Before & After VSG with Taimi, losing 90 pounds!
June 20, 2017Why I decided to have WLS
I’m of Cuban origin. I mention this because it begins that way. My weight problems began when I left my country in 2002. I arrived in Mexico, a beautiful country that has given me so much… starting with food!
Never in my life had I listened to words such as nutrition, healthy food, diet, etc. Back in Cuba, we ate what we had, period. Despite my poor eating habits, I never gained weight. Not having a car made me walk everywhere all the time. If I wanted to be somewhere, I had to walk, therefore I never gained weight. So not having many choices to eat and exercising constantly kept my weight in check.
After living 27 years of scarcity, specifically when it comes to food, the first time I entered a supermarket in Mexico I literally started to cry. I couldn’t believe there was so much stuff to eat. I could have anything I wanted. Weekly, I filled my shopping cart with everything I hadn’t eat for all this time. Of course, it wasn’t healthy but that never crossed my mind.
This was a drastic change for me. I ate and ate for years without caring if I became obese. I started to gain weight, then became pregnant and gained 44 pounds that I could never get rid off, and kept going all the way to weighing over 230 pounds.
The excess weight started to undermine my self-esteem, especially when I went out shopping. I wanted to look pretty and sexy and what looked back at me in the mirror was not what I wanted. I began to have problems at home; my husband married a thin woman and I was something different. We split apart and that was decisive for me. I knew I need to change, lose weight and be healthy.
Before & After VSG with Taimi
Total Weight Loss: 90 pounds
Surgery Type: VSG
Surgeon: Dr. Antonio Esquerra
I started jogging and dieting, I went with nutritionists and did different exercises without results. This was frustrating. I felt desperate.
At one point, a nutritionist gave me pharmaceuticals. They helped, I did lose a considerable amount of weight and I was happy. The problem was that as soon as I stopped taking the medication, not only did I regain the weight I'd lost but gained even more. I was pretty upset and for a while, I didn’t do anything about it.
A few years ago, I had a surgical procedure to fix a stomach problem (not related to obesity) and the surgeon offered a gastric plication. He said I was going to lose weight by eating less, I was hopeful again….. but I didn’t lose a single pound.
My Surgery and Post-Op Life
One day, a friend of mine that I was aware had suffered pretty much the same in her struggle against obesity told me she had undergone bariatric surgery. I saw how she lost weight every month and her extraordinary results convinced me. I decided to take the next step and looked for professional help. Finally, I had hope again.
Without realizing it, I had had the solution in front of my eyes all these years. I have a get-together with a group of friends for coffee every Monday in my home, where we talk about everything. One of them, Nina Eguía, works with a team dedicated to treating patients with obesity. In one of those get-togethers, I asked Nina if I was a candidate for surgery, and that was the way I got to Mexicali Bariatric Center.
When I arrived at MBC, thank God I didn’t have any co-morbid health problems. I weighed about 231 pounds. After passing through their evaluation, I took one of the best decisions in my life which was having the Gastric Sleeve.
It was an effective process, pretty much painless and with amazing results. It’s been a year and a half since my surgery and I weigh almost 90 pounds less. I’m thankful to God, Nina, Dr. Esquerra and all the wonderful team at MBC.
I’m now a renewed, happy woman. I know I still have a lot to learn about nutrition, but I continue to learn more and more every day by living my healthy lifestyle.
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