Not Penny's Boat
My Weight Story:
Obese since age 7, due in large part to lifestyle - I was a brainiac kid in inner-city Memphis adjusting from private school to public school where I was the oddball. Both parents worked full time, weren't fond of cooking, so we ate out a lot and were left to our own devices for play, entertainment. We had Atari and a Texas Instruments computer that kept us enraptured. I still managed to go out and roller skate, play tennis out in the street with neighbor kids, but I "lived" in my head and the better I did in school, the more positive attention I got from adults, the more negative attention I got from the kids around me, which started the cycle of feeding emotions with food.
Was part of a university weight loss program for kids at age 8 where we were taught green light, yellow light, and red light food choices. When i did well at the scale, the reward was to go to a "healthy" fast-food restaurant that had a salad bar and frozen yogurt. The program did nothing to stop the cycle of weight gain.
Age 12, mid 1980's and I join Weight Watchers for the first time. Their program was about "exchanges" - you eat a certain number of proteins, fats, etc, each day and had bonus calories - they even wanted you to eat liver once a week. It was the first real "diet" I remember having to "work" at - but I felt motivated to do well. But there was no support for the mental changes people needed to keep on track, and I was only 12, and I was the only one in the house who was technically obese at the time, so you can imagine that worked like a charm!
Flash forward through a couple more attempts at weight watchers and exercise as I got through high school - even was part of the track team my senior year. I managed to keep myself under 300, but still never out of the obese range.
College and the freedom of making my own choices about everything just saw those behaviors that had been kept in check "somewhat" before explode into binge eating. This was the point where I got above 400. A relationship ending had caused me to get on a health kick - I went extreme low-fat, did aerobics and strength training, and got to my "best" adult weight of 240 - felt terrific, but was still not at my best weight - and ironically I was in clothes sizes larger than what I wear as a post-op in the 250's, 260's - more serious strength training played a role in that.
But - life changes, relationships come and go, and I went back to the "feed" cycle. Finished two years of grad school, got my first "desk job" after having worked as a language prof in France and back home at my alma mater. And worked my way back up to 400+ at 29 years old. Only this time around my luck at having been "healthy" despite being big had run out. I went to my PCP to ask why my feet were swollen beyond recognition all the time, and the discussion went back to weight loss. She showed me my chart for the past 3 years, and the numbers just kept steadily creeping up. We had already ruled out PCOS the year before, I talked to her about my 8th or 9th or umpteenth re-joining of weight watchers that same year. I had even at one time had two gym memberships - one at Bally's where I had a personal trainer, and one at a YMCA close to work where I would swim laps on my lunch break. Could never seem to get below 350 this time, so I quit trying, and figured I was ok, as long as I was mobile and healthy. But the blood pressure numbers and the wheezing I was doing just walking from car to store, car to desk at work was proof that I was in some serious denial. Family and friends were guarded in telling me, but they were scared for me. My doc during that visit asked if I had considered WLS - and I told her I honestly didn't have an opinion at that point because I hadn't looked into what it "was" to know if it was for "me" or not. So she referred me to a seminar, and I went just to get more information, and the rest is history.
I wasn't sold on the idea of surgery until a month or so after I had my insurance approval letter. I had done my research to know which procedure would be my ideal, but I still struggled with the "if it's mostly in my head, why bother?" doubts that most of us go through. I went through the work up process figuring I had the right to choose not go through with it at any time, and getting the testing done would only be helpful - giving me a better ballpark idea of where my health is at. And it's the results of the testing - the sleep apnea in particular - that cemented my decision. I was titrated for Bi-Pap with pressures of 22/15. To give an idea of how powerful those numbers are - a pressure of 28 is where people start going on ventilation rather than simple pap devices. The apnea isn't likely caused by my obesity, but the obesity wasn't helping the situation, either. Realizing that I was in danger of becoming immobile and potentially trached, battling GERD and stricture ALREADY as a non-op, was my "rock bottom" moment. At 29, I knew I had it "in" me to live a better life than that.
And my decision saved my life. I literally did a 180-degree turn-around after surgery. My outlook has changed, my outer "look" has changed, I'm a "doer" and still a thinker - but my bod isn't content to sit for hours at a time. I ponder the universe while I jog and bike. The only lingering physical effects that are with me is the apnea, which has improved, but hasn't been eliminated. And I'll never be "cured" of my asthma, but I no longer take daily corticosteroids to control constant wheezing. I can climb flights of stairs without going into an attack. I have the "happy" side effects that many of us have - tail bone pain from the fat disappearing, those types of things - but that's much easier to live with than not being able to breathe!
Non-weight things:
I'm trained as a linguistics prof - French is my passion, ESL is my second passion. My research interests are neurolinguistics and educational psych. My current day job is in health care - administrative end, so I have a background there as well, but linguistics is where it's at for me.
Feel free to ask me about: bike commuting, Earl or the Office, the benefits of strength training for SMO persons, 5K distance race training and triathlon, MN, TN, SC, or France, Catholicism after being raised Protestant, Weight Watchers for post-ops, getting family on board for support
Feel free to take a hike if: you're a person who can't accept that there's more than one effective way to approach a single outcome or task
