BEFORE & AFTER GALLERY

Pennie

Procedure: Duodenal Switch Surgery

My Story: My problems started sometime in 2nd grade. After being a scrawny kid, I suddenly craved food, and I began to eat a LOT of it. We were well fed on the farm – beef and pork were what my dad raised, so that’s what we ate most of the time. But what I loved most were starchy foods – bread, potatoes, pasta, desserts! I became a fat kid, and I stayed that way until I was a fat adult. I was always painfully aware that I was overweight; different from the other kids, teased for my size, and I began asking the question that would stay with me for the rest of my life, “Why can’t I just eat like a normal person?” I began serious attempts to lose weight in junior high beginning a lifelong pattern of hope, effort, disappointment, failure. Again, and again, and again.

It seems like I tried almost every diet plan out there, but the most I ever lost at any one time was 20 pounds. When you have over 100 to lose, that’s usually not even enough to go down a clothing size. At the end of the day I felt like a tremendous failure, unable to stick to any diet plan long enough to make it work. That’s what I told myself for years, “Just try harder; it will work THIS time.” It didn’t work the next time, or the next time, or the next. I was almost constantly on a diet, yet I continued to gain more and more weight.

The breaking point for me came in early 2012. I had started Weight Watchers for the 3rd time in January, and by March I had managed to lose 8 pounds, slowly and painfully. When I returned from a SHORT 3-day trip with my husband, I had gained all 8 pounds back. That was it – I was done. No more dieting, never! I spent the summer eating whatever I wanted – and gained another 15 pounds of course.