Weight Loss Surgery Transforms Yvonne McCarthy Into ‘Bariatric Girl’

Weight loss surgery helped Yvonne McCarthy lose 130 pounds. Today, she’s best known as Bariatric Girl and loves to help others on their weight loss journey.

When I was in the fourth grade, puberty hit.  Being thin, as I knew it, was over.

Being very athletic and playing sports didn’t help either.  I found out very early that there was a clear dividing line between being popular because they wanted you on the team, and being popular.  My size was already teaching me that, to “be someone,” you couldn’t be overweight.  My mom just wanted me to be happy.  Fighting weight problems most of her life, she researched Weight Watchers for kids.  That would turn out to be the first of hundreds of diets for me.

When I was thirteen I was often able to go without food for a week.  I could drop twenty pounds, but, of course, it would come back… plus more.  My family would tell me I was just “pleasantly plump” or “big boned,” but I desperately wanted to be like the other girls.  My dear sweet mother would always say “You have such a pretty face.”

In the sixth grade I played softball, sang in the church choir, was a Girl Scout, took music lessons and also wanted to dance.  The ballet teacher that I studied with would make comments that “we should all go eat at Yvonne’s house” because we obviously ate really well.  I was just a little girl and it hurt.  I wasn’t even obese – not yet.

I continued being “pleasantly plump” until my freshman year in college. Still trying every diet in existence, but nothing worked.  The pressure from college really started to show and I gained even more weight.

After pulling off a major weight loss again through starving, I found the best way to stay thin: thinking I was in love.  For a couple of years I managed to just eat cottage cheese, tomatoes and crackers.  I became alarmingly thin and went blonde.  Wow! There was a new babe on campus and I really resented the fact that I was being treated so differently even though I was the same person I always was.  All of a sudden I was being nominated for the beauty pageant and was the Phi Mu Alpha sweetheart.  I was third runner-up in the beauty pageant for Northwestern State University.

After college I couldn’t maintain the starvation, so I went back to more diets and the “yo-yo” weight gain and loss.  I got married and it was very apparent that if I gained weight I would lose my husband.  No one tried harder than I did to be the perfect wife, but I failed. The dreaded weight that I reached when he left was a weight that I would have loved to have maintained later in life.  Deciding that I was too fat anyway, I ballooned an extra sixty pounds because I just didn’t care anymore. This experience just reinforced the lesson: I am not worthy.

Several years ago, I faced the loss of my mother to cancer.  This had to be the hardest thing I had ever faced in my entire life and I didn’t want to live.  Cancer took my mother and the depression was unbearable.  She told me before she died that she just wanted me to love myself.  That seemed impossible. I am 5 feet, 7 inches tall, and I weighed 260 pounds when she died. And when I found out that all those years of dieting completely reset my metabolism, I knew that losing one hundred pounds wasn’t possible on my own. To borrow this analogy from a wonderful lady I met through obesityhelp.com: imagine strapping on three 30-pound dog food bags (or more) every day and going about your business.  The doctors told me I was carrying the equivalent of a 12-year-old boy on my shoulders.  That was pretty much an eye-opener but I just felt more defeated.

In December 2000, I heard Carnie Wilson’s story and started reading everything I could find on weight loss surgery.  A local media personality had a doctor listed on his website and I called for a consultation.  I wanted the surgery and I wanted it badly.  Telling my dad was scary because I thought he wouldn’t approve – but I would not be stopped.

After a great deal of work I was finally approved by my insurance company and had gastric bypass (open Roux-en-Y) surgery on May 30, 2001. As I’ve often said, the emotional pain I was in (due to my weight) was unbearable and if I had been told that I had a 50-50 chance of survival, those odds would have been good enough for me.

Ever since I lost the weight, I feel as if I am walking on the moon. And after that losing 130 pounds, I am no longer a prisoner of my weight. My surgery was almost ten years ago and my weight has not varied over ten pounds.  I am a firm believer in drinking your protein shakes and taking vitamins every day.  Often I am asked where I work out, and I don’t!  It has to be the protein shakes that give me such great muscles.  I have recently taken up golf and nearly every day I go to the driving range and hit a couple of buckets of balls.  It’s something I like and it gives me a good workout.

Sometimes when people see my “before and after” pictures, they are utterly amazed. They say, “I want to lose weight, but I wouldn’t do anything that severe.”  Now I truly know the depth of my emotional pain because I would have done anything short of take a life … except my own.

When asked if the surgery was difficult, I respond, “Compared to what?” I had major back surgery several years ago and all that did was fix some physical pain.  My emotional pain was far more debilitating. Being acutely aware that those who talk to me now wouldn’t have given me a chance before my surgery can be distracting at times.

It’s not something I hold against them; it’s human nature.  Sometimes I detect shyness in e-mail that I receive from pre-operative patients.  They believe that because I am thin now, I will treat them differently – and the opposite cannot be more true.

Many women e-mail me about plastic surgery before they have even had weight loss surgery.  I tell them that I did have plastic surgery but it’s not something to worry about ahead of time.  Nothing compares to having that burden of obesity lifted.

By the way, less than a year after surgery, I met my future husband.  I cannot begin to describe the beauty of life after weight loss surgery.  Working with my husband from our loft in Dallas is a life beyond anything I could have ever imagined.  My photography career is doing well and I was featured on barebulb.com in the “Emerging New Artist” section.

And in case you’re wondering what it would be like to shop for clothes at a healthy weight… I remember being excited when I wasn’t a plus-size anymore, but nothing compares to the excitement of being able to buy clothes at Victoria’s Secret. (And I’m not even a “large!”) One summer, my husband picked out my first bathing suit that I’ve had in thirty years.  He was so proud to be able to do that for me.  (I’m sporting a two-piece these days.)

Gastric bypass surgery is not for everyone but it was definitely for me. My dad is very happy for me and I thank God for my life and having the love of an incredible man.  I know my mom’s looking down and smiling because now I can say I fulfilled her last wish… loving myself.

Editor’s note: This story was released with incorrect weight loss figures. Yvonne, who is as lovely inside as she is outside, actually lost 130 pounds. We have corrected this error within the story, as she deserves credit for losing every single one of those pounds, as well as the effort she makes to keep them off.