Lucia’s Gastric Bypass Testimonial – 11 Years after Surgery

Wow! Looking at the before picture below, I hardly recognize myself – LOL!

Since my surgery my whole life has changed physically and especially, emotionally. If I hadn’t had to go to work every day, I would have hidden myself away back then. I dreaded meeting new people and I especially dreaded meeting friends and family that knew me back when I was normal sized. Even though they wouldn’t say it out loud, I knew they were THINKING how heavy I had gotten. I imagined everyone discussing my obesity behind my back and it hurt. My self esteem was in the toilet.

Now, almost 11 years after gastric bypass (10 1/2 of those years under a size 6 –I am a size 4 now) I have an entirely different outlook on life. I shop in the regular stores and go right to the small sizes. When i would say to obese or even just overweight people that I understood how they were feeling when they talk about their weight problems, I often got a nasty look and they would ask me what would a skinny little thing like me know about what they were  going through. When I would tell them I weighed 239 lbs. at one time they just wouldn’t believe me. New friends can’t imagine me being “fat.”

When I look at the extremely few pics taken of me when I was obese (mainly because I ran from every camera around or hid behind people) I don’t recognize myself from back then.

I wear sexy clothes now and more importantly, I FEEL sexy. Physically I don’t ache all over, especially my feet, and standing up isn’t a chore like it used to be.

I go out and meet people and instead of being painfully shy, which is what I became when I was obese, my natural outgoing personality came back and I have FUN and I feel ATTRACTIVE, and I ENJOY life. No more wearing jackets on hot days and having a skinny person come up to me and ask me if I am not too hot in that jacket? I would say I was fine but I really WAS too hot. And I would think that that person had no clue. Well, I am the skinny person now but I DO have a clue and that is why I want to write this. I want every obese person to get out there and do this surgery.

I will be 60 years old in a couple of months. The pic of me that you see here in a flirty maid’s costume I took on my 59th birthday for my husband. Imagine! I am old but I can do now what I couldn’t do when I was 40.

My point being everything being equal, and your health allowing, it is never too late to do this surgery and feel attractive and desirable.

I paid for the surgery myself by taking out a loan and I paid the loan back. As I often tell Dr. Oliak when I see him; we buy cars more expensive than this surgery and they depreciate when you drive off the lot. My body is my PERMANENT car and as I lost the weight my “car” GREW  in value, got healthier, and I appreciated in value! HA!

To read more about Dr. Oliak and his Orange County weight loss surgery program, go to www.OliakCenter.com.