I Was Fat

Photo by AP

Three years ago I had a Laparoscopic Gastric Banding, or Lap-Band for short. Basically, it’s a plastic band placed around the top part of my stomach. Inside the band is a tube that can be made bigger or smaller, allowing me to either eat more or less. I have a “port” right under my skin, outside of my stomach and above my abdominal wall, that is attached to the tube, so when they want to adjust the band size, they use a needle to inject saline into the port. The band makes the top part of my stomach roughly the size of an egg, so I can’t eat too much or too fast. When I eat I can feel the food moving through the band, so I can’t eat big pieces of food. I have to chew very thoroughly and I get full so much faster. I still have to eat healthy though. Like, I could drink three milkshakes no problem, it would just go right through the band. I have to be careful of hearty soups too. It’s important to eat food that you have to chew. If I overeat or eat really rich foods, it backs up into my esophagus and makes me throw up. You can’t imagine how full and sick it makes you feel. Trust me, it’s not sick like, “Oh, I feel sick.” It’s more like you’re dying. The first time I overate, I thought I was having a heart attack. It has the same exact symptoms of a heart attack. My arm went numb and I couldn’t breathe. It felt like someone was sitting on my chest and choking me. That happens because the food is in your esophagus so you feel like you can’t get air. It feels horrible but you get used to it. I was bedridden for the first four weeks after the surgery and I could only eat pureed food and baby food. But I couldn’t stand the smell of baby food. It’s really weird, there’s something about getting surgery on your stomach that makes you super-sensitive to smell. So all I could eat was chicken pureed in a blender and mixed with water. It was disgusting. I added pesto even though you’re not supposed to. At my heaviest I weighed 280. Now I’m around 183. My goal is 160. Theoretically, I can have the band on forever. The reason I had this done instead of gastric bypass is because I want to have kids and they can loosen the band while you’re pregnant. There aren’t too many side effects except you burp a lot more and you get the hiccups a lot. And indigestion. Oh, this is funny: During the surgery, they blow your whole abdomen up with air so they can move your organs around and see what they’re doing in there. So afterwards, when I was in the recovery room immediately after surgery, I had the most uncontrollable farting I’ve ever had in my life. Because of all that air coming out. It was hilarious. Not anyone can get the surgery; you have to have a body mass index over a certain amount. Plus, I’m diabetic. Luckily, my insurance paid for the whole thing. The surgery fee alone was $10,000 but I only had to shell out a $10 co-pay. I decided to get the surgery because I was a total binge overeater. I would eat a box of doughnuts until I was sick and then eat some more. Whenever I used to see pictures of people that weighed 800 pounds and were homebound, I totally knew that I had the capacity to be that. I also know that I physically and mentally didn’t have the capability to stop myself. Food is my best friend. I like food more than I like most people. I think about my next meal the way a heroin addict thinks about their next fix. Food is everything to me. I just love it. It sounds very 12-steppy, but I’ve had to learn to “eat to satisfaction, not fulfillment.” I’ve had to learn to know when my body is actually full. I’ll even do things like, when I can’t control myself and I go and get a hamburger, I’ll cut it in half and dump a whole shaker of salt over the other half so I physically can’t eat it. ‘Cause I would eat it. I love feeling sick from food. That feeling of being sedentary and being just disgustingly full was such a big thing for me for so long. I still miss it. I might not ever be a size-2, skinny, perfect girl, but I feel like this saved my life. Even though I’m still a size 10, I’m healthier than I’ve ever been before. I try not to be obsessed with the numbers. And my diabetes is virtually gone too. RACHEL LEFKOWITZ