KARA, from Kansas, USA, was dangerously overweight for most of her life. Doctors grew increasingly concerned about her health and spoke to her when she was just 16 years old about having surgery as her life expectancy was in danger of being cut short by her obesity. At her heaviest she had reached 375lbs and was consuming over 3,000 calories a day. Kara had set her sights on making a change and losing weight prior to trying for a baby, but when she fell pregnant unexpectedly, things took another turn for the worse when she was diagnosed with high blood pressure at 20 weeks' pregnant. That was the wake up call she needed. Kara made the decision to turn her life around - she had gastric bypass surgery and then committed herself to a regime of weight training and healthy eating. She has now lost over 220lbs and shows no sign of looking back: "I feel like a completely different person - and at the same time I feel like these steps were the steps I needed to get to the person I was supposed to be."
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00:00I have been struggling and overweight my entire life.
00:03Growing up, I was kind of the fat girl trope.
00:05As a younger adult, I would go to work,
00:08and then when I got home,
00:10that's when my binge eating would start.
00:12At my heaviest, I weighed around 375 pounds.
00:15I felt very insignificant.
00:17I felt very lost.
00:19I felt very lonely.
00:20I would always say, like,
00:21I want to lose weight and get healthier
00:23before I get pregnant.
00:24Unfortunately, I got pregnant unexpectedly.
00:27I was diagnosed with high blood pressure.
00:29I was like, at this point, I know I need help.
00:32I had my bypass in January of 2018.
00:37Currently, I weigh between 155 pounds and 160 pounds.
00:41My iPhone thinks that I'm, like,
00:43six different people in my phone,
00:45and I have to go through and tell them,
00:46no, that's me.
00:47I feel like a completely different person.
00:50I feel like these steps were the steps
00:53I needed to get to the person
00:54that I was always supposed to be.
00:57I have been struggling and overweight
00:59since before kindergarten.
01:02I remember, five years old,
01:04I was told that I had weight issues.
01:06I was kind of the fat girl trope.
01:08I was a lonely kid.
01:09I didn't have a lot of friends.
01:11I stayed home a lot, and because of that,
01:13that's kind of what drove me to food.
01:16It was not necessarily eating unhealthily,
01:18but more eating just a lot.
01:21I would just eat double portions,
01:23binge eating, overdoing it.
01:25I would try to eat really well in the morning,
01:28but the problem was a lot of my overeating
01:31came from not being able to cope with my emotions,
01:34and so, you know, I'd have a stressful day.
01:36And then by the end of the day,
01:37I would be going home and binge watching
01:40and binge eating.
01:41That cycle just perpetuated,
01:43and I actually gained a lot of weight really fast.
01:46I turned 19 and moved in with my ex-husband,
01:50and within a year, I gained another 100 pounds.
01:54I felt very insignificant.
01:56I felt very lost.
01:58I felt very lonely.
02:00Do you know how many calories
02:01you would be eating on a day like that?
02:03Ooh, I don't know specifically,
02:05but I know just off the top of my head,
02:07it was over 3,000 at least.
02:10Now it's been so long that stuff like this
02:13is so sweet to me that I can't eat it anymore.
02:17Oh, I mean, it looks so good.
02:20I just can't believe that I would eat the whole thing.
02:22I had reached a really heavy point.
02:25Me and my ex-husband had talked about having kids.
02:28I would always say, like,
02:29I want to lose weight and get healthier
02:31before I get pregnant because I knew
02:33what an important role that my body
02:35and my health played in having a baby.
02:38Unfortunately, my health impacted my hormones,
02:42and I got pregnant unexpectedly.
02:45When I was going in every two weeks
02:47to the doctor's office for my pregnancy appointments,
02:50I realized how serious my weight was
02:53and how far it had gone.
02:55As my pregnancy went on,
02:57there were different things that happened
02:59that just scared me.
03:01I remember at about 20 weeks,
03:03I was diagnosed with high blood pressure.
03:05Up until that point, I had been making efforts,
03:07but I was like, at this point, I know I need help.
03:10That's when I started looking into weight loss surgery.
