Hello! Welcome to my Journey through Weight Loss Surgery. This journey started like so many others. I woke up one day and I could not believe how big I was. I had to go shopping for an outfit and wound up in Lane Bryant, a store I swore I would never go to. Yet there I was. After fumbling around with a few outfits I decided on one that was mainly, all gray light gray top and these dark gray towel like pants, stretchy of course. Sadly they were a size I could have never imagined when I was a teen, not to long ago, but here it was in my hand a size 24/26. I was so sad when we got home from the mall I didnt want to do anything. I had no choice though. My friends were going to be at the hotel any minute and I could not hide. After everyone got there I lost some of my self-doubt and started to feel good in my new clothes. That is until we got the pictures back. I could not believe that was me. In my head all I could hear was "you look like Jaba the Hut" "you look like an elephant seal”. Fortunately, though that set of pictures is what changed my life. I began researching plans I could follow, hoping I could find a free one online that was simple to use and it had all the features I wanted. A menu, friends, a chat room, fitness ideas, things like that. I found one but it was for a fee. To start up it was $35.00, not to bad, you may say but we were living on one income and I could not justify spending money on myself. Every month I opened my email and found a newsletter from that site telling me how well people were doing, how great it is on and on. Each month I tried to justify it but could not. All of this started in October 1999, finally by January 2000 I made up my mind, and I joined eDiets. I could not have done a better thing for myself. It was $35.00 and after that $10.00 a month. We could handle that if I cut out the junk food I was buying. For Christmas 1999 my family gave me money for clothes, I went to Lane Bryant and spent every penny and then some. I felt great. The clothes I bought were sizes 22-24 and one pair of 18-20's! I felt so skinny and sexy. A few days later I was heading to the mall to meet up with Wendy, feeling great thinking I looked great in my new sweater and size 18/20 pants. We had a good time. We ate at the Rainforest Cafe and took pictures there. When she sent them to me, I cried. I thought I looked so good and these pictures told me a totally different tale. I was huge. Smaller then I was a few months ago but huge is huge I guess. I had lost about 15-20 lbs. from October to January, my starting weight with eDiets was 280. Ive never been quite sure what my 'official' start weight was but I’d guess close to 300 pounds.
|