Everyone has a story. Good, bad or ugly! Sharing that story takes strength. Asking for help from a life of pain and yoyo dieting takes courage. Hopeful at every road block she faced she would one day find her way. Hearing her talk about her misery within herself, not being ready to leap, not willing to sacrifice other things for her and her health, not ready for change was hard for me to continually fight the fight. I could not help her.
The phone call I had waited so long for. “Mitzi, I need help.” On the other end of that phone was my youngest sister, Jessica.
We started slow and progressed steadily. She had to learn how to be happy within herself first, and then educate her body on how and why food was to be utilized. Food would no longer control her. She made a choice.
She is 36 years old, a wife, mother of Wyatt (11) and Olivia (8). Being a nurse, she has taken care of everyone else, it was time that she became her own patient.
Her outer transformation is beautiful and her smile radiates brighter than ever. Her inner beauty and love of self is even more transforming and beautiful. She has learned some valuable lessons in her journey.
This is her story.
I love you Jess and am so proud of you. STRONG
The Story of Jess…….
When Mitzi asked me to share my “story”, I was like “nah, who wants to hear my story?”. It may even be a lot like many of yours. Then the Lord reminded me that He would not have given me such a beautiful testimony if He did not want me to share it. I believe wholeheartedly that God doesn’t put us through trials and tribulations for no reason. I believe they are meant to grow us, pull us closer to Him and ultimately when given the opportunity, to be SHARED. All in hopes that your story helps someone else. So here goes……
This week marks one year since I made the move and was strong enough to change my life forever. It wasn’t a decision I took lightly, and before you think to yourself “she took the easy way out” just open your heart and mind to my story. On March 22nd, 2016, I had the Gastric Sleeve procedure- yes, I had weight loss surgery. I had attempted this surgery 2 times before but chickened out and the timing wasn’t right. This surgery wasn’t a quick fix. I was blessed with a TOOL that forever changed the amount of food that I can hold in my stomach, and that’s all. It did not change my mind, the way I felt about food, or my relationship with food. I LOVE FOOD……..I still do.
Let me tell you a little about me. I didn’t have obesity since childhood, I was normal (whatever that is). Always a litter thicker than the other girls, but by no means obese. I danced for 14 years. I grew up in the country, and was never allowed to sit around. I was ALWAYS moving. Then I grew up. I began a terrible cycle of yo-yo dieting when I was 20. You know the story……weight watchers, Atkins, low calorie, low fat, cabbage soup diet. You name it, I tried it. During college, I lost down to 150lbs (I am 5’7″) on the Atkins diet. I maintained this 50-lb. weight loss until I became pregnant with my first child. I weighed 216lbs when I went in to deliver my Wyatt. I lost most of that baby weight quickly. I went back to work in the ER when he was just 4 weeks old. I was a very active new mom. When I became pregnant with #2 I was 180lbs. By this time, I had changed jobs and was working for a home health company. I spent the next 8 months driving around in my car, seeing patients and eating fast food. After all, I was pregnant so it was ok to eat for 2, right? I was 236 lbs. when I delivered Olivia and I was miserable! I again yo-yo dieted my way down to 190 lbs. I spent years going between 190lbs & 210lbs. I was losing then gaining the same weight repeatedly.
Fast forward 4 years…. all in the span of 7 months I lost a job that I loved dearly, I lost my oldest sister, and then my husband was diagnosed with Lung cancer. I felt like my whole world had crumbled down around me. So, then I began medicating myself with the one thing that made me feel better – FOOD. We would spend the next 2 years between MD Anderson in Houston and our home. God began using this time to mold me into who I am today (He’s not nearly done). I quickly learned that we were not going to beat this horrible cancer without clinging to Him and resting in His blessed assurance. That’s the thing about cancer. It didn’t care that we had a 6 & 4-year-old at home. We had to learn balance. We had to learn how to truly live one day at a time. I would get up in the morning and thank the Lord for giving us one more day as a family, and when I would reach the end of that day I would thank Him for seeing us to the end of it. That’s how we survived. We did survive, stronger than we were before but it was not without sacrifice. I put myself on the back burner. First I was a wife & mother. That was what was most important in the moment, not my health or wellbeing. I never once thought “well, how are you going to be those things without taking care of yourself?” In January of 2015 my husband took his last round of radiation and we have been CANCER FREE ever since.
In July of 2015, I was diagnosed with sleep apnea and was diagnosed as pre-diabetic. I also was always short of breath. Just generally miserable. I was shying away from everything in my life that was important. I even hid from the camera because I hated the person looking back at me. There is a 2-year gap of photos of myself and my children because of this. How tragic is that? That same month some things began to change (BEGAN….very important word). I reached out to Mitzi. She’s my sister, she should have all the answers, right? The very first step was drinking my last diet coke on July 9th, 2015. Yes, diet coke meant so much to me that I have an anniversary for our breakup. That tiny first step catapulted me in the direction I needed to be going. None of my changes were huge changes, none of them. The biggest thing was that I started seeing food for what it was, fuel for my body (Mitzi taught me that). Before I put it in my mouth I would ask myself, “what will this do for my body?” If the answer was nothing, then I put it down. I lost 30 lbs. from July to Christmas that year. Then between Christmas and mid-January I gained 10 lbs. back. I was also put on blood pressure medicine. I thought to myself, that’s it, I’m done! No more yo-yo dieting.
I WANT CHANGE, real change. This was my AH-HA moment.
I started reading success and failure stories, researching the way I would need to eat, researching all the things that made a person successful. If I was going to have this forever life altering surgery, I set out to be as prepared as possible. I met with a bariatric surgeon the last of January. On March 22, 2016 I was given the tool that would help me change. A change that quickly happened on the outside, but not on the inside. I had to change that part. I have spent this entire year learning how to live, how to take care of myself. Taking care of myself so that I’ll be strong enough to survive this crazy life that God has gifted me with. I’ve had to learn to eat for fuel, not for comfort. It’s not easy, and it’s something that I must actively work on every single day. It’s a conscious decision I make to be a better wife and mother. They say the 1st year after surgery is the “honeymoon” period. So, I guess that means that the honeymoon is over now. But what is not over is my determination to remain healthy and not be a failure, a statistic of weight loss surgery. Weight loss surgery is not a quick fix, to be successful you have to use it like it is meant to be used- as a TOOL. I sincerely hope that how awesome I feel on the inside is reflected on the outside.
With all of this being said, I will leave you with this. I survived 2 more life altering events since this surgery. I made it through both of these without gaining a single pound. For the first time in my life I did not medicate with food. I chose to medicate myself with the Word and my heavenly Father.
I survived-STRONGER TODAY THAN I WAS YESTERDAY.
Highest weight: 254lbs
Surgery weight: 234lbs
Current weight: 140lbs
