Danielle H.
My Name is Danielle I am from western Washington. I have been overweight since my teens and obese since about 1996. I am extremely happily married, I have two gorgeous boys whom I adore and thank the Lord for everyday. I never thought I would have children because I was to big to get pregnant. Strangely after 6 years of trying and praying, we had no luck. So my husband and I decided that since we were obvioulsy not going to be starting a family anytime soon we might as well make a career change and give up our insurance and stablility while we were still young.
So, we quit our jobs as truck drivers and my husband went back to school to finish an apprenticeship that he had earlier given up on, and took a job paying about one third of what we were bringing home previously. One month later, I was pregnant.
Nine blissful months later we had a son. I had an extra 25lbs on an already obese frame. I became a stay at home mommy. I loved it, and I got comfortable. I did not even notice it. My husband and I were plumping up at the speed of refrigerator lights.
A couple of years and a slightly better paying job later, we sold 5 acres of land we had bought in Northern Idaho to buy a small, outdated and overpriced starter home in a good neighborhood in a Seattle suburb. A year later I got pregnant again. Again, blissfully happy. But this time instead of weighing 245 at the beginning of the pregnancy I was a swelling 275. I vowed not to gain more than 20 this pregnancy and begin the "breast feeding diet" the day after I give birth. I had to have my second C-section (because of my weight according to Dr.dip) but I had a healthy baby boy.
Now I could have, should have and would have started my diet, but I could not get the little guy to nurse. This caused me a lot of anguish and feeling of failure because my first nursed so well. I was very frowned upon in my family and circle of friends for giving up after 3 months of agony. I used this as an excuse to sooth my soul with food and just let the idea of the diet slip away once again. (Not to mention the dire shock of going from one little one to two)
Now, I have failed to mention, because I am sure that you already know and are assuming that over these past 5-6 years I have tried plenty of good to insane diets. Among them are Atkins(can you say alfredo), Jenny craig(the food would make a starving person yack!), weight watchers(I'll tell you what to do with that point), You:The Owners Manual Diet, Winning By Losing (Jillian Michaels from The Biggest Loser), The "Get Off Your Ass" Diet book, Six week Body Makeover(Micheal Thurmond), The Fresh Start Diet(Cathi Graham) and hmmm....Oh yes, the worst was the last diet I tried before giving up. Medifast. I could adhere to NONE of them.
I was desperate. please someone wire my mouth shut. I was about to give up when one day my husband says to me, do you think we should look into that fat surgery? At first I said no way. But I started to poke around on the web here and have learned a great deal in the past few months. I was fortunate enough to hear from my chiropractor about another patient who went to Tijuana and had gotten a band. I thought, Heck yeah, sign me up. But the more I have learned and read, the more I realized that was the wrong decision. I found this forum and after lurking and reading old posts until the wee hours of the morn, I have decided. Sleeve me baby!
So, I am hoping that I will become a patient of Dr. Alvarez in the next month or so and that I will be joining you losers very, very soon.
Music Video:http://videzonn.com/videos/a/aerosmith/amazing.html" target='_blank'>AMAZING (by Aerosmith)
