I've been overweight all my life it seems, always the biggest girl in the class, the chubby baby. Endless countless diets, starting with a doctor supervised one at the age of 10, followed by weightwatchers at 12; the bread diet (that one was a doozy, one day of molenburg bread plain nothing else, then one day whatever you wanted (which for my mother and I who were doing that one together consisted of chocoades by the packet). Repeat visits over the years to weight watchers, atkins diet, cabbage soup diet, you name it I did it. I never made it to the likes of Jenny Craig mostly because of the cost, but I started so many I have lost count. I even made a few of my own up at one stage.
Of course each time I started a new diet I lost weight. Unfortunately it kept finding me again after the stresses of restricting my diet so much led to the inability to stick to it for any length of time. I had some short term successes, in my late 20's I lost around 30kg with weight watchers but then a series of joint related problems led to inactivity, which of course started the vicious cycle all over again. My whole adult life I have been overweight, probably my lowest point would have been around 90kg when I was 20.
Do I overeat? Absolutely I do and I have no problem admitting that I have a seriously messed up relationship with food. Do I scoff down pies and donuts all day long like those who would look at me and judge me based on my weight think? Definitely not. Sure I have times when I eat badly, but so do naturally thin people. I come from a family where many of my forebears were not small people. Some call it the survival gene. Hell, in a famine I would survive way better than the average size eight stick figure but in a modern society where food is easy to get, requires little preparation and is calorie laden (yes even the so called healthy foods can hide some nasty lil extras), a person with the ability to store fat like I can is going to end up seriously obese. Is it an excuse? No, absolutely not, but it is a reason. I wouldn't consider myself a lazy person, in fact I really do enjoy exercise, but over the last six months as I got increasingly bigger I found I just couldn't go to the gym without ending up sore and with reoccurring injuries. Of course not exercising meant gaining more weight and the evil cycle continued.
So over the years I have given thought to weight loss surgery, each diet being a self induced "last chance" before considering it yet again. Last year I started university study towards a BA in Psychology after many years at home as a mother. There I met an amazing lady who herself had WLS and she encouraged me to really consider it. Watching Anna shrink before my eyes has been inspiring and gave me the courage to make the decision.
I am 40 years old - soon to turn 41 and I currently weigh 152.2kg (my home scales this morning). I am 166cm tall (realistically for my weight i should be twice that and then some). I have three gorgeous teenage children and an amazingly supportive husband who loves me fat rolls and all. I want to live to be around to see my children grow into the amazing adults I know they are destined to be, to experience the joys of grandchildren and to grow old with my husband. The surgery is my last chance effort to achieve that goal.
I am obese, morbidly obese. But I want to change that.....
This blog is about my journey, warts and all.
