Behind the Pounds

There are a few things you need to know about me before we get too invested in whatever this is:

First thing,  I'm not a fan of blogs...because, really, nobody gives a shit what you(or me) have to say. I've tried blogging a few times before, but I had a hard time committing to anything other than working 60 hours a week and watching TV shows on the computer. 
Side note: Are they still considered TV Shows if you watch them on the web? 

So the time struggle was one thing, but in reality I just got bored listening to myself typing like I was the coolest person in the world, so sure that everyone was on the edge of their seat waiting for the next clever line to come across my webpage.  That's when I realized I wasn't quite made for the blog world.

So what are we doing here?  Well I guess I need to take us way back to explain how I got to this spot-- not on my parents' couch at 7:28 on a Sunday night, but to the point where I feel the need to "pick up the pen and paper" again.  This may take a few entries to do...


For my entire adult life I have been successful in almost anything I decide I want to do-- I graduated college early with honors, my career has really taken off at IBM over the past five years
and I "re-met" the love of my life who I have called husband for seven months now.  But the one thing I have never been able to conquer is my weight.  Not just my weight, but my horrendous
lifestyle of eating whatever I want and exercising a couple times a month-- at best.

Being overweight is not really a comfortable subject and it definitely has been the one outstanding problem in my life that I have always felt was not completely under my control. Growing up,
I was always bigger than the kids in my class.  Not really because I was fat, but because my body was growing at a more rapid pace than my peers. I was wearing a training bra in second grade,
I remember it because it had little Minnie Mouses on it.  At age six, the doctors told me I had the hand size of an eleven-year-old.  So I started my life knowing I was "bigger."

In eighth grade, I decided to run track and really lost a ton of that baby weight I had been carrying around with me that made me look even larger than my classmates.  I remember a comment
from my AAU Basketball coach who was also my Principal one day... He said I looked skinny as a pole.  It was a great feeling, one I wish would have lasted.

In high school I played volleyball and basketball and worked outside at a greenhouse retail shop in the spring and summer.  I was healthy because I was very active, but my eating choices would
make dieticians everywhere shudder with disgust.  Also, because we had pretty short lunches at school, I had learned a very bad habit of eating as quickly as possible resulting in me eating way more than necessary without realizing I was already full.  (Or maybe I just didn't care.)

Even though I felt I was overweight, and my brother and his friends weren't shy of calling me the "F" word whenever they felt like picking on me, my health really wasn't an issue until a few years
later.

I was your typical college student going to classes, hanging out with friends, partying at the bars and then eating fried, awful food at all hours of the day and night. I carried those habits into my adulthood and by then it was like an addiction... not that I didn't try to change my ways.  Oh, man, have I tried:

In the past eight years, I have hired three personal trainers, participated in ten different types of bootcamp/spinning/exercise programs for twelve weeks at a time, took a weight-loss supplement (phentermine) as part of weight management program at my doctor's office (To say it made me a raging bitch would be putting it nicely-- just ask my husband), ate six small meals a day, ate three meals a day of nothing but protein and fiber,  trained and ran in the Nike Women's Half Marathon, and purchased up to five weight loss books for knowledge and encouragement.

The most weight I had lost at one time was 25 pounds and that was for about four months at the end of 2011 after reading/following "The Four Hour Body" regime and doing crossfit three times a week.

But as many weightloss stories go, those 25 pounds came back... plus twenty more. 

 ______________________

Now that you know the background you are probably wondering why I'm back here in front of this computer screen after I swore off the blog world ages ago(more like a few years). 

As I gained back my weight throughout the year of 2012 and into 2013, I just tried to ignore it because I was happy and in love with my boyfriend/fiance and knew that he loved me no matter what.  I was convinced I would find the motivation to lose weight by the time we got married in September 2013, but I was wrong.

About six months before the wedding, I went to have dinner at the steakhouse where my fiance tended bar and there was this man there having drinks with his dinner who became very chatty with me.  At one point in the night, my husband went to the back of the restaurant leaving me alone with this supposed "Life Coach" who was in town for a conference.

That's when our conversation took a turn when the man called out a chronic tic that I have where I turn my head to the left and sometimes roll my shoulder-- for those of you that don't know, a chronic tic is an involuntary movement disorder that you can almost compare to OCD--  Nothing physically is making me do it, but I can't think of anything else until I do the movement and get a feeling of relief once I do.  There is not a lot of known information on the causes of chronic tics and I usually hide mine pretty well, but apparently not well enough for this observer at the bar.

He asked me why I kept moving my head/arm and I told him it was a tic I have had since I was in fifth grade.  He just kept asking me why I have it and I just kept telling him that I wish I knew.
Well, he didn't stop there.  He then made one of the most profound and completely inappropriate statements that has ever been said to me.  "I can tell that you have a great personality and
everyone here just loves you and flocks to you...  So why are you hiding behind all of those pounds?"  

I couldn't have heard him right, could I?  This complete stranger could not have just called out ANOTHER touchy subject that even my closest friends don't talk about... DID HE?!  I just froze-- I wanted to die on the spot.  I couldn't even tell you the response I gave... just a shrug maybe,
an excuse that I have a hard time with it, I really don't know what I said, but by that time Spike was back upfront, I gave him some cash for my meal and left.  He had no idea what his "friendly customer" had done.

I didnt know what to do.

I wanted to yell.

I wanted to punch that asshole in the face.

I wanted to talk to my dad, the man who always tried to get me to be healthier but loved me even though I had not succeeded. As soon as the first words came out of my mouth, I started sobbing on the phone.  I can't imaagine what my dad thought as he listened to his daughter crying four hundred miles away.  I was able to tell him the story and for the first time felt that he truly understood my struggle.  He understood that I really had tried to lose weight, to be a healthy 26 year old, one he could be proud of.  

We talked for a very long  time and by the end of the phone call, my tears had dried, but my heart was the heaviest it had ever been. Later that night my husband came home and heard about what that man had said to me... to say he was angry is an understatement, but I tried to make him see that what that man said, it was true.


As I was going to bed that night, my dad sent me a link to a youtube video of "Here Comes the Sun" by the Beatles.  I cried like a baby again... but this time because I knew I had all the love and support I needed.
 ______________________

It had been a week or maybe a month from that day when my dad texted me an article about New Jersey Governor, Chris Christie, who had gotten a weight loss surgery done that was outpatient and minimally invasive.  I never in my dreams would have thought about weight loss surgery as something for me, but the fact that my dad thought it was legit enough to send me, I decided to do some research. There is A LOT out there and I spent days reading and googling all about the procedure from the article. 

Lap band, or laparoscopic adjustable gastric band, seemed to me like the answer I'd been waiting for-- my only option left.  I was beyond suprised when Spike(my husband) agreed with me and said I should look into it.  Though I really shouldn't have been that surprised considering he is the love of my life who only wants for me to be happy.  But it all just seemed so crazy.

We both did some more research and decided that if this was something I really wanted to do then we would continue the discussion after our wedding.

And that we did.