Describe your behavioral and emotional battle with weight control before learning about bariatric surgery.
Not unlike many of you, I had been overweight my entire life. I lived life shrouded by the struggles of weight. I went on my first formal diet at age 9: Weight Watchers. I would try Weight Watchers on and off over the years. The closest I ever came to a "normal" weight was when I was thirteen and I resorted to a severely restricted diet of canned soups, vigorous exercise, and purging. Weight quickly piled back on and the remainder of my teen years can be mapped by which diet I was on.
By the time I entered college I weighed in at 250lbs.. I found it difficult to make friends on a very social campus. I tried protein sparing modified fasts followed by hcg injections and got down to around 217lbs. But like every other diet before it, the weight came forcefully back on.
I first started contemplating weightloss surgery the summer before my final year of college. I was fed up with living a life held back by my physical shape, and making excuses for everything I couldn't accomplish, couldn't do, and people I couldn't meet because of my weight. I got cold feet and put off surgery until the Memorial Day weekend after college graduation. At 277 lbs. and growing every day, I felt surgery was the only way for me to change my path.
My battle was more emotional than behavioral. Always having been overweight, I had taken an early interest in health, food, and cooking. Even though my efforts were, seemingly, in vain, I always took special care to eat well rounded meals, even if they were large. The behavioral battle was mostly a product of the trying to become healthy itself. I was always on a diet. And when I was not, OH BOY I was decidedly not.
The emotional battle was (is) still the most difficult part of having been an obese child. Children can be cruel, and it is in those formative years when you know no better than to accept someone's opinion of you as the reality. I will get into that in more detail in the next question.
What was (is) the worst thing about being overweight?
Where to begin?! I guess I should start by saying what was NOT so bad. Speaking from the other (thin) side, I almost feel like I have some credibility to talk about my former overweight self. She was a pretty fine person. I spent too much time brooding over what was not when I should have been celebrating what was. I am thankful I had her and lived with her for so long. She is brilliant, she is kind. She knows enough to take more interest than just in how someone looks. She knows that there is so much more to the world than peoples' opinions (gave up on those long ago!). I thought she was lacking in so many ways. But from the other side I can tell you it was pretty dang good.
That being said...I know all this and I'm a stronger person for it. But that doesn't mean I would necessarily go through all the pain and heartache of being overweight, especially an overweight child, again. I remember all the Easters, Halloweens, Christmases when dresses and costumes were so difficult to find. Typically it was a game of what sequined potato sack would fit. When I was an overweight child, there was such a scarce selection of "pretty plus" clothing. I remember feeling inadequate as a child. "There must be something wrong if clothing makers don't even want to make clothes to fit me." Normal outings to dinner could sometimes be tearful, unable to find anything in my closet. Gym class should've been renamed "An Exercise in Humiliation." I know they are trying to teach you to be active, but instead it taught me that activity was just a new age form of abuse and was a way for everyone to see just how short I fell...in disgusting gym clothes, no less. Lunchtime meant roaming from table to table just seeing if there was a spot for me. Luckily by highschool I'd given up all attempts to fit in and took on the "brooding loner" image.
College presented me with new challenges. I was always "the friend." The worst part was that men assumed that I KNEW I was the friend. They'd confide in me, and indeed even flirt with me all working under the theory that they could not be held accountable for leading me on because God knows I would know there was no way we'd ever be together. And in college there was a new, formal, way of telling me I wasn't cool enough to be your friend: they're called sororities. I tried to strategically design my class schedule so that I could make it from class to class with time for a "breather" and "cooldown" before entering. Desks were so small: were these desks designed for kindergarteners?!
I hated shopping for clothes, obviously. They were ill-fitting and untrendy. I could never take part in the favorite pasttime that was shopping. There seems to be a typical thought that fat people can wear shoes. I'd like to disspell this myth. It is simply not true that I could wear cute, trendy shoes. My feet were too fat and they rubbed blisters where the fat hung over. Panties and pants rolled down underneath the weight of my belly fat. Friends often tried to shelter me, but in the process of doing so treated me like an entirely different class of person. As if I was unaware of my size or the stares. Speaking of that, I often received stares...or worse, unacknowledged. Desks, bathroom stalls, airplane seats, and movie seats were my arch nemesis. Have you seen the size of some of those bathroom stalls?! And I cannot even tell you how often I practiced putting on car seatbelts practicing how NOT to let them lock into position because I'd unraveled it so much. At a movie or sporting even I'm sure every muscle in my body was tensed trying to ensure that my legs would not creep over invading someone else's seat. And those are just to name a few.
If you have had weight loss surgery already, what things do you most enjoy doing now that you weren't able to do before?
CROSSING MY LEGS! Oh my goodness I used to crave this. And yes, it is THAT good! Shopping in normal stores, enjoying shopping. Though I'll admit it's a little overwhelming and I'm convinced plus size clothes became trendy and normal clothes went to crap when I lost weight.
Buying medium panties at Vicky Secrets and they actually fit...well...like wow this is how underwear is supposed to fit hmmm.
People see ME, not my weight
What I enjoy doing most are the things I don't do! Like thinking about clothing, strategizing chairs or social moves, etc.
Towels wrap around!
high-waisted pants. White pants
Go-karting, river rafting, horseback riding, dancing lessons--all firsts that I wouldn't probably have considered pre-op
Letting go and having fun!
brownblonde
