gishstar
Morbidly Obese.
Two words I thought I would never hear that would categorize myself. I suppose that's what can happen when you spend more time stressing about life happening to you than doing something about it.
I suppose my early childhood, and teenage years were fairly normal. I grew up in a dysfunctional family. My Dad played in a band and wasn't home very often on the weekends or some weeknights. He drank pretty regularly. I didn't think he had a problem with alcohol, but as I went into adulthood, it was mentioned to me that he did in fact have a drinking problem.
I never had a good relationship with my mother at all. She's a tom boy through and through, and having 3 younger brothers, you can only begin to guess who her favorites were.
I was always "Daddy's Little Girl" though. He gave me special treatment all the time, like sitting in the front seat of the car on trips to the store. I don't know if he ever really knew how differently my mom treated me from my brothers.
Their marital problems began when I was 9. He left us and went to Austin, Texas to live out his dream of making it big in the music business. The only part of that story I really remember was our grandparents taking care of us for a few days, which my mom later told me was because she stayed in bed and cried for days on end. The other part of the story I remember was when I was practicing for my school's Christmas program, and crying because I feared that my Dad wouldn't be home for Christmas.
He made it home for Christmas but only because he called my mom up crying and asking her to take him back. She agreed, and their relationship floated along for the next 7 years or so.
He ended up having an affair, and instead of wanting to fix it or work on their relationship, he once again left us. I was 16 this time. They didn't make their divorce official until I was 17 or 18. It was the summer before my senior year in high school.
My weight was still normal though for a teenaged girl. In fact, I didn't even KNOW I was thin. I didn't know fat or thin was. Really naiive right?
While my parents were going through their divorce, my mom would tell me things about my Dad that really ruined my image of him. She would also treat me more like a friend or an adult than her child. I really resented her for that.
This is the time in my life when I realized I had the ability to be addicted to things. I didn't know it at the time, but I remember being upset about something, leaving the house, driving to a local store, and buying a dress.
Up until that point, I would always buy little things here and there to make myself feel better. I would overdraw my checking account all the time as a teenager. I didn't care though, I didn't really realize what I was doing either.
That day though, as I was buying that dress, was when I realized I was covering up my feelings for being angry with shopping. So I stopped shopping. Unfortunately, that's when I turned to food.
You would think that logically if I already knew I was covering up my pain with shopping, that I would at least try to get help for it. I was seeing a counselor at the time, but for some reason we never talked about those things. In fact, I don't really remember anything of what we talked about, or that it really helped either.
My food addiction started with soda, fast food, and candy. Fats, salts, and sugars. I knew very little of health and fitness at the time, and my parents never really taught us anything about eating healthy either. We just ate what was put down in front of us. Breakfast was always a must have in the mornings, followed by lunch, dinner, then bedtime snack. If there were ever treats in between it was usually on special occasions.
My Mom loved to bake, and she would only bake on days when it was cloudy. Something about how the baked goods rise better. I don't know if this is true because my baking turns out just fine whether it's sunny or cloudy.
However, the one rule I remember though from whenever she'd make treats is that we could have them after school, but we were only allowed 2 cookies, 1 brownie, 1 slice of cake, or 1 slice of pie. Depending on what she had made. For some reason, we always stuck to that. We were 4 kids home alone after school. We never gorged on the treats (especially around Christmas time!), we always took what we were allowed.
Of course we would get in trouble if we opened a new box of cereal w/o finishing the old ones first... so maybe it was my Mom's weird OCD about quantities of things in the house that made us stick to that rule lest we get into trouble.
My addiction for sugar though sky rocketed throughout my senior year. I started that year out at 120lbs. I ended the year at 145lbs. I knew nothing about weight gaining or losing. I knew nothing about staying fit, in shape, cardio, etc. I didn't know why my pants wouldn't fit. I just knew that I couldn't fit into them anymore, and that it was probably because I grew out of them, not because I was gaining weight.
Hindsight is 20/20, and if I could go back and change the decisions I made over that summer as a soon-to-be college freshman, I wouldn't have gone to school at all that Fall. I wasn't ready. I wasn't mentally prepared at all. Or if I was going to go, I should have went to the same school as my best friend. Of course if I had done that, I wouldn't be here.
