WouldYouEva
I was a skinny kid. A TALL skinny kid. Shirts were always too short in length and never seemed to go to my wrists. Then, one night in 1967, I went to bed a flat-chested tall skinny girl and woke up average height, large breasted (my training bra was a C cup!), and FAT.
Or so I thought. Looking back at my pictures, I can see it wasn't enough to sweat over, some toning exercise and I would have been fine. But what teen believes that?
Got married. Went up to 212 lbs. Went to Weight Watchers for the first time a few months after I turned 24 (and my father had recently died), spent 9 months (and too much money!) doing that, was 150 lbs. for about 10 minutes when I just got tired of counting, weighing, and going hungry. Got pregnant at the age of 25, gained 69 lbs., gave birth to a 9.25 lb. baby.
The next 5 years, I lost, gained, gained more, lost gained, gained more. Finally, in 1986 at around 250 lbs. I gave up dieting. I did some exercising but not enough, spent almost 5 years trying to have another baby, had a 9.75 lb. baby, gaining about 10 lbs. during the pregnancy. The midwives CONSTANTLY nagged me to eat. I did, but it didn't want to stay in my stomach long enough.
Was against the surgery. It was recommended for my husband but he died before we could jump through the insurance hoops. Planned to do this a few years ago, when the band came in, but then I had an employer who didn't cover it. Then changed employers (but not jobs), and found it was covered. Right before my DH died, I was at my peak weight of 315 lbs. but I didn't have much of an appetite for months afterwards and lost 18 lbs. (Not a diet I'd recommend!)
Also, November 30, 2008, my son told me about an eating plan a friend of his was trying. It was called NO S for no sweets, no snacks, no seconds unless the day of the week began with S. I started it the next day, reasoning that if I could do it during December, I could do it the rest of the year. Since then I've lost 45 lbs. more.
Now I'm getting a VSG and thinking of aiming for between 150 and 170 lbs. I am in constant pain from osteoarthritis. I long for the day I can wander thru the woods near home. Or take a bike to the store instead of the car. In memory of my mom, who died at age 66 and my DH, who died at age 60, I'm going to do what I can to live a long life.
