Weight and See

Over the past few days, I have realized that there are many things in my life I should be documenting. The most important right now would be my journey through weight gain and hopefully loss. Through the years I have struggled with this my entire life. I have not even gotten to the procedure yet, and I am already having people asking me questions about it. Asking what kind of programs I have done before, and how I got to the point I am at now.

Let me tell you, it has not been easy. I have tried everything from calorie counting, personal training, medical supervised hCG weight loss, and just plain old exercise. I consider myself genetically unfortunate. I know there is more I can do to help myself, I just need help to do it. Weight-loss surgery is going to be the key for me to finally winning this battle. Let me start by giving you a brief history…

I have been fighting my weight my entire life. I'm going to focus on the last five years, since explaining away 20 would be very difficult. Through childhood and teenage years I suffered from being overweight. The year before my wedding 2005-2006 I kept a calorie journal and did personal training, and worked out six out of seven days a week for two hours a day, and maintained a 1200 to 1500 cal diet. this resulted in the loss of 35 pounds. This may seem like a lot to most of you, but for all the work it was not worth it. I really should've lost double that. After getting married, still in a plus size gown, I continued exercise and a reasonable diet.

Over the years my weight continued to yo-yo. Five years ago I hit my heaviest, until now, and decided I needed to take drastic measures. I visited a medical weight-loss center and started the hCG diet. I had also tried pills, but those did not work as well. The HCG diet is very expensive and difficult. You lose about 20 pounds a month but it cost you a few hundred dollars at a time, and often you need to do multiple rounds. You can only eat 500 cal a day and you are restricted to a very small list of specific foods. After the diet you must continue a program called maintenance to maintain your weight. I speak from experience, that if you want to stay your weight you must follow this and not stray. After about a year and a half or so of maintaining fairly well, we started trying for a baby. During my pregnancy I gained a lot of weight, and only lost some after. I unfortunately encountered postpartum depression, and sciatica issues making the weight pile on after baby. It has been a continued struggle and downward spiral since.

I am now at my heaviest, and most miserable. I have health issues, and I'm prediabetic. My life needs to change. I have a three-year-old daughter who needs me, as well as a loving and supportive husband. I will be doing the gastric sleeve procedure. It is my great hope for a future and a normal life.

I started the journey six months ago. I contacted my insurance and contacted the southern Arizona Center for Minimally Invasive Surgery with Dr. Chaisson. I know someone who in the past has gone to him for the surgery and had great success. After going to a pre-consultation seminar, I got insurance verification that they do cover most of the surgery costs, and was able to go for my first consult. My insurance requires six months of supervised primary care physician visits before you can get the surgery done. I also needed to go for a psych eval and nutritional counseling. As of April 27, 2015, I completed the six months with my PCP. I have completed all other steps as well, and my paperwork has been submitted to insurance for final approval. I am on pins and needles awaiting the word from the insurance that all is a go. I will feel so much better once I have my final surgery date.

I will try to continue to keep everyone posted on how I am doing and how this process affects my life. I hope that others can learn from my experiences.

Some before and afters from HCG

Sept 2010

May 2015