My senior year in high school was awful. Not only was I dealing with my parent's divorce, but I experienced loss twice that same year. In February 2001, my Great-Grandfather passed away. He was the first person close to me that died. I took it really hard because I thought him and I were close. Then in July 2001, my Uncle was killed by a drunk driver. Having that all over the news, and trying to help my family get through it was terrible.
Then I went off to college. Most of the parents who were getting their college students ready for their dorms were either helping them unpack, meeting their roommates, making last minute visits to the stores, or taking them out to lunch. My mom? She dropped me off, helped me carry my stuff to my room, and said good bye. No hugs. No "I'll miss you". No "See me on the weekends." Nothing. I felt like I was a little puppy dumped off on the dirty streets to fend for myself.
This is where food came back into play. If I look through my freshman photos, I can see that I was slowly gaining weight. I managed to keep it to a slow gain because I walked so much all over campus, but I couldn't stop gaining.
I started my freshman year at 155, and ended it at 180. I knew something was out of control, but couldn't figure out why. No one else I was with was gaining weight like I was. Why was I gaining weight like it was going out of style?
I dropped out of college mid-way through my sophomore year. I was failing all my classes and my heart just wasn't into it anymore. I didn't know what I wanted in life. I had lost so much, and felt so unloved by my own family, I felt orphaned.
I worked for a few months, then went back to college that following Fall with a different study focus. I think I wanted to prove to my other college friends that I could indeed graduate college. That was something they would whisper among themselves whenever one of their friends was failing. That they weren't good enough for college, or they were bad people. I didn't want to be like that, and I didn't want them to talk about me behind my back like that either.
Again... another one of those moments when I probably should have just done what was best for me, instead of what I thought would have appeased others. But like I said... I grew up in a dysfunctional family. My role was to make everyone happy, keep the peace, and make sure my Dad doesn't blow up and get violent.
After a year and a half of pursuing my new degree, I dropped out again. My dropping out had a lot of different reasons behind it. One of them was because I was relapsing horribly into my depression making day-to-day living nearly impossible. Another was because my Mom was having a baby with my new Step Dad, and that was a change in my life that I didn't want to miss.
I went back home, lived with my Mom and my Step Dad, and became my little brother's live-in nanny for the first year of his life. Best decision ever of my life. Do I wish I had a college degree? Yes. Do I wish I was living in another city/town... probably. Do I regret that that's where my life led me instead? No.
I was still gaining/losing weight. However, I had done more research on weight loss, and knew that if I watched my calories I could really manage my weight, and even lose weight if I did it right. I did good at this for a couple of years.
I also learned that even though I have a plan for what I want out of life, God has another plan for me instead.
I started college back in 2001 aspiring to be a Clinical Psychologist and eventually work for the FBI, or run my own clinic in the country. I dropped out and worked in a call center instead, then became a lifeguard for that summer. I started college again in 2003 aspiring to get my degree in Music Business and work for a record label, or become an Entertainment Lawyer. Instead, I dropped out, and raised my little brother making me realize that I want to be a mommy.
If my Uncle Pat wasn't killed by that drunk driver on July 4th, 2001 my mother would have NEVER met my Step Dad. My little brother would have NEVER been born. Who knows where I would have been.
Even though I've been overweight since I was 18. Today, I am 253 lbs. I've had more struggles between starting my first "job", getting married, leaving my first "job" and getting my first "real job."
After my little brother was about a year old, my parents said that it was time for me to get a full-time job, and that they would put my little brother in day care. They were thankful that I was there to help them out so that they didn't have to put the little guy in day care, but now that he's older his risk for getting sick isn't as high. RSV was pretty prevalent at the time in day cares everywhere, which made my Mom stress about sending him to one as a little baby.
I was nervous about getting a job, but knew I needed to so that I could move onto the next chapter in my life. During my job hunting months, I worked part-time at a women's fitness center. The woman who owned the facility gave me a free body analysis. This is when I learned how many calories I needed to eat in a day to maintain my weight, or lose the weight.
Working there was my first introduction into the world of fitness and body health. I had joined a Curves when I was 19 to lose the weight, but I honestly didn't know much about weight loss or food at the time. I was in a support group, but it was for following the Atkins diet, not eating for life.
