Genevieve B.
I’ve struggled with weight all my life. I’ve ALWAYS been the fat girl…the fat girl on the soccer team, the fat girl peer leader, the fat girl at work, the fat counselor at the fat camp, the fat girl on the dance floor, fat everything. My weight has steadily climbed until this point in my life; I’m now over 100 pounds overweight, on the cusp of morbid obesity, 108 pounds overweight to be exact.
I’ve been on every diet, fad or sensible, imaginable. My parents put me on Weight Watchers when I was 6 as well as took me to a diet clinic and it’s been down-hill since then. I don’t have a thyroid problem, I have no food “shut-off” button.
Older women say “Oh, when I was young and thin…”, I’ve never been thin, ever, and I’m not getting any younger.
Being this fat has slowly chipped away at the things that I love, mostly soccer and dancing and sports in general. My left knee has just given up, there’s no cartilage left. All the years of running up and down the soccer fields and throwing for track and field with all the extra weight grinding the cartilage down has taken its toll, I’m having a meniscus replacement as well as my cartilage replaced soon. That’s good, but what to stop the deterioration of the second meniscus?
The time for action is now and I’m going to take it while I’m young enough to recover quickly and have the support system to do it, I’m having weight loss surgery, specifically gastric bypass surgery. My stomach which is now the size of a football will become the size of my thumb. I’ll be on pureed foods for two months. I’ll be out of work for two weeks to recover from the surgery. This will hopefully fix my lifelong dysfunctional relationship with my weight and hopefully food.
I’ve done the research; I know what I’m doing. Despite the lack of support I’ve received from most of my family, I’m still doing this. They ask me, well isn’t there something you can do besides this? It’s so drastic! I know fuck-wads, it’s drastic, but if there was something else, I would do it. But you will never know what it’s like to have over 100 pounds of extra weight on your frame and the limits, both psychological and physical, that it puts on your life. So yes, I’m still doing it, and no, your miracle diet can not help me.
I have never once felt good about my body in my entire life. Ever. I want that to change, and this is what I’m doing about it instead of a slow decline into diabetes and heart disease and a myriad of other complications that come from being morbidly obese. Speaking of heart disease, I have it on BOTH sides of my family, in spades, so now is not the time for a conservative plan of attack.
