How I Decided: Part 1

Human beings are curious creatures. If there is something we aren't knowledgeable about, chances are, we want to be. I get asked a lot of questions and I'm happy to answer them! The number one question I get asked? "How did you decide to have weight loss surgery?" Before I can answer that question, however, I must first acknowledge how I got to the point of needing weight loss surgery at all.

Knowing you're morbidly obese is one thing. Seeing yourself that way, as it turns out, is completely different.

I grew up an active kid. I was a competitive athlete from kindergarten through high school graduation. I spent weeknights and summers outside, riding my bike, swimming, playing with the neighborhood kids. We lived in a house with a large driveway and I remember rollerblading around it for hours, imagining I was competing in the Winter Olympics. I proudly wore shorts as a kid, and dare I say it - two piece swimsuits. Life was golden.

I was 11 years old the first time I wondered if I was fat. I wondered it because someone called me it. My best friend and I were playing basketball at recess & I rolled my t-shirt sleeves up and tucked them under the straps of my sports bra. There I was, practicing for my WNBA try-out, and a classmate stopped what they were doing to call me fat. Okay, so they actually called me the "Pillsbury Doughgirl". I"m pretty sure it's the same thing.

{side note: kids these days have no clue who the Pillsbury Doughboy is. Does he have a Wikipedia page?}

{{update: yes, he does.}}

So, I stopped rolling up my sleeves & I prepared to conquer middle school. I had lots of friends, got good grades and I, the Pillsbury Doughgirl, even had the sweetest first boyfriend a gal could have. Life was golden - again.

But ya'll. Middle school is hard. Life is hard, and at the end of the 8th grade, my best friend died. The same best friend who told the classmate on the basketball court to "shut the hell up" when they called me fat. Nothing in my life had ever hurt so bad before. I distinctly remember discovering, just a few weeks after she died, the magical powers eating an entire Totino's Party Pizza had. It numbed the hurt, 370 calories at a time.

And then: high school happened.



This is me on the last day of the 9th grade. Yes, I said the last day. See all my friends in tank tops and sun dresses? I'm the one, front and center, in sweat pants & a hoodie. It was 100 degrees that day, but fat girls don't get to dress for the seasons.

I would spend the next 15 years of my life wishing I could be as "fat" as I thought I was in the 9th grade. I weighed 140 pounds.

Just like middle school, high school is hard - except harder. There are a lot of contributing factors to my weight gain in high school. Bad relationships, family problems, friend drama. Still, I tried my hardest to keep my chip up and be a good person, because it's what is on the inside that counts, right?



This picture was taken during my junior year. This dress was a size 14. I weighed 155 pounds. I cried for an hour straight because i felt so incredibly uncomfortable. All I could see in the mirror was the fat, single girl in a dress, surrounded by friends with dates.

I remember that night I thought, "If I ever hit 175 pounds, I'm going to kill myself."

And then, spring came.

The first day of spring is the very definition of "new", isn't it? Everything comes back to life. The grass turns green, trees grow their leaves, baby animals are born on the farm. It's a beautiful time of rebirth, right?

I began to die on April 17, 2004. If we've been friends for a while, you know my story. I was attacked, the victim of a horrific crime that forever changed me. My attacker confessed while in jail. They wrote a letter, confessing to the crime and begging for my forgiveness. While waiting for the trial to take place, I stuffed my face and my emotions with food. I couldn't fix feeling broken, but feeling full distracted me from it, and so, I ate. I would go to McDonald's and eat an entire meal on my way home from school, giving absolutely no regard to dinner time being an hour away. I would eat then too.

May 25, 2005 my attacker walked free. In the defense attorney's closing statement, they argued that I couldn't have been attacked because "she is fatter than my client". And so, despite a confession, despite an apology, despite the truth - they walked. I remember exiting the court room, as the District Attorney rushed my parents & I onto an elevator, my attacker made eye contact with me .. and winked.

The summer before I left for college would be spent hiding in my bedroom. My car was vandalized twice in one week. I no longer felt safe and I wasn't sure who I could trust anymore. But food? It never let me down.

There was no longer any question in my mind: I was fat. Being fat meant that the worst thing to ever happen to me was "allowed"; it was my fault. And if nobody could protect me, not even the law, because of my weight, then I would turn being fat into an armor. I ate and I ate and I ate.

When I left for college, I weighed 200 pounds and I remember thinking, "If I ever hit 225 pounds, I'll kill myself."

It's hard to talk about that part of my life, but I believe it's an important part of my story. As I'll talk about more in the days to come, part of the "journey" towards weight loss surgery is finding your "why" - why do I have an issue with food? How did I become a food addict? Was there a turning point in my life? This was my turning point. Pretending it didn't happen doesn't make my "why" go away. It makes my "why" worse. Like any addiction, acknowledging ownership is a huge step. My life spiraled out of control before it even got started, and I turned to food for comfort.

Look, a lot of life happened between then and now; a lot of hard times and a lot of good times. If I was sad, food made it better. If I was happy, I celebrated with food. Cooking food for others was how I showed I loved them. Cooking food for myself how was how I loved myself. Food = Happy.

Before I knew it, I was 10 months from turning 30 years old and I weighed 309 pounds. I hadn't killed myself yet .. but I was slowly working on it.

In September of 2016, I was studying in my car for a certification test. I had reached for my phone on the passenger side seat and took an accidental selfie that would change my life. I no longer recognized the face of the person the camera had captured & I instantly lost it. Sitting in my car, bawling, I googled "Weight Loss Surgery". The person who would soon become my surgeon was the first result and I hit "Call". It was 6:30 in the evening, but I'd hit my breaking point and planned to leave a voicemail, a desperate plea for help.

Except they answered. At night. And I cried some more, because already, God was saving my life.

That was the moment I stopped killing myself.