Hey, I want to apologize. I really didn’t mean to turn this thread into a debate over weight loss surgery. It should have just been a big “Hurrah!” for the poster and that’s that.
Yesterday was the four year anniversary of my surgery so it was on my mind in a serious way. As a result I was sort of snippy and quick to react to anything I perceived as criticism. I lost 175 pounds and now maintain a weight between 125 and 130 pounds (I’m 5’4"). It was a terrific decision for me.
I had the same experience the poster had. I had lost weight on my own only to regain it. After ten years of being extremely obese off and on I figured if I COULD have lost it without extreme measure by now, I WOULD have. In researching surgical options I found information on my insurance company’s web site (Blue Cross/Blue Shield) that indicated only 1% of people who get beyond a certain BMI (not sure what that BMI was but it was quite high…35 or 40) ever lose a significant portion of their excess weight and keep it off. This is why BC/BS chooses to cover weight loss surgery and why I did not pay a dime of my own money to have this done.
Sure, some people have an easy time losing weight once they gain it. Good for you! You’re either tougher than most or have some kind of physical make-up that creates a good situation in your case. But there must be a REASON that only WHATEVER percentage of us who gain excessive weight are unable to successfully lose it. I mean, beyond just “put your fork down, dummy.” One thing you all might consider is that at certain points in my life I was starving myself simply to MAINTAIN my already unhealthy weight. Starving not to lose weight and become a normal healthy person, but just to stay at 290 pounds or wherever I was at the time.
As I said, if I could have done it, I would have. I’ve got enough determination, enough drive to take extraordinary measures in order to change the situation. You might want to consider that this is NOT the “easy way out.” For one thing, you can die…both on the surgical table and from surgical complications. It’s a heart-wrenching decision. I had to consider, “Do I want to live like this, or do I want to risk death in search of something better?” Most people who have weight loss surgery will never eat a normal meal again. That’s not just a simple lifestyle change, it’s a major undertaking. Also, post-surgical patients have strict rules to follow and not following them can mean re-gain (in addition to other severe problems). It’s not like you get this magical cure and then never have to worry about it again. It just gives you a tool to use to help you maintain a lower body weight. Typically that doesn’t even mean losing ALL of your excess weight, but only about 70% of it.
In addition to that, I have found that enormous changes in body shape and in your appearance do weird things to your psyche. Yes, it’s great being thinner but my concept of what I look like has vanished completely now. People I’ve known for years don’t recognize me, I don’t recognize myself when I look in the mirror, and I feel like I’m walking around in someone else’s body (albeit, a very nice body now!). This has caused unanticipated problems for me.
I was not heavy all my life. I started gaining after college and was overweight off and on between age 24 and 34 approximately. That means that I was an active person my entire life and I had become unable to do lots of things that I enjoyed.
At first this just meant I wasn’t able to play team sports or comfortably go to the gym. Sure, you can exercise at any weight, but the things you enjoy start to become more and more uncomfortable for both physical AND psychological reasons. Toward the end “not being able to do what I enjoy” meant that my feet hurt so badly I really couldn’t walk in the mall for an hour and I no longer fit comfortably in a movie theater or airline seat. Being obese is a terribly isolating problem for tons of reasons. Sometimes those reasons include people like a few of those here who look at you in disgust and roll their eyes while thinking, “Put down your fork, tubby.”
Basically, people go to THIS extreme not to fit into a smaller dress size or to look nicer, but to SAVE THEIR LIVES. Weight loss surgery is a “cure” for numerous diseases which it often rapidly resolves. People go into the hospital on insulin and 10 days later no longer need it. People get to quit taking high blood pressure meds, stop having sleep apnea, and a host of other serious health issues. I didn’t do this to become pretty. I did it so that I could move comfortably and do so over a normal life span. I didn’t want to have a heart attack at 40.
Spending months choking and throwing up while you learn how to eat for your new body is not “the easy way out.” Watching your hair fall out due to malnutrition while you can’t eat solid food is not something anyone would choose if they felt they had an option. It just seems like so many people think that the obese happily munch themselves into enormous bodies and then run off for a “quick fix” to the local surgeon simply because they can’t control themselves like “normal people.” Trust me, this is not the case.