(gentle atmospherical music)
- When I've gone to doctors,
they've told me I'm morbidly obese.
The last time I stepped on the scales,
I was 380 pounds.
The fact that that number is so high just terrifies me.
My blood pressure has gone up.
It's in the dangerous zone.
I'm pre-diabetic.
I cannot climb a flight of stairs
without being completely winded.
I was almost waiting for something to happen,
like waiting for a catastrophic health problem
to wake me up.
Something as extreme as maybe a heart attack
to be like okay, now I need to do something.
I just feel like I need to make the change.
I'm going to have to undergo surgery.
My stomach is actually going to become
the size of a banana.
It's not a cop-out.
It's just the best solution for me at this time.
My name is Annalisa, and I'm getting a sleeve gastrectomy.
I have definitely been the victim of yo-yo dieting
and yo-yo weight loss.
There's been two periods in my life where
I've lost significant amounts of weight,
but then I've just put them back on.
Up until, I would say, two years ago,
I'd never gone over 330 pounds.
Now, in these past two years,
is when I've really started putting on just a ton of weight
to where I am now, which is 380 pounds.
I'm very excited at the possibility
of walking in somewhere
and being able to try anything on,
but I know I'm that probably gonna be buying
a lot of stuff.
So I'm probably gonna go broke once I lose weight.
I love designer clothing.
There just aren't a lot of designer brands
out there right now that make plus size clothing.
To me, the thought of being able to
walk into any clothing store
and try anything off the rack,
that's a completely foreign feeling.
(somber piano music)
I grew up in a Aruba, tropical paradise island. (laughs)
Didn't really appreciate it at the time.
Kind of just wanted to live in the states
and be an American mall rat.
High school was a really weird time for me.
I went up in weight,
so I was even heavier than when I was a child.
I definitely considered myself an outcast.
I would skip school a lot,
and just kind of hang out with my friends who
kind of also considered themselves outcasts
and I had found this home in this group of,
kind of misfits.
I wanted nothing more than to have a boyfriend
because a lot of people around me
had boyfriends and were in relationships
and I would have hookups,
but I think guys didn't want to be in a relationship
with somebody who was heavier.
They didn't want to be publicly seen
with somebody like me,
and it would be like, oh, don't tell anybody.
So, that happened a lot.
I met Kevin when I was almost 30 years old.
We met online and immediately hit it off.
We had such an amazing connection.
He just appreciated me for who I was.
He loved my curves, he loved my body.
We started very strong and heavy very quickly.
I would probably say he was
the first person that I actually loved.
What I loved the most is he really knew me,
and to have that connection with somebody
and just have them know you so well,
it was such a special thing to me.
So Kevin told me he was into bigger women
and he absolutely loved my curves.
He thought I was incredibly sexy,
and I had started to put on a little bit weight
while we dated.
I think towards the end, he was concerned.
He told me a couple times why don't we start dieting
or why don't we start working out,
and he would always say, you know,
I love your body the way it is,
but I really just want you to be healthy.
And he saw me struggling to go up a flight of stairs
and didn't want that for me,
and wanted to be able to do active things with me
and not have me, you know, get too tired
and want to give up.
One of the things that I had struggled with
in our relationship was that
he didn't tell his family about me.
He said it was due to religious reasons
and that they wouldn't understand.
Although, part of me always wondered
if it was because of my weight,
and because he didn't think
that I was the right kind of woman
to bring home to his family.
I didn't question it.
So Kevin came from a mixed religion background.
His mother was very, very strict Hindu.
What he told me to justify not meeting his parents was
he didn't know how they would accept
this white Jewish girl.
He wanted to make sure what we had
was for the long-term.
It definitely caused some frustration,
because I think if you've been together
for almost two years,
that's pretty long-term.
I mean, we were open with our friends
and with acquaintances and he would say
he was my boyfriend,
but I need somebody who would be
proud to introduce me to their parents
and introduce me to their family.
The last time I saw him was on a Sunday.
He had just started this brand new job where
he worked night shifts and
I was working during the day,
so it was very hard to connect
and actually see each other.
I remember texting him up to Tuesday.
I didn't hear from him the next day,
and then the day after that,
and then the weekend was approaching
and I started texting him and saying,
what's going on, are we gonna go out this weekend?
Let me know what your plans are,
and I didn't hear back, which was strange.
So I tried calling,
and his phone rang and rang,
and that feeling came over me of
what's going on?
And so after a couple days of not hearing from him,
I
googled his name,
and I found the articles about the accident.
And there were pictures of him,
pictures of the car, it had
skidded off and hit an embankment
and actually flipped over
and fallen from an overpass,
and that's how I found out he died.
And that was really hard.
I started screaming,
started looking up information
to see if I could find a way to contact his family,
and found a phone number,
which I kept calling, incessantly,
until they picked up.
And they didn't know who I was,
but I was hysterical and they said, okay, come over,
we'll talk to you.
But I had to explain who I was,
and kind of tell them facts
to convince them that I was telling the truth.
There's probably like two or three months
where I'd cry about it every day,
and part of me wonders if I rushed trying to,
you know, try and lead a normal life again.
Because I don't know if I gave myself enough time
to process everything.
His death affected me in a way that
my eating pretty much spiraled out of control,
and I've absolutely have not taken care of myself
in the past two years.
I eat whatever I want.
I have no restrictions on what I eat.
I haven't stepped into a gym in years,
and that's how my weight has bloomed to where it is now.
I decided to start researching weight loss surgery
about four months ago,
when my plantar fasciitis started getting really bad,
and I had lost any type of hope
of being able to start exercising
and losing weight in a natural way.
