nu-mi
My story... I'm a Mommy to a 21 month old girl named Emma Rose, I'm married to the love of my life and I'm a Registered Nurse. I'm blessed to have such a supportive family and group of friends who are all behind me and cheering me on!
I have been heavy my whole life, well since I was about 4, I'd say and just progressively got larger and larger. Unfortunately, I know this sounds crazy but I never really thought I was as big as I was. Most people in my family are heavy and no one ever really said anything to me, I wasn't teased, I always had friends, dated throughout high school and college, felt normal but just "chubby" (it's called denial!). Then one day I looked in the mirror and was like "HOLY CRAP, I'M SO HUGE!" That was right after my 21st birthday, I went to my mom and said "I want a gastric bypass" she told me, join Weight Watchers with me, if you don't lose, then we will do what needs to be done. So I joined and went from 408 (wow) to 237 in a year and a half. It was great, I did wonderful but over the years I slowly gained about 90 lbs back. So I've been back to WW at least 30 times and I just couldn't stick with it, so in August of this year I started the process to have WLS.
And here I am, SO happy to say goodbye to those 300's and HELLO 200's. Cannot wait to say goodbye to them as well! I'm mentally in this, I have this tool that will help but my mind is in the game, I'm feeling like on track! I did not only have surgery for me but for my family, I want to be a role model for my daughter, I want her to grow up seeing Mom exercise and eat healthy! I want to go on rides with her at Disneyland, I want to take her to swim lessons and GET IN the pool, I want to ride a Go-Cart with her! And most of all, I want to live every single day I can and watch her grow into a lovely lady! And I want to do all these things with my husband at my side.
My Surgeon told me something that I think about everyday... "Amanda, when you walk out of this hospital after your surgery... just think, you've just added 10 to 15 more years onto your life"
That, is good enough for me!!!
I'm so happy I found this forum to learn and share with all you guys!
Amanda
