kgiguer
I am a 38-year old executive assistant, wife, and mother of a terrific 12-year old girl. I'm 5'3" tall. I've been overweight my whole life and medically obese as well for long stretches of time. I went on my first diet at the age of 11 which means...get this...I'VE BEEN DIETING FOR 27 YEARS!!. Wow, that still gets me. All that effort, all that time, years of hard work, heartache..and I'm still obese! I'm frustrated with constant yo-yo dieting and constant hunger when dieting. The grim, desparate feeling of trying to stay "on program." Through pure gut-wrenching determination and obstinancy I managed to lose about 50 pounds on and off between 2003 and 2006, but during that time I had to tell my husband to be careful around me because I was ALWAYS hungry and it made me contantly furious at a low level underneath. But if that's what it took for ONCE in my life not to be fat I was willing to GUT IT OUT for as long as I could. I was on 1300 - 1600 calories a day. I ate what felt like my few scraps of food and I'd be focused on when I could eat again. I'd literally stare at my watch. The small amount of food I could lose weight on never left me satiated, so I was felt half starved for weeks at a time. I don't mean head hunger, that I-just-want-to-eat feeling...I mean real empty belly and stomach growling hunger. It never ceases to amaze me how little food you can eat to lose weight. I asked my girlfriend who was dieting at the same if she was hungry all the time and she said she was so hungry she could gnaw my arm off, so at least I know I'm not alone there. I remember at work one time she teared up when she burned her snack in the microwave. My friend did drop out after a few months. I made it down in the just "overweight" category but at the cost of having a life. I never wanted to go anywhere because any little thing off my rigid schedule of work/exercise/sleep and repeat usually meant food, and since I was always hungry I knew it was risky. Hunger will trump willpower every time. I didn't want to see friends unless it was to meet at the gym. It was a grim battle and I was never really maintaining, it was a constant yo-yo, I was always clenched. I knew it was a losing battle since I couldn't keep such a crazy thing up forever. It was crazy. I felt stretched to the maximum, barely holding it together, under all this strain...then I'd go to the doctor and he'd tell me to lose weight! Grrrrrrr. And sure enough, we moved in 2007 from NY to MS and the weight piled back on. It was unsustainable. I did like the way I looked and felt but I know I will never do that again.
I wondered if my stomach was too big thru a birth defect of some kind. By the time I was 10 years old I could out eat any full grown man in my family. I had my gallbladder out in 2004 and I asked the surgeon "did you see anything unusual with my stomach?" Nope. I've been on every diet and exercise plan. Low carb, low calorie, low fat, high carb, no meat. The Zone. Atkins. South Beach. eDiets. NutriSystem. Jenny Craig. WW. Pills. Been to counseling, saw a nutritionist, worked with a trainer, tried all the diets ever made. But I could never get passed being hungry all the time and eventually I'd eat just to get relief. And once I'd got it, I could never force myself back to the deprivation. I've walked the line with my blood pressure and cholesterol and now I'm most certainly over the line! My last BP was 153/98! My cholesterol is 220.
Anyway, I've been thinking about WLS for a long time, and really considering it for the last year or so, heavily researching for a few months. I've read everything online about it, watched videos, read others' experiences, talked to actual patients, and been to seminars. I'm still researching. I need to do something that I can manage for the rest of my life. What makes me think the surgery might be right for me is the portion control and hunger management it offers. Those are my issues, so it's a good fit. I'm willing to do the hard work. I exercise - I even love vegetables! But I need the right tools to make it stick.
