So this is where I’m starting. I’m 50 years old and I’m a bit ashamed to say I’m around 510 pounds at the time of this writing.
Yep. 510.
In the beginning…
How did I get here? I honestly never imagined it. As a little kid I guess I had a little bit of a pooch belly. I was always a little bit bigger (both tall and weight) than most of the other boys my age. But I wasn’t obese by any stretch. I was an active kid, spending most of my free time outside riding bikes, running around in the woods, building forts and the like.
The first time I remember thinking about weight would have been in my very early teens. Even then though I was still highly active. I was very into skateboarding and spent all my free time riding my skateboard around our driveway and then building a pretty big ramp in our back yard that I spent countless hours on.
As I hit 16 I got a part time job at a hardware store where i spent all my time walking around helping customers, cleaning and stocking, or loading bags of concrete and soil into cars.
All that to say, I was still very active. Even into my later teens and 20s I remained highly active in a number of ways. But despite my activity I continued to gain weight. By the time I graduated high school I was one of the bigger people in my class. I was 6’1″ (and some change) and I was still active, but definitely overweight.
In retrospect my eating habits were never great. As long as I can remember I always overate, and didn’t have the best diet. I’m from the south, and in the south we eat. Fried foods, snack cakes, candy, soft drinks, chips. Back in the 70s and 80s, even our “healthy” home cooked meals were steeped in butter and grease and fat. I am sure I was to an extent, but I don’t specifically ever being taught to eat properly. I remember some good ol’ southern guilt about how I ate, from others and myself, but I don’t think I learned how to manage food. I definitely never learned self-control. While environment, family or other situations may contribute to my early relationship with food
Anyway, by the time I’d hit my mid 20’s it was a problem. I was very overweight. I had gone through the freshman 15…but it was more like the freshman 50.
And from there it just continued on. Since college, I’ve worked a desk job, continued to eat terribly and overeat, and just generally cultivated a terrible relationship with food.
As I got married and had kids, I became less and less active, and more and more centered on food.
About 7 years ago our family faced the hardest situation of our lives, when our then 13 year old daughter was diagnosed with cancer. After a six year battle with cancer, and a lot of turmoil, we lost her at 19.
Right at the beginning of that fight I went through a meal replacement plan. It was the first time in my life where I had lost a significant amount of weight. In fact I lost over 100 pounds in about five months. Unfortunately that process wasn’t sustainable, I developed gallstones and had to have surgery. After that I stopped the plan and over the last seven years I gained all of that back…and about 50 more.
With the cancer treatment then loss of our daughter, my life has been in survival mode, and food was one comfort I could turn to for very temporary happiness.
I’ve got to do something.
In the fall of 2022 I decided it was time to do something. I HAD to do something. My overall wellbeing was to the point where I knew I wouldn’t have much time if I didn’t make changes. At that point I was officially miserable. Surprisingly for hovering around 500 pounds my overall health was, relatively speaking, not nearly as bad as it could (should) be. I was pre-diabetic with slightly high blood pressure and acid reflux, but those were my biggest diagnosed health issues. As bad as those are, and they are, it could be much worse!
However the undiagnosed health issues, the emotional shame of my size, the mental health strain, the physical pain and constant uncomfortableness, and a hundred other things coupled with the grief, of losing our daughter, were pushing me toward an early grave.
My wife was very supportive of me doing something. She saw day to day life. She saw my struggles, my pain, my frustrations, my depression, my hurts. When I told her I had to make a change, we started exploring surgery as an option.
A Crushing Start.
At 49, in the fall of 2022, I had tried so many diets and plans. I had gone through programs with doctors, most of them “doctors”, and although I’d seen some minor, and one major, success, I had always gained it all back.
I had always considered surgery the cowards way out. I considered it a cheat. A shortcut. I wasn’t going to do it that way. I wasn’t going to cop out!
Finally, after starting to research it, it clicked with me. This isn’t a shortcut. This isn’t a cheat at all! It’s a tool. You still have to work at it…hard! Not only that, it is a monumental commitment. Once you make the decision to go the surgery route, and once you go through with it, you are in a whole new place physiologically. You simply cannot eat like you once did. It’s just not possible. This is more than a lifestyle change. This is a lifetime change.
Not only that, but i had spent the better part of 49 years trying everything. By my early 30s my joints were hurting, by my early 40s I was completely sedentary…and by my mid 40s I couldn’t even do basic things like mow my own yard. I had spent most of my life trying everything except the one thing that I was the perfect candidate for! It was time!
I started doing research on the process, and gathering information. Meanwhile, we checked with the insurance company and although it was going to require a lot of preparation and documentation, they were going to cover it!
I was finally taking the first steps toward a new life.
I started the process with a local doctor, filled out my initial paperwork, set up my appointment and had some introductory videos the doctor required. The doctor is very busy and it was going to be almost 2 months before I could get in to see him. Meanwhile I watched my videos and read the introductory information.
The first roadblock came about 3 weeks before the appointment. The office called and due to a scheduling mix up, they had to postpone my appointment for another month+ out. I was a bit upset but decided the wait would be worth it.
About a week before my appointment, the doctors office called me to discuss insurance. It turns out my insurance would NOT cover the cost of the surgery. We are still not sure what the original miscommunication was with the insurance company, but finding this out was truly a crushing blow.
I pretty much gave up. I went back to the comfort of food and not caring. I was depressed over the situation. I was still miserable but I had gotten my hopes up only to have them crushed, and with the ongoing grief were were and continue to deal with concerning our daughter, I just gave up for a while.
I went through winter of 2022 into spring of 2023 and continued to eat, gain weight and feel miserable.
Finally my wife came to me and said “We ARE going to do this. One way or another we are going to do this.”
By this point I was skeptical. Honestly, I will continue to be skeptical it will happen until I wake up from the surgery. But with her encouragement, I started to have hope again.
So here I am, at the age of 50, at the beginning again. We restarted the process and I am going to work on paying for it out of pocket. I still have to work on getting the finances, it’s going to require a loan we have to pay back. I am cautiously optimistic that maybe, just maybe, the loan will work out and I will be having surgery in the future.
Summing up.
So that’s it. That’s where I am. At 50 and some change, at a bit over 500 pounds. Miserable…but hopeful about the possibility of getting this surgery and what that might mean for my future.
Stay tuned as I go through this process. I’m sure there are going to be ups and downs, disappointments and triumphs. I’m ready to face what I can face and fight as far as I can fight.
Here’s hoping for a new future!