Valkyrie568

I am married to my best friend and have been since I was 20 we have been commercial farmers for most of our married lives but my husband is now working as a construction surveyor and we travel most of the year and live in our RV. This is a major adjustment because at home in Wyoming we don't have any neighbors within site, which I love for many reasons but a big one is that my favorite summer-time cardio is to go outside after the sun goes down and dance! That's not going to happen in an RV Park.  We have three grown children. My husband hikes 5-12 miles per day during his surveying, and he's also a natural ectomorph, so he weighs barely more than he weighed when we got married. I feel as though when we're in public people must speculate that I steal all of his food (I'm fairly serious about this  ). I am a run-to-fat mesomorph.

I was a slim child and youth but I think I may have caused some damage to my metabolism even then. My family didn't have that "clean your plate rule" but they did have a policy that if you didn't like what was for dinner,  your other choice was to go without.  My family were ranchers and they usually cooked what I disparagingly call 'Farmer Food: flour dredged pan-fried meat, mashed potatoes and gravy, and usually either corn, green beans or peas. I DESPISE 'Farmer Food' and so would frequently go without. Fortunately, my mom and aunts would take turns cooking dinner for the whole family one night a week and my Italian aunt made food that I considered worth eating. But the whole family commented on the fact that I ate like a camel, only really eating very much for dinner one night a week. There was always at least side items on the table including cottage cheese, so at least I was always getting some quality protein for dinner. But if I didn't like lunch, white bread, mayonnaise, bologna, or jello especially, I'd skip lunch too. And we went to a country school so you had to pack your own lunch and there were so many of us, including cousins, we were a bit like that "18 (or whatever) and Counting", you never knew who was going to make lunches while the kids did their morning chores. Eventually, I got smart and made my own lunch the night before but I think I created a bit of a fast/binge thing early on. 

I have been dieting to some extent since 1985. I was not heavy, usually around 140, but I had to work to maintain that weight and I looked better at 130, especially in spandex rodeo queen clothing (Yikes!). I've used Weight Watchers, The Rotation Diet, Deal-A-Meal, Jenny Craig, Body for Life, Injection HCG and Dukan. Body for Life was by far the best fit for me, and actually has a lot in common with the recommendations for a successful post-bariatric eating/life style style. The Dukan was mostly tolerable except for the lack of fiber; I usually consume 23-30 grams per day and I didn't like the feeling that came with the lack of it.

I only gained approximately 20 lbs each with each pregnancy and was able to go back to my pre-pregnancy weight within 3 weeks each time, which by this time was about 155, once I started cooking for myself and so actually eating 3 full meals a day, mostly Mediterranean-Style, but with more meat. But once I tried the low-fat/high carb recommendations of the early 1990's, I shot up to about 185 and could NOT get it off following the current diet recommendations of the time, (no surprise there)! On top of the weight gain, my body composition changed drastically so I think there was much more than 15 lbs. of fat gain when my loss of muscle mass was figured in. I've always been extremely muscular, I was as strong as most boys and could even beat 200 lb. guys at arm wrestling as a 130-140 lb. girl. 

I started the Body for Life program in 1997 and got back down to 170 lbs. but was at the 99th percentile for strength and muscle mass according to Microfit tests, with 25% body fat. I maintained that easily until I broke my T5 vertebra and nearly severed my Achilles tendon in a horse accident in 2001. The inactivity and steroids worked against me and I gained back up to around 180-185. I don't know what my body fat % was but I didn't lose too much strength, by the time I got back to the gym. I never got back down to 170, but maintained that weight with moderate exercise and a moderate protein diet until 2004. 

I had to take a job as a conductor for Union Pacific in order to get health insurance for two family members (we had been self-employed). The truly 24/7 schedule with my waking/sleeping hours flip-flopping randomly several times a week was a death knell for my weight war. After being caught a few times going to work without any sleep and being awake for 30+ hours, I started sleeping too much trying to avoid that. And that had a snow-ball effect of too much sleep, too little exercise= weight gain=depression, etc, etc. I tried very hard to combat the weight gain, but even with very reasonable food choices, I would pack my lunch with protein, veggies, fruit, unsweetened herbal tea and intentionally go without ANY money to avoid giving in to the carb cravings that come with irregular hours, but I still managed to gain about 10 lbs. per year for the years I worked there. Thankfully they are prone to layoffs so I didn't gain the full 80 lbs in 8 years! But I had to resign for health reasons in 2012 and I've been mostly around 220 since then.

I went back to school as a Physical Therapy Tech and Massage Therapist and when I was working at Physical Therapy, I did all the exercises possible right along with my patients. I've dieted down to 211 and I've gotten up to my current 240ish two other times, once while on steroids and once when a Nutrition professor convinced me that I could eat small servings of whole grain without gaining weight (I've always been a whole-grain kind of person anyway). I cannot; I gained approx 20 lbs during my one semester experiment. My carbs need to come from fruits and veggies. This time my weight gain came about because I indulged in a juvenile 'pout' bemoaning the fact that I eat far better than the average person and only manage to maintain my 220 set point. I ate brown rice pasta, whole grain spelt desserts and baked potatoes this winter and gained 20 lbs..... Traveling with my husband for his job and not working out with my patients is definitely a contributing factor as well. 

So this has led me to the decision, that if I'm going to eat high-quality protein, vegetables, one serving per day of fruit and walk/hike 5 miles several time a week, strength-train several times a week, I WANT MORE RESULTS! This is why I've finally decided weight-loss surgery is necessary for me. I am planning on having a mini gastric bypass in Mexico as soon as I can get the money together.  Our youngest daughter is getting married in June though so our expendable income is a bit tied up. Our other daughter got married a year and a half ago.  I'm really grateful our middle child is a son who, like my husband and I, is a firm believer in elopements! It's much cheaper and no one will want to take my picture! But post-surgery I shouldn't consider that to be a traumatic event.