Diet History

In 1974, was the first time I heard the word Obese, I thought the pediatrician who was talking to my mother said that if I did not lose weight before I reached high school I would be a beast.  The thought of this horrified me, at the time I was 10 years old and my weight was approximately 125lbs.  The doctor sent me and my mother to Weight Watchers which I followed for the next several years on and off until I completed high school.  My weight at the end of high school in 1982 was approximately 150lbs.  Still overweight I sought relief from my weight struggles through many diet aids including diet supplements and diet pills.  I continued to maintain my weight until I got married in 1985 at which point I went on birth control pills.  Prior to starting the pills I had absolutely no medical problems, after starting the pills I gained 50lbs in the first year and started to have break through bleeding.  When I went back to the doctor they took me off the pills and suggested I try Weight Watchers again since it worked for me as a child.  I signed up for Weight Watchers but by this point my weight had become a point of serious depression, I was very unhappily married and now very fat.  I chose to hide my pain instead of seek out the help I needed.  Over the course of the next few years my weight rose to 235lbs. 

During 1989 I became pregnant with my son, my weight started out at 235lbs and during my pregnancy I only gained 20lbs.  My metabolism seemed to be kicked into high gear, my eating remained the same yet for the first 7 months I was losing weight not gaining.  At that point I found out I had developed mild gestational diabetes.  My weight and blood sugar was closely monitored.  All my weight gain came in the last month of my pregnancy and was mainly water.  I gave birth to a healthy 7lb 13oz son on December 19, 1989.  Within a few weeks of delivery my weight was down to 205lbs.  I tried breast feeding my son and after 1 agonizing month gave up.  At this point my metabolism returned to normal along with my blood sugar and slowly but surely I regained the weight I had lost. 

From the years between 1990 and 2003 I tried every diet that I could find, from Weight Watchers to Adkins, to Slim Fast and the grapefruit diet.  My highest weight during this period was 278 when my son was in nursery school in 1993 and from there I dieted my way down to 230 and yo-yoed up and down between 230 and 250 for the next 10 years.

In the year 1999 I got divorced and after a very stressful year started to develop the symptoms related to diabetes.  I had a hemaglobin a1c test done in 2000 and was found to be within the normal range.  At this point I felt my heredity was catching up to me, my mother had been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when she was 32.  I began an all out assault on losing weight and keeping diabetes at bay as long as possible.  I followed my doctors recommended diet for diabetics to the letter and still managed to gain weight.   Going from 240 to approximately 265 over the course of the next few years.  In the spring of 2003 I was diagnosed with type II diabetes.  My fears had finally been answered, I had spent years scared and dreading this eventual outcome and felt helpless to try to lose the weight to keep myself off medication.  Since becoming diabetic I have gone through additional nutritional counselling and religiously check my blood sugars and walk 3-4 times a week.  I want to remain healthy and complication free but even with all my efforts my weight yo-yo’s between 260lbs and 280lbs.  My blood sugar hemoglobin a1c which started out at 8 is now down to a non-diabetic 5.7 with medication.  But unfortunately my weight is what stands in my way of elliminating my need for medication and severe arthritis in my shoulder and hip keep me from more aggressive exercise.  So I am caught between a rock and hard place when it comes to diet and exercise, my metabolism is slow to start off with and the diabetes makes it even slower and my inability to exercise short of walking makes it impossible for me to improve myself.  This is how and why I am at the point of needing, wanting, desperately seeking WLS to save myself from the future complications of diabetes and the ravages of arthritis.  My mother passed away shortly before I became diabetic, at the time of her death she was taking 5 shots a day and still her diabetes was out of control even with the help of the Joslin Clinic.  I do not want to end my life in a wheelchair and helpless to help myself.