I realized when I was looking back at my last post that I talked about why obese people in general consider Weight Loss Surgery (WLS) but I didn’t talk specifically about Jimmy and me. So I wanted to stop and take you back...
Jimmy is 36 years old. He is 6’3” and a BIG guy. Many people can pinpoint the cause of their weight gain to a specific event or series of events in their lives. Jimmy once told me that he doesn’t remember a time when he wasn’t the “Big Kid”. I don’t think that could be easy on anyone.
Jimmy doesn’t believe there were any specific things in his life that caused him to gain weight (and of course there is the continuing genetics debate about weight) but that doesn’t mean his life was easy. He was raised by his amazingly wonderful grandparents--Grampy and Grammy--who lived in Boonville, MO.
Grampy and Grammy did their best to help Jimmy be healthy and active. He participated in just about every sport he was eligible to play. They made sure he ate his veggies (however few of them he may enjoy), and they took him to the doctor in the third grade when they were still concerned about his size. Nothing any of them did seemed to change the weight.
Jimmy says that it wasn’t until he had free reign over his diet and he could eat whatever he wanted that his weight truly escalated. Like most people in America, Jimmy didn’t make very healthy choices when it came to eating. By the time he really realized he had a real and serious weight problem things seemed hopeless to change.
I can attest from personal experience that when you can’t see a way out of your bad circumstances you often choose to continue in them instead of trying to make a way. So here we are now. It’s been 18 years since Jimmy left home to go to college and the spiral began and we are just now really, seriously trying to fight out way out of the pit. It’s going to be a long hard journey but we know in the end it will be worth all the blood, sweat, and tears.
