Stomach Surgery to Get Thin, But Not Necessarily Happy

Stomach Surgery to Get Thin, But Not Necessarily Happy

My Life as a Thin Person
People like Lisa Marie Sohr, who lose 100 pounds or more with stomach surgery, find that with their new bodies often come new friends, new spouses, new lives. But happiness is not a foregone conclusion.

By Jennifer Senior

To see her now—hips framed by low-slung pants, navel shot through with a $500 belly ring—it strains the imagination to envision Lisa Marie Sohr, a resplendent Long Island hottie, as an obese woman. She moves with the insouciance of someone who has always been 120 pounds, except when she stands up, when she looks a bit as if she’s been fired from a slingshot. (“It’s like, whoa—I’m used to going for the big lunge.”) Yet Sohr can recall the day her weight became not just an unsupportable physical millstone but a metaphysical one: It was her 33rd birthday. The New York City Police Department had just forced her into early retirement. And, at five foot four and 236 pounds, she had recently taken to climbing the stairs of her Baldwin home on her hands and knees. . . .