My Story, (in a nutshell)

I have struggled with weight and body image issues since young childhood. My parents separated when I was 2 years old (I was their only child) and divorced when I was 3, I spent a lot of time at grandma's growing up. My mom remarried when I was about 6 or 7 to a man that had one son (they are no longer married), he teased me (my step bro, that is) a lot about being "fat" as did many other kids in school. My dad remarried my step mom when I was 11 years old and she had two son's. I grew up in 3 homes, my home with my mom and step dad, my home with my grandma and my home with my dad and step mom and two step brothers. My eating was very very poor growing up. I ate many processed and fast foods, and lots and lots of sugar, I grew up with a sugar addiction that lasted until I learned how to take control of my diet and the beginning of my transformation and (true) weight loss.

By the time I was in junior high I weighed 200 lb's and I was terrified of being made fun of or being called the "fat" girl, I always felt like this was such a huge moral failure on my part and like there was something terribly wrong with me. When I graduated 8th grade I weighed 208 lb's and I just accepted that this is how I was and it wasn't going to change. although I tried to change it by dieting many many times, My mom and I did Jenny Craig when I was 10 or 11 and we did Richard Simmons deal a meal a couple of times when when I was around 12. I tried countless other diets through out the years, weigh****chers, diet books, VERY low fat diets etc... etc.... and I always say I dieted myself all the way up to 322 lb's!

When I was in high school I met my future husband and we began our friendship at the age of 14, we became close friends and eventually became boyfriend and girlfriend at age 16, I gained weight steadily throughout high school eating the typical junk food fare as all my friends, some of my friends struggled with their weight as well but I was always the largest. I tried desperately to "hide" myself for fear of being called fat all throughout high school, by the time I graduated I weighed 286 lb's. After high school I went on several more diets, and then got married at the young age of 18! Due to my dieting (which was mainly depravation and eating small quantities of junk food) I weighed 268 lb's on my wedding day.

I did not weigh myself much after I got married, but I gained weight again and when I found out I was pregnant at the age of 20 I weighed 306 lb's. After my son was born I started having gall bladder attacks, they were very scary and painful and I found out that I could control them by eating very little fat, I changed my diet drastically, unfortunately I did it in a very unhealthy way, I purchased fat free everything! And my low fat diet consisted of many many processed and chemical ladened franken foods. I walked every day with my little baby boy and drank lots of water (at least I had those two things right) and I lost about 75lb's rather quickly! The lowest weight I got to at that point in my early 20's was 232 lb's and I felt SKINNY!

Little by little the weight started to creep back up and when I found myself pregnant with my daughter at age 22 I weighed 246 lb's. I didn't gain much with my pregnancy and after she was born I managed to keep my weight around 255 for some time, then the dieting started again, back to weigh****chers, I lost the typical 10 lb's and then gave up. Two kids and all the stressors of marriage and home life, again I tried many diets and managed to get myself up to around 275, at this time, we bought our first home and moved about 35 miles away from our family, friends and church (not too far but we used to live right in community with our close friends so it was a major move for us) I fell into a depression and gained more weight. By the time I became pregnant with our 3rd I was once again over 300 lb's. And to make a long story short(er), after she was born the diets began again and I hit my all time high of 322 lb's for a couple of years I tried to get below 300 lb's and was not successful.

When I was 30 years old at the weight of 317 lb's two of my close friends went in for gastric bypass, I was convinced that this was my only option as I was sick of dieting.I was moving full steam ahead for WLS I became a member of this site and was active on the VSG board as that was the surgery I wanted to have. That year for Christmas my dad gave me a book called "perfect weight America" and it really opened my eyes to an entirely new way of eating and lifestyle, by this time I was on a waiting list for my WlS classes to begin (at the time I had kaiser and they require you to take 6 mo's of classes before having WLS) My classes were scheduled to begin the following Feb, I started a program called isagenix (which I was introduced to here on this site) in the beginning of February and I learned a lot about cleansing my body to assist in weight loss, By the time my classes came around I opted not to take them, as I was sure this time I was on a new path which I believed God led me to.

I became very passionate about clean eating, organic foods, real whole foods, and the way our bodies are designed and how important good nutrition is. The weight was finally coming off for real this time and I was not counting calories or eating low fat or following any specific "diet" in fact one of the main things I realized was that I had to ditch the diet mentality for good and embrace a totally new way of eating and thinking and exercising and living. It has not always been easy in fact it has been down right hard at times and I have encountered some very real tragedies along the way, my marriage has made it through some very rocky ground within the last few years and my step brother (the one I was closest to) passed away from colon cancer just over a year ago....

I love the message of natural living, of clean eating and weight loss and thriving marriages and disease prevention (all things that have impacted my life personally) and I believe all of these things are interconnected because we are whole beings. I am currently in school to become certified as a holistic health coach, my hope is to counsel and coach people through what I have known and walked myself, I am coming up on 4 years of this way of life and I continue to learn and grow in my understanding of true holistic health, my philosophy is this: I believe that we have a loving and gracious creator that has supplied us with all that we need to live a healthy and abundant life. My approach is holistic, meaning I believe in order to attain great health, all aspects of the person (physical, mental, spiritual and emotional) have to be taken care of.

This is my desire, and this is what I do in my health coaching practice and it has all come out of my own story... Thanks for listening! 

 

 

I have also gotten the "you don't look like you weigh that much" from others my whole life! And in all honesty I think that is true, I am larger boned and muscular as well, on my dad's side of the family obesity runs ramped! I am tall too at 5" 8" and I am solid! When I weighed about 240 lb's my best friend was shocked when I told her I weighed that much, she said she would have guessed about 175ish.... now I weigh a little over 200 and I really don't know what I look like I weigh?? The PS I am wanting to work with says he would like his patients to be about 20 lb's away from goal because that gives him more to work with, he takes excess haning fat from other areas and uses it to reshape the butt and breasts!  I looked at your pic's, you look great! Congrats to you! Do you think you will be putting any before and afters of your PS? I plan to do that myself (and set it to private so only those I give a password to can see them). Honestly my arms bother me so much, I think that is one of the very first things I will have done, I know it is not an ideal situation but I would rather hide the scars then hide the flab, I am very self conscious about  raising my arms in front of people or wearing tank tops without a sweater over it etc...  I think I will add my story today, just need to get some stuff done around the house first!

Safe drive! Let us know how the PS appt goes. Hope you are getting lots of rest. Take Care

Ice cream is our biggest down fall. Last few nights we have been eating a lot of raspberries. He likes apple crisp too. That I can do low sugar. Any ideas would be helpful. Thanks

I saw my small town medical internist today. I just love him! He is older gent and very "old school". Got results of my colonoscopy and everything is fine. I have been ping ponged around to a number of specialists lately and quite frankly getting tired of it. As a Canadian I am very grateful for our health care coverage, but see a lot of over lapping and waste of resources. I digress... Anyway I have been polling the different specialists I have seen about WLS. Today I asked old Dr F what he thought and he said Debbie dear you are not big enough. At 250 lbs not Big Enough! Did I mention that I love Lovelove this old guy! Seriously though we did chat about it. He feels that it should be the procedure of last resort for the super obese. Told me that his patients that have gone that route are unhappy and have many serious after affects. Problems almost always develop with the bowels, stomach and endocrine systems. He is going to continue to treat me and my co-morbids. Not big enough! Priceless! Made my day. Awesome NSV!