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mskllsws's Avatar
mskllsws mskllsws is offline
Senior Member
Posts: 942
I've come a long way baby!
Posted by mskllsws
Posted Thu, Jan-04-07
Female 5'6"
Plan: Atkins
Stats: 280/000/165
BF:
Progress: 243%
Location: Cincinnati, Ohio
Default I've come a long way baby!

I am recovering from my circumferential abdomenoplasty, and have spent the afternoon reading some of the other posts on the site and thought it is about time I post my success story.

I am not computer literate. I have managed to post some photos on my gallery, so please before continuing click the gallery and see the before during and after photos. This will give you and idea of how far I have come.

I was a normal sized baby, and little girl, but somehow during second grade I started being bigger than the other kids. I had a grandma who showed love by shoveling cookies, candy, ice cream, cake, pop and chips into you. And you showed love by eating seconds of everything. I think this has something to do with it. I don't remember being anything but loved at home as a child.
I don't remember a dysfunctional family, except for our use of food.

By fourth grade, I was being tormented for being overweight. My classmates called me "hippo" . I never told any adult how I was tortured. During fifth grade it was "frankenstein".

My source of positive self esteem came from adults. I was an adult pleaser, a good student, with girl scout badges that went down the front and all the way up the back.

I was however, not popular with my peers, not invited to parties, or out on dates.

In sixth grade I remember the day they weighed us all in gym class. I was mortified when they weighed us in front of each other and I weighed 160 pounds.

In high school again I wan an honor student, but had a small circle of friends.
Others who also were not popular for whatever reason.

I went through four years of high school without a date. My younger sister always had a boyfriend and was popular. She made a habit of torturing me about it.

When I graduated I earned small scholarships from three different sources.
So obviously, adults recognized something worthy in me. My academic achievements gave me a source of self esteem. I graduated from high school tipping the scales at about 180 pounds.

College was a continuation of my past. I went four years never being asked out on a date. By my junior year my weight was up around 220 pounds. I tried weight watchers for a while with some success and got down around 160 pounds by graduation. This did not however change my social life any.

Academically, things continued my earlier trend . I floated to the top of the class with ease, and grauated with a GPA of around 3.7 magna cum laude and inducted into the academic honor society. I did honors research and graduated with a dual degree in biology/chemistry magna cum laude with honors in biology. I earned a full scholarship and fellowship to graduate school and started right away, having graduated from college in three and a half years.

In graduate school , the losses I had my senior year of college gradually creeped back on. With all the time at school, with classes and research and teaching responsibilities, my lack of social life continued . I did have a few boys pay attention to me, but after a broken heart my second year I returned to my first love, food, and gained weight back to around 220.
I graduated again with honors, and a teaching job in Anatomy at a university in another state.

I went as a stranger to a new city and being overweight did not help me to make friends. I was very alone during that year. I ws closer to the ages of the students than the other faculty and hanging out with students was not encouraged. After the first year drew to a close I decided I needed another academic challenge and decided to go to medical school. I left my job and moved home.

I started going out with old friends from high school and did my attempt at dieting during the next year and got my weight down again to 170. I landed a teaching job at home replacing a high school chemistry teacher who had been fired, and saved money while I applied to medical school, and took the admissions test. Once again I had academic success and was accepted to a school in my home state, in another city.

I was pursued by a military recruiter who was sure the military would pay for my medical school if I made military weight so I did everything in my power to take off that last 22 pounds. For my height military weight was 148 pounds.
I made it, however, my Ph.D. worked to my disadvantage. They were concerned I would want to do research rather than practice medicine. I did not get the scholarship.

My second month of medical school my dad died of cancer. He had been my long time advocate. My one source of male approval. Being away from home and losing dad were the triggers to regain the lost weight. I was at my all time low weight of my life when I returned home for his funeral. Within six months I was back to 170.

Part of the weight gain was deliberate. I was getting too much male attention at the low weight. This made me an angry bitch. I was angry at everyone. I was angry at all the men who did not have time for me when I was a bright, sensitive, overweight woman. They only noticed me after I became attractive (substitute thin). I would taunt and tease and as soon as I was noticed I would castrate.

