mrscastillo

Growing up, I always knew I was intelligent. I never "got" high school and I never understood why some women are so obsessed with other women and their choices. I also never "got" the whole obsession with actors. I know I will never meet one and if I do, he is not going to sweep me off my feet and marry me. Come on, how many actors are married to regular people? And if there are some, how many found the average woman walking down the street? However, I always knew I'd marry someone just like me. Someone who loves to get out and do things. Someone who loves nature. Someone who loves New York City as much as he loves a log cabin in the middle of nowhere.
 
I was wrong. I married my best friend, and I have no regrets However, he's the type of man I never thought I would be with. The kind of guy I used to stand up for high school even though I never quite got their obsession with D&D and computers. I always did understand the feeling of not fitting in or thinking a little or lot outside of the box. I watched "Sliders" and "Quantum Leap" but "Dr. Who" and "Star Trek" were never interesting to me. When I met my husband, I used to laugh at him when he would put on these shows, or when he would sit in front of computer for hours on end killing imaginary creatures in imaginary worlds. But, lately, I've realized that my husband didn't change me, he allowed me to find and appreciate my inner geek. And to be honest, I kind of like her.
 
She's smart. She get's sarcasm (in case you haven't noticed from my blogs). She's direct. She's a leader. She's a pretty darn cool chick if you ask me. But, there are still things I don't like. Old "Dr. Who" is boring to me (please don't yell at me for that), "Star Trek" isn't as bad, but I can always find something else to watch, and I still don't understand the whole, sit in front of the computer, killing others thing. Why would I do that when I can sit on here reading status updates from people I haven't seen in twenty years and probably have nothing in common with or "PIN" things that I will never do? I mean come on, at least my stuff COULD happen...one day...maybe....ok, NEVER. LOL.
 
So, for now, I am allowing my inner dork to show her head sometimes. I think we all have a little bit of this person inside of us. The person we tried to hide from others (especially in H.S). The person who sings and dances in the kitchen for no reason and makes up songs while chopping veggies...(in the "here comes the bride tune) "Here comes the knife....all in my hand...he's going to get you and help send you to tummy land" Yes, I do all of those things. I am a DORK. I am a GEEK. I am NERD.....but, I'm also all those other things I've been my whole life....now, I'm just more complete.
 
 
NOTE: I read this to my husband and his response was, "You left out the SCA" Now, for those who doubt I married a geek, you can go check out www.sca.org. The website will explain it much better than I can. No it's not like the move, "Role Models" or a Renfair However, my husband does leave me for weeks at a time to roll play and 'kill" other people. I am not involved....this is just one thing I never could "get" but hey, let my husband enjoy his inner geek....his is much more out in the open than mine.

So I thought I'd begin my blog by talking about what my life was like leading up to the surgery. My story is probably quite similar to many of yours. I have been overweight since I hit puberty at age 11. In that same year I was molested by someone I trusted and there was never any resolution. All of that coupled with the fact that my family (especially the southern - Mississippi family) did not have any restrictions on how much or what we ate, I was doomed from the start. I ate my way through middle school and high school. I was always the fat kid; the girl picked last and picked on. During this time, I moved around a lot. My mom and stepdad (who raised me) were getting divorced, my mom was on Meth, and life at home was hard so I tried living with family in Montana, Oregon, and Mississippi. And through it all I ate.
 
High school was particularly troubling. I never had a boyfriend; I was ostracized by the other students at school. I was very unpopular due to my weight. I went to my prom...alone. All I wanted was to be accepted, but no one could see past the fat. My one saving grace was that I was smart and graduated with honors. I was now living in Las Vegas with my Step Dad Brian (who raised me and who I consider to be my Dad). He encouraged me to eat better, but after years of overeating, it was easier said than done. College made it worse. I started at community college and worked a full time job at the same time. Needless to say, my eating habits took a dive in college due to my busy and stressful schedule. I had moved out, took on a second job, and transferred to the university. In my desperation and loneliness, I started seeing a married man (one of the single biggest regrets I have in my life).
 
After college, I got a job working for the local cable company, but always felt like an outcast because of my weight which had spiked at 255. Then my doctor turned me on to South Beach. At first it worked great! I lost nearly 65 pounds. I started feeling better...but as with every diet I tried, I started to plateau, got frustrated and the rate of loss, and fell back into poor eating habits. To make matters worse, during the plateau I was out of work for 4 months due to the recession and gained all the weight I had lost back and then some.
 
