Hi there! My name is Kourtney, I am 34 years old, and I have been overweight for as long as I can remember. I think the first time I recall knowing how much I weighed, I was in the fourth grade, and I weighed 90 pounds. I remember even then, seeing that all of the other girls in my class weighed just 60 or 70 pounds, and wondering why I was so different... I won't go into all of the reasons why I was overweight at such a young age, let's just chalk it up to genetics, poor eating habits, and little-to-no parental encouragement to pursue athletic activities.

I went on my first diet when I was 10 years old, and have continued to diet sporadically for the past 24 years. When I was 14, I took up running, and managed to keep my weight pretty steady in the 150's throughout high school... still heavier than many of my classmates, and I considered myself "fat" then, but looking back... What I wouldn't give to weigh 150! In college, I continued to exercise and managed to stay fairly stable with my weight in the 160's. But I started to notice that if I slacked off on the exercise for even a couple of weeks, I would definitely gain a few pounds, and quickly. But I could always rely on losing them pretty easily by hitting the gym. But then, starting in my mid-twenties, exercise no longer worked. I still continued to be fairly active, but started not seeing any results on the scale, and then started actually seeing it move in the opposite direction of what I wanted! Incredibly discouraging.

So I turned back to dieting, trying everything from Weight Watchers, to Atkins, to Medifast, to Paleo. Everything worked at the beginning, I would feel great, losing 10, or even 15 pounds in the first month or two. And then inevitably, the weight loss would slow, I would become discouraged, and slowly lose interest. "What is the point?" I would ask. Little by little, I would start cheating, stop counting points, stop measuring portion sizes. And before I knew it, I would weigh more than I had started out at... sound familiar?

Then in 2010 my Mother, who had also been obese for as long as I could remember, had Gastric Bypass surgery. For her, it seemed like a "no-brainer". Only in her 60's, she was an insulin-dependent diabetic, wore a CPAP to sleep at night, and could barely walk a hundred yards without experiencing chest pains. I remember encouraging her to look into the surgery at the time, because I knew that if she didn't do something I would likely be losing her in the next 10 years. Never, though did I imagine that I would be contemplating a similar surgery in the next few years! I just needed to keep exercising, and find the right diet!

But then, wow! What a change I saw in my mother. She went from being the sedentary, obese woman I had known all of my life, to being an active, energetic size-10 woman who does water aerobics, rides a bike, and walks for fun!

My mom at her heaviest, and a more recent photo (She made me blur her face)

I started to look at weight loss surgery differently. Instead seeing it as some sort of of the last ditch measure to help manage diabetes, sleep apnea, and heart disease in my aging mother, I began to see that it could be a tool for someone younger. Someone who had struggled with their weight all of their life. Someone like me. Why wait until I am older, and sicker to consider it as an option? Why not do it now, and not struggle for the next thirty years like my mom did?

So I made one last effort at diet and exercise, this past December. I lasted less than a week, and then fell ill with the flu. For me, that was a sign... So I did my research, found a surgeon three hours away that does the Vertical Sleeve for a very reasonable cash price, made an appointment with him on January 29th, and am scheduled for my sleeve in just over two weeks. I plan on journaling my experience here for anyone else who may be struggling with the decision, to give a real, first hand account my day-by-day struggles and successes.

Looking forward to writing my next entry, by then I'll be almost a week into my two-week liquid diet. Now I'm headed out for a run!!

Me at a "happier weight" and at my heaviest