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Growing up, Jen Sheehan always had problems with her weight. By the time she was 12, she already weighed 200 pounds and was teased mercilessly by her peers, particularly during PE classes. At 16, her parents divorced, which only exacerbated Jen’s relationship with her weight and body image.
Jen recalls that as a teen, her three regular meals during the day were “a milkshake made with pints of full-fat milk, numerous scoops of ice cream and thick chocolate syrup…a whole pizza, two large meals from McDonalds, washed down with more chocolate milk - or when [she] was being healthy, five toasted cheese and tomato sandwiches…a 500g pack of cooked pasta all to [herself] thickly coated with cheese, two chickens with chips or a couple of containers of Chinese food.”
These meals were also supplemented with regular snacking over the course of the day.
When Jen was 25, she suffered a stroke in her sleep. Her body mass had put incredible strain on her heart, causing a blood clot to travel to her brain. At the time, she weighed 448 pounds – but she still couldn’t bring herself to break her bad lifestyle habits. “I was still on a very destructive path and eating had become an addiction that I could not break,” she recalls.
It was only a year later, in 2006, when Jen got into a terrible car accident that she finally realized – something had to change. Jen had crashed her van into a traffic light. The car crumpled on her leg, slicing her right leg to the bone and trapping her left leg. Although her 476-pound bulk cushioned her from sustaining more severe injuries to her body, Jen was still struggling to fight for her life because of her poor physical health condition.
Over the next few months, Jen underwent several operations and attended daily therapy to relearn how to walk. She struggled to make progress, getting set back because her sliced leg had somehow become infested with maggots during her healing process.
During her long recovery period, Jen met her future husband, Ron Sheehan, online. They got to know each other fairly well during their Facebook gaming sessions, and when he accepted Jen’s friend request not long after, his presence was enough to motivate Jen to change her life for the better.
Jen and Ron met in 2010 and married in 2012. Their marriage was a hugely positive influence on Jen’s life. It encouraged her to continue making positive, healthy improvements to her life and led her to get a gastric sleeve in 2015.
Now, Jen is feeling happier and healthier than ever. “The weight slipped off,” she says, and “since losing the weight, I can now walk independently without any walking aids. … These are things I never imagined I would be able to do.”
Her next challenge for herself? Tightening and fixing her saggy skin. “Ron loves me as I am,” she says, “But I want to lose the final bit for me. To prove that you can reach the bottom – and come back up.”
