jenmboyd
Hello!
I started to slowly gain weigh in high school. By my late twenties I hit the 200 mark, and that's a lot for a 5'1" person to have hanging on their bones. Throughout the years, I tried Weight Watchers, Atkins, the paleo diet, the Durkin diet, and I would lose weight and gain it all back plus more. At my heaviest I was 260 in 2012. I managed to lose 20 pounds on my own, and then began seeing a doctor who specialized in weight loss without surgery from summer of 2012 to early 2015.
I lost some weight, but had to stop going. One, I couldn't afford to keep paying $100 out of pocket anymore because two, I was going back to college. At this point, I was hovering around 230 lbs. In summer of 2015, I had a cousin who underwent the bypass surgery. I had thought of surgery as a last resort move, and that's where I was at. In August I attended an info seminar at Portsmouth hospital and started my journey to getting this done. I've changed my diet once again, and managed to drop almost 11 pounds in the past few months. I'm down to about 218 right now. I currently work as a nursing assistant, which is a very physical job.
I'm lucky that with my weight in that I don't have serious comorbidities. At the most, I have some mild GERD and I have been close to becoming pre-diabetic. My joints are stiff, and I have some digestive issues. My blood pressure has been relatively good, as well as my cholesterol. However, family history is not my side, and if I don't get this weight under control, I can end up with diabetes and hypertension.
As of right now, my biggest hurdle is the insurance coverage I have through work.