I’ve never been “outrageously” overweight by American standards. I knew it had gone too far, though, when I realized that I weighed almost as much as I had when I was 9 months pregnant.
I got most of it off with Weight Watchers in about a year, although I’ve been stuck at the last 5 pounds or so for a while.
I believed I was outrageously overweight when I gained 20lbs over my “normal” weight. I was horrified when I realised I had gained 50lbs over my normal weight. When I realised that I had gained on Phen-Fen, I knew that there was something wrong with my body, not my eating habits. This was backed up by food journal after food journal.
I began investigating weight loss surgery when I was 100lbs overweight. I was diagnosed with a severely out of whack thyroid at that time, and believed as many do that with time I could lose the weight on my own if my thyroid were treated. I discovered that while I would not gain if I took my thyroid medication religiously, I also could not lose. I went through nutritional counseling, tried several prescription weight loss drugs and still nothing.
When my father died, I became despondent and stopped caring. I stopped taking my thyroid medicine and gained another 100lbs. I knew at 200lbs overweight I was going to die young. I never made excuses. I hated myself fat – I had never been fat as a child or young adult and I believed for too many years that I was the one who was at fault for the weight gain. I had gastric bypass 2 years ago today. I have lost 214lbs and am the picture of health.
Litoris, that’s a pretty amazing story. Have you posted before and after pics anywhere? I’m really curious to see that much of a difference.
And you win. Times 500.
I’m sorry, honey. I shouldn’t be posting here. I’ll get back to the kitchen for naked cooking like you like.
This was my understanding as well.
Thanks! I actually do have before and after pictures on my picturetrail site. And yeh, I don’t look at all like the same person as when I was so overweight. Even when I was heavy, I would look at myself in the mirror and think “who is that?” It simply wasn’t me.
The only “complications” I have had are finding out I have gout (simply put, high-protein, low-carb diet combined with rapid weight loss = major gout flare-up if you have it. YEOUCH!), my gallbladder putzed out on me and had to be removed and sagging skin. I did have an abdominoplasty last year, so my stomach looks great. I just need to get my boobs done, lol!
If interested, I have a picture of me at age 17 on my myspace profile for comparison then & now, too. While I don’t often bring the subject up (many people have this weird opinion of WLS being some kind of quick-fix and they get very hateful about it), I am not ashamed and will discuss it with anyone who sincerely wants to know about it. My surgeon calls me his “poster child” but the truth is, I am the first person to try to talk people out of doing it – in the end it is a major surgery with major risks.
Holy shit, Litoris, that’s amazing. I’m glad you’re so much healthier now.
WOW! That’s dramatic! And here I was patting myself on the back for a measly 55 lb. weight loss. CONGRATULATIONS!!! You look amazing!
I was broke, trying to be self-employed but to be honest I was just unemployed. I ate really poorly and never exercised.
My parents gave me $40 so I could get some new pants for a family photo. I went to the store, but couldn’t fit into the ones with a 40" waist. I told myself there was no way in hell I was going to buy pants bigger than 40". So I went over to the other side of the store and spent my parents’ $40 on some running shoes. I started running and fixing my eating habits that night.
My parents were a little upset that I showed up in old, worn out clothes, but I told them why I did what I did. They were proud and supportive. In about a year I went from 260 pounds to 180. I also do the yo-yo thing, so I’m just now starting to lose the weight I gained during the winter. I bounce from about 175-195 these days, and about 32" to 34".
I also got a great job and am no longer broke. Things have really changed in the past couple years for me.
There was a picture of me in a collage at work from a “fun day” where we bowled and drank together.
It was there for a month before I realized it was me.
I joined a gym.
That’s one hell of a story, Glory. I felt like jumping up and down like Rocky and doing a cheer for you.
Fantastic.
Litoris, those pictures are mindblowing - you should honestly be doing commercials or something. You should be a literal poster child for whatever you had done. Also, you’re pretty damned foxy now. 
Congratulations on your surgi-versary. I look forward to mine more than I do my birthday now. 
VCNJ~
Awww, shucks, guys, thanks!
By the way, Glory and wasson – AMAZING! I am always thrilled when people can identify where they need to correct issues and can do the weight loss thing. I always wished I could have done it that way. Surgery is scary.
It’s nuts now, because I have literally picked up pictures of me from before when I was heavy and thought to myself “who is this person?” I even once found a stack of pictures and asked my husband who it was. He looked at them, looked at me and went “I don’t know…looks kind of like – Oh MY GAWD, it’s you!?” we laughed about that one for a while.
