I say it had to be different because I'd battled my weight for most of my life, learning the hard way that meal replacement shakes and fad diets only work temporarily.
In June 2014, I peaked at a size 22. To be at a healthy weight for my height, I needed to lose more than 125 pounds. Given my dieting history, I didn't think there was any way I could do that on my own, so I embarked on the surgery path.
To address the elephant in the room and prevent people from asking me tons of questions about my weight loss, or from whispering "I think she had bariatric surgery…" behind my back, I created a Facebook group announcing my plans within my existing friends.
In the meantime, I attended the required 4-hour-long seminar. As I heard the instructor list the postsurgery "forbiddens," I felt myself get nervous. "You won't be able to drink from a straw forever. You will not be able to eat sugar forever. You will not be allowed to eat bread that hasn't been heavily toasted forever." I kept thinking, forever is a long time… Even though I knew there would be restrictions before I attended the seminar, hearing them made it different, and I started to second-guess my decision to go forward with the surgery.
Still, I knew I needed to lose the weight, so I soldiered on. The rule was, if you gained any weight after the seminar, you would no longer be a candidate for bariatric surgery. I took this rule very seriously, so I started watching what I ate. By the time I actually saw a surgeon for my first consultation 6 weeks later, I was already down to 259 pounds. I was shocked. When I started meeting with my registered dietitian (Christine Zirpoli at Navy Medical Center Portsmouth) 2 months after that, I was down to 249. At that point, I remember thinking, maybe, just maybe, I could do this on my own.
The day of my final weigh-in, Christine cleared me for surgery. All I had to do was walk over to the surgery wing and schedule the procedure. But a little voice inside me asked if I really needed the surgery after all. At that point I'd already lost around 20 pounds. "If you can do that once, maybe you can do it four or five more times," I thought. Feeling relieved that I might not have to cut anything out forever, I asked Christine if I could stay with her in the nutrition department a little longer and talk about what we might be able to accomplish together.
Photograph courtesy of Cheryl Parker
Turns out, we accomplished a lot. I never did have the surgery, and today, just over a year later, I have lost 100 pounds.
Several things have made this weight loss attempt the one that worked. First, as Christine told me, I am not "that girl" anymore. I'm not that girl who says yes to cake simply because someone urges, "Come on, just one piece won't hurt." I'm not that girl who only chooses things on a menu that remind me of the foods I grew up on—anything cheesy or fried. Instead, I'm the girl who confidently says "no" to unhealthy food, and who plans ahead and eats lots of fruits, vegetables, and lean protein. I'm the girl who logs between 15,000 and 20,000 steps a day with my pedometer, and I'm the girl who's training for her first half-marathon in the fall. I surround myself with supportive people, including my husband, 19-year-old son, and neighbor Allison, all of whom will run the half-marathon alongside me.
Perhaps most important, I'm the girl who is kind to herself. In the past, I would have said, "You need to lose 100 pounds because you're disgustingly fat." This girl says, "I'm going to take this one step at a time. I'm not going to get mad at myself if I walk one day instead of jog. And it's OK if I only lose 1 pound this week." With this fresh, more positive attitude, the funny thing is, I haven't cheated at all.
After encouragement from friends, I've also expanded my personal mantra to encourage hundreds of new Facebook friends on my "Cheryl's Slim Down—My Weight Loss Journey" page. I was hesitant to put myself out there to so many people at first. I thought, Who is going to care about my weight loss story? I'm nobody. But then as I was out running one morning, I looked at the runners huffing and puffing next to me on the trail, and I realized, I'm everybody! That day, I turned my private Facebook group into a public page.
This Facebook page helps me as much as it helps my followers because I have to be accountable. My followers know exactly how much I'm eating and exercising, and they depend on me to make the right decisions and to keep going. They also see that I don't deprive myself; if I really want something, I look at my food diary and make room for it somehow. This girl doesn't ever tell herself she can't have something forever.
Photograph courtesy of Cheryl Parker
My journey is still in progress. Ultimately, I would like to get firmly into the "healthy" weight category for my height. But I'm so much better off than I was just over a year ago. I feel amazing—like I'm 30, not 42. It never ceases to surprise me when I look down and my stomach is so much thinner—I see muscles now! A high point came recently when my son, Jordan, posted a message on Instagram about how proud he was of me, along with before and after photos.
I'm not saying that bariatric surgery isn't a good tool to take control of your health. I strongly feel every woman should explore all of her options and then make her choice. There is no one "right" way for everyone. But I would say that you shouldn't be afraid to change paths once you've already started on one. I never guessed at the beginning of my journey that I would make such a sharp turn and end up here.
