Ontario_Dee
Hello and welcome:
My name is Dee and I live in Whitby, Ontario with my husband. Together, we are parents of 21-year-old twins. Our son is in his fourth year of university. Our daughter is currently working abroad.
Like many others on this site, I've been battling weight problems all my life. I wasn't technically overweight as a child, since I was quite active in sports, but even at the age of seven or eight, I could eat enough to make myself ill. I just never seemed to be sated. As the oldest in a family of four children, I always seemed to be counting the number of donuts I could have or whether there was enough spaghetti for me to have seconds as soon as the food was set on the table.
Both of my parents are overweight and I saw myself as fat as a child and young teenager, even when I weighed 102 lbs. After a knee injury that put an end to my skating career at 12 and a move away from a walkable city to a house miles from nowhere in the countryside when I was 14, I really started to put on weight.
By the time I started university, I weighed about 160 lbs. or so and had already been a member of Weight Watchers. Living in residence, I was overeating at the cafeteria and hiding food in my dorm room. My weight ballooned up to about 200 lbs at that point and I joined Weight Watchers again.
When that didn't work and my weight reached 240, I tried the Dr. Bernstein diet, which is well-known here in Ontario. I lost about 40 lbs., but became pregnant with my twins soon after. By the time they were born, my weight was up around 260 lbs.
Between the ages of 23 and now, at age 44, my weight has yo-yo'd back and forth between 300 and a high of about 385 lbs. I've joined every weight loss group and tried myriad diets, but never managed to make any significant change until about 6 years ago, when my father had a heart attack that scared me into losing some weight.
During this time, I've also spent a lot of time in therapy and have been treated for depression and generalized anxiety disorder. My knees continue to bother me and I had artheroscopic surgery last year. I've also been treated for fatty infiltration of the liver. Now my blood pressure is high and the doctor has given me one more month to bring it down before he puts me on medication for it.
I currently weigh about 315 lbs. and I am so very tired of being overweight. I've missed out on so many activities with my children and husband because I was too fat to do anything but sit. They're all at a normal weight, with healthy body images, so I always felt like an outsider, even within my own family. I'd like to join them in their travels and activities, rather than always sitting on the sidelines.
For the past five years, I've managed to keep my weight within a a 5 to 10 lb. range, but every time I try to get involved in an exercise program that would spur on more weight loss, I end up with yet another injury. My body just can't take it at this weight.
To sum it up, I'm ready for weight loss surgery and, after years of therapy, I believe I can cope with the stress it will bring. I'm here at obesityhelp.com to meet and talk to others who are on the same path. So, if you've managed to read or scan to the bottom of this long post, please feel free to "friend" me!
