saber11
My life as the "FAT KID"
So here I am, 37 years old in the worst shape of my life. At this point in my journey toward a quick meeting with the undertaker, I will write a blurb about how I rode the weight rollercoaster to get here.
My story starts not suprisingly as your typical big kid growing up. Mind you I was not "fat" per se, however I was always bigger and a shade taller than most. I was also uncoordinated, and being that I described as a loner, led to me getting my ass kicked on the playground on a regular basis. Getting whoop'd daily by smaller but tougher kids really does wonders to your self esteem.
Anyway, my mom, and my aunt who lived with us all struggled with weight problems. It was not unusual to out for ice cream every night after dinner.
Needless to say I didn't really have many friends, until high school. I sucked at sports, could never do a pullup, never climb the rope, was always picked last for any team. Though I was active in band. When I graduated from high school I weighed 187 at 18 years old. And I wore a 36 waist pant. Mind you this is not bad, I would love to get that weight back. Sure I wore XL or 2XL shirts.
After high school I struggled with college, and eventually dropped out. I was working in TV at the time, and really started to not sleep or eat on a regular schedule. Some days I would work 14 hours a day and maybe eat once a day and usually it was whatever the nearest fast food joint can manage to shove out the window. But I didn't have a "weight problem."
Then one day BAMN!!!! My thyroid stopped working, and I had no idea it had. In the space of one year I gained 175 lbs. Of course nobody in my family thought there was anything wrong with me, so I joined a gym, and did Weight Watchers. I lost a total of 30 lbs. Eventhough my parents watched pretty much everything I ate, they thought I just wasn't sticking to the diet.
I had gone to the DR for a routine checkup and he did blood work. My labs came back and that was when he diagnosed the inactive thyroid condition. I was put on Synthroid, but I was allergic to it. He told me metabolism was roughly the same as 70 year old man asleep. That is just what a 22 year old kid wants to hear. Of course my parents didn't believe that. So again it was gym and Jenny Craig. Another waste of my time and money.
Then next time I saw my DR, he suggested Phen-Phen and redux, which at the time was legal, and I went on that and it seemed to work,. but less than 6 months later it was taken off the market.
Over time I started having other issues, when I started falling asleep at work or while driving I new something was seriously wrong with me. I was diagnosed with SEVERE SLEEP APNEA. I was given a sleep study where I had a record of 3800 apneas in 7 hours which suprised my DR, and accounted for my lack of sleep and rest.
Then it was diagnosed I had high blood pressure. My weight had climbed to almost 350lbs, then my DR suggested I have surgery. I had never had surgery for anything before, so I really didn't want to get cut, besides I didn't know anyone who had WLS. So again I went back to WW.
Fast forward a few years to when I in my 30's I did get refered to HMR and did that. A 500 calorie medically supervised program of liquid diet (medi-fast) I lost 50 pounds and as soon as they put me back on regular food, I immediatly gained it back.
So then I got depressed nothing was working and put off again doing anything about my weight. My family still believed that I just wasn't trying hard enough.
Things came to head last year for me. My wife and I took our nephew to Cedar point. This was the most pointless day of my life. There was only one ride I could fit my fat ass into. It was the log ride. There's a stereotype, a fat guy making a big splash.
Anyway that was the turning point. After a couple weeks of shouting obscenities at my belly, I decided that maybe I should have WLS. So I attended a info seminar and I got all excited about having lapband. Then I found out that my insurance at that time did not cover any kind of WLS, so back to square one.
So now here we are it's 2008 and we'll see what happens.