That did not bring me what I wanted more than anything, love. I did not like myself and reverted to what I always did in the past, I ate myself fat, to the point I was no longer noticed, and studied hard. At the end of medical school again I was inducted into Alpha Lamda Alpha, the honor society for medicine. I reached academic success, but graduated at an all time high weight.

I chose a residency program in my home city. Ever since my dad died I longed to come home to family and friends. For three years I lived a grueling residency, on call every third night, sleeping to make up for the night on call every third night, and one night with my nose in books studying my specialy for the medical boards. Many of my fellow residents perceived my overweight as a sign of laziness. Academically I was their highest performing resident, however, socially I was not accepted by my peers. when I finished my residency my weight was an all time h igh of 240 pounds.

Now over the years I had tried dozens of diets, none of which worked. I only listed the times I had significant success getting near to a normal weight.
One of my fellow residents once told me I needed to find someone to love me as a fat woman, rather than try to lose weight to find love. Somehow I knew she was right.

Rather than join a partnership I made the decision to open a private practice when completing residency. With my academic success it was not that difficult to get loans and hospital support to do this. I opened my medical practice in June of 1990.

On weekends I was going out to the singles events with some girl friends from high school. At one of them a man paid attention to me even though I was a fat girl. This was a first. I started dating him and while dating him since he was trying to lose weight, I started to diet and exercise trying to lose weight. He traveled a lot with his work and I was miserable 80% if the time, happy 20% of the time. It was not a healthy relationship, so I ended it
around Thanksgiving. I had lost enough weight during the relationship to get down to around 190 pounds. Still fat, but not at my highest weight.

That is the week I went to a singles activity at a local church and met my husband. I refused to play the games women often to to attract a man's attention, and he was the first man to truly be impressed by all my academic achievements. He wanted to put my light on a hill rather than hide it under a buschel. Within a month we knew it was meant to be. I knew he was my soul mate. We were married one year later. I found someone to love me where I was and did not have to get thin to get his attention.

I was around 210 pounds on my wedding day. Gradually I gained weight with married life. In 1995 we had our first child. I was about 240 pounds. In 1996 I had our second child and was around 260 pounds. That year we found out the love of my life had cancer. We made a lifestyle decision and I closed my successful medical practice to take care of him. He had an uncle who had died without children and left him some money which we used to pay off our house, and cars and invested the balance. As long as we lived middle class neither of us needed to work. Closing my practice was the smartest thing I ever did.

The source of my self esteem went from being the smartest, best doctor around to being a wife and mother. In 1998 I went on a diet and got my weight back to almost 200 pounds and we went on a trip to celebrate his completion of one year of chemotherapy and being done with his cancer treatment. I went off the diet for the trip and never got back on. Gradually the weight creeped back.

It did not matter to him. He loved me whatever my weight. It made it hard to even try to do anything about it. By 2002 I was back around 240 pounds.
Our kids were 7 and 5 and my husband had a cancer recurrence after being cancer free for six years. We lived through hell. He had a 12 hour surgery and ended up with a three month hospital stay. I was by his side every day and at the end of three months my weight was up to an all time high of 280 pounds.

My berfore photo was taken in December 2003 while I am my heaviest.
The year of 2003 we worked on getting Michael's strength back. After being in the hospital for three months he had to relearn to walk. We went home with physical therapy coming to the house to work with him. Much to my chagrin, one of the first things he did when he was able to go somewhere alone was to resume smoking. part of the reason for his long hospital stay was 18 days on a ventilator.

In an attempt to get him to quit, I made him a deal, I would lose weight and he would quit smoking. I did not have to lose weight to have his love. But if the two of us wanted to be around to watch our kids grow up we both needed to take better care of ourselves.

I bought an diet off tv. I was sucked into the Michael Thurmond 6 week body makeover. When it arrived I realized it was the same old low fat, no salt tasteless diet I had tried and failed dozens of times during my life but since I spent so much money to buy it, I went ahead and started it. After five weeks and about 25 pounds lost, I knew I could not do it one more day.
I did not want to lose the momentum of a 25 pound weight loss, so I started to seek another program to switch to. I had a friend who was trying Atkins.
I borrowed his book. After reading the book I thought to myself, I can do this! I get back salt and fat! I can do this. I can give up the complex starches. I had already given up bread and pasta for the other diet. It seemed a fair trade off.

