sissy63

I have literally been called heavy all my life, and I believed them. Family was the worst critic. I remember dinners and every night was mashed potatoes, and buttered bread. I was always shy and try to stay in the background in church choir, youth rallies. In school PE was embarrassing as well as I was not as athletic as my classmates. As I entered my teens I was equally shy. I did try out for the flag team, but didn't make it. I made friends easily, but I was the less outgoing one. I was active I rode bikes, I played softball, I roller skated, danced LOVED to dance, but the difference here is I was not the stick most folks thought of when you think of slender. To this day and I am 51 my body has NEVER seen a size smaller than a 12. I birthed two sons whom I adore. My first pregnancy I gained over 50 lbs and most of that was water, as I had unknowingly acquired toxemia. My second pregnancy I again gained 50 lbs. Both times delivery was a C Section. By the time my second son was a year old I was divorced, as I refuse to live with someone who thinks they can abuse me. Long about 28 years old I finally had enough and decided to try exercise. I worked at a Psychiatric hospital and they had just opened a gym to the staff. I was on 3-11 shift and for one year I faithfully on M-W-F was at the gym. Had NO IDEA what I was doing but it started working, and by the end of my year I had successfully lost 90 lbs. at that time my weight was 173. I had to have a hysterectomy and it was during this that I had my first abdominoplasty (tummy tuck) the removed 6 lbs approximately off of me. When I left the hospital I weighed 165. Then shortly after I decided to attend nursing school to get my LPN. It was 15 mos.long and left little to no time to study. In that short amount of time I gained 40 lbs back. I could never seem to get back to the gym. And of course I did not pay attention to what I was eating, so the weight has crept back on. I made excuses of why I couldn't go to the gym, why I couldn't  do anything. About 5 years ago I started suffering from hypothyroidism, the weight quickly came on, but I was so tired I slept. They removed the entire Rt. side and put me on medication. Fast forward to 2 years ago...I finally decided to exercise I went to the gym everyday and got on the elliptical for 11 min the first day 6 mos later I was up to 25 min a day. But there was no change in my weight other than 4-5 lbs here/there. Then I went thru a horrific breakup and lost 50 lbs...FELT GREAT. And then we reconciled about a year ago and the 50 + some has come back. I have tried weight watchers, portion control, Atkins, nothing worked. Cholesterol, and blood pressure started rising. My APRN has spoken to me several times about gastric options, I really thought they were for diabetics, or those who really needed to lose weight. I still felt in my mind I could do it on my own I just wasn't pushing. So for 2 months/ 7 days a week I exercised, monitored and portioned everything that went into my mouth.  Drank 64-80 oz of water....at the end of 2 months. NOTHING! not one pound gone! yes my body shrank in inches but not much.
It was at this time I decided my APRN was right, maybe I needed a reset. And thus began my journey with the gastric choices. Straight out the gait I ruled out the lap band, a co worker of mine recently had the sleeve so I met with her and she explained it from start to finish. I did what I had to do and now I am waiting for December 16th to get here. Initially it was to be on the 9th but there was a mix up and we are having to change the date.
I will keep you posted.