By Lori EhdeIt’s as if the weight of the world has been lifted from her shoulders … 190 pounds, to be exact.One year ago, Emilie Brands had gastric bypass surgery, and since then, she’s shrunk to nearly half her original size."I used to dream about being thin," she said Friday, "and now I’m living my dream."Emilie celebrated her new weight by free-falling from a plane at 10,000 feet last week. The tandem jump with the South Dakota Skydivers at the Luverne airport was the perfect culmination of a year’s worth of weight loss."It was awesome," was the best way Emilie could describe the experience. "And one of the best parts about it was that I fit in the jump suit."Describing the skydiving experience was easier than describing what it’s like to lose 190 pounds."I feel like a new person … literally," Emilie said searching for words. "The old Emilie haunts me on a regular basis, like a sad spirit that sits on my shoulder and reminds me where I’ve been and what I’ve gone through."‘I felt horrible’She weighed 387 pounds at the time of surgery, and she hasn’t forgotten how that felt. "I felt horrible," she said.At age 27 she had reached a low point in her life, physically.Her weight was sapping her energy, making her more lethargic, which, in turn, slowed her metabolism and caused more weight gain."Climbing stairs was an effort," she said. "It hurt."Her obesity also weighed in on her pregnancy. She had high blood pressure, vomited much of the nine months, spent the last several weeks on bed rest and suffered a difficult delivery.When her daughter was a few months old, Emilie was included in a family photograph that she now labels "fat me" in her digital album."I couldn’t play with my daughter the way I wanted to, because it was too hard to get up and down off the floor," Emilie said.But she said the physical side effects of obesity were easier to handle than the emotional aspects of it."It’s not easy being fat," Emilie said. "I was ashamed to go out in public. I didn’t want to run into anybody I knew. … You get to the point where you notice everybody looking at you, and you know what they’re thinking. They hope they don’t ever look like that."Emilie said obesity runs in her family, but she also admits she was addicted to food. She knew she had a problem, but in a society where social functions center around food, controlling the addiction was difficult."It’s not like tobacco or alcohol addiction where you just quit," she said. "With food, you have to eat. But I was an emotional eater. I ate when I was sad, I ate when I was angry … I used food as a reward."Emilie recalls how she felt soon after the surgery. "I felt something I don’t remember ever feeling – the ache of being full," she said. "My reason for eating is no longer comfort, but to have energy."She said she tried to lose weight on her own."I had tried everything – Weight Watchers, hypnosis, you name it," she said. "But after you’ve failed so many times, basically you give up on yourself."About the time she gave up, Emilie met her husband, Bryan Brands. On a side note, they met on the Internet only to find out they were both from Luverne. "It’s a very small world," she said.Emilie’s parents are Peggy and Dave Hewitt and Bryan’s parents are Bernie and Sue Brands, and Janice and Paul Nath, Dovry."He made me feel good about myself again," she said. And her relationship with Bryan inspired her to look into the surgery.Not the easy way outEmilie said she’s bothered by the assumption that surgery is the easy way to lose weight."It was by no means easy," she said of the past year’s ordeal.Her procedure, known as the Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass, staples off a part of the upper stomach, creating a stomach pouch about the size of an egg.The stomach, duodenum and several feet of upper small intestine are bypassed, and the remaining small intestine is reconnected to the new small stomach pouch. The old stomach remains and shrinks, even though it can still function.Emilie now has the scars from 44 staples that crossed her stomach vertically, from her sternum to her navel.It was major surgery, but growing accustomed to her tiny stomach was more difficult than the recovery from surgery.Using an infant spoon and timer, she slowly and carefully fed herself two tablespoons of liquid every two minutes.When she finally could eat solids, she had to chew them to puree consistency. "The exit tube from my stomach was the size of a No. 2 pencil. That’s why if I didn’t chew my food well enough, it can get lodged, and it hurts," she said."My intestine is shorter, so food goes through my system quicker. That’s why I have I to eat the right foods."Those first few days and weeks after surgery were difficult, she said, and she was often sick.But the effects were immediate.Two weeks after surgery, she’d lost 19 pounds. In the second week she lost another 17 pounds. By the eighth week, she’d lost a total of 62 pounds.By that time, she was introducing new foods to her small stomach, and exercise was getting easier."One of