The rest is history. I made the switch to Atkins on Mother's Day 2004. Early on in my low carb journey I found this website, and have been using the support it provided. The first few weeks were difficult. I did not have a quick weight loss so many had experienced. In fact the first two weeks I hardly had a loss at all. My body did not know how to react to the changes I was putting it through, but I hung in there. The third week the scales started to move.

The weight loss was slow but steady. The first year I lost about 70 pounds total, counting the 25 from the first diet. The second year I lost another 30 and celebrated my 100 pounds loss. The third year which we are in now (will have third anniversary of weight loss in March 2007) I managed to lose another ten pounds, but mainly it has been a year of maintaining.

To be 52 years old and maintain a 110 pound loss over a three year interval in itself is nothing short of a miracle. I have never in my life lost weight and kept it off. I became a believer in the low carb lifestyle. This is not a diet for me, it is a life change.

Having lost 110 pounds, I have had to deal with a lot of excess saggy skin. I chose to deal with the skin surgically. I had no luck with excercise. Having been morbidly obese for 40 of my 50+ years, my skin was streched beyond its ability to rebound back.

In March last year I saw a plastic surgeon for a consult. He told me the extra weight I was carrying was mostly skin. I had done all the hard work and if I wanted to do something I could do it any time. I was thrilled. I could
let go of my bat wings, and saggy chicken neck and extra tummy apron.

In April , 2006 I had the first surgery, a bilateral brachioplasty. I am thrilled with the results. However, I did react to anesthesia with tremendous water retention. It took months for me to return to my presurgery weight.

In August, 2006, I had the lower face/neck lift. It took 20 years off my age.
I am thrilled with the results, however again I reacted to anesthesia with water retention and again it took months to return to presurgery weight.

In November I had to have a D&C, for premenopausal woman thing, and reacted wtih water weight gain.

Finally, December 27 I had the last of my skin surgeries, a circumferential
abdomenoplasty. I am in the healing phases right now . I am post op day 8 today. Again, like all the others, I am dealing with water retention and massive swelling. The surgeon said it will take about six months for the swelling to go down. However, I have no belly apron anymore. I saw a flat tummy at my first post op visit. I know I will be thrilled with the result after the recovery.

I get attention all the time for my weigt loss from men and women alike. I am not the same as other times when I lost weight because I have the love of a wonderful man who told me I was beautiful, even when I weighed 280 pounds. Having unconditional love makes a big difference. I do not react with anger this time when men give me attention. I don't desire their attention because I have someone who loves me at home. So this time I can enjoy the compliments for what they are.

I have grown in my faith over the years facing serious health issues with my husband. My self esteem at present comes from the fact that I am a child of God, and he loves me just where I am. I am no longer trying to get self esteem by being the smartest, being the best, earning the most awards or getting thin. My self esteem comes from knowing God loves me, and what he has done for me in my life.

Right now, at 52, my life is the best it has ever been. I have a wonderful husband, two terrific kids, money in the bank and a new body that I got with a new way a eating that I can live with for life.

Changing my attitude had everything to do with my success. I was no longer trying to lose weight to get approval externally for men or women, or to get self esteem for myself. I was losing weight for myself so I could be healthier and be around for my family.

I have racked up many accomplishements during my lifetime. Graduated from college, graduate schoola nd medical school all at the top of my class. Had my research presented before congress and been quoted in the congressional record. I was a big time overachiever. Of all the things I have done during my life, the one thing I am most proud of is losing this weight and keeping it off for three years. It is the hardest thing I have ever had to do in my life
and when I found this way of eating it became a task I could accomplish one day at a time.

Right now I have it all. I have a wonderful God, a loving family, financial security, and the health I finally achieved with weight loss.

My husband still faces major medical challenges, and my life's work is to be the best wife and mother I can be. The task the Lord has given me is not to be the best doctor in the city, it is to take care of my family with a servants heart. I thank God for the day he guided me to this way of living. It has saved my life.

And that my fellow low carbers is my story.
God bless you all.
Karen
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  #2  
by mskllsws on Thu, Jan-04-07, 21:01
Default

If you look at my photo gallery there are more photos of my arms before and after surgery, and more photos of my face after the lower facelift.
Enjoy.
Karen
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