YLF 114: Chat with Stephanie

About Stephanie

Where’s the best place for listeners to connect with you?: @bariatricwarrior and @roadtodiscoverypodcast on ig

Describe your weight loss journey.: My journey is wild. I was diagnosed with insulin resistance and severe gastroparesis, which required me to take long term daily antibiotics and steroids. This caused a lot of issues for me. One being that the medications made me gain 68 plus pounds and steroid weight is extremely hard to get off. I tried diet , exercise, jenny craig, weight watchers, oral and injection medication , but nothing worked. So on top of still dealing with the severe gastroparesis I now had almost 70 extra pounds on me which was making everything worse: sleep apnea, high blood pressure, joint pain. Weightloss surgery as an option to cure my severe gastroparesis and get off the daily antibiotics/steroids was brought up to me. They would cut the paralyzed fundus of my stomach out and it would wake up my vagus nerve to start functioning curing the gastroparesis. In october 2021 I underwent vsg surgery. I struggled with severe post op complications unfortunately but during those I found my internal strength, my community, and I didn’t give up. I am down 106 lbs from my HW and despite all the complications I still do not regret my decision to have wls. I have been a huge advocate and supporter within the wls community. I even have an award named after me!

What’s a skill you developed as a result of working through your weight loss process?: Listening to my body: the hunger and full cues

What has that skill led to outside of weight loss?: I know when I need rest and have done too much

What advice would you give to someone working through their weight loss journey?: If today was bad….Tomorrow’s a new day. Change is good. Never give up. Keep going.

What's something most people don't know about you that has nothing to do with weight loss?: I twitch stream pokemon tcg!