Backstory

I wasn’t a heavy kid. I was an average-sized child, active enough. I was on the soccer team, played outside everyday, spent my summers on the beach.

It wasn’t until I was nine years old that I became aware of my body in a whole new and unsettling way. My mother, who struggled most of her short life with mental health challenges, declared me overweight and put me on a diet.

Whether I had truly become overweight at nine, how my mother arrived at this conclusion, and if my pediatrician was involved is anyone’s guess.

But I’ve been “on a diet” ever since.

As I got older, I had the conviction in my head and my heart that I was not right and I needed to work on myself until I was. “You know, Leah, you do have a tendency to gain weight,” said my mother’s brother when I was 13. Getting and staying skinny was the key.

So I fought against my hunger, my fatigue, my natural instincts, and eventually, I achieved this end. Finally, my mother would be happy with me. Or so I thought.

As it turns out, any time life happened—a bad breakup, holiday season, couldn’t get to the gym—and I gained a few pounds, my mother was always sure to tell me immediately. As if I didn’t already know.

I’d get angry with her for being callous, we would argue, but ultimately I would lose the weight and inadvertently reinforce her behavior.

Sadly, my mother died at 45. I was only 23.

Unfortunately, the harsh critic she helped to cultivate still lives in me. Decades after the damage was done.

Unfortunately, I am no longer thin. I am no longer average, or merely overweight or even just chubby. I am clinically obese.

Unfortunately, I still have relatives on her side who say things like, “You’re beautiful, but you’d be even prettier if you lost weight.”

And unfortunately, I’ve tried several different weight management programs with varying and only temporary success.

So finally, I have decided to pursue bariatric surgery.

This is where my story begins.