Beverly R.
First of all, I'm a "what you see is what you get" type of person. My girls are always making fun of me because they say I will talk to anyone and tell them my life story. Oh well, I'm an open book, what's wrong with that!!!
Anyway, I have been married to my wonderful husband for almost 8 years now. He got his sleeve last October and has lost approx. 70lbs. since then. He is currently at his goal weight. We have three beautiful children: Jennifer is 28 and lives in New York, Kristin is 25 and lives in Carrollton with her wonderful husband, and Daniel is 5 (almost 6) and he still lives at home. He just graduated from kindergarten last week. I put his graduation picture right between his two sisters graduation pictures from Texas A & M. Obviously my two girls are from my first marriage.
I was a very chubby baby!! I had rolls on my rolls!!! As I grew older though, I did slim down a lot. During high school I stayed between 105 - 110 most of the time. I'm 5'2". Every once in a while I might dip down below 105 but my mom said I didn't look good that thin. When I was 18 I put on a little bit of weight, started ranging between 110 - 115. Not too bad, but I did discover that I had a thyroid problem so I have been on medication ever since then.
I married my first husband when I was 19. I weighed about 115. Seven months into the marriage I got pregnant. I then weighed about 130. I had Jennifer at 21 and I never lost all my weight from her. At 23 I had Kristin. I started that pregnancy at 140. Again, never lost all that weight either. The years went by and my weight just creeped up. I tried all the diets out there, some of them multiple times. I could lose a little weight, but I always seem to put it right back on plus some. It seems like no matter what I do, I can only lose about 10 to 15 lbs. and then it just stops. The last thing I did was Jenny Craig. I was on it faithfully for 4 months and I never even lost 15 lbs. How discouraging!!! Anyway, after 14 1/2 years of marriage, I discovered that my husband had been running around on me. How I found out is a whole soap opera story that I won't get into here. Anyway we tried to make it work for about 7 months, but he finally left. He told me that a man wants a thin woman, one that when he is walking down the street with her, all the other men look. He said he loved me, but he was just not attracted to me. He loved me more like a sister!! Great, that's what every wife wants to hear!!! He didn't want me to divorce him, he just wanted to be able to date me and the other woman so he could make up his mind!! Sorry, I couldn't do that!! My girls needed to know that that kind of behavior was not acceptable. I didn't want them to think it was okay for a man to treat them that way. I was probably around 170 when we divorced. The divorce devasted me. I don't believe in divorce!!! How did I end up that way!! Anyway, my self esteem was also crushed. I would say that a part of me died. It took me years to recover and be able to be attracted to a man again. I finally did find my DH. He loved me just the way I was!! We married after dating for almost 2 years. When we got married we told the girls that we wanted to have a child. My husband did not have any children. If God decided to bless us, we would be thrilled. If he didn't, we had the girls and we would be grateful and look forward to grandchildren. Well, God did bless us!! Oh boy did he!! I was 43 and my husband was 50 when Daniel was born. He has been a blessing to all of us. The girls just adore him! I even lost weight during my pregnancy. I lost 12 lbs. during the pregnancy and when it was all over, I was down about 30 lbs. My husband said if I would just have a couple more, that I would be right where I wanted to be!!! Funny!! NOT!!! Anyway, we both have been a lot more concerned with our health because we have this beautiful little boy who needs his mom and dad to hang around to raise him. Plus, I still don't have any grandchildren and I have got to be able to spoil my grandchildren and make my girls pay for all the trouble they caused growing up!! Just kidding, they were good kids!! Anyway, my husband has had his surgery, now its my turn. I can't wait to get started!! My weight has now crept up to 230 lbs.
I will be celebrating my 50th birthday in November. I am very hopeful that there will be a lot less of me to celebrate!!
Here's to the journey!!!
