‘We had gastric bands on the same day’

Sisters Georgina, Pauline and Sharon Johnson tell new! Why surgery was that only way they could all beat the bulge.

The Johnson sisters are the first to admit they have always had a lot on their plates. Compulsive overeaters, they piled on weight as teenagers, sparking a battle that has plagued every day of their adult life. At their heaviest, Georgina, Pauline and Sharon had a combined weight of almost 90st. Locked in a cycle of crash diets and binge eating, they wore shapeless clothes, avoided socializing and were even cruelly labeled as unfit mothers.

Last year, the trio took drastic action. Unable to kick their addiction through willpower, they believed the only way to stop themselves consuming vast amounts of food was surgery. “We just didn’t have the self-control to do it on our own,” Sharon, 30, explains. “We’d tried every diet and slimming pill going, but food always won. It was a massive addiction. I’d be eating a huge roast dinner, wondering what to have on my sandwiches afterwards.”

BAD HABITS
Growing up in Ashington West Sussex, the sisters were raised on good home-cooked meals. But once they were old enough to fend for them selves, temptation got the better of them. Pauline, 36, remembers, “We all had a secret stash in the bedroom – sandwiches, sausage rolls, crisps and biscuits. Mum would make us packed lunches for school and we’d eat them before we had even left the house. We had no restraint.”

Georgina, now 37, left school and got in a bakery. Snacking on pastries and spending her wages on burgers, she was wearing size-26 clothes by the time she was 18. The youngest, Sharon, was a size 32 at 17. When Sharon and Georgina lived together from 2001 to 2005, their eating spiraled out of control. Both were single mums, Georgina to David, now 12, and Sharon to Jessie, now 13. ‘When the kids were in bed, we’d eat,” Sharon says. “It was all the bad stuff – takeaways, sandwiches, pies, cake. “We ate for comfort, when we were happy, when we were sad – all the time, basically. I’d be so full, I wouldn’t be able to manage breakfast the following morning. Sometimes we’d gain a stone in a week.”

Pauline’s weight shot up after the birth of her son Peter in 2001. The most introverted of the sisters, she became a virtual recluse, doing her weekly shop online, and only leaving the house to visit family. “I hid myself away,” she says. “I felt too big to go out. And because I was on a downer, I’d eat.” With all the sisters pushing 30st, tasks such as running round after their kids and shopping were impossible. They also had to cope with disapproving looks from the public. Georgina says, “When my son was little, he had problems with his knees, so I’d take him out in a pushchair. The looks I used to get. People assumed because I was fat, I wasn’t teaching him to walk.”

Sharon had a similar problem with Jessie. “I made sure she ate healthy,” she sure ate healthily,” she says. “But at one stage, all she’d eat was broad beans, so she was underweight. I took her to the doctor and they asked if I was eating her food. I cried my eyes out. They thought I was neglecting my own child because I was fat.”

In February 2008, Sharon sought help and asked her GP about a gastric band. “I told him I’d tried every diet and slimming pill going,” She says. “I believed surgery was the only way.” Sharon was put forward for the operation and her sisters made enquiries, too. All three were eligible for gastric bands on the NHS so the surgeon booked them in on the same day.

SIDE by SIDE
“We were pleased we got to do it together,” Sharon says. “We wouldn’t have handled it on our own. We are quite competitive, so if one of us got skinny, the others would be jealous.” To prepare their stomachs, for two weeks the sisters had just four pints of milk and two Oxo drinks a day. On March 13, 2008, the women, all weighing 21 to 22st- were operated on, Pauline first, then Sharon, then Georgina.

“Our mum didn’t want us to do it,” Sharon says. “She was petrified we were all going to die. Our kids were worried, too. We told them if anything happened, they would live with their nan, but I don’t think any of us believed it would go wrong.”

After each having the three-hour procedure the sisters lay side by side in a ward for three-hour procedure, the sisters lay side by side in a ward for three days. For the next month, they lived on mouthfuls of mashed-up baby food and scrambled eggs. Eight weeks on from the surgery, they could eat fairly normal meals, but only tiny amounts.

They had to avoid anything with a high salt, sugar or fat content and if they cheated, they would vomit. The weight fell off at the rate of roughly a stone a month. A year and a half on, Georgina is down to 14st 4lbs and a size 14 to 16. Sharon and Pauline are a size 16 to 18 weighing 14st 13lbs and 15st 6lbs respectively. Together, the sisters have lost almost 30st. “I love going out now,” Pauline says. “And my son loves it because we do more as a family. We all went to the local carnival the other day and for the first time, we went on a ride together. Next year, when I’ve lost more weight, my partner Christopher, 43, and me might try for another baby.”

Unfortunately for Sharon, she is still struggling to keep any food down. The rapid weight loss has also left her with excess skin. “I look like a 90 year old when I’m naked,” she says. “I know people think we did it the easy way, but food was a massive addiction for us. People don’t realize. Some people drink every night – we ate.”