Wicked1
My story is much like others I have been reading on OH. As a young child I was always “chubby”. In my family you ate for pretty much any reason, if you fell down and scraped your knee, you ate, you fought with a sibling, you ate, you were happy, you ate (I think I see a pattern!) Pretty much all the women in my family are overweight by at least 50+ pounds or more. That is except for my sister who is a size 4. Managed to get through the elementary years with only a few embarrassing fat moments. Through my middle school and high school years I started at size 10 and ended a 14, a size that I haven’t seen in, oh about 20+ years. I married my high school sweetheart and we have been married for 20 years. We have three wonderful children, two boys ages 18 and 15 and a beautiful 11 year old daughter. When I was married I was probably a size 18 or 20. As I started to have children I think I kept about an extra 20 pounds from each pregnancy. With three very active children I am on the move constantly, but making the wrong food choices.
Over the years I have tried many of the diets out there. Weight Watchers, Atkins, South Beach, Slim Fast, even the old Richard Simmons Meal Deal (I think that is what it was called). I had some success, but nothing that lasted.
Years ago my great aunt had gastric bypass at the age of 67. A very drastic move at that age, but very necessary as well. Having watched her go through the recovery and see her quality of life improve tremendously was the push I needed to start researching WLS. I am lucky that at this point I do not have diabetes, heart problems, joint problems, etc. but I know that it will start to happen if the I don’t get my weight under control.
