Lin_2
Where do I start? I guess at the beginning? anyway, I wasn't a fat baby, in fact, I was so reluctant to eat that they almost hospitalized me for failure to thrive. The doc told my mother, "give her anything she'll eat." My mother gave me sugar. Thus began my complicated relationship with sugar. I was still a thin child, neighbors would pull my brother and I aside and ask if we had food in the house! You could count my ribs.
Then I turned 11, and somehow decided that I didn't look like Twiggy (a supermodel). So I started dieting. I continued to diet for decades. I lost weight... gained it back... lost weight.... gained more back. Thus began my complicated relationship with my body (love/hate). I was 150 when I started high school and about 175lbs by the time I graduated. Lost weight in college, gained 60 lbs when I left.
Shortly after that, I tried to join a study at the research hospital where I worked. It was comparing "normals" to eating disordered patients. I didn't qualify for "normal" (ok, that kinda hurt a little). Anyway, we measured my metabolism, and it was about 25% slower than normal. All that yo-yo dieting messed up my metabolism. I was about 180 lbs. at that point. I followed their plans, and worked on becoming "normal", but then ballooned 80 lbs. in a few months. At that time I weighed 220 lbs. Later I found out that the weight gain was likely from my PCOS that I didn't know about. GREAT! (not) At some point also I determined that I would literally never lose the weight, and resigned myself to being fat til I died. I didn't think I could lose it, and I was tired of the roller coster ride!
So by then I was trying to get pregnant, and gained more weight from that whole process: 270lbs. 8 years later I had my beautiful, fantastic daughter. I was about 285 lbs when she was born. I continued to gain and when my second was born 3.5 years later, I weighed 302 lbs. (I burst into tears when I saw that number!!!) I did drop down to 280 lbs after that, but over the past 4.5 years, I gained.
My weight when I started the weight loss journey in October 2010, was 306 lbs. I did have a blip to 310 lbs., but that was only for a few days, maybe one week at the most. I tried to lose weight the entire time prior to my surgery on 6/24/11, but lost nothing until the low carb pre-surgery diet. I managed to lose 10 lbs in the two weeks prior to surgery.
I'm writing this on 16 days post-op. I am down a total of 23 lbs. 10 prior to surgery, and 13 since surgery. I'm giddy with excitement! I never lost weight so "easily" (this is not easy by any means), but my hunger has disappeared! I don't know if that's temporary or permenant. Obviously, I hope it's permenant!! But I'm enjoying it for as long as I have it. My hunger felt insatiable prior to surgery, so I'm thrilled to not have it, even temporarily. It feels great! I'm walking nearly every day (only missed 2 days in the past 16 due to surgery pain). I went to a party yesterday, and I just had so much fun because I'm in such a good mood that it was easy to socialize. Thus begins my new relationship with food, my body and, of course, my story continues ...
