Anna R.
Well, I am sure my story is not different than many others...I am 43 years old, married and have one daughter (she is a teenager !!
)....Anyways, I was born in Italy and lived there until I was 15. Needless to say, I was surrounded by lots of great food, an aboundance of carbs, and I was pretty much raised on that. Pasta is to this day my alltime favorite food - yikes!!. I started gaining weight between the ages of 8 and 10, and it has been an uphill battle since then. In my teens I was slightly overweight, and as time went by, even in my 20s I was able to lose weight easily, each time I set myself on that path. I think I tried every diet out there throughout the years, including diet pills and phen-fen. I lost good amounts of weight at times, but always put it back on, plus a few more. I reached the 300 lbs mark in 2001. I was devastated, not in a million years did I think I would see that number on the scale; my efforts at losing weight were suddenly becoming more difficult and I seemed to be at the treshhold of giving up. My food choices have not been the worse, I am not a junk food eater, but, as the time went by, I noticed my portions get bigger & bigger. I ate a lot of carbs..bread, pasta, rice and potatoes were at the top of the list. And not to mention the emotional eating that went on. Every disappointment, frustruation, anger, sadness, heck, even happines, was pacified/rewarded by food...food became a close friend!!!. In the winter of 2007, at my work, they started the Weight Watchers program, and the company paid 50% of the cost....I decided to join, not so much because I thought it would work, but because I felt, that given my size, I needed to join, sort of felt obligated to do so....
. After the first few meetings something happened that had never happened before...I realized I did not belong there! I actually felt stupid being there, since I had so much weight to lose and the program in my opinion is made more for people who have a minimal amout to lose. At this point, I had to make a choice, either give up or seek something more drastic. Since giving up meant giving up on my health and my life, I started looking into weight loss surgery, (this is something that I had always refused to consider in the past). And this is where my life changed!
I attended a couple of seminars to get info and to find a sugeon I was comfortable with; I eventually went to the seminar at Weightwise, in Edmond, OK, and Dr. Broussard was giving the seminar that day. I had been having a tough time settling on a surgeon, but, on that day I knew that Dr. Broussard was the one (strange how you just know!!!). On my first appoinment, I weighed in 386 lbs!!!!!! My BMI was 69....so as a result Dr. Broussard told me I needed to lose 60 lbs. before I could have surgery. When I heard that I was just beside myself ! Had no idea how I was going to pull it off. But, I did it...with the help of Weightwise and my determination..my weight loss journey started on that day, August 14, 2007. I finally had surgery on February 18, 2008, I have been feeling great since then, and I have never looked at food the same way again.
So this is it in a nutshell....as I said probably not much different than most people. I made the decision to have WLS primarily for my health, but just as much, for my daughter...I wanted her to be proud of me and show her that I could make this much needed change. She asked me to lose this weight so I wouldn't die from it. I did it so that one day, when she brings home a boyfriend, he won't look at me and think this is what my daughter is going to look like one day!!! Seems silly, but that was really important to me!
Anna 
