, and I didn’t even know it.

One night I had started to gaze the net looking into weight loss surgery. I wasn’t ready to go to a message board, I was simply googling different terms, reading information, and looking at pictures. Some how I came across Trimywill.com ,and I sat and read, and reread. I read his journey like it was a novel. I was pulled in. I looked at his photos, and I was amazing. From 400lbs to an ironman! Amazing. But the part that really pulled me in wasn’t his weight loss surgery, or his achievements in the end, but his honesty! From how he gained the weight, to how the gym kicked his ass the first time he went. HONESTY! I read his site a few more times. I used his site to help me explain my decision for weight loss surgery to my family. I wrote Dan back then, and I thanked him.

From there, I started on track with the doctors, the diet, and browsed more of the web. I came upon meltingmama.net/wls She made me laugh out loud. I watched some of her youtube videos, and I found myself looking at a real woman, living the every day life of wife and mother, and weight loss surgery success, weight loss, regain, reloss and the roller coaster that follows. MM shares openly her struggles with reactive hypoglycemia and a seizure disorder that she didn’t have prior to her weight loss surgery. She also shared her reviews of various products related to WLS. Always with the pro’s and con’s.

Both of these people had referenced Obesityhelp.com, and I eventually took the leap to the message boards.

Meltingmama, created The Bariatric Bad Girls Club, and there I have laughed till I cried, found friends, further inspiration, and above all else… HONESTY about WLS. I wear one of these on my wrist every day. My dear friend Julie, a fellow WLS bad girl brought it to me the day I had my surgery

I wear it with pride.

So that is my story of how the internet enlightened me, inspired me, guided me, and humors me. That is the story of how I decided to have WLS. And while neither of the people who initially inspired me have had the same surgery I have had, they have paved the way for me to find exactly what was right for me.

Thanks Dan, Thanks Beth, Thank you Sondra, Julie, Jeannie, Shelly, Andrea, Teresa, Taunia, Melissa, Kaitlin, Darlene, Michelle, Beth (and her larry), thank you to the thousand + other bad girls. I am inspired daily.