2 days...well almost one since its late!
Today the anxiety about my surgery started to set in. I have that feeling like before you go on vacation when you are trying to make sure everything is in order and you don't forget anything. Today while spending all day cleaning my house like a mad woman I had a lot of time to reflect on how I got to the point of having this surgery. It's been a long journey so this is going to be a long post!
When I was very young I was at an average weight but I have basically be overweight since puberty. A specific thing that always sticks in my head when talking about my weight struggles is remembering going into middle school. Going into 6th grade I weighed 115 pounds. I was 4 ft something and I was pretty pudgy. I specifically remember the boy I had a crush on finding out that I liked him and saying he would never like me because I looked like an oompa loompa. Although that was devastating as a preteen I did in fact go on with my life. I participated in sports in middle school and although still larger than most girls my age I was healthier for a short time.
When I got to High School I had no interest in participating in sports anymore. Two a day practices did not seem appealing to me and by that time I was in a new school and my best friend had gone off to a different school leaving me by myself with very few people I knew in what felt like an enormous school. By this time I had gained some height so I was more "Curvy" but I was still overweight. High school was a major struggle for me and I had a hard time adjusting. I started not remembering walking from class to class and when my mom took me to the doctor concerned about it I found out that what I was experiencing where panic attacks and I was diagnosed with social anxiety disorder. I was given depression medication but when you take depression medication and you are depressed it makes you depressed. All I wanted to do was sleep and I was missing school. I finally stopped taking the pills after a couple weeks of hating how they made me feel. I realized this was something I was going to have to push through on my own and find ways to cope with it.
Lunch time was a major trigger for my social anxiety. A large amount of people in one room and having to stand in the line and pick things out while people where right behind you was not happening for me. I took lunch to school with me almost every day. I probably ate cafeteria food less than a dozen times in my 4 years there. Eating in front of people used to give me anxiety. Mostly due to having braces and having to rip my sandwich into smaller pieces and worrying that something would be in my teeth. Sometimes I would go sit in the hallway by my locker and quickly eat my food. Once I was a junior I was allowed off campus during lunch hours. I would leave for lunch almost every day hitting up fast food.
I didn't have much interest in exercising. I wouldn't want to walk out side for fear of what others would think. This anxiety was amplified by the few occasions that I did walk outside I once had a car full of kids drive by and yell "Fat Ass" at me. I was a victim of bullying at school and somehow it seemed most of it occurred in gym class. When I was a junior I had a couple of freshman in my gym class that made fun of me every day and when I went to the principal he basically broke it down to me being an upperclassman and that freshman picking on me shouldn't be an issue. The changing in a room with a bunch of other girls bothered me as well. We weren't allowed to use the bathroom stalls to change and if we did the teacher would bang on the door and tell us to get out. I got into the habit of going to a different bathroom before gym and changing my clothes there and same with after. I grew to despise gym.
I still struggle with my social anxiety and although I don't black out and I rarely have panic attacks anymore I have found that most of my problem with eating is that I use it as a way to cope with my social anxiety. Food is a way to take my mind off my anxiety and feel good. I also struggle with food in the normal ways that people do. Its really a emotional and social thing. You eat when you are happy, when you are sad, when you are anxious, when you are bored, when you are out with friends, when you go to the movies, when you are celebrating, and when you are grieving. If you think of food like a drug (which it basically can be if you are a food addict) Its worse than any other drug really. With Alcohol or drugs they aren't always around you and you don't have to do them. With food no matter what you have to eat. It is everywhere you go. You can not live with out it. Can you eat healthier? Yes! But it is hard when great options don't always surround you. \
As for my eating up until I started my diet for insurance qualification- I got into a really bad habit of eating fast food. I bought my house when I was 20. I have never been a good cook. Ultimately my eating of fast food boils down to convenience. I also like to eat out at restaurants with my family. Either way it solved feeding myself without having to cook which I am not good at.
At my previous job I ate junk all the time because I was constantly back and forth from work to sleep and working tons of hours. I developed acid reflux. I didn't even know I had it at the time but I would feel I was being stabbed in the stomach and be hunched over unable to walk feeling like I was going to be sick. This also may have been from going hours without eating because I would be so busy at work I would forget. I really did not listen to my body at all when I was working that job. I was on my feet all day and didn't gain much weight even though I was not eating healthy. I was exhausted from being physically active at work so I didn't exercise.
Once I started working at my current job I went to a sedentary desk job. I still was not exercising and I was still not eating the healthiest but I wasn't eating fast food all the time anymore due to work having a cafeteria. I gained 60 pounds my first year at the job. I was tired all the time and finally started listening to my body and went to the doctor for help. She ran tests and nothing was wrong as far as my thyroid or anything. She referred me to a gastroenteroligist for my stomach pains who determined I had acid reflux. She also suggested I look into some sort of diet program to try and lose some of the weight I had gained.
I joined Farrell's extreme body shaping. I followed their diet and gave it my all but at the end of the 10 weeks I had only lost 5 lbs. I was upset but signed up for a year membership anyway thinking maybe it would just take longer for me.
I went in for my annual exam and my gynecologist was also concerned about my weight gain and small loss during Farrell's. She ran tests on me and found out that I had Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. She encouraged me to try and continue to lose weight as this can go away with weight loss. I was terrified as PCOS can cause you can have trouble getting pregnant or to be infertile because of it and I want kids some day. She referred me to try Ideal Protein.
Ideal protein is a medically supervised diet. I did this for 3 months and lost 25 pounds. Ideal protein was expensive and cost about $100 a week for food. I eventually stopped because I felt like I was starving myself and I couldn't think. I felt like I couldn't concentrate at work and all I wanted to do was sleep. I wasn't allowed to do anything but light exercise the first couple of weeks on that diet but once I was able to go back to Farrell's while on the diet I felt like I was going to pass out. I quit ideal protein in February. I stopped going to Farrell's on a regular basis because I was frustrated at the lack of results.
By July I had gained 75 pounds. This put me even higher than when I started Farrells. I went back to my doctor and she was very concerned. She once again ran tests and nothing was out of whack with my thyroid or anything else. I had been researching weight loss surgery at this point and brought it up to her. She agreed that at this point that was something that I could look into. She also offered up a new pill that was an appetite suppressant that would cost $100 a month.
By this time I had already spent a lot of money on Farrell's and ideal protein and not seen the results I wanted. I told her that since my weight has been a struggle my whole adult life I really wanted to do what was best for the long term. So we decided on the weight loss surgery and she referred me to the hospital in the area that did the procedure. So that is how I got to deciding to have weight loss surgery.
More on the process to get approved and be having surgery....I will post that tomorrow!
