needtorecover

So my weight issues started when I was about 10 years old.  I told my mom I thought I was fat and she put me on Weight Watchers.  Thus began my downward spiral into the nightmarish world of dieting.  I tried counting points, counting calories, grams of fat, carbohydrates, sugar, and fiber.  I tried eliminating fat from my diet, tried eliminating carbs, eliminating sugar.  One cannot eliminate an entire food group, I've learned.  I tried every diet you can think of.  South Beach, Atkins, Weight Watchers, Suzanne Summers Summersize, the Cabbage Soup Diet, the Slim Fast diet, Special K challenge... I even tried that lemon juice/cayenne pepper cleanse.  Eventually I resorted to weight loss pills and used ephedrine for 3 years.  I lost 40 pounds and was a lithe 155 (at 5'9") and felt amazing.  But then I found out ephedrine was fatal so I stopped taking it, and regained all the weight.
 
Then I just got tired of it all.  I got tired of the deprivation, of the constant vigilance, the hunger which was a constant background noise to my everyday life, thinking about food all day, agonizing over food choices, panicking when I found myself in a situation where I couldn't control the food being served... So I stopped caring and started eating what I wanted, when I wanted it.  And it felt AWESOME.  But it unfortunately led to a huge weight gain.  I was 155... now I'm 315.  The price I paid for satisfying my raging appetite.
 
It was fine for a while.  I still felt good, no aches or pains, I still had plenty of energy and realized being fat didn't mean I wasn't a valuable or loveable person.  There was just more of me to love!
 
Years later, however, my health started to feel the effects of my poor choices.  Labored breathing, difficulty moving, constant fatigue, feeling uncomfortable in airplane seats, difficulty tying my shoes, losing my desire to go out and about, losing my libido, aching knees and hips... Again, the price I paid for ditching the diets.
 
I'm having my lap band placed on Monday.  I'm hoping it will halt my appetite and make it easier to stop overeating.  I'm hoping my ability to make good choices will come easier without the burning desire to stuff myself sick.  I'd like to be able to lose weight without making it an obsession.  I don't want to think about food constantly anymore.  I don't want to feel deprived or hungry.  I just want to live like a normal person without weight issues. 
 
This is my story, and I'm excited to start the next chapter after my surgery on Monday.  Here's to getting my health and life back in 2016!