Up until the past couple of months,
I would say I just didn't even care.
I was almost waiting for something to happen,
like waiting for a catastrophic health problem
to wake me up and be like,
okay, this is my moment of change.
Now I'm gonna do something about it.
Something as extreme as maybe a heart attack,
to be like, okay, now I need to do something.
So it's the night before my surgery
and the nerves are definitely kicking in.
I have been on a liquid protein diet
for the past two weeks.
I am so hungry.
Today my coworkers surprised me with flowers
and this really heartfelt card.
Not gonna lie, definitely shed a tear.
So, it was nice to know that, you know,
everybody is thinking of me and I'm loved
and so, I'm excited for tomorrow and
starting the next chapter of my life.
(soft music)
So the procedure that I'm having done
is the sleeve gastrectomy,
and basically they go in and they cut out
a large portion of your stomach
and then suture it shut
so that it's really only the size of a banana.
So you can only eat very, very small portions at a time.
I'm going to be on a very rigid and strict meal plan
after the procedure.
I'm not huge into change,
and everything about my life is going to change.
The reason I'm doing what I'm doing,
yes, it's because I want to look better.
For the most part, it's because I want to feel better.
I want to be healthy.
I don't want to get to that point now
where a heart attack or a stroke
or getting diabetes is what's going to
finally be the thing that makes me get healthy.
At the end of the day, I'm excited for it because
I'm just ready for a change.
- And this is her stomach.
You see, she had a lot of room for a lot of food previously,
now she has that long, thin tube
and she won't be able to eat as much.
(gentle piano music)
- So this is my first day home from the hospital.
I got home last night at eight o'clock.
I have to say, it's a lot more painful
than I thought it would be.
Most of the pain is coming from gas,
trapped gas from the procedure.
So as you can see,
my stomach is very bloated with gas from the procedure.
I've got one incision there,
one incision there,
one there,
and then there's my belly button.
That's definitely the most painful one.
So between that and the gas,
I'm in a pretty good amount of pain.
(sighs)
But, it was worth it,
and hopefully I'll be back to normal soon.
So I just had my one week post-op appointment.
Everything looks good.
Everything is healing nicely.
I'm not in any pain anymore.
I went back to work a couple days ago and feel great.
I've actually got lots of energy.
I've lost about 20 pounds now,
so that kind of helps and makes everything more exciting.
And can't wait to see how the next few months ago.
So look where I am!
I'm at the gym!
Got the all clear from the doctor
to start working out again.
This is gonna suck,
but it's also great to be able to get back into the gym.
So I just threw up in my Uber.
I was having my protein shake for my morning snack,
and I think between the bumping and jostling in the car
and drinking the thick shake,
it was a bit too overwhelming for my stomach.
So, lesson learned,
no more drinking protein shakes in the car.
So today is two months since I had the surgery.
I'm about 50 pounds down.
I feel amazing.
I'm in Mexico City on vacation.
This is the first vacation I've taken in a long time.
I couldn't make it to the Temple of the Sun,
but I did last a while,
and I actually climbed it,
now I want to die and drop and then die again.
Oh my gosh!
So I am officially out of the 300 club!
It's a really food feeling.
Definitely feeling myself today.
Even showing off some stomach.
I can't believe it.
Not bad, if I do say so myself.
Today is the one year anniversary of my surgery and
I feel like a new person.
I have lost 150 pounds since the surgery in the past year,
so I now weigh 235 pounds.
My confidence today would probably be an 11/10.
Even though I know I still have work to do,
I still feel more confident than I ever have.
The reaction from everyone around me
has been so incredible.
Just to see people's reactions
and people telling me, you know,
I didn't recognize you
if I haven't seen them for a while
or you know, you're doing such an amazing job.
It's been really incredible.
Shopping has been interesting.
Sometimes I have to remind myself
that I don't need to shop at the plus size stores anymore.
I went into a store the other day,
for the first time ever,
because I never thought I could
fit into any of their clothes,
and actually I ended up walking away with
500 dollars worth of clothing.
So, shopping has been great.
The hardest part is making room for all the new clothes.
So I've been donating bags and bags to charity,
just to get rid of all my big sizes,
because I never want to go back to that.
I finally, over the past year,
have felt like I was in a place
to put myself out there again.
I've very much enjoyed the dating process
and it's changed my dating life
to where I actually have a dating life now,
which I didn't have before.
Along with all the physical changes that I've had,
mentally, I also am in a place
where I just take better care of myself.
I'm very, very aware now of
getting enough nutrition
and taking care of my body.
I actually feel like I have a life again.
I'm now the one in my circle of friends saying,
let's go out, let's go have dinner, let's go dancing.
All I want to do now is go out dancing
and show off all my pretty new clothes.
Before the surgery, I was pre-diabetic,
I was on blood pressure medication.
Now I'm happy to say that
I'm off the blood pressure medication.
My blood pressure is totally normal.
I'm no longer pre-diabetic.
My last test showed that everything was normal
since I had the surgery.
I do still sometimes think about Kevin,
especially when I have a positive movement where
I've accomplished something new
or I fit into a new outfit
that I didn't think I would fit into
and I do have those occasional thoughts of
he would have really loved this
and he would have really appreciated it.
I'm sure he would have been very proud of me.
I'll always be a work in progress,
and I'm comfortable with that.
I'm okay with that,
because I also don't want to feel like
I've hit my goal and now I can sit back and relax
and that's it, it's over.
The big thing is taking it one day at a time.
It's only gonna get better from here.
I'm healthy, I'm happy, I'm confident.
My relationships with my friends and family
have just improved so much and
it's cliche to say it gets better, but it gets better.