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

As a child, right at puberty I began to get the normal weight gain, however because I started puberty at 9, I was labelled "fat" and girls back in the 70's were not supposed to be fat. By 11 I was on my very first diet, the Beverly Hills Diet. After that it was a series of hiding and binging and alternately starving and losing weight. I ruined my metabolism by the time I was 15. I compensated during the boy crazy years by weight lifting 6 days a week, hiking, skiing, horse riding, roller blading, biking and just keeping an intensely active life. Not realistic when you join the real world!

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

I started my extreme gain after starving myself for my wedding in 1992. I got to a then size 5 (now would be about a 3) and kept that size for 2 years. Then stress hit and I began to gain. When I was pregnant with my first son I was a size 16, the largest I'd ever been. I gave birth and was instantly a size 18/20 (1x). I had a second and then a third son. I couldn't have the same type of activity in my life. By the birth of my third son, I was 320 pounds, size 26. The worst thing was fear. Would I fit in that chair? Would I break that chair? I'm always the fattest person in the room. I worried constantly and couldn't keep up with my kids. Wouldn't join them in activities, always on the side lines.

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

Oh wow, I've just started this end of it. 6 months out and I can ride a bike, roller blade, walk all day, swim with my kids, ice skate, fit in every chair now, not worry so much about food and keep my house clean even as a single mom with 3 big boys!!!