chapter 1

Gabby sighed as she looked into the mirror. The figure reflected back to her looked sad and pudgy. Standing at 5'10, Gabby was and never would be the tiny petite girl but she always wished she also wouldn't be the fat girl. Pinching her sides, she felt disgusted with how much weight she had put on since her first year of college began.

Starting at university, Gabby was 165 pounds and definitely was the biggest in her friend group. She used to play tennis competitively and it kept her in somewhat good shape. Even when she was active, Gabby always had an over active appetite, and craved breads and sweets all the time. Her friend group in high school were all soccer players and all under 5'5. They were what she always wanted to look like, with their long healthy bouncy blonde hair and slim toned legs. They always looked great in photos while she just looked like a giant. She towered over them and had a gut no matter how much she dieted.

So when she got to college, she determined to not be one of those people who gains the freshman 15. But that was before she met her roommate. Her roommate Liz was 5'2, brunette and a literature and spanish major from Phoenix. She also weighed at least 250 pounds. For once Gabby wasnt the most unattractive friend, and she loved it. Going out, either neither of them got attention from guys or Gabby did. And they really got along well, especially since they were having trouble meeting people. So after nearly a full year of living together, Gabby realized she had adopted her heavy friends eating habits. She had weighed herself for the first time in months. Gabby had been avoiding looking at herself in the mirror and had exclusively been wearing sweatpants and oversized free t shirts from her school, always a size or 3 up for 'extra space.' But she finally weighed herself.

203 pounds. She had put on 39 pounds in 9 months. She turned to the side and looked at the way her belly bulged over the too tight waistband of her underwear. Her legs looked like sausages and there was not even a hint of musculature on her cellulite ridden thighs. Her arms were flabby and her back had rolls on them. The worst part was her face. She looked puffy, with her cheeks swollen and her jawline non existent. She had a prepetual double chin and even the best contouring couldnt hide that. Her size large t shirt was pretty snug around the arm holes and was super fitted around her belly. She sighed again and felt like crying over how much she had ruined her body.

Just then Liz started unlocking the door to their shared room and Gabby dove to find a pair of pants to wear before Liz could tell she was pantless. She pulled on a pair of athletic shorts that were tight around her butt and was out of breath by the time liz was fully in the room.

"Hey, guess where I just was!" Liz said excitedly as she put down her bag and bent over to take off her shoes.

"uhhh I have no idea, where were you?" Gabby responded.

"I was just at a weight loss clinic and they said I could do gastric bypass surgery!" She exclaimed, not waiting for me to guess.

Gabby looked over at Liz in shock. She didn't know that was an option and definitely didn't think Liz, who despite being fat was pretty healthy, would qualify.

"wait what? I didn't even know you were interested in doing that!" Gabby responded.

"Yeah, I totally didn't know it was an option until recently and I just was really unhappy with the weight I've gained and I just really wanted to change that. Also like people lose over 100 pounds after and I want to be skinny!" Liz told me.

when Liz said she had gained weight I looked over at her, trying to evaluate whether she had. And sure enough I noticed her belly pushing the waistband of her jeans, and it stuck out a lot more than it used to. And she grew her hair out but that didnt hide that her face had grown even rounder and her fat filled neck. She was wearing a cardigan, but when she turned to the side it was obvious her silhouette had grown.

Liz continued speaking "And I've gained like 20 pounds since college started and I weight like 240 pounds so I qualified since my BMI was over 40!"

Gabby quickly opened her phone as Liz continued speaking about insurance or something and pulled up a BMI calculator. Using the number she just weighed herself with her height she got 29.3. That wasn't nearly high enough if she wanted to qualify. She tried another weight: 220 lbs. That only brought her to 31.6

She tried 300 lbs. Her BMI would be 43, 'too high' she thought to herself. She finally tried 280 lbs. That would bring her BMI to exactly 40. Excitedly she put down her phone and heard the tail end of what her friend was saying.

"-nd so we sat the date for May 9th!"

"wow so soon?" I said to Liz, "So how do you lose the weight?"

"Oh its like once you get the surgery you dont get hungry and it limits how much food you can eat so you drop a ton of weight and get skinny! The best part is you never regain the weight!"

Gabby was in awe. You never regain the weight? And it sounds so easy. Gabby decided then and there that she was going to qualify and get the surgery too.