I wanted to know from people what the final catalyst was in deciding to be banded.

Mine was when my father was diagnosed with type II Diabetes, along with most of his 7 other brothers. I decided that unless I did something about this weight I was going to have the same fate.

Well, for me it was the fact that I weighed almost 300 pounds ( I still cant believe it), had been single for years because I was using the weight to not participate in life. I felt I was sexless...I didnt feel like I was even a woman anymore. I thought that I would never have the attraction of a man ever again...and thats not somthing I ever wanted to do.

I had taken myself out of life..stopped making friends....staying home alone...I never wanted to be seen..or made fun of. I was a dance teacher for years...I longed to go dancing again...but too ashamed to get out there where people can be so cruel. I WANT TO DANCE AGAIN,

That was really touching Great Dame. I want you to dance again too. I look forward to the day you announce that you are dancing and loving it!

Oh gosh what a topic!

I think the day I saw myself for how I really looked, big, fat, swollen, puffy, unattractive... At 5'3 and nearly 300lbs I look really unpretty. I would never be attracted to myself so how could any man find me attractive. I decided that if I ever want to feel sexy I have to do something to lose weight, BUT three years ago I only weighed about 240lbs and lost 80lbs by very strict diet. I promised myself I would never be fat again because of how happy my weight loss made me. Somehow I gained 125lbs in three years... I finally decided I KNOW I can't lose weight and keep it off, so it was time for surgery.

Well, I am still in the decision mode. I can not bring myself to spend that kind of money..........or should I say put us in more debt for something that has a chance of being a total failure. I can not find anyone that will guarantee you lose, I am not sure my insurance will pay and I feel so totally alone in this. My husband of 30 years has never ever had a weight problem. He tries to understand, but just does not. He eats whatever he wants and as much as he wants and just never gains weight. He knows and sees me struggle with this and tries to be very sympathetic. He has told me to do the surgery, even if we have to go into more debt, but I am really struggling with this decision. I do not feel comfortable around people any more and I am so very embarrassed that I am going to run into my old friends. I have always struggled with weight problems, but it seems things are just out of hand. I just feel so guilty. I am scared to go to Mexico for the surgery, and hate to spend twice the money in the states. Then, I read about others that have to have a second or third surgery because of slippage. You would think the doctors would anchor the band while they were in there the first time. Anyhow, you guys give me some feedback if you can identify with where I am. I am not comfortable with my life right now........and all of it is due to my weight of 232. I am miserable. I really feel bad because my husband is really good looking and such a great guy. I feel like when people meet us, they wonder why he stays with someone like me. Am I just rambling and making no sense whatsoever???? I will shush now.

I'd been fat since I was nine years old, and I had gotten pretty much used to it. Not happy about it, but resigned, and yes, a little comfortable. There is a payoff to the fatness. For each of us it is different. For me it was that the fat insulated me from social interaction. I didnt' have to go to school functions like mixers, or the prom. Since no girls wanted to go out with me I didn't have to worry about that either.

I even asked some out to appease my friends and my Mother, who couldn't ever bring herself to believe I wasn't the most handsome boy since Ricky Nelson. My fat saved me then, 'cause no one ever accepted.

Even though I was always fat, I was always physically active, and sports minded. I was on the school wrestling team, and raced motorcycles pro/am.

I"ve always had a physical job. Chef. Work work work. Twelve and fourteen hour days on your feet, moving sweating, lifting. Then a great job fell in my lap.

I became a supervisor in food service in a prison. State employed. No physical exertion. A tough day is when no one woke me up to take my break. LOL.

I gained forty four pounds almost instantly. All that activity was keeping me from getting fatter. When the activity stopped, the storage of calories started.

Nothing fit. The hot weather came and it was pure torture. Then a prisoner grieved me (they get to write grievances, and they are heard, and action can be taken against the prison employee. Yes, I know it sucks. But it is there, and we must deal with it),

This grievance said that the reason they were being fed small portions was because I was eating up all the stock. Strangely enough that was my wake up call. Now they get fed the portions they do because a nutritional department sets the portions. My gormandizing had no effect on that.

That night I looked in a full length mirror for the first time in years. I saw a wasted body, stretched to the bursting point by an addiction to chewing and swallowing food. I saw humorless eyes staring back at me, and I saw a face dulled and wrinkled by care and self loathing. I saw the chances not taken, the joys not shared. The girls not kissed.

I saw the deep nights without friendship, the endless days spent sweating in the shade. I saw emotions being replaced by a compulsion to eat, I saw food replacing my family and friends.

I saw a wasted life.

And I didn't like it.

And there was no one to blame, but the fat jerk staring back at me.

I hated him, and I wanted him to go away. He had imprisoned me. The real me. The me that lives inside the adipose penitentiary of my addicted soul.

Some where inside, behind those piggish, greedy eyes; beneath that squalid, white, mottled flesh; just below those pendulous chins; somewhere in there was the real me.

And he was dying.

It was him or me.

At that moment I chose......me. Life. I chose to change, to fight until the end.

I chose to fight that demon who drove me to eat everything. Nothing left on the plate. No leftovers in my life.

The next day I made that call.

And the first thing I thought as I dialed that phone was...."I'm not doing this to LOSE anything. I'm doing it to GAIN. To gain a life. To gain a life worth living.

Live, love and be well. Ryan.

WOW, THAT’S VERY INSPIRING FOR SOMEONE LIKE ME GOING BACK AND FORTH, THANK YOU!!!

