carlotareyes

My experience with dieting started when I was a little girl about 10 years of age. Both sides of my family tended to be overweight/obese, so my mother was diligent at making sure my sister and I did not follow that path. Besides calorie counting my mother put me on the Sego diet (like slimfast), banana diet and the stewardess diet. In highschool I just starved myself. Later on in college, after gaining my freshman 30, I went on phen-fen. After leaving college I put on about 50 pounds and I continued with weight watchers (several times), atkins (several times), other low-carb diets, HCG diet, low fat diet, raw-vegan diet (3 days). Before I got married I did the physician assisted weightloss program using diet drugs and herbs. I have lost 70 pounds twice, and 20-30 pounds several times over.

This past fall 2011 I once again reached over 210 pounds. Everything I ate was another pound on the scale. My metabolism was non-existent, I was tired all the time. I was mentally done with diets. I researched the lap band and found that there were many complications associated with it. I did not want to do gastric by-pass because my BMI was not high enough for that and I was not interested in re-routing my intestines. I came across the gastric sleeve on YouTube specificaly with Dr. Guillermo Alvarez' video from Endobariatric. After reading quite a bit on the subject and looking at several web sites, I had a really good feeling that this was the answer for me. I always go with my gut feeling and I'm usually right in doing so. I contacted Susan (the coordinator for Endobariatric), the rest is history.

I had the most wonderful, flawless experience in completing my gastric sleeve. The whole process of traveling to Piedras Negras, Mexico for my surgery was worry free and would do it again in a heart beat. The whole medical team was exceptional and would highly recommend Dr. Alvarez. Dr. Alvarez has yearly patient reunions and I look forward to attending the one next year at my one year surgery-versary.