| Ok, when did it happen? At what point did I go from being a "big guy" and "husky" to being just plain FAT? And I don't mean your run of the mill, got a few extra pounds and maybe a roll around the middle fat, nor even clinically obese. No, at some point, I'm not sure where, I went from being heavy, to being Super Morbidly Obese. At my highest weight, I topped the scales at a whopping 439 lbs. Even at 6'4" tall, I couldn't get away with "carrying it well". I just carried it everywhere! Well, I had a grab bag full of reasons or excuses, one or two that may have even had some validity at one point or another. It is hereditary, I have thyroid problems, I am an emotional eater, I just love food, I was in an accident that kept me from exercising, I'm lazy, It's societal, I have an addictive personality, Diets don't work for me, and on and on and on. The simple fact is, I had completely lost control of my weight, and it had taken over complete control of my life. I failed on every diet imaginable, even some that I don't think were really diets, but long lost forms of medieval torture brought back by mass marketing sadists who put them on paper and sold them to us at Waldenbooks. The Atkins diet, the Cabbage Soup Diet, Scarsdale, 3 day diet, all protein, all veggies. And lets not forget the medical tries, fen-phen, pondimin, phentermine without fenflouramine (after they found the latter would make your heart explode or some such). Add to those every over the counter diet pill imaginable, and well... I was still huge. Some time around April of 2002, my wife mentioned that she knew someone who had weight loss surgery and it had been very successful for them. Prior to this, I hadn't even really thought about surgery as a viable option. I began researching the various surgical options that were available, and I must say that I was overwhelmed. I didn't know my RNY from my VGB, much less the difference between a bypass and a common channel. I happened across a website called Obesityhelp.com and started looking at before and after pictures of people that had regained their life by making a choice to risk their life on the operating table. The more stories I read, and the more people I talked to, the more respect I had for these people who were taking back control of their lives. It was official. I was obsessed, spending hours upon hours researching on the internet, buying every book I could find on the subject, and most importantly of all (to me), talking to people that had been successful with their surgeries, and also to those that had failed miserably with theirs. I looked at all the memorial pages of the people who had passed away as a result of complications of the surgery. Was I willing to risk my daughter having to grow up without a daddy because I wanted to be thin? I didn't know. I did know that unless something drastic happened, I wouldn't be around long enough to enjoy seeing her grow up, and being part of her life. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that it wasn't (and isn't) about being thin. Sure, I wanted to be "normal", hell, who doesn't? But through a lot of introspection, I found that I wanted to lose weight for much better reasons. It was about being healthy, and happy, and not hurting all the time. It was about wanting to be able to do things that I was physically unable to do because of my weight. It was about fitting into seats, and not having to ask for a seat belt extender on a plane. It's about living a life instead of just existing. Throw my ego into the mix, and it was about being attractive; to my wife, to myself, and to the average person on the street. I wasn't concerned about "hooking up", as I have the most wonderful wife in the world, but just being accepted as normal. What I despised was the way people look at you when you're walking down the street. That "Oh my god, look at that fat fuck" face. This was usually followed immediately by them looking away and disregrading me completely. It's amazing how someone so large can become invisible in a crowd of people because people avert their eyes, lest the fat man want to talk to them. I began going to the Obesithelp.com chatroom on a regular basis, and getting to know other people who were considering surgery, and many that had already had Weight Loss Surgery. I met a wonderful woman name Julia Ziobro, who would turn into a good friend (ok, she was already a good friend, but not mine up till then). Julia happened to not only be a WLS success story, but she was the founder of EMOSS, the Evergreen Morbid Obesity Surgery Support group. I attended a few emoss meetings, and met some truly wonderful people at all phases of the weight loss surgery journey. There were others like me, trying to decide if this is truly a good idea. There were those who were fighting with their insurance companies, who had exclusions against weight loss surgery, but would gladly pay for drug rehabilitation or smoking cessation. Then there were those who had already had surgery. Some were recent post-ops, some were several years out. They were all amazing to me. Here was a room full of people who understood the pain of being a social pariah because of their weight, and had overcome it. I decided I wanted to be one of them. |
 |
| My Weight Loss Journey... |
 |
|
| CONTINUED..... Page 2 |