A morbidly obese woman in Ohio couldn’t lose weight despite dieting, exercising and even undergoing therapy to break her dependence on food.
Jess Cisco, who weighed 245lbs at her peak, spent 12 months swapping burgers and pizza for chicken, cottage cheese and evenings at the gym — but couldn’t lose a single pound.
But scans then led to the 32-year-old mental health nurse from Columbus being diagnosed with ovarian cysts.
These can cause weight gain by releasing extra estrogen and progesterone, that can boost appetite and prompt the accumulation of more fat cells.
But despite her condition Ms Cisco has now lost more than 100lbs after getting gastric bypass surgery.
Jesse Cisco, 32, a mental health nurse in Columbus, Ohio, struggled to lose weight for a whole year despite changing her diet and starting to exercise. (Left: At 245lbs). But after doctors found ovarian cysts that can hamper weight loss by disrupting hormones she had a gastric bypass and is now down to 144.6lbs
Ms Cisco said she has also now dropped from a dress size 20 to a dress size four more than a year after having the gastric bypass surgery
Speaking about her initial struggles with weight loss, she said: ‘I was at my lowest by the end of 2020 because I had spent that entire year doing everything the right way, but nothing was working.
‘I didn’t lose a single pound that year.’
‘I felt so defeated and was at the point of just giving up. I was ready to just accept that I was destined to be fat and sick.’
Ms Cisco weighed 245lbs by the start of 2020, with the situation being so bad she had been diagnosed with sleep apnea, fatty liver disease and suffering from pain across her body and in her foot, making it difficult to move.
She said that she had also started to frequently binge-eat, gulping down 5,000 calories one day and then the next eating less than 1,000.
After being told she was so large she would struggle to get pregnant, Ms Cisco then began on a healthy eating and exercise regime.
But when this didn’t work and she was losing all hope, doctors invited her for an ultrasound — which was to check whether her intra-uterine device (IUD) had become dislodged and was causing pain making weight loss more difficult.
It was then that they spotted the ovarian cysts — three on the right and two on the left — which measured up to 0.7 inches.
Ovarian cysts are common with about one in ten women having them, estimates suggest.
Normally they go away on their own without causing any symptoms. But in some cases, such as for Ms Cisco, they can start to release excess hormones such as estrogen which can prompt weight gain.
Research shows that estrogen helps to stimulate the accumulation of fat, particularly on the thighs and buttocks.
After spotting the cysts, doctors opted not to remove them because they had not turned cancerous.
But in November 2021, Ms Cisco got a gastric bypass to help reduce her calorie consumption and help with her weight loss.
Ms Cisco is pictured above when she was at her biggest standing with her husband. She said that her weight has not affected their marriage
The watershed moment where she was inspired to lose weight came when an obstetrician told her that she would not be able to get pregnant
Ms Cisco said her weight was also giving her a number of problems. She had fatty liver disease, sleep apnea and a pain in her foot that made it difficult to move
Ms Cisco’s weight loss progress is pictured above. She says that the gastric bypass surgery ‘saved my life’
She said: ‘After surgery, I felt tired and was in some pain, but I mostly felt relieved and excited when I woke up. I knew my life was about to change.
‘Honestly, I’m most proud of healing my relationship with food. It’s been a long road, and tons of effort, trial and error, but food no longer has power over me.’
She added: ‘My husband and I have plans to do a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trial within the next two years — now that I can hike without pain, this is finally a real option.’
Talking about her motivation for weight loss, she said that although she has no plans to get pregnant — she wanted to keep that option open.
She was also seeing the declining health of everyone in her family and knew that she did not want to fall into the same trap.
She said: ‘Almost everyone in my family is morbidly obese and chronically ill, and I was quickly falling into the same category.
‘As I continued to gain weight, my blood work was falling into critical levels for my cholesterol and liver panels, my blood pressure was consistently dangerously high and I had such severe acid reflux that I was waking up every night in pain.
‘My weight caused me to isolate myself socially, even from loved ones. I hated going out in public because I didn’t want anyone to see me that way.
‘I missed the activities I could no longer do, and I didn’t want to be on a million medications.’
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