03:13I was really scared about it
03:14because I was a high-risk patient,
03:16but I knew that the surgery itself
03:19and the healing from it was short
03:21and that the long-term benefits of it
03:23were going to far outweigh my fear of it.
03:25I had my bypass in January of 2018.
03:29From the minute I was cleared
03:31for physical activity after my weight loss surgery,
03:33I went and joined a gym.
03:35I would go, and I would put in 10 minutes.
03:38I would put in 20 minutes.
03:39I would put in 30 minutes.
03:40And over the year and a half,
03:42I was able to work that up
03:44and have, like, an hour-long workout
03:46where I wasn't able to do that before.
03:48The heaviest I've weighed around 375 pounds.
03:50I hit 160 pounds around the fall of 2019.
03:56And then I have been maintaining since the end of 2019.
04:01I work out as much as I can.
04:03Typically, it's between five to six days a week.
04:05I didn't think I could get to this point
04:07where I could be as active as I am,
04:10but that's coming from nothing, so.
04:13I have a lot of respect for my body now.
04:15Right now, I'm just focused on taking care of it.
04:21Currently, I weigh between 155 pounds and 160 pounds.
04:24There's a lot of stigma around gastric bypass surgery
04:26that if you choose to do it,
04:28you're choosing the easy way out.
04:30But when you look into it,
04:32it's, I have surgically altered an organ of my body.
04:35I have to relearn how to use this body now.
04:38I had to learn how to eat smaller meals throughout the day
04:42because my stomach only holds so much at one time.
04:44In the fall of 2019,
04:47I was experiencing a lot of pain around my abdomen
04:50and my middle section,
04:52where I had just loose skin
04:54from where the weight was sitting on me
04:56before I had lost it.
04:58So I had a paniculectomy,
05:00and that also was really hard.
05:02That recovery time was almost as bad
05:05as the recovery from my weight loss surgery,
05:07just without the complication of relearning how to eat.
05:11I am very, very proud of the way I look now.
05:14I still have excess skin everywhere
05:16because I just had that much excess weight on me,
05:19and that's something I have accepted.
05:21Do I love that fact?
05:23Nope.
05:25But it is what it is.
05:31Hi!
05:33You look so pretty.
05:35I had just had my weight loss surgery
05:37in January of 2018,
05:39and that summer,
05:41I made the decision to want to go back to school.
05:43That's where I met my friend Bailey,
05:45and it's interesting
05:47because I was only about
05:49four or five months post-op when I met her.
05:51She basically got to watch
05:53the whole transformation.
05:55You gotta check this out.
05:57Dude!
05:59That is insane.
06:01Look how, like, just wide.
06:03Oh my God.
06:05Dude, you could wear that as a dress.
06:07I do wear it as a dress.
06:09It's like, how?
06:11I just don't understand.
06:13Like, this used to be my shirt.
06:15I used to fill this.
06:17It's nice when she can appreciate, like,
06:19growth I've had in situations.
06:21She'll be like, you wouldn't have been able to do that
06:23three years ago.
06:25When we met, we talked, and I just, like,
06:27gushed out to you guys, like,
06:29my whole life story.
06:31Do you remember that?
06:33Yeah, we cried after.
06:36I feel like you were just kind of learning
06:38how to love yourself, almost.
06:40I'm still trying to just think of myself
06:42as myself instead of just
06:44this character that built up.
06:46You're growing a lot.
06:48A lot, yeah.
06:50I am very proud of where I am and how far
06:52I've come and the work that I've put in.
06:54You looked so baby-faced.
06:56Well, it's because I had all that fat on my chin.
06:58When I was
07:00really big, my self-worth
07:02and my world in general was just
07:04very small. Now that I am
07:06past that, I literally just
07:08feel like I can do whatever I want.
07:10Hey, look!
07:12I feel like a
07:14completely different person. I remember that.
07:16I'm so proud of you. Oh, my God.
07:18Also, at the same time, I feel like
07:20these steps were the steps I needed
07:22to get to the person that I was always supposed to be,
07:24the person that was always there
07:26to begin with. I just didn't have the
07:28tools until now
07:30to let myself be that.