Jenna77
My story
Jul 23, 2015
Well, I am two days away from being post op. TWO days!! It is hard to believe it has already been that long. I have to say this is the best thing I have ever done for myself. I will never regret having the surgery. though I wish I never needed it to begin with.
I haven't really wrote a post on any of this. Just my initial post op thing. But I think I may now.
I was never big as a child or teenager. I mean at one point I was classified as overweight for my height. I am 5'1. I think it must be said that I have always had some body image issues and it is something that has always been important to me. I think my body image issues got worse when I had my first serious boyfriend. I dated the guy from 13-17 mainly on but at times off. Never for long and I never dated in the breaks because really they shouldn't be classified as that. Anyways- I never thought much about my weight until the boyfriend started saying I needed to lose weight and start exercising. Once this happened it made my body image issues worse. Thankfully I finally got a clue and got out of that toxic relationship, trust me it was much worse than the body image thing.
But it didn't stop there. I never did any thing obsessive like exercise or eating disorders. I didn't even diet. But in my head I would still beat myself up a little on how I looked. I think it was left over from the relationship and is something that I still struggle with 10 years later. Low self-esteem.
Anyways, enter my final and current serious relationship. I ended up pregnant at 18 and a mom by 19.This is where my journey really begins. You know those girls that get pregnant, gain a ton of weight and then lose it instantly and looks great? Yeah, that was NOT me. I gave into every craving I had when pregnant with my first child. I ended up gaining 60 pounds putting me at 200 pounds. Which is a lot on my 5'1 frame. I also had to have a csection. I never lost my weight and about 9 months later was also dx with polycystic ovaries. My doctor actually told me that it would be difficult to have more children. I was put on metformin. Over the course of that year I tried a few different things from diets to phentermine. I was able to get to 180. Then I gained back.
My highest weight was 232. It's funny, my gyno had actually suggested that I look into some type of gastric surgery and I was mortified. I mean I was only 20 I didn't want that. I wondered if my relationship was even strong enough. Which is crazy looking back. I left the doctor office crying and called my dad. He decided to get me a gym membership and went and talked to them and set up some personal training and nutrition classes for me. I was happy and couldn't wait. This only lasted about 8 weeks though.
Then one day, something clicked. My sister in law started talking about this new program that the gym was starting that was similar to The Biggest Loser. It lasted 6 weeks and there were to be teams and all that jazz. I just KNEW that I had to do it. And I did for 12 weeks. I started out at 227 and got down to 193. I was on my way and LOVING it! I even started doing a boot camp class 3x a week after the BL stopped. I was pumped... But then I found out I was pregnant again. My trainer loved this by the way and made crazy jokes about it. But I was TERRIFIED. I had just lost a lot of weight and still had a lot to go. Would this make me high risk?
I planned to continue working out to be healthy. I knew I would be safe and my baby healthy if I didn't gain weight or only gained a little. Unfortunately, I was unable to keep this up and ended up gaining 50 pounds. Hey at least it was 10 pounds less than last time right? No, this put me at 245. I do not count this as my highest weight because I was pregnant. I was able to successfully breastfeed my second child however, once again I was not one of the lucky ones that loses weight. Nope instead I gained it. Eventually I was fed up with this though and joined Weight Watchers. I also started back at the gym. Once again the weight was falling off! Granted it was slow. I lost 50 pounds then stalled and my PCP put me on phentermine. I was able to drop another 20. I had lost 70 pounds in the course of two years. I ran my first, second and third 5k! I was on top of the world.
Until I wasn't. I have always suffered from migraines, but they became relentless and I was having them every day of the week. I couldn't workout. I stopped phentermine. I tried migraine preventive medicines, but nothing helped. I was unable to workout without feeling like I would pass out. And I had stopped WW months before. The weight started creeping back. I started phentermine again but was GAINING! I had some female issues and started birth control to try and help with my issues. I was on the pill for 2.5 months, I gained 20 pounds. This put me back to 195.Then I was finally dx with hypothyroidism on top of my PCOS. From June 2014 to November 2014 I went from 195 to 227.
I reached out to my PCP and asked for a referal for the surgery. I had been looking into it for a while. I knew it was my only chance at getting my life back. November 2014 I met with the surgeon. The surgeon set me back on phentermine just to take while I waited for approval. I already had my 6 months done from talking with my PCP every month trying to figure out my weight issues and we discussed my diet every time. So it counted. I did manage to lose 10 pounds during this time. Then at the end of January I got everything finalized and surgery was set to the end of Febuary. On my pre op diet I lost 5 pounds. Making my starting weight 212. I am now down to 161. Which is one pound above my lowest that I achieved after pregnancy.
I will never regret having this surgery. It changed my life and how I look at myself and food. I am still learning every day. Every day I am reminded at how strong my body is. I knew this from before when working out but I guess I forgot. Which is crazy because throughout all this I realized that I wanted to help others. This actually came to me before my regain. I was and am in school for Exercise Science. Another perk of the surgery is that my migraines are so infrequent now. Whereas before I had resorted to botox injections just to control them. Now nothing.
I feel like this surgery not only is helping me lose weight and get healthy, but it has given me my life back. It has helped me be a better me. And every day I am trying to remember to love myself and set a good example for my kids. This time next year I hope to be at my goal weight maintaining and loving life. Being a little cut would be nice too, right? :)
So here's my story.
