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

Hi, My name is Theresa. My behavioral and emotional battle began when I was a child. My family loved to get together for family outing and parties and man good my mother cook. I loved meat bread and potatoes! If you didn't eat, they thought something was wrong with you. you didn't ever leave food on your plate are you would be in big trouble wasting food. When I became an adult I tought my children the same thing, eat all your food, waste not want not. I would cook dinner and if any was left over I would eat the leftovers. I didn't gain much weight at first but as the years went by I pack on the pounds. I lost and regained the same 50 pounds about 10 times. I had three sets of clothing, my fat clothes....my 30 pounds weight lost clothes and the clothes I had when I was thin. At this point I just l didn't care.

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

The worst thing about being overweight is when the Doctor told me I was Diabeted, man did this hit hard. He started me on medication for diabetes. I always felt tired and I was hungry all the time. I had no energy. My weight continued to climb up and up. My BMI was 42 and my A1C was 11, I was headed for trouble.

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

My Doctor talked with me about having weight loss surgery, at this point I'm 265 pounds. I told him NO! I'm not doing that! he told me to think about it. One year later, I went into his office and told him I was ready to have the surgery. A friend refered me to a good WL surgeon Dr Kerlakian. He was just wonderful and made me feel better about doing this. I had the surgury on January 31, 2012, I'm almost 3 month post. I've lost 62 pounds and my blood sugars are really great. I feel so much better, I went from a size 22, 24 to a size 14 or large. I'm ontop of the world. I still have 50 pounds to go and I'm going to make it. My Doctor has cut my diabetes meds to half the amount I was taking before Gastric Bypass. I'm smiling again.