Let's Talk Weight

This one’s a tough one to write for me.  Thought it was time to come clean on the whole weight issue.  Most women would never tell you what they weigh, we’re trained at an early age that this is something that we keep to ourselves!  Part of keeping my weight a secret I feel is like keeping that shame with me.  I need to rid myself of the shame in order to succeed at this!  I’ve had people, very nice all of them, tell me that I don’t need gastric bypass, I’m not big enough, no way could I meet the criteria.  I love every one of them for it.  It shows me how much my friends see me, not my weight.  But in reality, yes I am big enough, I do fit the criteria, A LOT of the criteria.

I’ve always yoyo dieted.  I think my first real fight with weight was going into my freshman year of high school.  I was a petite little girl, a normal sized little girl.  And of course like most girls never thought about my weight when I was young, who cared?  But the summer between 8^th and 9^th grade I spent a lot of time at my father’s house.  There were really no restrictions about what or when we wanted to eat and being the growing almost teenager I was, I ate!  I can’t remember how much weight I gained but it was significant.  When it was time to go back to school and I am again thrown into the crowd of teenagers who seemed so much skinnier than me, I noticed then.  So began my yoyo journey.  Like any responsible teenager does when deciding the proper diet I should do I chose the complete wrong direction and decided the best option was to quit eating.  We didn’t eat dinner at the table, didn’t eat as a family.  It was very easy to take a plate of food to my room, wait awhile and then throw it away before my mom ever saw.  I little bits here and there, drank lots of soda and I did go down about 3 sizes.  Unfortunately that little stunt also sent me straight to a doctor when my body decided it was done with my games and gave out on me.  I can’t remember how many times I fainted that morning as my parents got me to a car and took me to a doctor.  I’m sure I should have ended up in the hospital and gotten some counseling, but this was pre-eating disorders awareness and it was much easier to just tell me to eat!  So that’s what the doctor did.  Told me to eat and told my mom to push Gatorade to rehydrate me.  So there, any eating disorders I had or may encounter in the future are taken care of right? Right??

So that began my lovely yo-yoing.  I know I can pinpoint other areas in my life where the pounds came faster than other times…getting divorced….getting married again to a man who loved me for me and didn’t nag me about my weight…dealing with infertility..dealing with losing a job…going back to school…..the list goes on.  But the basic fact is, I like food, I like to eat food and I’m not great at exercising.  So here I sit at 38, I have sleep apnea and type 2 diabetes and am morbidly obese.  I am still fortunate that the rest of me is healthy! 

And here we are back to my weight!  I feel it’s time to be honest with where I am at, what I have fought to lose so far and where I am going.  My highest weight was just over a year ago.  I managed to top the scale at 327 pounds!  I wasn’t there for long but it really sucked seeing that number.  That motivated me to start a biggest loser group with friends and family and I started losing.  My start weight for the bariatric program was 318lb’s I have to lose 5% of that.  I did go back up to 320 in the first few weeks, stress, eating what I knew I couldn’t have again played a part in that but then I got more serious.  I am currently weighing at 308.5lb’s.  I have to get down to 302.1lb’s to meet my goal.  6.4lb’s left to go. 

So there it is, out in the open.  Feels good to get it off my chest.  It helps to know that I am sharing this people that support me.  Sorry this was a long one, guess I had to build up to it!