Romanceauthor
I may or may not be your typical person on this sight. I've always been athletic. For more years than I can count, I was always moving; cheerleading, gymnastics, roller skating, bike riding, swiming, diving, tennis... etc. I spent more time in my younger years on my hands than on my feet. So it was a surprise to me once I got married and started having kids all that would slow down and eventually come to a grinding halt. Everything I ate or did was tied into family life and that rarely meant exercise or good food choices because let's face it, when you have a big family no two people seem to have the same taste in food or enery levels.
Fast forward twenty plus years later and I found myself staring 300lbs in the backside. My health was showing signs of decline. I was on blood pressure medication, I had servere sleep apnea (tests showed I stopped breathing up to 22 times a night) and I was pre-diabetic. This scared the daylights out of me. I had plans for my life after we became empty nesters that did not include endless medical visits and hospital stays followed by a possibly short lifespan. I also didn't want to embarass my kids whenever we went out in public because of my size.
I'd tried various times to lose weight in the past. Sometimes I was successful sometimes not but in the end the weight not only came back but brought friends. Last year I found a weight loss physician that was able to help me to lose almost fifty pounds through various medications but they always had some nasty side effect or just didn't work. So finally I decided to look into weight loss surgery. After several different informational sessions and classes, I opted for gastric sleeve surgery. I am currently three weeks out from it and I have already lost nearly twenty pounds since the day of surgery. I feel so much better mentally and I have a ton more energy compared to even a month ago. My youngest child went skating with me a couple of days ago and complained that I have more energy than she does. It felt good to be able to start doing some of the things I used to love. I'm finally cleared to go back to the gym and resume most (not all) of the usual stuff I used to to there and I can't wait to see how fast the weight comes off since I am sticking to the new diet. I'm not going to lie and say it doesn't suck at times because there are moments of serious temptation but I have to remember that being healthy and more energetic is far more important to me than whatever food I am craving at that moment. I now have about 63 more pounds to lose to reach my goal weight but I am determined to not only reach it but to stay there for the rest of my life. I have way too much to live for and I have wasted way too much time already on the wrong things.
