Page 74 - South Mississippi Living - September, 2016

gastric sleeve surgery
REGAININGHER LOVEFORLIFE
Hattiesburg teacher lost 105 pounds and found her love for life again
story by Lisa Kröger photos by John Stricklin and courtesy Makeshia Le ore
At 358 pounds, Makeshia Le- flore was watching life from the sidelines. Though she had never been a child who had struggled with weight, Leflore
found that having children wreaked havoc on her body. That weight gain was compounded by emotional eating.
After losing her grandmother, mother, and sister, Leflore turned to food as a coping mechanism: “Through depres- sion, I ate and got bigger and bigger and bigger. It was heartbreaking at times because the weight was not who I was as a person. That was not living to me. That was not life.”
Determined to get her life back, Leflore tried to make a change, though tradi-
74 SOUTH MISSISSIPPI Living • September 2016
FOR MORE REFLECTIONS OF THE GULF COAST >> www.smliving.net