Describe your behavioral and emotional battle with weight control before learning about bariatric surgery.

I've always been successful in everything I've ever tried ... except weight loss. I was an excellent student. I had friends. I was well-liked. I got good jobs after college. But I was overweight and I was ashamed of it. I never had a real boyfriend, maybe it was because I was ashmed of my body or maybe it was because the men I was attracted to was ashmed of my body. Somehow time passed and I found myself without a husband, too old to have children and morbidly obese. I was diabetic with other health problems. I struggled to carry out my daily routine. I tried everything to lose the weight, and I would lose, but eventually I would fail and gain it all back and more. I was the classic yo-yo dieter. I had heard about bariatric surgery for decades. I had friends and family who had had the procedure, but my insurance didn't cover it and I didn't have the money to pay for it on my own. I wish I had made the sacrifice years ago and had the procedure, but maybe I wasn't ready for it. When the diabetes got so out of control I knew I had to do something and since many diabetics had had good luck with the bariatric surgery, I set my sights on the lap band surgery as my salvation. I started lobbying my boss to upgrade our insurance. They put me on an insurance committee and together we selected a plan that covered the surgery. Our boss agreed to upgrade and I was off to the races. My next hurdle was my primary care physician. He did not want me to have the surgery, for whatever reason. He had a friend who'd died after having the procedure. He argued it would change me and I'd no longer be me. He said I would become obsessive about what I put in my mouth. I argued that I was already obsessive. It ended with a crying, screaming fit in his office and he finally relented and agreed to recommend me for the surgery. Then came the yearlong hoops I had to jump through to get approval. First there was six months of weigh-ins at my doctor's office. Then visits to a cardiologist, pulmonary specialist, sleep center, dietitian, psychiatrist, and attending monthly support group meetings. It was a hectic year, but my determination was high. I was full of frustration at times, but I stuck to my guns and I plodded along. At times I lost the support of some of my friends, who couldn't seem to understand why I would put myself through all the aggravation. But I stuck to it. I had my surgery ... the full gastric bypass ... on Tuesday.

What was (is) the worst thing about being overweight?

The worst thing for me was the health problems it caused. Those problems limited my lifestyle. I have been overweight my entire life, so I was used to not being able to shop for cute clothes or being ignored by strangers. But when I got so heavy that just getting dressed and doing daily hygiene became a chore, it was time for a change.

If you have had weight loss surgery already, what things do you most enjoy doing now that you weren't able to do before?

It's only been two days since my surgery, so I'm not able to participate in anything that I wasn't able to do before the surgery, but I can tell you what I'm looking forward to the most ... and that's fitting comfortably into an airline seat.