lenab022

Hello! This is my first post on the site and I wasn't sure where it belonged, so hopefully I came to the right place. I'm in month 3 of the 6 month pre op wait for insurance, and the reality of actually going through with the surgery is getting a bit deeper every day. I'm pretty sure I'm going to do it, like 85%?? I am 38 years old, 5'8" tall and 277 pounds. Wow...writing out the number it really is huge isn't it. I've been overweight since about 25 - I got married that year at 175 lbs. Three years before that I weighed 142-158. So yeah, gained over 100 pounds. This is my highest weight outside of pregnancy. I am an emotional eater, with a huge sweet tooth, diet coke addiction, and very bad at portion control. I threw most of my "healthy eating" rules for myself out the window when I experienced a difficult suicide of a loved one when I was 22 and while I have healed from that I still have very bad habits I guess the main thing that holds me back a bit from surgery, is I know the underlying issue is psychological, and I have mixed feelings about permanently altering my body in this way. That maybe I should just attack the psychological issues and not remove part of my stomach. But then I see the success people have and doubt being able to reach that without surgery. I don't really want to wait any longer to lose a significant amount of weight because I am approaching 40 and I'm very worried about heart disease and dying from a heart attack at a young age. I have a 1 year old son and I can't leave him, I want to be there for him and have more energy to do things with him too. Just a week ago I had a terrifying experience where I thought I was actually having a heart attack and had to have someone call 911. I was in a store with my son. It was awful. It turned out to be gastrointestinal. and not heart related but it gave me a glimpse that something really could happen. While it definitely thrusted me more towards surgery, I have some hangups I'm struggling with and wondering if anyone here has had the same issues. Here is what I worry about: 1. How will I still cook meals for my family when I can't eat the same things or much at all? While I already cook healthy for my son's sake, I don't want to deprive him of carbs etc because of me. How will I be able to make this work for the whole family, mainly my son? 2. When I was thinner, I never really had high self esteem. I never was able to be comfortable in my own skin so to speak, at any weight. I'm certainly not comfortable being this large but I guess part of me has accepted it. When I was thinner, and much much younger, I often felt like a sex object and hated having men "put their eyes on me" when it was unwelcome (usually was) and I've always wondered if a part of my weight gain was trying to hide and stop getting that attention, especially after getting married. I guess even though I know I'm not 21 anymore, I still worry about being "attractive" again if I'm lucky enough to lose a lot of weight, and getting unwanted attention. Those looks make me feel violated and I don't want to feel on display. 3. I worry about long term physical implications with aging. Obviously losing weight will go a LONG way towards preventing heart attacks, etc. but what if this surgery makes old age more difficult in terms of not absorbing nutrients properly? I feel like there are a million signs pointing to YES DO THE SURGERY, but these things are keeping me cfrom fully comitting to it at this point. Sorry this was a bit rambly - I started out clear headed and got very tired by the end of this as the typing editor took a very long time to process my typing....not sure why. Anyway, hope someone can make sense of how I'm feeling and give me some perspective. Thank you.