Verny Girl
Just getting started!
Nov 27, 2012
Hey Ladies and Gents! I'm so happy to be here and getting more and more excited the more I read and hear everyone else's experiences! I decided to do a blog because after recording my 1st entry to a vlog about 6 times I decided I didn't have the time to sit there and stare at myself for a hour and still not be happy with my video...slight perfectionist here! lol To start off I'll just tell you some about me and what brought me here today. I'm 27 years old, a wife, and a mother to a VERY active toddler, I am 5'7.5 (and so I'm learning that the .5 makes a difference...I always rounded up and said 5'8!! ha), annnnd I just hit my highest weight of 278lbs. Back in 2009 I hit my highest weight then which was 277 and it was devastating. After being overweight and obese since I was a kid you would think I would be use to the high numbers and feeling tired all the time but I guess as I got closer to hitting 300 the more the reality of it set in and the less accommodating my body was to the large quantities of fat in my body.
Like many, I have tried almost EVERY diet out there. Shakes, starving, working out like a crazy person, fat pills, water pills, the lovely military diet are just some of the few. I think there was a cookie diet it there too. haha I even recently thought about begging my doctor for Adderall! In 2009 when I topped the scales at 277 I got very depressed. I found a calorie counter online and decided to do things right. I ate 1200 calories a day and worked out as much as I could....sometimes several times a day. My husband and I would go on a 14 mile bike ride, then we he went to work I would go to the gym for a hour, and then sometimes I would come home and do a sculpting/weights video with hand weights and kettle bells. I would strictly counted my calories and would never put anything extra in my mouth. It was slightly extreme but I was losing and every couple weeks or so I would give in to something I wanted, go out to eat, get ice cream, etc. From October 2009 till May 2010 I lost 52lbs....until *drum roll please*...I found out I was pregnant! Previous to finding out I was pregnant nothing was stopping me...so the surprise was on me!!! I decided that I would continue counting calories (dr. approved) and exercising as much as I could tolerate. Unfortunately, at around 4 weeks pregnant (I found out I was preggo VERY early) I started bleeding. We were actually in New Mexico about to embark on a HUGE hiking trip. We made some adjustments to our route to accommodate for pregnant me but I started bleeding a day prior to our hike. Turns out I had a subchorionic hemorrhage and bled through my whole pregnancy. I also ended up with gestational diabetes, placenta preevia which meant bed rest and then preeclampsia at the end. This all translates to me gaining about 35lbs which really isn't all that bad. However I did go back to old eating habits and no exercise...back to my old ways. I just kept telling myself that after I had the baby I would get right back on track.
Well, after multiple attempts at getting back on track I just can't do it. I did have post partum depression for about a year after which didn't help anything. Mainly though, I think it's because I don't have the time to exercise 3 hours a day with a kid running around, a household to keep in order, and nursing school?! Last March I got my gym membership again. I was counting calories (1200) and working out for 45mins or a hour a day and wasn't even losing .5 a lb a week. I tried lowering my calories, increasing my workouts, increasing my calories, etc and I just couldn't find what combo my body wanted!!! So frustrating! I admit I had a hard time being as strict as I was before with counting calories but for the most part I did track everything I put in my mouth. I've lost and regained the same 10 lbs like 100 times. I feel defeated. I have the appetite of a cow and the metabolism of a dying turtle. I just want to be healthy and be able to chase my daughter and future children. I'm tired of being big and hating getting dressed to go anywhere. I'm also experiencing horrible back pain and my knees are slowly going. In HS I had 2 knee surgeries to repair a torn ligaments and then another to repair my ACL. When I was at my heaviest in 2009 my knee started acting up...sometimes very hard to even walk on it because it felt a nerve was being pinched. Same thing is happening now. It started out just VERY sore at the end of the day and aching while I'm relaxing and now it's doing the pinched nerve thing again when I walk. UGH. So I'm just waiting for it to give out on me. :( It was magically better when I lost 50 lbs so I know it's my weight.
I started thinking about weight loss surgery one day a few weeks ago after there being a lap band booth set up at a Diabetes walk that my clinical group was volunteering at. I knew someone before that had gastric bypass and she lost alot of weight...but then she gained it all back. I also know of a few people with the lap band. Only one of them has been successful and that has been in the past year. I really didn't have the best examples showing the success of WLS in the past. I apologize in advance but I always looked at WLS as "the easy way out" and pretty much a waste of money and your organs. That coming from a person that at the time had NO IDEA what WLS actually entailed or what the procedures even were. Most of my judgment came from being non-educated and just plain judgmental of those I knew that failed (mostly because they thought WLS was going to make them magically thin without much work). However, after looking into WLS more I know it will be my saving grace! I have researched everything possible, read all the forums I can find, talked my friend who was successful with Lap Band, and have my consult on Friday!! At first I was pretty sure I wanted the Lap Band because it is minimally invasive and doesn't include cutting any of my organs. However, the more I read and the more I thought about it I wasn't really keen on the idea of having this foreign thing in my body and some of the negatives didn't sit well with me. I started looking much more into the sleeve gastrectomy and it's perfect for me! After watching a few operations being shown on you tube I quickly got over having my stomach stapled! I know this is 100% life changing and going to be ALOT of work but I'm so excited and I NEED life changing right now. Go figure, my biggest fear right now is being judged by others for "taking the easy way out". *sighs* Well, the other fear I have if not even getting approved for the surgery but we'll cross that road if it happens. I'm 100% sure that I will be successful. I love to work out and be active...I just need a tool to keep me from eating everything in sight! Hopefully I'll be a lucky one that is never hungry!
I hope that by keeping this blog I can help someone else gain perspective and learn from my experiences from the very beginning until goal! I do like to talk but I'll make a conscious effort to not write a book in every post! ;) I'm SO excited for the beginning of this journey and hope that I can make some great friends along the way!!!