LindaLouise
August 16, 2007
Like many others, I have had a lifelong problem with weight. As a small child I wasn't heavy but about 3rd grade started getting chunky. I had asthma as a child which combined with my weight made Phys Ed absolute TORTURE! I hated being the last kid to make it around the softball field. I never developed any kind of hand-eye coordination and to this day can't catch or hit a ball of any sort.
In high school my weight flucuated between 150-155. For my height, that actually wasn't all that heavy but boy, did I feel big! I had/have the classic pear shaped figure which meant I couldn't buy clothes that would fit right. If they fit in the hips, they were way too big in the bust. If the bust fit, I couldn't wriggle it down over my hips. I'm pretty sure I had 44-45" hips in high school. Still hated gym class and was so relieved when I only had to take PE for one year.
Over the next few years I gradually began to put even more weight on. After college I remember weighing close to 200, right around 196. In my mid twenties at one point I got back down to 165 and stayed there for a few years. I look longingly back at photos of that time.
When I was 26 I left the United States and moved to Taiwan as a Christian missionary. I spent 17 years in Taiwan, learned Mandarin Chinese, immersed myself in Asian culture and made many dear friends both in the missionary community and, of course, among the Chinese. I returned to the States in 1998 and spent the next few years in grad school completing a MA in counseling.
The years I was in Taiwan, my weight gradually crept up. I put on about 20 pounds every 4 or 5 years. I was much more active in Taiwan because I didn't have a car. I walked a lot of places - to church, to the market, to the post office - and lived on the 3rd floor of a walk up apartment complex. I'm sure if I hadn't had all that physical activity I would have come away even heavier.
In 1999 a man in my mother's church lost his wife of 28 years to cancer. I had met him and even prayed for his wife during her illness. In the fall of 2000 we started a whirlwind courtship and were married in July of 2001. In the months leading up to my wedding I lost 60 pounds. I was finishing up grad school and was only taking 2 courses. I walked every day for 45 minutes and ate really small portions. I also fasted one day a week about my relationship with this guy back home. I wanted to be clear that God was leading me to marry him because marriage to him meant giving up my career as a missionary.
Since our marriage, my weight has again crept back up. I am now at my all time high. I did lose 30 pounds last year by keeping a food journal at CalorieKing.com but have put all that weight back on and then some. It's the same old story many of us share. It's not that we can't lose weight, it's that we can't keep it off.
One thing I find interesting/distressing about dieting is I know that the various times in my life I've lost weight, I never "felt" thin. Granted, maybe I never got low enough to qualify as thin, but the point is I still felt fat, even when I lost 60 pounds before I got married. I knew I was losing weight because my clothes fit differently but I still "felt" the same inside.
I had never heard of Lapband surgery until January of this year. I had an aunt who had her stomach "stapled" years ago, probably in the mid 80s. She died on Thanksgiving Day, 2002 at the age of 69 of colon cancer. In the back of my mind I always associated her WLS with her early death by colon cancer, even though medically I have nothing upon which to base that association.
I have had the usual emotional roller coaster many people have. I attended my first Lapband seminar on Feb 1. That was the night I found out our insurance absolutely will not pay for Lapband yet. They will pay for gastric by-pass. I believe one of these days our insurance will pay for adjustable gastric banding but since I have no way to know when that will occur I don't want to wait and wait and wait for that to happen. It took me a little while emotionally to get over the hurdle of having to self-pay. My husband has been nothing but supportive in the choice to self pay. We are not wealthy people but we do have some savings so we are now going to invest some of that in my health.
My mother died last year of an abdominal aneurysm. My dad has been diagnosed with Type II diabetes for a few years now but has not taken real good care of his diabetes. He was in denial for a number of years. He wasn't taking his medication and kept saying, "You have to die of something. I'm going to live my life the way I want and eat what I want." He had a few spills earlier this year that kind of shook him up so he's been being more compliant. But, I see myself in a few years in both my parents. I don't have diabetes YET but it's coming. My most recent pre-op labs were not good. I took one look at some of the numbers and said to my sister (who is my BEST friend), "I'm feeling sick." Blood pressure numbers are still okay but are creeping up. Cholestrol is not out of control but higher than it should be. etc, etc, etc. If you are reading this, you know what I mean. It's all the little things that are starting to hurt or not work right or wear out.
The worst thing to me is feeling pooped very day from carrying around these extra 100+ pounds. I make it to work each day but have such low energy. I don't feel like doing anything after work. We are terrible couch potatoes. We love to watch movies and could spend every Saturday watching movies non-stop. We did join a gym and went faithfully for about two months but that's been about 4 or 5 months ago. We just can't find a time to go consistently. It seems about every other day recently we have a discussion about when to go to the gym. What we are doing now is not working but I haven't been able to come up with something that does. That's got to change after I have my band put in because I know exercise has got to be a part of equation for me.