I finally found a new job in HR at one of the casinos and tried to get back on track with healthy eating. I gave up eating from any restaurant with a drive through and gave up drinking soda. It worked at first and I got back down to 255, but it was short lived. My office was right across from the employee dining room and all the free lattes I could drink and brownies I could eat. In the course of a year I ballooned up to 268 pounds. My company started to offer onsite weight watchers programs so I joined up with my best friend of 14 years and we started to lose weight. She lost 60 pounds, I lost 10. Frustrating right? So I went back to good old South Beach which I had success on before. I didn't lose more than 20 pounds. I was getting very down and for a time completely gave up on myself. I started eating fast food and drinking soda again. I figured that I was one of those people who couldn't lose weight and why bother fighting it.
 
I had flirted with the idea of weight loss surgery for about 8 years up to this point but always had a reason why not to do it. Then I had 2 major wake up calls, the first is I developed sleep apnea as a result of my weight. If you have ever had this you know how terrifying it can be to be jolted awake in the ***ht, heart pounding, gasping for breath. My doctor said the only way to get rid of it was to lose weight. The second wake up call came when I had an appointment with my OB GYN. My period had gone from a 4 day light flow to a 30+ day light, then heavy, then light flow. As it turned out I had developed menorrhagia. To top it off, my ovaries had stopped regularly producing an egg. To put it bluntly, my weight was making me unable to have children. I never realized how much I wanted kids until I was told I couldn't have them...unless I lost weight.
 
My weight had skyrocketed to 285 pounds and I knew that if I didn't make a PERMANENT change that my life would be short and unhappy. Enough was enough. I started getting serious about the surgery option and doing a lot of research. Then after a year, I had sleeve surgery on July 10, 2012. It was time for a change. I chose the sleeve over the band because I knew myself well enough to know that I would probably chicken out at some point and have the band removed and balloon right back up to where I had been before. With the sleeve, I took that option away. I needed something permanent! I now have 2 birthdays, the day I was brought into this world, and the day my new life began…July 10th, 2012.

So fellow sleevers and to-be sleevers. Since I started the weight loss surgery journey back in Jan of 2011, I had so many people asking me about dieting and exercise along the way and I would try to supply them with some kind of information to help. I'd like to think I had some influence on at least one or two people, my aunt has lost something like 70 lbs by following the diet that I was given pre-op to lose the required amount of weight for surgery. My parents seek advice, as well as a few friends also. For some reason I had thought that people wouldn't ask any of this of me. I think I still feel like "everyone" feels I took the easy way out, which whatever they think is fine with me. If someone thinks I took the easy way out then they don't know me enough to be a true friend or family member to understand what I have gone through not only this past year, but my entire life for me to make such a huge decision. But anyways, I'm always smiling underneath when someone asks me for advice because I love to share my ideas, recipes, and tricks for diet and exercise. I've been talking to my husband, about possibly trying to link my nursing license with some kind of nutrition certificate or degree. I've looked briefly online with no luck yet, but I would love to help people looking to lose weight get through it, with or without surgery. I think that by simply being there one on one with a person and talking to them every day or so or going through their pantry or whatever they need to be motivated would be my dream job. I know for one, I hated going to my dieticians appointments because here are these skinny minnies who probably have never had a weight problem thier whole like trying to tell me how to eat and lose weight. If I could help someone by sharing my own experiences and such and my own tricks... oh man.. I think I found my calling.. LOL.
 
Another part of it is that I LOVE to cook. Part of me wishes I had chosen a career in culinary because I absolutely love to cook new things and try new things. Since my surgery I've been very very careful though. I've almost been afraid to cook. But I'm starting to change my view on recipes and trying new but healthier recipes that are higher in protein and veggies and less in fat and calories. My parents have suggested that I start some kind of service to help people lose weight by offering "fast food" or home delivered healthy based meals. So for the working person who wants to lose weight and goes to buy all the healthy stuff and loads the fridge with veggies and such, but most of the time throws them out rotten because at the end of the day take out is so much better, they could instead call and order a healthy but fulfilling meal. I've been contemplating a lot and I think I may be on to something here, but I just need to pull it together I think...