Eileen O.
An Article I wrote for work newsletter.
Jun 10, 2009
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service more than half of all Americans are overweight. Between 2003-2006 there were 66.9 percentage of American adults over the age 20 that were classified as overweight (this number includes those who are obese and morbidly obese), this is a 22.1% increase since 1960. Overweight is classified as a BMI (Body Mass Index) greater than 23. BMI is a measurement of body fat based on height and weight that applies to both men and women between the ages of 18 and 65 years.American that are obese and morbidly obese, which is a BMI of 27.6 -40 and morbidly obese is greater than 40, are 34.1% of the overweight population. An increase of 20.8% since 1960, which translates to increase health issues and premature deaths due to co-morbidities that are a direct result of the “Extra Junk in our Trunks!”
Many people who are obese have been so for most of their adult life. They are a part of the American population who have been on one diet or another for most of their adult lives, some even beginning as teenagers and adolescents. Diets that may or may not work for the short term but always fail in the long run. This is called “yo-yo dieting” and comes with a high price. I know from personal experience.
I have had an abnormal relationship with food all my life. I can remember being and emotional eater as a small child. Often taking and hiding sweets when my mom would come home from grocery shopping and then sneaking and eating “my stash” in secret. By the time I enter High School I was 5’9” and 200lbs. I hated myself and felt like an outcast not only among my peers in school but within my own family.
I began yo-yo dieting by the time I was 20 years old. My first attempt was with medically monitored diet pills, amphetamines, prescribed by a physician my mother took me to after college. I lost over 125lbs in less than one year but in two years time, I had regained that weight plus another 20lbs. Than at 24yrs. old I again went on a strict calorie controlled “liquid protein” diet and lost 150lbs, only to regain this weight plus another 50 by the time I was 28yrs old. My third serious attempt was at 28 with the liquid diet once again. This time I lost about 75lbs and found it and several more of its friends in less than a year.
During this period of my life I became obsessed with my weight, food, calories and exercise. I went from anorexic behaviors to bingeing and purging, along with this went an obsession with caloric intake and output. I knew what the calories were of everything that went in and I set out to burn them off and more by the end of each day.
When this behavior would fail I would become depressed and begin to volume eat to try and stuff down the feelings of shame and failure. I made so many attempts in between the medically supervised programs with Weight Watchers, the Stewardess Diet, the Grapefruit Diet, the 4-day Detox Diet….you name it I tried it until finally in 1990 my resolve to try again just quit. I was at rock bottom with my addiction to food. My “drug” of choice.
However along the way I learned to transfer my addictive behaviors to other substances and behaviors and by the time I was 30 I was spiritually and emotionally spent. It is when I join a 12 step program and began a journey of changing me. In the 18 years I have been involved in the 12-Step model of behavior modification I have struggled to get my body down to a healthy weight. There were many “ghosts” from my past that needed to be looked at, worked on and let go. I continued to use food as a societal accepted method of coping with the pain that often comes with changing one’s entire life and belief system.
The adage that says, “when the student is ready the teacher will appear” is just how things have been going for me during the past 4 ½ years. As I worked with newly sober addicts and alcoholics in the detox, trying to help them understand why they relapse and what they need to do if they want to be released from their addicted lives, I began to hear my own words reverberating in my ears when I’d reach for some food to dull the stress and strain of my life. Then I sought “through prayer and meditation…for His will…and the power to carry that out.”
And that is when I met Dr. Marc Neff, MD. Kennedy’s own Bariatric surgeon and made the decision to have a Vertical Sleeve Mastectomy (VSG)surgery. I put my life in this skilled and compassionate surgeon’s hands and allowed him during a 2 hour operation, to alter my insides; which will now alter the way and amount I can eat for the rest of my life.
In a VSG , the stomach is restricted by stapling and dividing it vertically and removing more than 85% of it. This part of the procedure is not reversible. The stomach that remains is shaped like a very slim banana and measures from 1-5 ounces. The nerves to the stomach and the outlet valve (pylorus) remain intact with the idea of preserving the functions of the stomach while drastically reducing the volume. there is no intestinal bypass with this procedure, only stomach reduction.
As long as I continue to work on and learn from my past behaviors, follow the guidelines and instructions of the professionals and enlist the support of the men and women who are “trudging the road to happy destiny” with me, my future looks bright again…so bright “I gotta to wear shades!”
Change is hard, scary and daunting when you look at the horizon, so I just focus on the day ahead and at the end of each day I look back over the last 24 hours and see what I did right and what needs improvement and give thanks for all I have…it is truly a blessing to be me today…who I am and how far I have come is nothing short of a miracle.
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About Me
Blackwood Terrace, NJ
Location
46.8
BMI
Surgery
11/24/2008
Surgery Date
May 10, 2008
Member Since
