karen_2007
My story begins similarly to most others on OH. I have always been large for my age. I don't know that there was ever a time when I wasn't conscious of what was going in my mouth. Most of my family was overweight, so I learned early to hide and eat what I wanted away from everyone else. I wanted to please my mom and dad, so I ate perfectly around them. Then I would run to the refrigerator as soon as they went outside to sneak some "forbidden to everyone except my brother" food. Needless to say, I started out with an eating disorder. Well, things didn't get any better during my teenage years. Rejection in school because of my obesity only pushed me to eat more when I was alone. At age 18, I weighed approximately 240 lbs. (That's a considerable amount, considering I'm only 5'3" tall.
I've been on every diet known to man. My parents took me to several doctors to help with my obesity. Most of the diets or diet pills helped temporarily. Then when I regained all of the weight, I was forced to deal with failure once again. After the birth of my first child, I heard about wls. I knew that was my answer. So, I pursued coverage from my insurance company. I was denied, so I tried once again on my own. I lost about 30 lbs and became pregnant again. (Weight loss seemed to be an instant cure for infertility, at least it did in my case.) After the birth of my daughter, I pursued wls again...only to be denied yet again. (This time, it was with a different insurance company.) At that point, I decided that since they thought I didn't weigh enough, I'd show them. And I gained about 55 lbs. By that time, I had another insurance company and I tried for coverage again. DENIED. At 5'3" and 283 lbs, you would think that the insurance company would want me to have something done. I was wrong. At this point, since my insurance company denied me, I was desperate. I was so scared that I would soon reach 300 lbs that I decided to try with all of my might to lose weight. No one else was going to help me, so I had to help myself. With the aid of diet pills and exercise, I lost down to 230 lbs. Guess what? I then got pregnant with TWINS!!!! (I had once been told that I would never be able to get pregnant without the aid of a doctor.) With that pregnancy, I decided that I was going to be healthy and the babies were, too. So, I went on the Atkins Diet, against the wishes of my obstetrician. On the day of their births, I had only gained 3 lbs. (The babies were healthy, too!) I was so excited that I hadn't gained much weight with the twins that I continued the Atkins Diet after their birth. I lost down to 189 lbs and was extremely happy! Then I started occasionally taking bites of "forbidden" foods once again. The occasional bites ended up being frequent bites and I quickly gained up to 250 lbs. By this time, my husband had another insurance company. We were only going to have coverage for 2 months, so I was going to try for coverage with them. Guess what! They approved it!!!! Dr. Baker's office ran around crazy trying to get everything completed so that they could schedule my surgery before my coverage ended. God bless them. They got me scheduled 2 days before my coverage ended! So, here I am today...down 33 lbs since I started the pre-op diet. Praise the Lord!
