I think I went on my first diet when I was nine or ten. I can even recall the moment it first hit me that I needed to lose weight–I was with my dad visiting family friends and went outside to play with one of their sons and whatever we were getting in to, I ended up getting my clothes filthy. His mom took one look at us and said “no problem, I can give you an old pair of Ryan’s pants to wear home”. The jeans were what I considered at the time to be awesome–stone-washed, with leather patches (don’t forget, this was the early 90s!). My friend was a boy and a couple years older than me and probably average sized, so they ideally should’ve fit–but they didn’t, they were too tight to button. I was heart-broken and seriously bummed, because wow did I really want those jeans. I think I took them home anyway and kept them so I could use them as motivation to lose-weight; I think I’m the only nine-year-old I know who had a pair of “hopeful skinny jeans”.
Life has been full of various scenarios similar to that as I struggled with being over-weight. At my “skinniest” as a grown-person I was 180lbs…that came after losing 40lbs my senior year of high school. After that, I went to college and succeeded in putting on the “freshman 50”!
As I finished school and moved to New York City to start my career in public relations, I began to focus on a healthier lifestyle. I’m actually quite comfortable in my skin, very confident and have found a handful of boyfriends who have actually rejoiced my body-type. But that being said, I also knew I wanted to, if nothing else, be healthier…and if I could look better in my dresses, that wouldn’t hurt either. So over the last six years I’ve gone through various phases of religious gym attendance, hired personal trainers, went to nutritionists and tried various diets. I’m pretty good at losing the same 20lbs–I’m also really good at gaining it back soon after.
But 2010 was my year. I was ready to do it. I joined Weight Watchers, signed up for my second half-marathon and enlisted the support of family and friends to help me reach my goals. By the end of June I was heavily committed to keeping track of my WW points and completed the San Diego Rock N’ Roll Half-Marathon, (even knocked 20 minutes off of my time from the previous year when I did the Seattle Rock N’ Roll Half!). Around that point I had lost around 27lbs. From there I pretty much hit a plateau…perhaps even put about 5lbs back on after I stopped training. Although I did train for and complete a 10k just a few months after that, so it wasn’t as though I went cold turkey on the workouts.
In December I went back to the Midwest to visit my family and take a little vacation from the city. At the point I was still tottering between 20-25lbs of weight loss–and while proud of it and feeling healthier, I took some time to reflect on where I was at. I had considered weight loss surgery the year before, while also home for Christmas, but wanted to know that I gave it one, big, solid go before I went that route. So it was interesting to be back in the same place, a year later and able to reflect on where that took me.
And then two big events really put it all in prospective for me.
1. I saw one of my best friends since Jr. High during the trip. She had always been my size or bigger ever since I knew her and never seemed to that interested in making an effort to change that. But all the sudden I see her and she looks amazing and skinny! She had lost 50lbs…and I of course start poking and prodding to find out what she had been doing. Turns out, she had started Weight Watchers in August…which means she was doing the exact same thing I was doing, but lost twice the weight in half the time. When I asked her what else she had been doing she said “oh well I go out and play some sports sometimes”–ummm, did I mention I completed my second half-marathon and a 10k in the last year…on top of my weekly kickboxing and spinning classes?! I was so happy and thrilled for her and still love taking a peek at her Facebook profile to see how great she looks. But at the same time, it just occurred to me that things apparently aren’t working for me in the same way.
2. I went to my dad’s family reunion. I’d say 90% of the people on that side of the family are overweight and always have been. It quite obviously is a genetic trait. Meanwhile, my mom is skinny, blonde with big boobs and I have a younger brother who is nothing but muscle that my friends swoon over–but me, I definitely take after my dads side of the family. But what made this family get-together different than others is that after a year of not seeing most of them, it was literally shocking to see the decline in health. My aunt who is only in her 60s is having to walk with a walker, my cousin who is just a few years older than me has painful blood clots in his legs, and really, the list goes on. I loved the time I got to spend with all of them as we all spent the night and celebrated Christmas together, but it was THE biggest eye opener. I knew if I didn’t make some quick changes, that I was looking at what would potentially be my future.
The week after I returned to New York, I had an appointment with my doctor to discuss weight loss surgery options.
And so here I am. Approximately 262lbs, currently. Scheduled to receive lap-band surgery on May 27th.
lapdancer. 