Laparoscopic Gastric Banding – My History
Laparoscopic Gastric Banding – My History
To understand me and why I am where I am in my journey of life, I feel obliged to share my story, my history so to speak. So that you can gain an insight into why I made the decision to have Laparoscopic Gastric Banding done.
I have been large for as long as I can remember. As I grew up I was always the largest in my peer groups, not overly large, in fact if truth be known I wasn’t large way back then but because my friends were paper thin I perceived myself to be large. I ate a healthy diet (there was no junk food during my childhood) in fact I was not introduced to McDonalds until I was about 22 and thankfully I didn’t like the taste.
During my teens I developed quicker and became more rounded than my peers and that weighed very heavily on my conscious. This is when I started my battle to lose weight. So although believing that I was overweight back then, my weight problems became a reality in my early 30’s after I had my children. Then became the endless battle to shed those extra kilos.
I began a process where I would start a diet (whatever the fad was at the time) and I would give it 90% sometimes I would lose a few kilos, sometimes I wouldn’t lose anything. What I did notice was that I ran a strategy. I would jump in boots and all and with a gung ho attitude I would follow the diet and if I didn’t see any results quickly then I would lose heart and sabotage all my efforts. Then I would beat myself up with a string of negative self talk. You may have heard these sayings before I believe they are quite common. Things like “I knew you couldn’t do it”, “You loser”, “You are fat and pathetic”, “Look at yourself, who could possibly like you”. It pretty much stands to reason that as a result of all that negative self talk that I would hate myself and of course I had to talk myself into believing it.
What you have to understand is that I did this to myself for about 20 years starting at 18 years of age. I tried every diet out there and after every diet had finished I put on more weight and became more disillusioned with myself. Then I gave up. I came to a mental decision that I was never going to lose weight so I might as well begin to accept it and move on with life. It was about that time that I started making unhealthy decisions about what I ate, drank and how I treated myself and I gave up on any forms of exercise. I became an emotional eater that got worse with menopause.
What I didn’t realise was that within my body other things were happening. It took me another 10 years to understand what was happening inside my body. By this stage I had developed Syndrome X which is a chemical imbalance that makes men and women store fat. I had developed type 2 Diabetes and I had Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. I have Arthritis of the spine and suffer badly from Sciatica. Pretty much I felt as if my whole body was fighting against itself. It was a constant battle to regulate the medication I was taking for each condition.
As the Polycystic Ovaries were causing all the pain and giving me the most grief I decided to get rid of them and hopefully get rid of half the problems. That wasn’t the case, it got rid of all the pain I was suffering but I continued to gain weight. And of course by removing my ovaries I entered instant menopause, so I started another of life’s wonderful journeys.
This series of articles are the direct result of people wanting to know more about Gastric Banding and they have asked me to write these as others may not have heard of Gastric Banding, or may believe that they can’t afford it, or are sick of being overweight and not sure of their options.
My next article will be focused on my choice to have surgery, the preparation for the operation, then the surgery then my transformation. The articles after that will be focused on my rebirth, my life as I lose weight and how I deal with any obstacles that come my way.
I encourage you to leave comments and ask questions. I am not an expert in Gastric Banding but I will do my best to find out the answers to any of your questions.
For more information of Syndrome X
http://www.weightcontroldoctor.com.au/index.php?page=quiz
Laparoscopic Gastric Banding
http://www.laparoscopicsurgery.com.au/lapband.html
Your Destiny Unfolds with
Rodney & Vicki Williams
