Some History

In my mind I have always been fat. When I look back at photos, however, I realize that while I may have been bigger that some people, I have NOT always been fat. So I change my first statement to: I have always had Body Dysmorphic Syndrome.

I am a bigger girl than most. I am muscular and strong. I have always been healthy. Until I hit about 30 I was able to diet and yo-yo my weight in and out of acceptable weight range. I should enter a confession here and say that I rarely did the work required to get as low as I wanted. I just did enough to keep me out of the "socially unacceptable" weight range.

I wear scrubs to work. Another caveat. 50 pounds can sneak right into those scrubs beside you and you never know it! Seriously! I have worn the same scrubs to work for 5 years. Those scrubs saw me at 190 and 254. Not a word of a lie. Heed my warning scrub wearing peeps, it's a slippery slope.

I have been considering Lap Band since 2007. I was uncomfortable on my 2nd trip to Africa. The flight, the heat, the travel in country. It was all more difficult than it should have been for me. I decided it was my weight dragging me down.

But when I first started looking into it, my BMI was only about 36. I weighed about 228 and am 5'7. My insurance was covering it but you had to be at least 100 pounds overweight with a BMI of 40. I was driving to San Antonio for consults at that time cause no-one local was doing Lap-Band.

I managed to get my chart to reflect 5'5 and 249. Can't tell you how or I'd have to kill you. :) But let's just say I was determined to get banded. I had my seminar, my nutrition and my psychological evaluations all under my belt. Now I just had to see the doctor once a month for 5 more months....that was February 2008.