JAS5890

I'm 22 years old. I live in New York City and work for Apple. I am also a full time student at NYU finishing up my senior year. I have always had a struggle with weight loss. In my life, in almost everything I do, I strive to do it with perfection. I grew up a very privileged lifestyle and always had everything I needed. However, what I was never able to achieve was the confidence in myself that everyone else said they saw in me.

When I was a junior in high school, I decided to lose the weight. I was 374 on August 29, 2008 and I immediately started working out and cutting my diet cold turkey. I ate a lot of turkey and chicken breast sandwich meat and loads of mustard. I also exercised 5-6 days a week doing an extraneous cardio program. The weight began to fall off and by 6 months, I had lost 100lbs. By 9 months I had lost another 65 pounds and I felt as though I had the world resting in my hands.I walked down to get my diploma in my Armani suit as proud as I could be. I had so much energy and so much LIFE. Over the next 12 months, I kept off the weight and continued to work out at the gym, just not eat excessively.

But durring the summer of 2009, after my parents decided to get a divorce and the drama that ensued, I started to fall off my path. I moved to New York City knowing absolutely no one. NYU was such a large school and it was a life altering experience immediately. I soon got a job with Apple and began to work full time as I went to school full time. I was really enjoying my life until i realized that my weight was coming back on. I had always promised myself that I would never let the weight come back but soon enough, I had to buy new clothes and I started to lose hope. I was so busy with work and school that I had no time to devote to myself, to my body. I refused to weigh myself as I was ashamed at the fact that I had been so successful and had inspired so many people around me through what I had done. I was embarrassed and felt worthless.

I moved to London August 2011 for a year and met an amazing group of people who loved me for just being me. They didnt care that I was overweight and they were so excited about my personality and my americanisms that ti never even became a topic of interest. When I came back to america this past August, I had to face my friends and family whom I knew would see me as a failure. I scheduled myself with my family doctor in Richmond Virginia October 2012 and got on the scale for the first time in almost 3 years. I was up to 399lbs. A number that made me, a strong male, burst out into tears while i waited for the doctor to come in. I scheduled my lapband for the 20th of Novemebr, 2012.

My insurance knows that I can lose the weight myself so they refuse to cover my surgery which means nearly $20,000.00 out of pocket which really should have to student loans. I think that this is the most important thing for me to do in my life right now. I see the lapband as not so much a tool to help me lose the weight, but rather, a tool to help me keep it off for the rest of my life. I am so eager to start this journey.

I'm on week 2 of my pre op liver shrinking diet and know that I have lost more weight. I would love to talk/skypeto people my age who are going through this and need some support. The number on that scale does not define who you are. It's taken me a while to understand that. I am so happy to start the next journey of my life as I graduate college and begin loosing this weight. I am not meant to be fat, nor will I be.