tnwhite2001

Hi, I'm Tanya. This is my story: As a very young child I was fairly thin. I ran around and played with my friends and never thought anything about weight, not that most kids that age do anyway. When I was five years old I had my tonsils and adnoids removed. I don't know if something happened with my thyroid while they were in there or if I was just able to smell and taste things for the first time and that caused me to eat more, but after that surgery my weight began to balloon. I would continue to gain weight throughout elementary, middle, and high school. College was a new challenge and weight continued to pile on. I was always the fattest kid in class. Kids made fun of me, even my own brother. I began to really hate what I had become but it became a terrible cycle. I was depressed because I was overweight, because I was depressed I would eat, the more I ate the more I gained and the more depressed I became. I tried things over the years, but nothing seemed to really work. I don't know if I really gave them a fair chance to work. I would lie to myself, tell myself I was following whatever program I was on, but in reality I cheated because it was easy to hide behind the fat than lose it and maybe not like what was underneath. I got to a place where I realized I had to do something. I am young, lonely, obese, and feel like I am stuck in a losing battle...the battle with food. I have decided that I am going to take my destiny into my own hands. I can't just float along anymore, eating my problems and hoping I don't meet the same fate some others do. I am going to do something to prevent it. I have gotten help for my depression and dealt with some of the issues that were causing me problems. Now I feel like I am finally ready to battle my other demon...food. What finally led me to the point where I knew there was no other option? There were lots of things really. The day that I was doing a practicum in a preschool classroom and one of the students asked if I was going to have a baby. The day I realized that if I wasn't wearing jeans, which held my fat in a little, my stomach rubbed on the steering wheel. When getting off the couch became work because I was too fat to get up without effort. My mom saying that she didn't want to have to bury me because my body couldn't handle the weight. All of it was too much. I joined weight watchers and did really well. I lost a total of 94 pounds and was so proud of myself. I was able to do things I wasn't able to do before and I was starting to like how I looked. Then, personal crisis caused me to fall of the wagon. My best friend's dad, who was like a second father to me, died of brain cancer in April of 2008. A little over a year later, May of 2009, my boyfriend Jason met the same fate from the cancer he was fighting. It was all too much for me and, once again, I turned to food to help me cope. I gained all of those 94 pounds back, plus some. At the end of 2009 I was talking to my friend Laura who had had gastric bypass the year before with astounding success. She asked if I had ever considered surgery for weight loss. I had considered it, several times before, but it always seemed like such a huge step to take. Then I realized that I had hundreds of pounds to lose. Yes, surgery is a huge step to take but this is also a huge problem. Maybe I needed to take the huge step to overcome this huge obstacle in my life. So I decided that surgery was the next step for me.December 3, 2009 I had my first appointment at the U of M weight loss clinic. I went through a seminar and then a first appointment were I weighed in and met the doctor to decide what type of surgery was right for me. We decided gastric banding, or the lap band, was right for me. The doctor told me I would need to lose 20 pounds prior to surgery. After many appointments with dietitians, doctors, and nurses I was ready to have my surgery. I had lost almost 30 pounds before surgery and was ready to go. I was nervous but ready to start my new life. I had my surgery on June 1, 2010. Now a little about me personally. I'm a 27 year old living in Southeast Minnesota. I work full time at a group home for adults with developmental disabilities. On top of that 40 hour a week obligation I also go to school full time. When I'm done with school I will have a major in Early Childhood Education and Elementary Education with Pre-Primary. That means I will be licensed to teach children ages birth through grade six. I'm pretty excited and can't wait to be a teacher! More than anything, I want to be at a healthy weight so that I can be the best teacher I can be.