Connie’s Story: Out Of the Weight Loss Woods
At 158 pounds, Connie Stout is less than half the woman she used to be. And on the way to shedding 166 pounds, she’s unloaded more than weight.
She’s eliminated the need for two diabetes medications and the use of a C-pap machine for sleep apnea.
And Connie laughs about those last three stubborn pounds that stand between her and her 169-pound weight loss goal.
Before seeking help from weight loss surgeons at Premier Health, Connie weighed 324 pounds and knew she was in trouble. She says it was like being hopelessly lost in the woods without a compass.
“I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t walk very far,” Connie says.
Other problems associated with morbid obesity also came calling: “I got sleep apnea. I got diabetes, and all kinds of problems.”
It’s not that she hadn’t tried to lose weight.
“I took diet pills,” she says, but they had limitations.
“You can only take them so long, and then, when you quit taking them, you go right back where you were — and then some.”
The diet pills came after exhausting almost every diet program on the market. Although she could read her scale and do the math, her resolve began to crumble under the weight of enormous frustration.
“There was a point in time when I really didn’t care. All I wanted to do was eat. It didn’t matter.”
It began to matter when one health problem started piling up on the other.
At a seminar on weight loss surgery held at Miami Valley Hospital, Connie connected with the knowledge that helped her find a way out of the weight loss woods.
“I was afraid [of the surgery] before,” she says. She chose her path after seeing those who had had the surgery. “Boy, they looked great,” she marvels.
“They said the gastric sleeve [surgery] would be better than the bypass because I was short (4’11’’) and very heavy. And so they did the sleeve, and I followed the directions. It’s not always easy, but it’s good.”
Successful Surgery and Recovery
She followed a special two-week diet to improve her liver function, a test to make sure her heart was strong enough for the surgery, and checked with her insurance company to make sure she was covered for the surgery.
She had a successful surgery at Miami Valley Hospital, and the weight loss team supported her through recovery. Her surgeon was Joe Northup, MD of Premier Weight Loss Solutions.
Connie progressed quickly. Halfway through her two-month surgical recovery, she no longer needed diabetes medications. Six months after surgery, she turned her C-pap machine down, and four months later she turned it off.
She follows a simple principle with her diet.
“I can eat anything I want, but I just stay in portion control,” Connie says.
In a poem, Connie wrote, “I felt like a fat old woman…Now the fat on this old woman is history. The fat is gone, and I no longer feel old.”
She’s found her way out of the woods.
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