200 Lb Natural Weight Loss - Torrance, CA

I have always been on the heavy side. I hit 200lb in sixth grade! By the time I was finishing eighth grade I had weighed over 300 pounds. I was never one of those self conscious fat people. Like most I was the funny fat guy, the guy who walked with his head held high with so much confidence. I never watched my weight and would avoid doctors appointments so I didn't have to go through the dreaded height and weight check that always left both the doctor and nurses shaking their heads. From early on I was always told that I wouldn't be able to lose weight without weight loss surgery. I was even told that I could lose 50lbs and no one would be able to tell because I was so heavy! I always just brushed it off and felt that as long as I could walk and breath without any complications, I was fine. It wasn't till about the end of 11th grade year when I decided I wanted to be one of those people who came back to school after summer vacation and awed people. Starting the first day of summer I stepped on the scale and it read 399. My mind and my heart started racing since I hadn't imagined it got that bad. I'm not going to blame anything for my weight gain. I was a conscious water and knew I wasn't being healthy. I love food. After the initial shock wore off I developed a game plan. I started off small and got rid of soda. It is true about soda being just sugar. I looooved Dr. Pepper, I couldn't get enough. Sometimes I would drink a whole 2 liter and not even bat an eyelash. Giving up soda was hard but I did it. After a month of no soda I was down 50LBS! And no one could tell the difference; I guess my doctor didn't just talk to hear himself speak. As soon as I saw I lost the fifty pounds I ran into the living room and the only response I heard was "are you sure?" The fifty pound loss and no notice was utterly defeating. I wanted to just give it all up and forget the whole deal, but then I had a change of heart after listening to my mom speak about my Abuela in Mexico having a hard time with her diabetes. As big as I got and as much as I ate and drank, I never got diabetes. I'm first generation American and so my families are in their countries still, and I don't know much about them, let alone their medical history. I started asking and found out some scary facts. Diabetes is prevalent on my Mexican side, and heart disease was a scary trait from my Sicilian side. I looked at myself and told myself that I didn't want to be a 20 something year old diabetic with a heart condition. From there I started making healthier choices. Walking more, eating a little less, and eating healthy were the three biggest factors of my extreme weight loss. By the time I got back to school I was 90 pounds lighter, and boy did they notice then!
By the end of my senior year I was 140 pounds lighter than I was when junior year ended. I was 259 pounds and I looked and felt amazing. After graduation I started going to the gym because I finally felt comfortable enough to go. By my freshman year in college I was down 200lb. I stated lifting weights and focusing on tightening and toning and did all that I could. Talking to my my new adult doctor and explaining everything to him really awed him. At this point I was living with and apron of excess skin that no amount of cardio/weight training was going to fix. He referred me to a plastic surgeon but my insurance company denied my consultation. Another setback on my way to a better healthier me (trust me there were a lot) I was in a funk and it took me almost a month to fight my insurance company on this. After some hoop jumping I was finally approved for my consultation. I was approved for a mini tuck that was covered by my insurance with only a $200 deductible. I scheduled my mini tuck one week after my last day of school and June 15th was my big day.

Recovery was a lot less scary than I had anticipated. The procedure itself was rather fast. I was in at 6:00 am and was home by 10:30am. It was a same day procedure so literally fifteen minutes after waking up they sent me on my merry way.
They put internal sutures as well as staples on the incision, which was hip to hip. They warned me about pain and how often to take the pain meds; "don't wait to take them every four hours, take them thirty minutes before so you don't have to experience pain waiting for them to kick in." That advice made me a little nervous but I always prided myself on my ability to endure pain (I was so clumsy growing up that they new my name in the emergency room). I decided to do my healing at my apartment rather than going to my mothers home. I personally think healing in a place comfortable to you trumps healing somewhere "convenient". I live on the third story with no elevator, and my mother lives in a home with no stairs. Ideally, my mothers home was perfect, except for the fact that she has three cats and two dogs, not to mention my sister and her newborn baby. Rest is a big part of recovery and I knew that there would be no rest found there. Much to the dismay of my family, I chose to treck those three flights (two small, and one that seemed to have no end in sight) leading to my apartment/sanctuary. When I got to the top of the stairs I felt triumphant, I felt proud, and I felt like I was going to pass out. This was the first time I've ever felt like I was going to faint. This was the first time in a long time that I felt so vulnerable. Ive always been so independent, always doing something, the realization hit me that I can't really do anything for the next couple of weeks without depending on someone. The second I got into my apartment my mother helped me to my next big obstacle; the bed! I had my bed made tall so that I can store things under, this was the first time I have ever cursed my bed. I'm about 6'1, 6'2, and with the added height of my mattress, my feet dangle ins don't touch the floor when I sit on it. My mother walked me to the side of my bed and did her best to get me on comfortably. Nothing about this situation was comfortable. After 10 minutes of stop and go I was finally ingrained in my mattress with my legs and neck propped up on some pillows. By this time I was exhausted and just wanted to sleep. I'm a light sleeper, so my mom popping her head in every five minutes was troublesome. After the fourth time, by the look on my face, she got the hint to leave me to rest; if looks could kill. Before my mom left me to rest she let me know that " I will just be in the living room watching tv if you need me, my phone's volume is turned all the way up, just ring and I'll be right in." My mother, bless her heart is more trouble than help sometimes; this was one of those times. I awoke an hour later with the need to pee. I picked up my phone and sent a text to my mom, five minutes go by and no response. I decide to call her phone and it goes through the motions and then reaches her voicemail. I call her again and there's no answer. So far I've been laying in bed with the urge to pee only getting stronger. I'm having flashbacks to my nurse warning me not to try and get up and do things without someone's help, "you can rip yourself open" she warned. So now I'm just laying in bed calling out to my mom, but the tv is too loud, she can't hear a thing. Another ten minutes go by and my grandmother facetime's me to check on me, so I explain to her the predicament I'm in. After hanging up with my grandmother and forgoing her advice to "pee yourself, rather than rip yourself open" I decide to bang on the wall while calling her cellphone again; no response. By now it's been an hour and I'm really wishing she would go back to her periodic check ups, but I guess I used all my luck getting up the stairs. I decide that it's now or never, so I slowly inch my body off the bed and use this large stick to hoist me up. I must have gotten up too fast because for a few seconds all I saw was white. I make it to my bedroom door and thankfully the bathroom is right next to my room. Once I open the door I yell for my mom because I felt a little woozy. She comes rushing over with wide eyes, and then asks me in a stern tone " why are you out of bed by yourself? Why didn't you call me to come help you?!"; if looks could kill. I have her lift the lid to the toilet and let her scold me some more while she waited on the other side of the door. I couldn't flush the toilet because my height makes it to where I have to bend to reach the handle and I wasn't bending anytime soon. Once I tell my mom to check her phone she then realized the fault was hers. Her excuse for not answering was she decided to tidey up my kitchen because she was bored. The rest of the day went off without a hitch. I was thankful for my mom being there to help me with my drains and with getting me things to drink or eat, but I was happy that there would be someone else to take care of me the next day. All in all the first day was not as scary as I was expecting it to be. The only pain I had wasn't even from the incision, it was from my lower back from laying in bed all day long.