by Carol Wise

Created on: February 11, 2009   Last Updated: March 05, 2009

The last diet I ever went on was The Phen-fen diet pill craze and I spent several years believing it was going to claim me as one of its victims, since several months after I had taken the drugs I had a sudden onset of shortness of breath on extertion. I was quickly diagnosed as having allergies, handed prescriptions for inhalers and shoved out the doctor's door, or so I felt since there was such a panic over the drugs and their effects, no doctor was going to check me out thoroughly. That was in 1997 and by 2000 or 2001 I was on oxygen therapy, which didn't help but no one would listen to me. While I had started the Phen-Fen diet in the high 400's, I was by this time over 500 pounds. I knew I was dying, I just didn't expect it to take so long.

My doctors didn't seem to know what to do for me ...I mean the counsel to lose weight is easy, and any diet will work for weight loss, I had been on lots of diets and I had lost a great deal of weight but then I always went off the diet and gained back every pound and several extra. The problem in my opinion isn't so much losing weight but being able to keep the weight off. Thats the real trick!

Over the years I have become aware of many of my problems related to my issues with weight. Not only was weight a familial problem although no one in the family was as severely obese as I was, there were emotional attachments to food. Food had early become my only friend and I sought to numb the pain in my gut with food. I also sought to wrap myself up in an effort to keep people away. I was very conflicted and after numerous diets that were forced on me as a child I sought to diet as an adult. I would have success to a certain point losing 120 pounds on a 1500 calorie diet only to find out I was pregnant and could no longer diet. Later I lost 150 pounds which was awesome until my husband became threatened by my weight loss and began to undermine it, that and I started to eat the guilt I felt. I could feel guilty about just about anything and I used food to stuff those feelings and emotions.

I had learned many things over all the years I had spent dieting and I knew yo-yo dieting was very rough on the body. So I swore I would never diet again. Which meant I could pretty much stay the smae weight but when your super morbidly obese that isn't exactly a very good solution. Especially when you can't move without becoming short of breath. Unfortunately even though the breathing issues had had a sudden onset I couldn't get any doctor

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