twincitiesbear
Wow! I waited 7 months after surgery to begin sharing this! My story is not unlike a many other people's struggle with weight. Mine began in 2nd grade. That was the first time I noticed or maybe moreover, others noticed that I was overweight. That led me to where I was on May 21st, 2008 sitting in the doctor's office comtemplating gastric bypass for the second time.
Three years ago, I decided that I wanted to get my weight off for good so I decided to invesitigate what it was going to take to have gastric bypass. I had been to the doctor for something else, as she asked if I had ever thought of having gastric bypass. I told her that I knew of people that had been through it, but was scared. She said that things had come a long way since the old stomach stapling days. It was on her advice that I decided to pursue things and had my first appointment.
I was very excited going through the first phases with the physch visit, surgeon's appointment, etc. They submitted my case and then the bomb dropped. The insurance company wanted me to do 6 months of medically supervised weight loss. I have to admit that I was devastated and thought that 6 months would take forever. Well, needless to say, I have always been successful at losing SOME weight, but could never get below 300 lbs, no matter how hard I tried.
I started that day at 380 lbs. By my 4th month of trying to lose on my own, I was down to 350. They submitted my case again at around 5 months and I was approved. By then, I had read way to much and was really scared to have surgery. I figured that I was having success doing what I was doing, I would skip surgery. When the doctor's office called to tell me I was approved, I am sure that the last thing they thought I would say is that I wanted to wait. I mean, people are usually thrilled to get this news!
Needless to say, three years went by and things went from bad to worse. My weight ballooned to 409 lbs. I went back to the clinic and told them that I was more than ready. I had different insurance this time around and the approval went very quickly. They knew that this would be that case up front and really asked me if I felt I was ready. I could not have felt more ready.
I began my journey with surgery on August 18th, 2008. I was so surprised when I got out of surgery that I didn't hurt. I actually asked if they did surgery. I was a little concerned when I came out of surgery as I was wrapped in a binder, not knowing that they do that to all patients. I had a friend that had it open and she had binder. I was so glad when the nurse said that they did it Lap!
My journey has really gone very smoothly. I have had my moments where food has not agreed with me or I took something too soon, but overall I can eat most anything. I am not touching sweets and am trying to be very carb conscious. I tolerate meat and dairy well and am super glad about that.
I knew that exercise was going to be an important part of this puzzle for everything to work. I was dedicated right after surgery, but life started to happen and things started to slip in that area. Well, the loss started to slow and I got the realization that I was going to need to do some sort of movement for the rest of my life in order to be successful with this. Since that day, I have worked out every day in the morning before work so there were no excuses not to at the end of the day. It has meant so 4 am mornings, but it has been soooo worth it.
I am blessed to have a treadmill and an elliptical at home. At the urging of my health coach, I began doing pushups, ab lifts, and crunches to build the strength in my core. Man has that really helped. I have abs! Well, sort of! I recent;y bought a home gym and just began using it for my weight training part of my program. This is very exciting!
So there you have it. Started at 409 pounds in May, and in March 2009 as I write this, I am 258 lbs. 151 lbs lost and not looking back! I am not at goal yet, but well on my way!