One night, as I was going into town to visit my Dad, I came upon a car accident. Saying a prayer as I always do when I see anyone on the road experiencing car troubles, I noticed that the van involved in the rear-end looked like my uncle Tyler's van. Jumping into action, I called my Mom to let her know that Tyler was in an accident, and so I could get Lynne's phone number. Tyler's wife.
Thankfully I was only a few blocks from their house. As I'm on the phone with my Mom, I pull up to their house and see my uncle Tyler outside having a cigarette. I let my Mom know it was a false alarm, and we kind of laughed about it.
I told Tyler that I passed an accident a few blocks back and thought it was him, which was why I was at his house. He thanked me, but then he said that his employer was hiring for new reps to be on the phones and that I wouldn't be taking inbound calls, but making outbound calls. He said it would be right up my alley.
I applied. I got the job. That summer, I moved out of my parent's house and got my first apartment on my own. I moved in there August 2006. I knew though, in the back of my head that this would be the first and last place I would ever live before I met my husband.
I was still overweight though. I worked out every day after work. I counted calories. I participated in Weight Watchers, NutriSystem, Atkins, became a vegetarian... NOTHING worked. The only times I would lose weight was when I was horribly sick.
I would lose 10 - 15 pounds but only gain it back, and then some.
I knew that people at work had had weight loss surgery, but I didn't put myself in that category. For some reason I thought that I could handle it, and that I could lose weight on my own.
I met my husband in November of 2007. We started dating in December 2007. He proposed in March 2009, and we got married in December 2010. When we met, I weighed probably 190lbs. When we got married, I weighed 230lbs.
We had a falling out with his family, which made me feel like shit for the longest time. I went to counselors, I went back on my anti-depressants, and I still kept gaining weight.
I did notice though that when I gain weight, it's when I go through something stressful. So noticing that, and forcing myself to be extra-super-uber aware of what goes into my mouth during those times is HARD.
He had suggested weight loss surgery but at the time, I never thought that I needed it. I thought I could lose the weight on my own. It wasn't until I got a new supervisor and she mentioned that she had her stomach stapled that I became more intrigued by it.
She was so thin! She ate unhealthy things, and even drank diet soda, so I had no idea that she had ever had weight loss surgery. Again another one of those times in my life where I know God was leading me somewhere.
I started the process in May 2011 to get weight loss surgery. Life events happened though, and threw me off track. However, I haven't given up on wanting that surgery.
When I went in for my first consultation with the surgeon, I weighed 251lbs. When I was told I needed to go on a diet for 6 months, and couldn't have any of the foods I loved ever again... I think I panicked. I went from 251 lbs, and being told I need to get down to 225 before the surgery... to 273 lbs!
The job I had though at the time was super stressful. I knew I was stress eating. If I couldn't overcome stress eating, then I probably shouldn't prepare for surgery.
A little voice though told me that my time was up with my job, and that it was time to look for a new one. I quit my job after working for them for 6 years and 6 months exactly.
I turned 30, and I know that this is meant to be. Nothing just happens for no reason at all. Everything happens for a reason. The people you meet. The things you do, the choices you make. It's all there for a reason.
You do however, have control over things. I know though that my journey from thin, to obese, and back again is one that I will write about in a book.
Since starting this new job, I will have to start the 6 month insurance approval process over again. I'll also not be as qualified for assistance with paying for the surgery as I make more money now. A plus and a negative, but I'm OK with that.
I've also lost 20 lbs since starting this new job. I think the stress of the old job caused most of my weight gaining, and has helped me be more aware of what goes into my mouth.
This is the beginning of my journey. I hope my blog entries will inspire you, and myself. You don't gain weight for no reason. But to help yourself re-train your brain and your body to recognize what is full, and what is satisfied is what this surgery is about. It's a tool to help you better portion control and better manage your food choices.
Since I don't have those natural triggers anymore for recognizing satiety, this surgery will help me regain that. Also, since I have an affliction for sugar, getting dumping syndrome will be a blessing in disguise.
Remember, we all have our own journey, and our own stories as to how we got to this point. It's finding our way back and getting our lives back that's most important.
