vpb0

The best advice I can give on long distance running is to have a running partner or find a group to go with due to the longer times it takes, as distance increases, to get done. My buddy Melisa and I kept each other honest with our running schedule. There are mornings when you don't feel like getting up, much less running, and knowing she would be there at a set time could make me drag on out when I might have not gone on my own. I still run, but unfortunately my last DEXA scan revealed the onset of degenerative arthritis in my cervical, thoracic, and lumbar spine. My primary care recommends that I lean toward less high impact exercise, so I've been riding my bike more, free weights, and yoga. Congratulations on your success. Please stay in contact with me on your journey!

I'm forty-four years old, and had gastric bypass surgery May 6th, 2006. The first time I remember being called "fat"was when I was about eight years old at the skating rink and fell, causing the skinny girl behind me to trip. "GET OUT OF MY WAY FATTY!", she yelled. I was heartbroken and cried my eyes out. From then on, I never felt like I quite measured up to everyone else because of my weight. I battled with my weight from then on, going on every fad diet known to man. I probably lost and gained five thousand pounds. I lost down to 116 lbs my senior year in high school because I was eating 500 calories a day. I would come home from school and go to bed until the next day, but hey, I was skinny. I got married when I was eighteen and had two children, gaining around thirty pounds with each pregnancy, and keeping the weight on after the births. I was married for twelve years and then divorced. I remarried and had my third son....and gained more weight. My husband and I play in a band together, and we were at a festival in between shows. I was holding my son, who was around 5 months old. I weighed about 220 lbs, and my husband made a derogatory statement about my weight while I was eating. (He denies it today, but...). I realized that day that he would never respect me while I was fat. That was the day I decided to have the surgery. When I went in for surgery I weighed about 238 lbs. I went through all of the pre-surgery stuff, and made my goal weight at 150 lbs. The first year, the weight came off like hot butter, and I not only met my goal weight, I surpassed it ending up at 143lbs for about a year. That was surreal, because I hadn't allowed my mind to go past the 150 lb mark. After the first year, as I could eat more, my weight slowly crept up to around 150 lbs. I try to give myself a 5 pound limit, reigning my weight back in if I get to 155 pounds. I began going to the gym after my weight loss, and began weight training and running. After running several 5Ks, I ran a few half-marathons, and finally, about 4 years ago, I ran a full marathon in Savannah through the Rock n Roll series. I didn't break any world records, (well maybe for "slowest"). While I really never wish to run another full marathon, I wouldn't trade the six months I trained, and the actual marathon, for anything in the world. It made me realize how much I had limited myself all these years. I based every single thing I'd ever done on the "failure cloud" I'd hung on myself because of my weight. I went back to school, finished my bachelor's degree, and began taking prerequisites for PA school after 23 years of being an xray tech. The bad things after 10 years post-op? I am weaker physically, even taking all my vitamins, and I have some memory loss. I don't know if that's related to the surgery, but I think it is. If anyone else out there is around 10 years post op and has had memory loss I'd like to know. I am a more confident person. I am still mad at myself because I underwent a major surgery because of what others thought of me. There's more stuff, I just can't remember it all...