the hardest parts was learning to eat to fuel my body, not for comfort," Emilie said. "Exercise was hard at first, but the more weight I lost the more excited I got with the quick results."But she’ll never eat the same again. She needs to eat constantly, in tiny portions, all day long, because her stomach is too small for the typical three larger meals a day."If I want to splurge on a sugar cookie, I can have a few bites, but if I ate the whole thing, I’d be in trouble," Emilie said.The typical weight loss from gastic bypass is 30 percent of a person’s body weight. Emilie lost 51 percent of her body weight.She attributes that partly to the fact that she’s so strongly embraced her new lifestyle of eating healthy foods and exercising.She enjoys water aerobics and she and Bryan recently bought a new elliptical exercise machine.The operation was covered by her health insurance, because the procedure was determined to be necessary, not cosmetic.Insurance may also cover plastic surgery to remove excess flesh that now hangs from her upper arms and stomach. She’ll find out after a consult in August.The new EmilieThe procedure was painful and recovery has been demanding, but Emilie said the transformation has been remarkable."When I look back on surgery, that was the day the old Emilie died and the new Emilie was born," she said, fighting back tears.As the pounds fell off, Emilie discovered new abilities and a new body under the fat layers."I remember when I could first cross my legs," she said. "That was an accomplishment."Her wedding rings no longer fit. "My rings are Size 11, and my fingers are now Size 8, so they fall off," she said.She also noticed definition in her shoulders and other limbs. "I said to Bryan, ‘Did you notice I have shoulder blades?’" Emilie said. "Every day was a new adventure."Now she rewards herself by going shopping instead of eating. She was a size 30-32 and is now a size 14/16, so she enjoys shopping in regular department store aisles, rather than in plus sizes. "That’s a nice feeling," she said.Just recently, she enjoyed a girls’ night out with her sister and friends. "I had never been hit on in a bar before and I wanted to know what that felt like," she said. "It happened six times, and it was awesome. Before, I was always the fat girl sitting alone with her drink while her friends were dancing."She made it clear the outing was only an experiment, and that Bryan had given his blessing. "I just wanted to experience that, just once," she said.Emilie has more energy now to keep up with her three jobs – home day care, CCSI in nights and evenings and freelance graphic designing.Without the physical limitations of obesity, Emilie said she wants to try other new things, like scuba diving, snorkeling, bungy jumping and maybe a trip to Valley Fair – because this time, she’ll fit in the ride seats. "Who knows?" she said. "The sky’s not the limit – I did that already."Still the same EmilieBryan said it was hard to see Emilie suffer while recovering from surgery, but he said the end result has been worth it."I’m just proud of her and all the things she’s accomplished," he said."She’s still the same Emilie to me. She’s still the same beautiful person I knew the day I met her. She was beautiful inside and outside, and she still is."The end result has been good for the entire Brands family, he said, admitting he’s lost more 30 pounds himself because of healthier eating."The things we used to enjoy doing, like eating out, aren’t the same," he said, "because we don’t eat like that anymore."Instead of eating at a restaurant for a night out, they go for a walk or play cards.Emilie said she still remembers the old Emilie. "She’s still with me, reminding me how painful that was to wake up in the morning and try to put on clothes that don’t fit and to see people looking at me that way."… And to know that my husband still loved me despite what I looked like."Bryan takes it all in stride."She’s still the same person I fell in love with," he said. "To me the only thing that’s changed about her is her outside appearance."Emilie attributes her success so far to Bryan and the support of others around her. "In order to have this surgery, I was told I’d have to have a good support group in place, and that support group has been God, my family, my church family and my friends," she said. "It was a struggle, but when they’d notice my weight loss and praise me, I was encouraged to go on."Emilie will need to take a B12 shot and mulitvitamin for the rest of her life.She wants to get the message out that heavy people are the same as everyone else on the inside. "You may not realize it, but 90 percent of what you don’t say can be more hurtful than that 10 percent you do say," she said."I heard a lot from people around me ‘You have such a pretty face, if you could only lose some weight …’ And I hated that."If nothing else, she wants to be an inspiration for others."For the first time, I’m comfortable being me," she said. "I’m at the top of the world, and it’s only going to get better."
