I'm in my second year of teaching, and I'm absolutely in love with my job. I am so fortunate to have a career that I enjoy. I bought a house over the summer. I also got a puppy in May! She is such a bright spot in my day, but also such a handful! I love her dearly. My life is a very happy place.
I am starting a journey that may be of some interest to you all out there. Over the past year, I have been considering weight-loss surgery. During my first year of teaching, I put weight on. No doubt it was due to poor food choices and lack of time to exercise.
My entire life has been a struggle with weight. However, I was never "obese" until I entered high school. I was always bigger than my tiny friends when I was growing up, but still very active and healthy. When I hit puberty, the weight started to pile on and never stopped.
Over the years I have dieted, but was never able to keep the weight off. I had lost weight, regained it, lost more, and regained more. I have metabolic syndrome, where my body does not process sugar correctly. I don't know entirely what that means, but I know my body just doesn't use sugar to its advantage, and it stores it, rather than using it for energy. I also have a condition called PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome), where my body's hormones are just totally out of whack. Hormones do a lot of strange things to your body. There is no cure for PCOS, you just have to treat the symptoms. However, losing weight can make the symptoms of PCOS decrease.
Anyway, I began my weight loss surgery journey on my 27th birthday in July of this year. Through many discussions and a reference from a friend, I looked into the weight loss surgery program at Washington University in St. Louis. You have to complete many steps before you'll even be considered for surgery, but I find that comforting knowing that they want you to be fully committed to a new lifestyle. On July 18th, I attended an informational session where I learned about the three different types of weight loss surgery, as well as insurance, side effects, and many other aspects of the surgery. It was incredibly informative.
Washington University offers three different surgeries for weight loss: gastric bypass, gastric sleeve, and lap-band. I did not know anything about the gastric sleeve procedure prior to attending the informational session. The gastric sleeve is simpler than the bypass - the surgeon basically takes out about 2/3 of your stomach, leaving you with a stomach that is roughly the size of a banana. In the bypass, your bowels are re-routed. I decided, given my previous issues with bowels, that the sleeve would be the best for me. It has nearly the same success rate as the bypass - just a slightly lower weight loss percentage weight. In the first year, it is expected for you to lose about 60% of your excess body weight.
After the session, we were able to make appointments with the nurse practitioner to move the process ahead. I saw the nurse practitioner on August 17th. Basically, she evaluated my physical health and then gave me the paperwork to complete the next steps. After the appointment, I had to make an appointment to see a nutritionist, a psychiatrist, and a physical therapist. I was really lucky and was able to schedule all three appointments on one day. Those three appointments happened on September 24th.
The nutritionist went over what my diet would be like post-op. It is very shocking. I will be full on 3 tablespoons of food. The most important thing about the post-op diet is getting your required protein per day. It's about 60 grams, which can be difficult when you're full on 3 tablespoons a meal. If you don't get your protein, you will likely lose your hair, as your body begins to reserve protein for organs. I don't like my hair, but I like it better than no hair.
The psychiatrist was interesting. I had to answer about 500 questions on a computer that were T/F. They were all basically situations. For instance, "I often hear voices." False. Definitely false. I think it's to make sure you can psychologically handle this procedure. It doesn't seem like a big deal, but I people have told me what an adjustment it is for your brain after you lose a large amount of weight.
Physical therapy... well, they told me I'm fat and out of shape. Big surprise. They want me to keep walking Maggie every day and work on my posture. I carry so much weight in my stomach that my back is suffering and I tend to tilt my pelvis forward because of the weight. They also prepped me for physical activity after the surgery.
Then I had to go a support group meeting. Lots of inspiring success stories, but also lots of questions raised. I am trying to prep myself as much as I can for this surgery, but some things you just won't know until you have it.
So, when am I going to have this surgery? Well, I am tentatively scheduled for Wednesday, December 19th. This all depends on my insurance. If they drag their heels with getting approval through, then I may have to delay until next summer. I really don't want to do that. I want to start feeling better as soon as possible. I don't want to go through another musical season being so overweight and tired. If I'm losing weight through that process, I think I will feel so much better.
Why am I doing this? Why can't I just lose the weight?
Obesity is a disease. It really is. I would liken it to depression. You don't understand it until you have to deal with it. Some people say, "Well, why can't you just be happy? Why can't you fix that?" Depression is a chemical imbalance in your brain. I believe obesity is also an imbalance of the brain stemming from other events in your life, and family history. I have dealt with depression and anxiety, and eating food has become an emotional event. Eating food will literally make me happy. Not that I'm sad to begin with, but it makes me excited.
Weight loss surgery will NOT FIX YOUR BRAIN.
I have to tell myself this over and over again. I have to become committed to the lifestyle. But, as I have talked to people who have had the surgery, you see the weight coming off and that helps your brain break that emotional attachment with food. Your confidence level rises and you start to lose those cravings for food.
It's not a quick fix.
This is also something that I have to tell myself over and over again. Sometimes you become blinded by the excitement of losing weight and that's all you see. You forget about this epic journey you have to take to get there. Never again will I be able to eat sweets in normal amounts. I will always have to monitor my protein intake. I will also likely need plastic surgery to remove excess skin after I lose weight.
Why do it? I need to be healthy. Sure, I don't like looking fat, but my priority is my health. I want to be able to be active like a normal 27-year-old. I don't want my feet to ache like they do now. I don't want my joints to ache anymore. I want to feel normal.
Right now I'm on a 1400 calorie diet. I have to lose some weight before surgery so that my liver will shrink. That makes it easier for the surgeon to get in there.
Here we go!