Always Love Whipples Touching And Honest Posts! 2 Kudos For You Sweetie!

Mine was a combination of things.

1.One day I was grocery shopping with my 2 children and I was pushing a full trolley to my car when a man leant out the window of his car and yelled "no wonder you're fat, move your ass and you might lose 10 stone".

2. My husband and I went to the Great Barrier Reef and decided to go diving on the reef, we got to the boat and were asked what size wetsuit we needed. I asked for the largest size (an XL) and it didn't fit....I couldn't participate and had to sit in the boat whilst everyone else dived.

3. We went to the USA for a holiday and the seatbelt in the plane "just" fit but it was the most uncomfortable 13hrs of my life!

4. I went on a cruise on Sydney Harbour and had to sit in a booth, I was squeezed in so tighly that when I got home I had a bruise in the middle of my stomach wher the table had been.

5. I was the fattest person I knew and getting fatter every day.

There are a string for me..... My mother diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in March, I was diagnosed with mild HPB in April, when I travel (FLY) walking down the aisle and knowing that people are thinking, " I hope she does not sit by me." I know they think that because I think that about other fat people on the plane. I have lost a lot of my energy...... I just can't go with 100 pounds much after 40.... I will be 40 August 15th. Surgery in 3 days.......... Yahoo....... I have an exciting career as a public speaker and have been offered to do talk shows, radio shows etc.... THIS WEIGHT HOLDS ME BACK!

Seeing pictures of myself at Christmas time. I didnt recognize myself. And the extream pain I felt in my feet at all times. I cried to get out of bed in the morning. I knew something had to be done.

Mine was a combination of things.

1.One day I was grocery shopping with my 2 children and I was pushing a full trolley to my car when a man leant out the window of his car and yelled "no wonder you're fat, move your ass and you might lose 10 stone".

quote]

That is an act of a completely dispicable human being. I am so angry that one person would actually say that out loud to another - he should have been shot - he who is without sin be the one to cast the first stone. I'm extremely bothered that someone would say that - what did you do? I'd be soooooo angry I would have done something to get me in trouble for sure. Obviously he's a disgusting puke of person who leads a life full of misery taking pleasure in hurting others. Grrrrrrr I am sooo mad!!

When I ran into a friend I had not seen in years. She ran up to me excitedly, gave me a big hug and said the words I had already heard several times by well intentioned people, "I didn't know you were pregnant!!!". Yeah, it hurt & I was sick of hearing it...so here I am! Much happier, healthier, and no longer look like I'm about to give birth.

I'd been fat since I was nine years old, and I had gotten pretty much used to it. Not happy about it, but resigned, and yes, a little comfortable....

Ryan,

That's the most powerful post I've ever read on any forum. I would confess my love for you if you didn't have a beautiful woman by your side in your photo (and the pic's too small for me to size up the competition, wink). Congratulations on your successes and on being so in touch with yourself. I hope to get there one day!

As for what my last straw was, I've been thinking about that for a couple of days since I first saw this post. I don't have a trigger moment like many of you do. The only thing that stands out for me is that over Christmas vacation, my Mom kindly asked me if I'd given any more thought to WLS. She asked me that once or twice a year for about 5 years and I always brushed it off. I'd lost weight by traditional means many times and thought I'd just do it again. What I wish she'd said to me was what she really meant, which is -- scientifically speaking, do you know the percentage chance that you'll ever lose the weight and keep it off without surgery? Less than 5%. I'm a numbers girl. If I'd have really known that before I started researching WLS, I would have done it earlier. I almost wrote that if I'd have known, I wouldn't have wasted my 20s, but I don't really mean that. I've had a great life so far, obese and not. It has made me who I am and I'm ok with that. And now I'm ok with changing.

My last straw was being on vacation, and realizing how I physically couldn't do the things I wanted to. The lowlight of that was trying to climb up to our car from a beach, something everyone else including my mother was able to do with minimal assistence. It took my husband and an uncle to get me up there.

For me....well, I am so conscious about personal hygiene...it was becoming more and more of a struggle to clean myself on the toilet. Then one day, I just couldn't do it, I had to step into the shower to clean myself properly.

I totally grossed myself out. I couldn't believe that, for the sake of food, I had reduced myself to this. It was totally unacceptable to me, I hated everything about it. It upset me so much that I just slumped on the bathroom floor and cried my eyes out.....everything, all horrible thoughts, came to my mind at once....the fact that I hate squeezing into chairs and sitting uncomfortably, wearing unflattering clothes because I'm constantly trying to hide the fact that Im obese, feeling sorry for my husband because even though he has never uttered one single word about my size, I felt he deserved better, thinking about loving to dance but being exhausted half way through my favourite song. I reflected on the many many times sitting in my arm chair and eating until I literally could not put one more morcel of food in my mouth.....I would eat enough at one sitting to feed a family of four.

But, it all came back to what pushed me to the floor in the first place, I was mortified. I started a healthy eating plan that very day, its close to the W/W plan and researched then lapband.....it wasn't hard to make the decision, I didn't care where the money was coming from, I was having this procedure.

Carol

My dh and I had researched WLS and just didn't like the choices. So we resigned ourselves to the fact that I would just have to work on it on my own. Then we heard about the lapband, and researched the possibilities. OMG We jumped all over it. That was about 2 years ago. This whole time we have been researching everything, and making sure the choice I made in doctors was a correct one. I also knew I needed to have the apron surgery beforehand since it was making my exercise life a living hell. I wanted to research that as well, and have everything planned out perfectly.