Colleen_SJ
So a little about me
Mar 08, 2015
Ok so apparently I am supposed to make blog posts LOL so I will add a bit of background info in case anyone actually visits.
I was put on the waiting list for Dr. Savoie six years ago, in January of 2009. I knew at the time that the waiting list was several years long, and I was ever-hopeful that I could lose weight and get in shape without it, but I wanted to have the option down the road. In the meantime I kind of put it out of my mind and continued in fits and starts to try to do it on my own.
In 2011-12 I got my act together and lost almost 70lbs by eating super-healthy and exercising a LOT - I hired a personal trainer and was getting really quite fit. However I hit a plateau at 70 lbs (about half of my excess weight) after having to cut back the personal training to once every two weeks due to the cost, and eventually had to give up the personal training sessions entirely. (I HIGHLY recommend a personal trainer to anyone who can afford it - I found an absolutely wonderful trainer who I would recommend highly to anyone in this area, and if money was no option I never would have cut back on sessions. She is one of those people that you know came into your life for a reason, and although I can no longer employ her I am still inspired by her and count her among my friends.)
After giving up my training sessions my motivation floundered and over the course of 2013-2014 I stopped exercising, picked up bad eating habits again, and put about 50 of the 70 lbs back on. However, it was the first time that I managed to rein myself in and get back on track before actually putting ALL the weight back on plus more, which has been my pattern of yo-yo dieting for my entire adult life. I started out on my weight rollercoaster at about 150 lbs when I graduated from high school and yo-yo dieted my way up to over 300 lbs over the subsequent 20 years. I figure that if you add up all my weight loss attempts I've probably lost over 300 lbs altogether! SO discouraging and frustrating, especially when people assume you are just lazy and gluttonous. (OK so at times I have been both of those things, but other times the very opposite. I am like the "Jekyll and Hyde" of eaters - when I'm good I'm very good, and when I'm bad I'm very bad! I have worked very hard over the years to be healthy, but being my own worst enemy when it comes to my weight, in the end you would never know how hard I have worked by looking at the end result (so far).
Over the years and all these attempts I have learned a few things about myself and about healthy eating that I hope will help me to reach and maintain a healthy weight after surgery. I am a realist and approach most things with a healthy skepticism based on experience, but there are reasons that I believe the "sleeve" is an important part of the puzzle for me and that I can be successful now with the help of this tool. I will write more about this later, have to get back to work!