VC03, awww, where’s the blushing smilie? Thanks! I am very proud of my body now – when I was younger, I was much hotter (I had huge, gorgeous breasteses and an arse you could bounce a dime off) but didn’t realise it. Sometimes, it’s a little weird, because I don’t always pick up on the fact that a guy is hitting on me, and my husband will have to step in and make him go away, though. Heh.
Veuve_ClicquotNJ, isn’t it funny how that becomes our new birthday? Honestly, I don’t make a huge issue out of it, but I do send my surgeon a thank you card. How are you doing at 3 years post-op? I have been really lucky with never being a big sweets/fats eater, so I honestly don’t even know if I dump or not.
I don’t know if I dump, because I’ve avoided sugar (at least anything more than the 7 grams per serving guideline my surgeon gave me) like the plague. Sugar-free stuff is fine - it’s self-policing in that I don’t like enough to over-indulge, but it does the trick if I’m dying for something sweet.
I’ll be 3 years out in November of this year. The tool is still working. I can eat “normally” in that I rarely have issues with any particular food, although chicken can be tricky unless it’s very moist.
I’ve been really successful, I think; my surgeon uses me on his website and I speak at his pre-op seminars. I’m grateful for the ability to be able to re-establish my health.
VCNJ~
I’ve known I’ve been fat forever. People were very happy to point it out to me while in school. I have always been ok with it.
When I got my dog 5 years ago I wanted to make sure she had a healthy life so I wanted to walk her regularly, which I couldn’t do at my weight. So I lost weight. I am still fat but like I said it’s nothing new. I actually weighed less at 25 then I did when I was 12. I am just that…lucky.
Mark me down as someone else that is clueless about what is clearly a moving story.
About three and a half years ago I made a new young friend. He clearly wanted to play trucks with a “big strong man”, I assume because he could identify with men more than with his mother or my girlfriend. Since we were at the beach, I had my shirt off. My girlfriend took a picture of us. When I saw it, I was dumbstruck. What was George Wendt doing wearing my head? And a year later, that kid, not having a verbal filter, called me fat a number of times.
Since then I have dabbled in weight loss activities, but still continued to gain. When I finally took a weight loss class last year, I was shocked that I weighed in at 25 pounds heavier than I thought I was. That’s when I decided to get serious.
First rule of dieting: Stop dieting! That shit’ll kill you.
I’ve done the “30 pounds on, 30 pounds off” yo-yo since I was a young adult. It always surprises me when I see pictures of myself with the extra 30 pounds; I never feel like a fat woman, but the camera tells a different story.
I stopped dieting about 9 years ago. I am working on making permanent lifestyle choices that will nudge my extra 30 pounds downwards. I will never like exercising or want to exercise; it is just something I have to do, like flossing my teeth. This realization (from a fellow Doper, I forget who) was a lightbulb moment for me. If I waited to find an exercise I liked, I could put off exercising forever.
I have cut all sodas except club soda out of my life. I’m fighting with the other sugar still; I love sugar so much, but it has to go. It does me no good at all. I’m working on nudging the healthy eating up, and the unhealthy stuff down. I think it gets easier as you get older; you have more perspective, and more experience with the consequences of bad choices.
Like a lot of women, I’m also an emotional eater. I am aware enough to know when I’m doing it now; the next step will be finding a way to replace the comfort food with something without calories. My relationship with food and my body and my weight has been complicated, as I’m sure everyone in this thread can understand.
Another yay for Glory and everybody else who could lose weight by changing their lifestyles! You guys are so inspirational, I wish I had the discipline to do what you do (I’m young and naive - give me a few years for it to kick in).
I didn’t have to work for anything like the amazing efforts others have mentioned, but when I was 29 I got a new driver’s license, and noticed that the picture of my head looked like it’d been blown up like a helium baloon. I weighed 220-230 lbs., and at 6 ft., hadn’t really noticed it. (all my fat was in my head, apparently)
To a guy who’d always been the skinny, athletic jock, it was quite a wake-up. I started running, then switched to swimming and cardio (easier on my knees). I also cut back to 1-2 sodas a week, and no more than once a week to fast food. By the time I turned 30 five months later, I was down to ~175 lbs.
It was definately the exercise that fixed things, for me. I’ve turned it into a routine to keep it up, and now at 40 I’m still at 175-180 lbs. And no longer crave soda, or McDonalds’, or a whole lot of bad food choices that I used to eat. Last week someone gave me one of her mini-donuts from her dessert, and all I could think was how horribly greasy it tasted; not good at all.
Also: feel much healthier, and sex life improved quite a bit after losing all that weight. I hadn’t realized how uncomfortable even just my spare 50 lbs. made me until it was gone again.