00:00I have been struggling and overweight my entire life.
00:03Growing up, I was kind of the fat girl trope.
00:05As a younger adult, I would go to work,
00:08and then when I got home,
00:10that's when my binge eating would start.
00:12At my heaviest, I weighed around 375 pounds.
00:15I felt very insignificant.
00:17I felt very lost.
00:19I felt very lonely.
00:20I would always say, like,
00:21I want to lose weight and get healthier
00:23before I get pregnant.
00:24Unfortunately, I got pregnant unexpectedly.
00:27I was diagnosed with high blood pressure.
00:29I was like, at this point, I know I need help.
00:32I had my bypass in January of 2018.
00:37Currently, I weigh between 155 pounds and 160 pounds.
00:41My iPhone thinks that I'm, like,
00:43six different people in my phone,
00:45and I have to go through and tell them,
00:46no, that's me.
00:47I feel like a completely different person.
00:50I feel like these steps were the steps
00:53I needed to get to the person
00:54that I was always supposed to be.
00:57I have been struggling and overweight
00:59since before kindergarten.
01:02I remember, five years old,
01:04I was told that I had weight issues.
01:06I was kind of the fat girl trope.
01:08I was a lonely kid.
01:09I didn't have a lot of friends.
01:11I stayed home a lot, and because of that,
01:13that's kind of what drove me to food.
01:16It was not necessarily eating unhealthily,
01:18but more eating just a lot.
01:21I would just eat double portions,
01:23binge eating, overdoing it.
01:25I would try to eat really well in the morning,
01:28but the problem was a lot of my overeating
01:31came from not being able to cope with my emotions,
01:34and so, you know, I'd have a stressful day.
01:36And then by the end of the day,
01:37I would be going home and binge watching
01:40and binge eating.
01:41That cycle just perpetuated,
01:43and I actually gained a lot of weight really fast.
01:46I turned 19 and moved in with my ex-husband,
01:50and within a year, I gained another 100 pounds.
01:54I felt very insignificant.
01:56I felt very lost.
01:58I felt very lonely.
02:00Do you know how many calories
02:01you would be eating on a day like that?
02:03Ooh, I don't know specifically,
02:05but I know just off the top of my head,
02:07it was over 3,000 at least.
02:10Now it's been so long that stuff like this
02:13is so sweet to me that I can't eat it anymore.
02:17Oh, I mean, it looks so good.
02:20I just can't believe that I would eat the whole thing.
02:22I had reached a really heavy point.
02:25Me and my ex-husband had talked about having kids.
02:28I would always say, like,
02:29I want to lose weight and get healthier
02:31before I get pregnant because I knew
02:33what an important role that my body
02:35and my health played in having a baby.
02:38Unfortunately, my health impacted my hormones,
02:42and I got pregnant unexpectedly.
02:45When I was going in every two weeks
02:47to the doctor's office for my pregnancy appointments,
02:50I realized how serious my weight was
02:53and how far it had gone.
02:55As my pregnancy went on,
02:57there were different things that happened
02:59that just scared me.
03:01I remember at about 20 weeks,
03:03I was diagnosed with high blood pressure.
03:05Up until that point, I had been making efforts,
03:07but I was like, at this point, I know I need help.
03:10That's when I started looking into weight loss surgery.
03:13I was really scared about it
03:14because I was a high-risk patient,
03:16but I knew that the surgery itself
03:19and the healing from it was short
03:21and that the long-term benefits of it
03:23were going to far outweigh my fear of it.
03:25I had my bypass in January of 2018.
03:29From the minute I was cleared
03:31for physical activity after my weight loss surgery,
03:33I went and joined a gym.
03:35I would go, and I would put in 10 minutes.
03:38I would put in 20 minutes.
03:39I would put in 30 minutes.
03:40And over the year and a half,
03:42I was able to work that up
03:44and have, like, an hour-long workout
03:46where I wasn't able to do that before.
03:48The heaviest I've weighed around 375 pounds.
03:50I hit 160 pounds around the fall of 2019.
03:56And then I have been maintaining since the end of 2019.
04:01I work out as much as I can.
04:03Typically, it's between five to six days a week.
04:05I didn't think I could get to this point
04:07where I could be as active as I am,
04:10but that's coming from nothing, so.
04:13I have a lot of respect for my body now.
04:15Right now, I'm just focused on taking care of it.
04:21Currently, I weigh between 155 pounds and 160 pounds.
04:24There's a lot of stigma around gastric bypass surgery
04:26that if you choose to do it,
04:28you're choosing the easy way out.
04:30But when you look into it,
04:32it's, I have surgically altered an organ of my body.
04:35I have to relearn how to use this body now.
04:38I had to learn how to eat smaller meals throughout the day
04:42because my stomach only holds so much at one time.
04:44In the fall of 2019,
04:47I was experiencing a lot of pain around my abdomen
04:50and my middle section,
04:52where I had just loose skin
04:54from where the weight was sitting on me
04:56before I had lost it.
04:58So I had a paniculectomy,
05:00and that also was really hard.
05:02That recovery time was almost as bad
05:05as the recovery from my weight loss surgery,
05:07just without the complication of relearning how to eat.
05:11I am very, very proud of the way I look now.
05:14I still have excess skin everywhere
05:16because I just had that much excess weight on me,
05:19and that's something I have accepted.
05:21Do I love that fact?
05:23Nope.
05:25But it is what it is.
05:31Hi!
05:33You look so pretty.
05:35I had just had my weight loss surgery
05:37in January of 2018,
05:39and that summer,
05:41I made the decision to want to go back to school.
05:43That's where I met my friend Bailey,
05:45and it's interesting
05:47because I was only about
05:49four or five months post-op when I met her.
05:51She basically got to watch
05:53the whole transformation.
05:55You gotta check this out.
05:57Dude!
05:59That is insane.
06:01Look how, like, just wide.
06:03Oh my God.
06:05Dude, you could wear that as a dress.
06:07I do wear it as a dress.
06:09It's like, how?
06:11I just don't understand.
06:13Like, this used to be my shirt.
06:15I used to fill this.
06:17It's nice when she can appreciate, like,
06:19growth I've had in situations.
06:21She'll be like, you wouldn't have been able to do that
06:23three years ago.
06:25When we met, we talked, and I just, like,
06:27gushed out to you guys, like,
06:29my whole life story.
06:31Do you remember that?
06:33Yeah, we cried after.
06:36I feel like you were just kind of learning
06:38how to love yourself, almost.
06:40I'm still trying to just think of myself
06:42as myself instead of just
06:44this character that built up.
06:46You're growing a lot.
06:48A lot, yeah.
06:50I am very proud of where I am and how far
06:52I've come and the work that I've put in.
06:54You looked so baby-faced.
06:56Well, it's because I had all that fat on my chin.
06:58When I was
07:00really big, my self-worth
07:02and my world in general was just
07:04very small. Now that I am
07:06past that, I literally just
07:08feel like I can do whatever I want.
07:10Hey, look!
07:12I feel like a
07:14completely different person. I remember that.
07:16I'm so proud of you. Oh, my God.
07:18Also, at the same time, I feel like
07:20these steps were the steps I needed
07:22to get to the person that I was always supposed to be,
07:24the person that was always there
07:26to begin with. I just didn't have the
07:28tools until now
07:30to let myself be that.
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