shawnarae

My name is Shawna and I weighed 261 lbs before my surgery.  I have always been overweight.  I got married right out of high school and had my first child at the age of 21.  That's when I really started gaining the weight.  I could never take it off after I had a baby.  When I had my second child at the age of 24, I weighed close to 200 lbs.  Now at the age of 42 I found myself way over weight and knew that I had to do something about it before my health became an issue.  I had been wanting to have gastric bypass surgery for years but was never able to afford it.  My husband and I lived paycheck to paycheck and I sacrificed everything that I wanted so that I could raise my daughters and provide for them.  I tried every diet under the sun.  I always make a joke that I've lost 1000's of pounds in my life time.  I would do really well on a diet and lose anywhere from 30 - 80 lbs and then I'd get tired of it and gain everything back plus an extra 20 or 30 lbs.  It get's so frustrating when you work so hard to lose weight and you can gain every bit of it back in no time at all.  So I started doing research on bariatric surgeries.  I finally made the phone call to the Colorado Bariatric Institute and they made it so easy.  My youngest daughter turned 18 this year and is graduating from high school and so I decided that it was finally my turn to do something for me.  I had my surgery on March 9, 2010, so I am still brand new to this way of living.  In less than a month I have lost 24 lbs.  I know that the weight won't continue to fall off that quickly but it's nice to put on a pair of pants and they are baggy.  I'm so excited about my journey and the changes that I am going to go through.  I'm also very lucky to have a very supportive family to go through this with me.  My husband is already down 15 lbs, my oldest daughter is down 12 lbs and my youngest has lost 5lbs.  So not only have I changed my life, I'm changing the people that I love too.  It's been incredible so far.  Here's to a more healthier me!!!!   Cheer's my friends.