Hi there.

[Ghostwriter]

I just joined this website a few minutes ago and was prompted to introduce myself.

I am a 27 year old female who had the surgery done three weeks ago. I think I'm in a bit of a minority here, because my starting weight was 179 before the surgery. You may wonder why I had the surgery so young at such a low BMI. It is because of genetics mostly. Both my mother and my father weighed average weights going into college, and each year they gained at a steady rate until they hit their mid thirties and were morbidly obese. My father's life was threatened by this and suffered from many obesity related health problems. At the rate he was going he had little time left to live. He underwent a lap-ban surgery when I was a teenager, then had to have a gastric bypass later. He lost quite a bit of weight over the next few years and became a healthy weight again. His life has been extended because of this. My mother was in a similar situation to him, with obesity, and had a gastric bypass surgery which saved her life. she now is at a healthy weight and lives a healthy lifestyle.

I am the youngest of my siblings (5) and one by one, with the exception of my sister, each of them have followed the same trajectory as my parents, slowly gaining until their health is at extreme risk. Most of them now in their thirties need to get the surgery. So when each year I began to gain, my parents and family saw the red flags. I am someone who even before the surgery, eats small meals and exercises regularly. In my early college days I wore size 2 pants and used to go jogging every morning. I played racquetball nearly every day and swam several times a week. Yet I have gotten older and more busy. My job is more sedentary and while I still got in nearly 30 minutes of exercise a day, I was still gaining steadily at the same rate as my parents and siblings each year.

My father suggested I get the sleeve early in life. I was right at a 31 BMI and considered obese officially and my body didn't seem like it was going to stop gaining despite what I did. My father said that if I got the sleeve earlier on, it would be easier on my body (less to lose) and because I was so young, my skin would be more elastic and I may have less loose skin afterwards. If I was doing everything I could now to stay in shape and my weight was still steadily creeping up like my family, then at that rate, by the time I was 35 I'd likely be severely obese like my parents used to be.

So I talked to a bariatric surgeon and their team of nutritionists and doctors and they gave the go ahead for me to have the surgery.

I'm about three weeks out and have dropped down to 158 lbs. Which means I've lost just over twenty pounds in my first three weeks.

I know some of you will probably think it was a bad idea to undergo such a life-altering surgery when my weight was not yet drastically affecting my health, or that I took the easier way out instead of trying to lose the old fashioned way. Plenty of people have already chided me for it, saying I looked great before and shouldn't be so vain about my appearance. But I have been active and and trying to maintain my weight for nearly 7 years through exercise and portion control. But the weight keeps coming. and I suspect genetics has something to do with it. This was preemptive so I wasn't getting it ten years down the line and having to pay extra to my doctors to take care of diabetes and heart problems.


so uh, that's my story.