a.walker
My first weight loss blog.
May 28, 2010
Well, I've never done a blog before, and I'm sure I won't be very good at it, but I'm going to make an attempt. I am getting ready to make some huge new changes in my life, and I want to share them. Wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning.My name is Amy. I'm 29 years old, married to Dustin for 8ish years. We have one son, Jackson, who is 7. My boys are my favorite part of my life. We also have 2 small dogs. Zoe, a rat terrier, who is about 10 years old, and Piper, a puggle, who is 1.5 years old. They are full of energy, and I'd love to have some of it! We live in Salina, Kansas, and I'm a registered nurse working in an ICU unit.
I have struggled with my weight for as long as I can remember. When I see pictures of me as a kid, I was usually chubby. I was always an active kid, but I remember feeling too big even in 3rd and 4th grade. I remember at the end of 5th grade, I was 5'3" tall and weighed 148. It's strange that I remember that, but I do. All my friends, it seemed, were either right around 100, or even smaller. I have always been fat! When I was in junior high and high school, I played sports, and stayed chubby. I was at my smallest when I was in 8th and 9th grade. I was already at my full height (5'8") and weighed around 170-180. I wore a size 12 for a long time, and that was huge compared to everyone else. Right now, I would love to weigh that!
I continued to kind of gain weight slowly during high school, and weighed around 200-210 when I graduated. I wore a size 16 by that time, and then when I went to college, it just went way downhill from there. I completely quit exercising, because I was no longer in sports. I also had fast food at my disposal, which was not the case when I grew up on the farm. I love ice cream and carbs of any sort, and I ballooned up to where I was wearing a size 22-24 rather quickly. I decided to do something about my weight when I was nearly 20 and weighed in at 288 lbs. I looked seriously into weight loss surgery at that time, and I went to the doctor and was pretty much told that I just need to eat less and work out more, and he wouldn't even consider refering me for surgery. I went on a very strict diet, using Phentermine pills, and started exercising daily. Zoe was my walking companion, and we went for miles around the walking trail at the hospital in Hays. I also did Tae Bo. I lost 40 lbs fairly quickly, then right after my 21st birthday I found out I was pregnant.
I went off the Phentermine and started to eat more because of that. I got married in August, and had my son in January of 2003. I weighed about 280 after he was born, and rather than losing that weight, I gained more. I was in nursing school during this time as well, and I remember when I went for my physical exam before my final year of school, I weighed over 300 lbs for the first time. Jackson was 7 months old at that time, so it hadn't taken me long to gain that much weight. I was appalled! I changed my dieting habits a little bit at that time, and did manage to get under 300, but not by much. And the next time I remember weighing was when I started my job at Hays. It was my first job as a nurse after graduating college, and I weighed 299.
I worked night shift as a nurse for 6 years, and in the first year, I gained 30 lbs. Since that time, I have lost and gained the same 30-40 lbs. about 6 times. I get on the scale and it says something horrible like 335 (my all time high, and so embarrassing to actually type), so I go on a diet and work out, lose 30-50 lbs., start to feel better, and kind of let up on the diet and the exercise, start to gain weight, and before I know it, I'm back where I started.
So, that's quite a saga, and one that I have read on other people's blogs many times. This forum has given me the encouragement that I need many times, and even though I haven't posted yet, I feel like the people here might really, actually "get" why it is that I feel this surgery is a necessity for me. I don't want to look back on my life and feel cheated because I was fat. I don't want to look back and say I wish I would have done this and that, but I didn't or couldn't because I was too fat. I feel like I need to do this now, for me and for my family.
Probably most people I know wouldn't believe that I would even consider something like going to Mexico to have weight loss surgery, but that's what I'm going to do. I have decided to have the vertical sleeve gastrectomy, and I've scheduled it (just today) for July 22nd. My husband is going to have the same surgery done the same day.
This is quite a scary thing for us, but we're determined to make this work for us. We are in serious need of a change, and believe this is the way for us to do it. We'll be financially strapped for awhile because of this, but we're both afraid if we don't just make the commitment and do it now, we never will. We have a great patient coordinator through beliteweight.com, named Deborah, who is really helpful. We've already booked our flight, a hotel for one extra night, and have paid our down payment. We are just waiting to see what our best financing option is right now.
That's probably enough information for right now. Even if nobody ever reads this, hopefully I will keep up with it, and it can be my own personal weight loss surgery journal.
Oh, wait. One more thing. Another embarrassment: My weight today was 314.4 (BMI 47.7), and my long-term goal is 164 because that would give me a normal BMI for the first time ever. I would really be happy with about 180, though.
Thanks so much for reading my first blog! If anyone has any tips, comments, or something funny to say, I'm definitely open to that!
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About Me
Salina, KS
Location
33.1
BMI
Surgery
07/22/2010
Surgery Date
May 28, 2010
Member Since
