Hi everyone! I figured I would start a blog here, specifically about my journey. So let me introduce myself, my name is Amanda, I'm 24 and I have a bmi of right around 50. BUT no co-morbidities as of yet, thank goodness but I do have diabetes in my family so I may be playing with fire.) I have been overweight, or morbidly obese since I was in like....4th grade. I wasn't fat growing up-I played sports, but then my parents got divorced when I was in the 4th grade and there was an ugly custody battle and I started eating and stopped moving and I got fatter. I'm pretty sure (not 100%) that by 6th grade I could have been classified as morbidly obese or close to it, I was a whale! I didn't have a lot of friends, not until I joined JROTC in high school and learned I liked to run and sweat and have friends but my love affair with food was overwhelming for me. So I got fatter. Went to colelge, got into Zumba and ate a little better. Lost a few pounds but it came back. Transferred colleges, moved home.Got Phentermine the first time, lost quite a few pounds, got off meds gained it all back. Became a commuter student so I knew/know very few people from my several years there. Went to my pcp again to talk specifically about weight loss all I got was "try weight watchers and eat better and oh yea, here's another prescription for Phentermine (woohoo drugs that make me not hungry! ) Gained it all back when the meds were gone). I love to go hiking/swimming/adventuring and have no issues doing so by myself. Well, I take my dog(s) but food is still so freaking great. I've most recently tried Atkins (lost close to 20 pounds-gained it back after I started carbs again), ate the "broke college student"diet- this consisted of lots of water and cheap food, think-spaghettios, hot dogs, or nothing. I lost like 35 pounds and then I graduated and moved in with my mom and I gained it all back plus probably an extra 5-10 pounds. I've tried water fasting(super great for you, flushes it out toxins and fat) for a few days but all the weight I gained back I of course regained it all plus 5-10 because my body was like "YOU DIDN'T FEED ME FOR 3 DAYS, EAT EVERYTHING IN SIGHT!" Yea. Baaaad idea. Sadly, except a few pictures of a super young me all of the pictures ever taken of me I'm fat in.

So, stay with me kids, here's when it gets a bit...convoluted. I went to a lap-band seminar when I was 17-they didn't do the surgery for people under 18 so I didn't really think about the possibility of weight loss surgery again until my step mom got the RnY and lost a crap ton of weight. I don't live with her so I only saw the after product, she's done a wonderful job at maintaining the loss. My dad brought it up a few years ago and I thought about it and did more research but I'm already anemic (it runs in the family, on the female side and it blows hard) and didn't want to deal with the malabsorption. When I moved in with my mom and did more soul searching and found the gastric sleeve and realized that it would probably be a good idea to into it more. I scheduled my surgical consult (I lived in Houston at the time), my insurance has a 6 month supervised diet so I was in the process of finding a new pcp to supervise me. And then we moved...to Wyoming. In the middle of nowhere Wyoming (this was in December). I did some more reading and found this forum, after lurking for a while I decided to join. Bear with me it's gonna get messy. My mom (who I moved with) found a new house to buy and so after we close (on Friday woohoo!) and move and do a few repairs I have decided to move to the Raleigh NC area to live with my dad and stepmom in order to go through the weight loss surgery process. I decided I wanted to go through the process with someone in the house that had 'been there, done that' and could help me especially post-op.

So there's my story. I hope in the coming months (I should be headed to NC in 2-3 weeks) I will be able to document the process of jumping through the hoops of the insurance company and finally starting my life for real...being able to go on the same 4 mile hike much easier and much longer, participating in the couch to 5k program, going backpacking, fitting in the plane seat embarrassment free etc...

PS the picture is me, hiking in one of Texas' state parks...fat. I could be so much more NOT fat!