mystmanpdx
A little about me... I started gaining weight when I was in 3rd grade (about 8 y/o)... Until then I was always really skinny, my older sister even made fun of me that I was so skinny. For whatever reasons that be, I started gaining weight. I don't remember any significant changes in my life that caused it, it just started happening. The remainder of my elementary and middle school years were tough with my weight. I remember another student found out my weight incidently when I was in 8th grade (13 y/o)... it was 186lbs. I was about 5'9" then. So that put my BMI at 27.5. Through high school, mentality of students changed, I got more involved with my education and student government. I wasn't able to do much during physical education because my weight hindered any progress. The school football coach tried to recruit me as some how my weight benefited me and his team. Lets just say the conversation didn't last long. I weighed myself when I was 16 before I went to take my drivers license test because I knew they'd ask me... it was 235.
After the school years and starting my own life, my weight gain seemed to have plateaued... I was still obese but I wasn't gaining as much as I was during my teenage years. More maturity and discipline aided in my ability to maintain my weight and keep it in check. I tried most of the diets that made sense. The ones that were like eat this and only this, didn't make sense to me so I never tried them. Only supplying your body with one type of nutrients would only make things worse. I tried Slim-fast, Diet Center, metabolife, herba-life, dexatrim, juice-plus, calorie counting, weight watchers, nutrisystems for men... etc. The one thing that only worked for me is when I was 20 y/o, I joined Golds Gym and worked out like nothing else. I spent atleast 1.5 hours 4 times a week at the gym for about 9 months. I stopped going because I got in a car accident (rolled twice) and broke my clavical from my seat belt and needed about 6 weeks of recovery. It blew up all the motivation I mustered up to try the Gym thing in the first place. I lost about 30-40 lbs in 9 months from working out, but I wasn't really losing much fat... but I was gaining muscle-mass. Even though I spent about 1 hour on an eliptical cross-training machine for cardio and burning calories, I spent the other 30 minutes doing nautilus weight training and always stretched before and after religiously. I tried to cut as much fat and carbs out of my diet during this as possible. Diet instead of regular soda. No fast-food runs for lunch. Still the fat wouldn't come off. After the car accident, I thought... 'Well it wasn't working much anyway... time to try something else'.
Since then, I have moved around alot, changed jobs several times and with all that stress, I have ballooned up to 345lbs on my 5'11" frame at age 27. Today my energy level is pathetic, I get rarely any exercise, I work so much that I have no concept of a social life... my stress level is about an 8.5 on a scale of 1-10. I'm constantly fatigued. I get edema in my ankles and lower legs if I sit for too many hours. I don't eat breakfast because my stomach can't handle food in the morning. I rarely each lunch. When it comes time to go home and have dinner, I eat too much. My body is in that starvation mode, so when it does get calories at dinner, it packs them on. But the funny thing is, I've tried changing that, and I just gain more weight. I tried eating a low calorite breakfast, a small lunch or a slim-fast shake, then try to eat a less caloric dinner, but it only made things worse. I have been a chronic insomniac for years because of my work. I haven't had a sleep study done but its only my list to have completed before surgery. I know I snore, but I don't think I have sleep apnea. But, wouldn't be surprised if I did. Im the type of insomniac that can't fall asleep because I can't shut off my brain. So, when I should be falling asleep at 10-11pm, I fall asleep as 1-3am. However, once I am asleep, I tend to sleep pretty well through the night. I may wake up a couple of times during the evening but I fall right back asleep. Usually because of my position and my body wakes me up because I'm sleeping on my hand or arm. I went to a PCP about a year ago and explained my sleeping situation, he didn't really give me any help (I only saw him once because of this). He wrote me a script for 20 tabs of lunesta. I tried that for awhile but all it did is agreviate my digestion. Sure, it put me to sleep but since my matabolism is so slow, it was impossible to wake up in time for work. It was like I had to take the pill as soon as I got home for it to kick in, and matabolise by 7am. Obviously, that wasn't a resolution. So far, taking half a tab of OTC sleep-aid is enough to turn off my brain for a little while but i goes away quickly so I have to try to sleep as soon as I feel the affects. I still feel like crap in the morning but its not as bad as lunesta. The OTC sleep-aid also gives me headaches, so I take tylonol almost daily.
So why WLS?... A few years ago, I had a roommate who had gastric bypass surgery and I talked to him about it. He said that he was over 300lbs when he did it and he lost over 100 lbs but he had gone up some since then because he hadn't been sticking to his diet. However, even then he wasn't grossly overweight. So, I thought maybe this might be an option for me but at the time, I didn't have a stable job nor insurance. Today that has changed and have decided to put the chain in motion.
Present Time Line:
6/19/07 - Initial Workshop
7/15/07 - Got welcome packet, appointments scheduled, initial insurance info submitted.
8/8/07 - #401 - Blood test, psych testing, body measurements
8/14/07 - #391 - Meetings with dietician, shrink, nurse practician and physical therapist.
8/15/07 - Signed up for membership at local gym.
8/22/07 - Sleep study, personal training consult at gym for exercise regime, visit with PCP for anti-depressants.
8/24/07 - #384
8/28/07 - #382
8/30/07 - #379
9/05/07 - #378
9/07/07 - #376
9/20/07 - #375 - Dietician and Physical Therapist signed off on my follow up... chart being moved to surgeon.
9/25/07 - #373
10/03/07 - #372
3/11/08 - #375
3/13/08 - #371
3/17/08 - Pre-surgery class in Vancouver
3/20/08 - Surgery!!!
4/10/08 - #353 - 3 Weeks post-op
4/17/08 - #352
4/21/08 - #349
5/7/08 - #343
5/21/08 - #334
6/5/08 - #331 - 70lbs gone!
6/9/08 - #330
6/12/08 - #323 - Day 4 of 2 week ketosis run.
7/2/08 - #319
7/16/08 - #316
7/23/08 - #314
8/1/08 - #312
10/4/08 - #308
11/6/08 - #297
12/21/08 - #293 - 9 months out
2/7/09 - #281
5/29/09 - #270