From fit to obese and now fitter than ever!
Muyoka Pollard
-85lbs
The best WLS clinical internationally.
I had been quite fit and healthy most of my adult life. Body size and health had not been an issue for me. I naturally put on weight with my first pregnancy at 23 years old. I got really into the gym and a strict diet and lost all the gained baby weight plus more. Was in the best shape of my life. Fast forward three years later and after my second pregnancy, I was again a little overweight but not by much. I started to binge eat and drink wine, these habits snowballed until I was over 100kgs (around 220lbs). I had tried to lose the weight but couldn’t let go of the binging on wine and food. In April 2019, a friend got a gastric sleeve locally and she had a similar weight journey to me. She encouraged me to get it done too. I didn’t do anything about it until October 2019 when I was sick and tired of being overweight. I knew I wouldn’t meet criteria for the local health system so needed to look abroad, initially I looked at Thailand but google kept suggesting Mexico! I narrowed my search to Mexico and found OCC! Surgery and flights were booked and I had my sleeve in December 2019. Dr Ortiz and Lucia have given me a gift I will be forever in debt. I stopped drinking alcohol in preparation for the surgery and I have never gone back. I have gone from being unable to walk to the mailbox without pain to running ultra marathons. I am currently training for a 100miler ultra marathon. My eating has improved greatly and I no longer use food as a coping. The journey has been difficult, imagine suddenly not having your usual coping mechanisms (food and alcohol for me) but with the support of my beautiful husband and family I have been able to replace this with exercise and other healthy coping skills.
