I have rarely known a time that I was not overweight after I became a teenager. My mother was morbidly obese and I always grew up with the fear that I would also become obese. I remember sadly being embarrassed for my mother and I never wanted to be "the kind of mom" that my kids would have to be embarrassed for me either.

I was at a normal weight when I was 13, which I know now, but at 125 I felt fat. But I was determined to fight this and be thin. This changed for me when my grandmother told me that I was fat and that no matter what I did I would be fat like my mother. At that point I remember just giving up and started putting on the pounds. Throughout school I had no self-esteem and was a figure for redicule throughout elementary and high school, for various reasons. I generally weighed about 195 and was proud that I at least never hit 200, but I was miserable and never could do anything. I limited my life based on my size and let other's opinions of me determine who I was.

At 20 I met a good friend and together we started working out and dieting and I lost down to 145. It was wonderful and I became this happy positive person, I was outgoing and energetic and people called me "peppy". I loved it, but again I let others determine who I was. I met my husband to be and we dated , got engaged and married all within 8 months. Everything was great and then I got pregnant and then the pounds started packing back on. I remember crying that I would be be fat and he would stop loving me. He told me that he would love me but not respect me. That was a big issue and one we had to work through and I know today he really does still love and respect me but those words hurt badly at the time. His mother had even asked him if he could handle me getting fat, because she knew I would after meeting my mother.

Fast forward to 6 kids later and many diets and trying to lose weight and now I weigh 278 (again proud at least I never hit 280, how delusional was I?). I had become a couch potato, afraid to meet and make friends. Never felt worthy of being a friend and why would anyone want to be "my friend"? I isolated from others and didnt volunteer in my kids' classrooms, well rarely anyway. I know a lot of this was my own self esteem issues and fear, but my childhood taught me that I was not capable of fitting into the real world.

I did go back to college (at the push of my one friend and husband) and got my Master's in Social Work, but that let me experience even more prejudice. In class I would sit there the first day and no one would want to sit next to me. Soon we would have to seperate into groups for our group assignments and no one would want to be my partner, like they assumed I was stupid or something. The only nice thing was after the first group project people were wanting to be in my group because dang it I was a smart woman and worked hard. Over time I saw people begin to respect me, but I had to overcome their prejudice of fat people. I did graduate with suma cum laude with a 3.97 GPA and felt success for the first time in my life.

I had developed knee problems, back problems, pre-diabetes, arthritis, plantars faciatitis, depression and other such ailments. I was always tired and never wanted to do or go anywhere. Ok that is wrong I wanted badly to do everything but I was not able to do it, or I believed I was not able to do it. I had applied for WLS while I was going to college but I lost too much weight and I was denied. So last August I started my journey again to take my life back and become the woman I have always been, beautiful and proud, but hardly anyone had been willing to see me. So I began this journey, did the 6 month set of diet classes and all the other hoops. Fearful I would be denied again, but I was not and here I am 7 weeks post-op in the beginning stages of my journey.

My surgery was June 7, 2012. I had lost 11 pounds the week before surgery (after approval had come through - LOL) and at my surgery date I weighed 250, Today I weigh 221 which is a loss of 40 pounds since this began. I am not done, I have much more to lose and much much more to gain. I am ready to claim myself back. I am ready to claim back my health and my life. I am ready to explore the world that I have always been afraid to explore. I am ready to make my family proud of me. I am ready to be proud of myself, its about time!