Introduction

Hi! My name is Megan. I am 37 years old. Married with 2 kids and 2 dogs. I live in the Midwest. My family has never been one to be classified as lucky with the skinny gene. My Mom has always maintained a normal weight but she is very mindful of what she eats. My father and his family have always had to work a bit harder. Many of the people in my Dad's family are morbidly obese. One of them has had gastric bypass but is still large and another is currently living in a nursing home due to obesity. I refuse to follow in the footsteps of these people!

I have been on a diet since I was 11 years old. Sometimes the diet is a real diet and sometimes the diet is the "See food" diet. I have always yo-yo'd my weight my entire life. My weight became a larger issue when I was in college. That is when I really started gaining and it continued until the birth of my second and last child. Upon the birth of my kids I realized that I did not want to be the "fat" mom at my kids school. I embarked on the Weight Watcher's diet. I did really well at first. I was able to eat a lot of points due to my size (about 190 lbs). I was also breastfeeding my 6 week old daughter when I began WW. The breastfeeding melted the weight off of me. About 6 months into my weight loss I hit a stand still point. This is when I joined a gym. I became a gym rat spending up to 3 hours a day there. I ended up doing WW for approximately 18 months. At the end of it I weighed 137 lbs. and wearing a size 8. (I had not worn a size 8 since I was in high school.) I was happier than I had been in a long time and was loving my new size. I was able to maintain under 145 lbs for another 6 months.

In September of 2003, I was in a terrible accident. This accident required me to have 2 major surgeries and many multiple smaller procedures. From the day of the accident to the day I was healed was 4 years. I was left depressed, addicted to pain killers and 65 pounds heavier than I was when I was doing Weight Watchers. Over the next 8 months I spent my time detoxing off all medications. It wasn't hard just scary because I had developed a huge fear of pain. When I was able to return to work in February 2008, I was approximately 224 lbs. (My highest weight ever!) I was huge and wearing a size 18-20. The thought of having to shop in large women's clothing store really stressed me out. I was able to lose a bit of weight, just enough to keep me out of the Fat Girl store. My knees were killing me and I had to have surgery on my left knee due to the arthritis I had developed. I couldn't believe that I was looking at a knee replacement at 36 years old! My doctor told me that he could not do a knee replacement on me at my age and the best thing I could do was lose weight. Since then I have signed up, started and failed Weight Watchers twice. I have lacked the motivation to start the program and exercise. I was at my wit's end.

In July 2009, at 22o lbs, I decided to attend a surgical weight loss informational meeting. I couldn't believe I was sitting in that room was some of the largest people I had ever seen in my life! Was I that big? According to my BMI, I was at 35, I was morbidly obese. This was enough to make me want gastric bypass the next day! I made an appointment with the surgeon but I had to wait 3 months to get in. I knew that they were going to make me do a medically supervised weight loss program with a doctor for 6 months. So, I was looking at least 9 months down the road before I could even have surgery. What was I going to do??? I discussed surgical weight loss with my orthopedic surgeon and he said he would back me in my choice. I decided to make an appointment with my family practice doctor to see what his opinion would be. I weighed 214 lbs on the scale at his office in July 2009. He heard me out and I was sure he was going to tell me that I was crazy. Nothing such as that happened though. He decided that if I needed to be on a medically supervised program that we were going to start it that day! He wrote me a prescription for Phentramine and sent me on my way. I was to follow up with him in 1 month. At my next visit in August I was down 1o lbs! This was great I thought! I can keep doing this I told him! It was easy. I wasn't starving and was eating what I felt like if we went out to dinner. The Phentramine made me feel a bit jittery but this was a side effect of the medication. My doctor warned me that Phentramine can lose its effectiveness after 3 months of use. This made me a bit disappointed but I wanted to continue on. I knew the month August-September was not going as well as before. The weight seemed to be taking longer to come off so, I began to look at different ideas for weight loss. I came across the hcg weight loss program. I was flabbergasted at the weight people were losing on it! I spent the next week researching it. I discussed it with my husband (who needs to lose about 50lbs) and we decided that we were going to look into it together. I made an appointment with a doctor in my area that specializes in hcg weight loss for a consultation. That brings me to today, September 14th, 2008. I had an appointment at my family physician and was down another 5 lbs this past month. (I weighed 197 at his office and 194.3 at my home.) I asked him about hcg weight loss I was surprised that he did not know anything about it at all! He suggested that I continue doing what I had been doing for the past 2 months. If what he told me stands true, this month on Phentramine could be my last. I am worried it may be a temporary fix and once I go off the weight will come right back on.

In the reading I have been doing about hcg weight loss many people report the energy they gain due to the program. It is also reported that because the diet does not allow dairy or gluten that the inflammatory process in the body is decreased. I am wondering if this may improve my arthritis in my knee. I have decided that I am going to keep my consultation appointment for the 17th of September to find out some more information.

I am hoping to keep this blog as a chronicle of my weight loss. Hopefully, it will motivate me in whatever endeavor I decide to pursue with my weight loss.