I wasn't always heavy. My weight issues started when I was eight years old. That is when my parents divorced and I started eating to comfort myself. When I hit puberty I thinned out to a normal weight, although I always felt fat in my head. My weight fluctuated between 120-130 pounds until my senior year of college. That year I was miserable with my roommate situation and ate out of frustration and gained 15 pounds. After college I moved to Chicago where at first I knew no one except my mother. That first year I managed to gain another 10 pounds, putting my weight up around 155 pounds. I went on Weight Watchers, lost 28 pounds and was back into the 120's. My mom booked a cruise to celebrate my weight loss. By the time it came to go on the cruise, I was already back up to 140 pounds. That is when I met my husband to be.

By the time we got married almost 2 years later I weighed 185 and was stuffed into a size 16 wedding dress. After my weight hit 196, I started Optifast (well it worked for Oprah, didn't it?) and lost 50 pounds in 6 months. The week after I ended Optifast I found out I was pregnant. I took the whole "eating for two" seriously. I gained 55 pounds and couldn't take it off after giving birth. Six months post partum I found out that I was hypothyroid and have been on medication ever since. I only gained 12 1/2 pounds with my second pregnancy, but still the weight didn't come off easily.

It was at this time that I tried my first attempt seeking help through a hospital eating disorder program. It was an OA based program and the strict eating and 12-step approach just wasn't for me. After that I tried every diet I could find, but I had no long term success and only gained more back. In 1998, I tried an inpatient eating disorders program in California because my family was so worried about me. I hated it there, but I met my best friend while I was there so I guess something great did come out of it.

I had been surfing the internet and found out about weight loss surgery even before my inpatient experience in California. Every time I brought it up to my husband he just didn't want to talk about it. He insisted that it was way too dangerous and wouldn't hear of it. At one point he said he would actually divorce me if I went through weight loss surgery. That was until HE actually met someone who had lost over 200 pounds and kept it off for 14 years. He then encouraged me to talk to her and get more information. I found out that she had had her surgery with a very fine doctor named Dr. Mal Fobi. I immediately contacted Dr. Fobi's office and they sent the necessary paperwork. I found out shortly after that that I was denied by my insurance company because of an exclusion of weight loss surgery in my husband's company insurance policy. Determined not to give up, I sent an appeal letter and found out 2 1/2 weeks later that they would change the company's policy on weight loss surgery, not just for me, but the whole company. WHAT A VICTORY. I had to wait until after September 1, 1999 for the new policy to take effect until I could schedule the surgery with Dr. Fobi's office. My surgery was then scheduled for October 12, 1999.