Jolly Jester

Like so many of you that I connected with, I have always had a weight problem.  My first diet was at age 13, and over the course of a year, I lost about 45 lbs.  Then the yo-yo started.  It seemed that every few years, I'd end up back where I started and have to embark on another intense diet/exercise program, and lose from 20-35 lbs.  Gradually the weight went up and up.  I am a active person,  stay busy,  and when I am exercising about 3-4 days a week,  I can maintain my weight.  When I am not exercising,  I am gaining.  To lose weight, at my current age,  I am having to eat about 1000 cal a day and exercise 5 days a weeks for the proverbial 2 lbs a week.  It actually took me a while to admit that I would have to have help in this area because I am a very independent person and have always prided myself on being able to do anything on my own.   But I feared that if I did the diet/exercise thing again, without something changing, I would eventually end up back at the same place.  So I was at a stall.  Then everything changed,  I was playing tennis, and one of my teammates had lost a significant amount of weight.  When I asked what she was doing to lose, she simply stated that she had had gastric sleeve surgery.  Her starting BMI was about the same as mine, which was 35-36.  Like me, she did not have serious co-morbidities, just the joint pain, back pain, GERD, and the ever present, poor body image.  Like me, she had been worn down over the years with the back and forth of her weight. I finally gave myself permission to do the research.  Because I would be paying cash, I did research going to Mexico like my friend,  but overall,  I decided that I felt more comfortable using a local surgeon with a good reputation, even though if would be more expensive.  I had surgery on 11/23/2015, and this is the start of a new journey, a new life, one with long term success as a possibility.