Journalism senior and Daily night editor Amanda Turner poses Wednesday night at the Huston Huffman Center with weights amounting to 135 lbs., the amount of weight she hopes to lose after LapBand surgery. She travels to Tijuana, Mexico, Thursday and will have the surgery Friday.

The girl you see is not me.

This is my thought when I see the now rare photo of myself or catch an unflattering glimpse in the mirror.

That is why I am flying today to San Diego, where a driver with a sign will meet me and take me a few minutes south to Tijuana, Mexico, where on Friday I will undergo weight loss surgery.

My weight is out of control, and I am going to have adjustable gastric banding surgery to limit what I can eat from now on. A surgeon will place an inflatable band known as a LapBand around the upper portion of my stomach.

Growing up in California, I always thought of Tijuana as a place for wild spring breaks and plenty of illegal opportunities. The only scenario I imagined having surgery in Tijuana was of the frightening urban legends that involved me drinking too much tequila and waking up in a hotel bathtub full of ice without my kidneys.

Despite the serious health problems obesity causes, my insurance will not pay for the LapBand procedure. I have good insurance that will cover every problem obesity can cause a person, such as diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, joint replacements, liver disease, cancer and depression. However, it carries a specific exclusion that prohibits coverage for any treatment of obesity itself, even if the treatment would improve any medical problems. The exclusion is listed in the back of my policy among other things not covered under any circumstance, such as acupuncture, cosmetic surgery and wilderness therapy. (Yes, wilderness therapy.)

Weight loss surgery has proven to be 95 percent effective in helping patients lose weight and keep it off, and, in many cases, is a lifesaving procedure. So why do some policies exclude it?

More than 30 percent of U.S. adults suffer from obesity, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and would qualify for weight loss surgery. Insurance companies realize this, and to avoid the .immediate expense of paying for the surgery, they write exclusions into policies that legally let them deny coverage. To remove this exclusion, my employer would need to change its group policy and every person would have to pay more money each month because of me.

A year ago I didn’t understand what an exclusion was. I had faith that U.S. health care was the best in the world. I wasted a long time battling my insurance company and getting my doctors and surgeon to write useless letters explaining the clear benefits about why I needed to get LapBand, and why it would save them a great deal of money.

Out of pocket, the laparscopic LapBand procedure costs upward of $16,000, which does not include any hospital stay. I am paying $8,000 which includes the surgery with the same band from Allergan, the only LapBand manufacturer, plus an overnight stay in the clinic and two nights in a five-star hotel. The surgeon I chose is one of the best in the world and has done more than 7,000 procedures. Thousands of Americans have gone to clinics in Mexico because it is much more affordable, and the care is equal, if not better to what they can receive in the U.S., and I am joining them this week.

I am drowning under my excess weight, and I don’t want to be drowning in debt. I think the little band will be a lifesaver I can use to swim to the trifecta I seek: health, happiness and a tiny bit of hotness.

My weight has never been at a healthy place, but since suffering a back injury three years ago, I have gained approximately 75 pounds, most of it since undergoing spinal fusion surgery last December to remove a badly herniated disk. The LapBand is my own physical intervention to help me lose about 135 pounds of excess weight that is crushing my body and spirit. I am exhausted constantly, my knees and ankles hurt, I have stress fractures in my feet from walking and I suffer from insomnia and depression. This fall my back pain has returned because I suffered another herniated disk. Losing weight immediately is the only way I can avoid a second surgery.

I have tried to lose weight by dieting. I know how to lose weight, and I have lost weight many times. I got an A in the nutrition class I took a few semesters ago. I just can’t keep it off on my own.

It feels as though I have been on a diet since I first started gaining weight around age 8. Being an overweight child was such an unhappy, traumatic experience that it has shaped my life in an extremely negative way, setting off years of physically and mentally dangerous habits. With no education in nutrition, as a child I thought skipping as many meals as possible was the best way to lose weight. I would go all day without eating until coming home and bingeing. I played soccer and did gymnastics, but I couldn’t control my hunger and love of calorie-rich foods. Every year when I blew out my birthday candles, I wished to be thin and beautiful.

I have met with psychologists and psychiatrists, have read dozens of books and tried commercial weight loss programs to eat less. I have used both extremely unhealthy behaviors — starvation, vomiting, pills — and medically sound healthy habits — nutritious meals and exercise — to lose weight. The pounds always came back. Somehow, I was always convinced that if I just had more willpower, I would achieve my desired weight loss.

Until about a year ago, I never considered weight loss surgery. I thought it signaled a person was giving up, and I was still convinced I could do it on my own.

The catalyst for my change of heart was my back injury in September 2005, when I was trying to pull-start an old gas lawn mower. I was yanking backward as hard as I could when the pull cord snapped me forward. I visited the doctor a few days later for the pain and was told I had not done anything serious. Yet the pain increased. For the next two years, I did physical therapy and got the occasional X-ray that revealed nothing was wrong with my back. The pain increased to the point that I was unable to sit or walk without agony, and my right leg was numb. Finally last November, my back called it quits, going into such severe spasms that my roommate was forced to call an ambulance to take me to Norman Regional Hospital’s emergency room. The ER doctor also insisted there was nothing wrong with me and suggested I was making up my history of back pain and trying to score painkillers. I refused to be discharged until they scheduled an MRI. It revealed a disk so herniated that surgery was the only option, and I had to miss the rest of the fall semester as well as this spring.

My surgery cost approximately $70,000, which was not all paid for by my insurance. Since then, I have worked two full-time jobs to pay off the bills. Since surgery, I have been in such a fear of suffering another injury that I have avoided anything that caused back pain. My beloved elliptical machine and even the bicycle caused too much rocking in my pelvis. I tried walking for exercise in the spring, which resulted in the stress fracture, and I spent the summer in a walking boot. As soon as I began walking again, my foot injury returned. Familiar back pain has returned, and again I can barely sit or walk: I have herniated the disk below the two fused vertebrae. I do not want to go through another back surgery.

The LapBand procedure is not without risks. All surgery carries dangers, and a LapBand can slip or erode. I will be able to eat only a small amount of food before I feel full.

Following the surgery, I will be able to drink only liquids for six weeks while the band heals in place. Over the winter break, I plan to return to the clinic for a follow up and the first band tightening, known as a fill. Through a port sewn into my stomach muscle, the doctor can add or take away saline solution into the band to tighten it or loosen it to allow me to eat less food or more food at once.

I have been on a very strict diet of 750 calories a day for the past two weeks to prepare myself physically and mentally for the surgery. I did not think I could make it through two weeks, but I have the band and good health to look forward to. Most of all, I look forward to everyone being able to see the girl I recognize as me.