Jennifer
It could be said that to find her ‘real’ self, Jennifer had to lose part of herself. That describes, at least in part, her journey to the person she is today. “I lost about as much as I now weigh,” she explains. “But I also met Dr. Ehrlich and his staff, and became part of their wonderful organization as an insurance coordinator and patient advocate.” It’s very clear that Jennifer loves her job.
Before that, she says, she’d wrestled for years with her weight. “As a kid, I thought of myself as kind of chubby, but I probably wasn’t. We spend so much time being hard on ourselves when we’re young. At 21, I found the right relationship and settled in. I was happy.” Her first pregnancy presented concerns, though, so her doctor ordered complete bed rest. “Which,” laughs Jennifer now, “gave me lots of time to eat.”
The best part of the experience, of course, was bringing her son, Noah, into the world. A bright and funny boy, Noah is now eight years old. But a couple of years after delivering him, Jen knew she was working on a serious obesity problem.
Even without the bed-rest part, it’s a script many other women could write. Pregnancy — lots to think about and get ready for, and then baby arrives amidst excitement. Busy mom has no time to think about much else. Pounds begin to collect. A few years go by; she watches the scale climb to unreasonable heights.
“So I dieted,” Jennifer recalls. “On one diet, I actually lost 70 lbs! If I ate a carb, though, it would be all over. So it was hard, and not at all healthy, but I was motivated.” She got pregnant again. “Suddenly eating a Twinkie seemed fine,” she laughs. But bed rest was once more required, and her weight-gaining woes returned. “My beautiful daughter, Ava, was delivered by c-section,” she says. “She was a big baby — 8-1/2 lbs. I had a torn uterus. But I felt fortunate just being okay.”
It was her mom, Dolores, who got Jennifer to realize she had options. “My mother worked at the hospital where Dr. Ehrlich was doing weight-loss surgery. She got me his literature. I went to the seminar — those seminars are so important for people to attend! Anyway, I decided on gastric bypass, and it just went so well.” Indeed, it was an amazingly positive experience, Jennifer says, because not only did she lose almost 150 lbs, she also re-learned eating in a way that keeps her both satisfied and at her target weight. “Nowadays I cook and eat normally,” she says. “There isn’t much that I can’t tolerate. And being able to move around freely, I get so much physical exercise with my kids! We dance, run around or jump on the trampoline together. It’s great!”
Another exceptionally satisfying part of her new life, says Jennifer, is working with Dr. Ehrlich and his team. “It’s being able to help people discover how this program can help them achieve happy, healthy lives. When they come in, I often think, this person is me. I know how they feel. I know what they must be going through. And I know they can succeed.”
