My new year’s resolution wasn’t to lose weight. It was 2016 and all I wanted to do was finish my bachelors and move up in my career. It was around February that I was brave enough to finally get on the scale.  I knew I had gained weight, none of my clothes fit, my face was fat, and I broke out in a sweat doing the simplest of tasks.  I had tried to lose weight before on my own but nothing worked so I joined weight watchers and slowly the pounds began coming off.  I got excited but it wasn’t coming off fast enough—I wanted more weight off quicker.  I started getting up at 4:00am to go to the gym before work.  I was drinking about 100oz of water a day.  Sounds healthy right? Well I was also splitting a slimfast shake and mixing it with ice in a blender to make it more filling and I would drink one every morning. Lunch would be a smart one, dinner something small, and every Tuesday and Friday I took a laxative. I was eating less and less.  The weight came off initially but then it stalled at about 36lbs. I was starving, living on laxatives and was constantly fatigued despite my hour in the gym each morning. I got really depressed and in May I began taking anti-depressant/anti-anxiety medication.

While I had never felt mentally better in my life, my physical health started to deteriorate.  The 36lbs I lost quickly came back and no matter what I did I couldn’t get it off.  The weight kept climbing.  By November I had gained an additional 40lbs due to the anti-depressant. (I want to stress that my eating habits did NOT change, I did stop exercising as the medicine made it impossible to get up at 4:00am, but even so the weight gain was extraordinary—and if you read my other blogs you know that since I’ve switched anti-depressants I’ve been able to lose some weight.) I had enough, I scheduled an appointment with the nutritionist and we discussed eating habits and such.  She asked if I had thought about bariatric surgery.  I had a little but I didn’t tell her that.  She said my BMI made me a candidate and she gave me the contact information for the bariatric team at UofM. I looked at it as a last resort so I implemented her changes and continued to go to my PCP.  By January I was over it so I called and scheduled my first bariatric appointment—they didn’t have an opening until March but they said I could contact my insurance, let them know I wanted to go through the program and find out how many MD supervised weight loss visits I needed and begin them (the call was simple, and my insurance requires 6 consecutive months).  I scheduled my first supervised weight loss visit for January 27^th and that began my bariatric journey.

Until later. Blessed be.