Let me first tell you a little about myself. I grew up as a very athletic and yes a very skinny kid without a care in the world. Then the teenage years hit and I started battling depression. As a result I was put on drug after drug, many of which cause weight gain or atleast an inevitable carb obsession which leads to obeseity. I essentially became my feelings: slow, sluggish. I used food to try to fix my problems. But it didn't work, so I ate more and more.Don't get me wrong even in my teens and twenties there were times when I was healthy and thin, but then I would yo-yo back everytime my medications would have to be changed or tweaked to treat my depression and anxiety. From the time I graduated college 2008 to 2011, I yo-yoed up 100 lbs from 155 lbs weight to almost 257 lbs at 5'4''. This was the position I found myself at when I started my process of approval for lapband surgery in July of 2011. I was over 250 lbs. A size 22 pants and xxl in tops. It was the seemingly little things that made life so miserable as an overweight person. Some of these little things included walking from my car into the schools for work. I got mad at myself everytime I forgot something upstairs because the walk up the steps took my breath away. I would get blinding back pain. And then there were the times when people asked me "when is the baby due?" that really ruined my self esteem. I guess it wasn't there fault. I did look like an egg on stilts with my apple shape and protruding tummy.

I knew right away that a typical diet wouldn't work for me. As long as I was able to each such large amounts of food it wouldn't matter what food I was eating (even healthy food is not longer healthy if the quantity is too large). I needed something to help my control the bottomless pit that was my stomach. Something that would stop my stomach from being treated like the trash compactor that it had become. Most importantly I needed a solution that would allow me to still absorb the medications I needed to maintain my mood. The lapband was the tool I chose to help myself lose weight. Yes, it is a tool not a fix all or miracle cure.

So far I have used my tool along with diet and exercise to lose about 60 lbs. I am now in what some people call "onderland" where that first number on the scale is a 1 instead of a 2,3,4 etc. It has to be one of the best feelings in the world. I now wear a size 14 pants and a large top. Even though I'm not what many people call skinny or what I even consider skinny, I know that the decision I made and the sucess I have earned and deserve is signifigant to my health and wellbeing. I now don't have to struggle so much with the physical and emotional weight that was taking over my life. I can walk, I can even run (a little) and I love cycling. It hasn't been easy. In fact, it has been really hard to give up the food that I was using to comfort myself; in fact I still battle emotions that cause me to overeat, but now I feel like it's a battle I can win.