OakCliffMom

[font=georgia,serif][size=4]My Story. Well, if that isn't a loaded title I don't know what is. I have so many stories.[/size][/font]

[font=georgia,serif][size=4]I guess since this is a weight loss forum, I should start with the story of my weight. That tale shakes out more like a timeline, really. Childhood: Chubby kid. Recall dieting with my mom as early as the third grade. High School: Got down to about a size 8-10. Used Jenny Craig or Nutri Systems. . . Can't even remember which one. Most of College: Gained it all back and then some. Darn those Provolone grilled bagels at the Coates Center and Queso and Tortillas from TC's. Senior Year: Jenny Craig again. Modest weight loss, but this time it seemed to stick. And then there was Law School (i.e. the best diet ever for a Type A student who suddenly found herself in over her head academically for the first time): Nothing will send a metabolism into overdrive like pure fear of failure. Combine that with living in a remote town with only 1 fast food restaurant and no more student dining and waaalaa (really not sure how you spell that) the weight just sort of started falling off. I was a solid size 8, sometimes even a 6, by the time I graduated.[/size][/font]

[font=georgia,serif][size=4]The Wedding: You'll no doubt have noticed that I never really mentioned exercise up to this point. I never really did any, either, until the year of my judicial clerkship, which actually coincided with my engagement. That year I spent in an even more remote town where the only local that I had anything at all in common with happened to be a former CPA who decided to open a gym after her own weight loss journey. So I started working out. . . a lot. I had a 9-5 job and a long distance relationship. What else was there to do? I used a food and exercise journal (maybe a little too religiously) and by the wedding, I was 124 pound, hiking up my size 4 Vera Wang, which I really should have had altered one more time, and loving it. Its a good typing I got pictures, but my kids barely recognize me in them.[/size][/font]

[font=georgia,serif][size=4]My 30s: Big city private law practice with its 12 hour days spent mostly behind my desk and its ready access to a constant stream of icy cold diet dr. peppers, we not kind to me on a number of fronts, one of which was my figure. After 10 years of relatively steady weightless or maintenance, 30 found me up a few pounds and pregnant with my first child. Every pound made me want to cry, and believe me there were many to cry over. Its like my body craves weight during pregnancy. I can gain 10 pound before that second line will even think about appearing on that stick. My boy was born, and I went back to Jenny Craig. Third times the charm? Well, not so much in my case. I think I got back down to 180 or so, but then there was the next pregnancy, and the next. I miscarried those babies at about 13 weeks, but I still found, and kept, a few pounds with each. Then there was the adoption weight. . . . who knew the stress of adopting would pack on the pounds like that. Then, when my beautiful daughter was only 6 weeks old, I discovered I was carrying her baby brother. At that point I was 208 which, miraculously, I managed to get back down to by the time I left the hospital with him. They call my OB the Weight Nazi for good reason. [/size][/font]

[size=4][font="georgia, serif"]Then, just as I had hired a trainer and was headed for a healthier lifestyle, my mom was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, my dad with MS. As an only chid and a mother of a then 5 year old, one year old and a 6 month old baby, I switched into crisis mode, quit my job and became the worlds most over-educated chauffeur. My babies spent their first couple of years strapped into car seats as we drove NaNa and Pops from one doctors appointment to another. Her chemo therapy sessions were long 12 hour days and she was hospitalized more than once. He spent 6 weeks in a rehab hospital and ultimately lost the use of his legs. You can't believe how many prescriptions they had between them. And I managed it all.[/font] [/size]I also gained about 40 more pounds in the process.

[font="georgia, serif"]Please do not get me wrong. It was worth it. My mom is enjoying full remission from a disease that everyone said would kill her, and my dad is stable in an assisted living facility if not enjoying the retirement we had hoped for him. My kids are smart and beautiful at 3, 4 and 8, and it is time that I turn this weight issue around once and for all.[/font]

[font="georgia, serif"]So, I am going to get the gastric sleeve procedure. A colleague of my husband has it a few years back and has enjoyed amazing results. I know it is not a quick fix, merely a tool, but I have decided that I owe myself that jump start after all I have been through over the past 3 years. I have enlisted the help and support of my dear friend who has found her second career as a dance fitness instructor, and I am looking towards a brighter future where I can keep up with my kids, at least a little better, and shop for clothes in regular stores. [/font]