I feel pretty, oh so pretty....
On March 9th of this year, I was considered morbidly obese. Now I am almost a regular sized person. I went down 12 sizes and my life has changed radically and I'm looking forward to more changes. The most important thing is that I am now healthy and can be as active as I want... and if I pushed my lazy ass, I could be very very active. I still have more weight to lose but the inches I shed makes me look like I lost 100 pounds already. I'm back to performing my music again and can hop on the stage like I did 10 years ago. I walk several miles a day and ride my bike for another 30 minutes or so. I fit in all chairs! I can hop in and out of the car. People don't recognize me! Wow.
Gastric bypass surgery, while terribly radical and serious, has amazing benefits for many people. Before the surgery I underwent a series of tests to determine just how unhealthy I was. Luckily, I didn't have a whole lot of co-morbitities like diabetes, difficulty breathing, high blood pressure, clogged arteries, joint problems, sleep apnea and so on. If I had those things they would be things of the past by now. I also know that I won't be getting these ailments and diseases in my life. I had enormously high cholesterol and now it's normal. I don't snore anymore, my blood pressure is the same as my 23 year old son's BP. I don't take anti-depressants either. Anti-depressants put all the weight on me in the first place. For those who have diabetes or sleep apnea, gastric bypass surgery cures it. Heart disease- not a problem. My knees and hips work great. Not a pain in the world. Before the surgery everything hurt and I could hardly move. I literally could not put my socks on. I never wore them. Now I feel like I did when I was 24.
My family and friends have to keep their sense of humor because my eyes are literally bigger than my stomach. If you're out with me and I order food, don't bother ordering for yourselves because you'll be having most of what I ordered anyway. Even children's meals and appetizers are too large. That's what I paid for.
My insurance company didn't want to hear about anything to do with excess weight. Yet I keep reading that fat people are hurting profit motivated insurance companies. I asked them if they would pay for open heart surgery and they said yes they would. I asked if they would pay for hip or joint replacement and they said yes. I asked if they would pay for a sleep apnea machine and they said yes. I asked if they would pay for diabetic supplies and they said yes. They would pay for all the diseases and ailments that went along with being obese, but they wouldn't pay for me to get cured of the underlying reason for all those diseases I was sure to get at the rate I was going.
I cashed in some of my retirement fund and saved my insurance company a fortune. I also saved my life. I was sure that I wouldn't even make it to retirement at the rate I was going. If I didn't have a retirement fund, I would have mortgaged the house or shopped around until I found a surgeon who would give me an easy payment plan. I would have hitchhiked to Mexico.
Some people said I took the easy way out by getting the surgery. It wasn't easy at all. It was terrifying and very painful. If you asked me 3 months ago if it was worth it, I would have said no but 5 months out, I would have to say that every bit of pain and life altering behavior modification was worth every penny and all the aggravation. You learn pretty quickly what you can tolerate because you will throw up or get very ill if something disagrees with you. That's what I paid for. Pain is a great motivator.
Most people do not understand that morbid obesity is something that is almost impossible to cure on your own. Sure, you can diet and exercise, but try to keep it off forever. Most morbidly obese people dieted themselves to that size because once you'd lose weight, you'd gain back more and you would just get fatter and fatter. How depressing is that? Many meds cause obesity as well. If you asked fat people if they were taking meds, most likely they are and it accounts for the obesity. Don't punish fat people because it won't work. You make them feel worse. Be kind to fat people. It's not a character flaw or caused by a lack of willpower. In fact fat people have great willpower and you wouldn't believe how humiliated they are when they go out... and yet they go. Rather than picking on someone, give a chubbette you love $25,000 for gastric bypass surgery if you can or give them a hug and words of encouragement.
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