Getting Started

A little bit about myself before I get to talking about why I'm here. I'm 23 years old, engaged to a wonderful man (Matt) who accepts me completely as I am, I have my BA in English/Creating Writing, and a great job working in Litigation Support. Currently, my fiance and I are moving out of the apartment we share with his best friend from high school (and his girlfriend that stays over on the weekends, who I won't even get into) and into a beautiful, expensive, apartment for just us and our 3 cats. About a year ago, I moved from Dubuque, Iowa, to Yonkers, New York, where I am right now.

You wouldn't know any of this if you saw me walking down the street. All you would know is that I'm a fat chick. I'm not calling myself fat in the same way most girls my age would--the "Freshman Fifteen" was nothing for me. The last time I was weighed about a year and a half ago, which was the last time I was in a doctor's office that had a scale that went past 350, I weighed a whopping 407 pounds. I have no idea how much I weigh right now, but I'm fairly sure I weigh more than that. How much more? Well, I'll find out March 18th. Why then? Because that will be my first appointment with Dr. Philip Weber of New York Bariatrics. I am going for a consultation on getting the Lap-Band surgery.

I saw the commercials for the Lap-Band years ago on TV, but at the time, I was still in school and still living with my mom, so it was out of the question. I researched it back then, but ultimately decided I didn't want surgery at that point. In January of my freshman year of college, I went all out losing weight: I only ate one meal a day or less than 20 grams of fat, worked out religiously (7 days a week, 1/2 hour a day for about 1.5 months until my doctor recommended 1 hour a day), and I lost 55 pounds by the end of May. Back then, I went from 340 lbs. to 285.

So what happened? Well, I went home for the summer. My mom was "overweight" most of her life until she gave birth to me (where she went down to 110 lbs), and to her, wearing a size 16 as she did was considered very overweight. Needless to say, my mom always had issues with me being overweight, so when the time came that I actually lost a lot, she wasn't sure how to support me. Instead of encouraging me to continue, she would chastise me if I deviated at all from the diet I had set for myself. She made me feel like crap and so deprived of food that when I went back to school the following fall, I ate the way most people eat their FIRST year of college--pizza, nachos, Mountain Dew by the case, everything that I worked so hard to avoid before filled the angry hole in my stomach. I don't really blame my mom, it was my own fault that I lost my willpower after her negative comments the entire summer. After that, I tried to get back into exercising a few different times throughout college, but I never regained the drive I had before. I gained like crazy. Not only did I put on all the weight I had lost, but if you've been following my numbers, I put on about 122 pounds between August 2003 and August 2006.

Back to the Lap-Band. My fiance and I are starting to plan our wedding, and when I was looking around online for wedding dresses, I realized that I couldn't even order from a plus-size store anymore. A size 32 is the highest one place goes, and I can't even fit into that anymore. I have no idea what size I wear, I wear 26/28 clothing and it has to be stretchy. I haven't worn anything that doesn't stretch in years. I know that I can't wear a 32 though because last summer, I bought a red trench coat for a costume (Carmen Sandiego) and I purposely bought it a little bigger since I knew I didn't wear a 28. Well, I couldn't even button the 32, there was at least 4-5 inches to go in the smallest parts of my body.

I purposely found an apartment (our new one) that was on the ground floor (or had elevators, this one just happens to be on the first floor). We live on the 3rd floor right now and I'm always reluctant to make multiple trips to the car after shopping or carrying things up the steps because I get so out of breath. I have problems sleeping at night because my body gets sore with all the weight. I feel ridiculous everytime I fly back to Iowa to visit and have to ask the flight attendant for a seat belt extender and apologize to whoever ends up having to sit next to me. I'm fairly healthy right now, I don't have diabetes or high blood pressure or anything else like that, but I know it can't be far off.

I want to fit into a wedding dress.

Starting our new lives together is the perfect opportunity for me to have the Lap-Band. My insurance will cover most of the costs, we'll have an apartment that is convenient for my recovery, and our new neighborhood is more walker-friendly, nice and flat roads versus the hills our current apartment resides on. I don't plan on telling my family about the band. My mom couldn't support me when I was doing it "on my own" so I don't want to know what she'd say about me giving up and having surgery. Too many people see Weight Loss Surgery (WLS) as "the easy way out" when they don't realize how hard it is to lose weight when you can barely get around. The Lap-Band doesn't make you lose weight. It HELPS you lose weight. As said so many times before, it is a tool to help you learn better eating habits. Basically, a ring is wrapped around your upper stomach to make a pouch--this is what gets full when you eat, then it slowly moves through the opening and into the rest of your stomach. The result is that you get fuller MUCH faster when you eat, and stay fuller longer.

So that's where I am right now. I don't know how soon I'll be able to have the surgery once I get the ball rolling, since there is a lot of out-of-pocket expense that I wasn't counting on, but I'm hoping sometime in April I'll be an official Bandster. I probably won't have much to add until the appointment on the 18th, so I'll see you then!