long gibberish . just bunch of random thoughts i ask myself as i am close to surgery

This is just a combination of random thoughts i am having about the DS, the life changes that will take place, etc.  THIS IS LONG and very all over the place, just writing it to get it out of my head

For one, i have been asking myself if i can just diet and get healthy that way. I know that at the end of the day diet is not going to be enough but i have to ask myself this before surgery.

Maybe it is in part out of fear of being on the surgical table, the potential complications that can arise. I am not reffering to smelly farts and poops as complications, i am talking about the serious stuff.... like being paralyzed or not waking up at all. Or i ask myself what if i do this and I still fail, the weight doesnt come off.... i go through the operation and a year later am just as fat, what if i just fail?

I know that a smaller stomach + malabsorbtion means i am eating less and absorbing less and mathematically i am going to lose weight, but what if.  What if one day i get severe side effects and I regret the surgery, that worries me.

I have rarely encountered a DSer that regretted it, but there have been a few posts i found throughout the internet that indicate these people do exist.... what if i become one of them.

Then in terms of diet, i have only ever really been on a diet once, diet + exercise, only once where i sticked with it and i lost a lot of weight. My main issue was that mainting it was impossible for me. I do not know who could maintain the schedule i was on for exercise, i often went to the gym 2 times a day for 1.5 hours each time of cardio and 2-3 times/week 1 hour of weights in addition to the cardio. I would take one day off after about 10 straight days of exercise.  ****pped logs so i know i did it but nowdays i dont believe it even) I was eating low carb, aiming for 20 carbs and ending up around 30 on cardio days and around 60 on cardio+ weights days.... so i was very low carb, i used to eat no fruit, that was my "cheat" - iwould eat fruit. And i would aim to be very low calorie, aiming for 800 and ending up around 1000.

THis used to consume my whole entire life, and it was the ONLY time i have ever lost weight. I do believe in eating low carb and using supplements as a healthy lifestyle so when i found out about the DS the first thing i thought of was that finally i would have something that helped me maintain that type of regiment that i wanted to stick with, but i always used to be hungry, i used to munch on bags of lettuce! I never went out with friends because outings always revolve around food and i would not eat after 6, or in restaurants. And this was back when i was not married and had less responsiblities. Today, i can find 30 min for exercise, maybe an hour, but i am definatly not going to get 3 hours for the gym in a day.

I brought up this to my old PCP once, that it shouldnt be THAT hard, i dont see normal weight people working that hard to maintain their weight. I was basically told that for some people it is that way. I dont see how i could have that life + family + career, or i am just very very lazy? That is what i am asking myself, am i lazy and do i have no will power to maintain that lifestyle? is this how normal weight people live? do they all get up at **** the gym, come home at 630, wake their kids , get ready for work and daycare, ...... pick up their kids at daycare at 6pm, then head on home, feed the family, clean the house, and head back out to the gym at  9pm? is this what people do? I never met these people?!?!?!? and what about everything else? what about their extended family and their husband/wife, where do they fit into all this? To be healthy does ones iife need to revolve around their eating habits and exercise level?

I have had my rate of metabolism measured by the endo, supposedly it is fast, faster than the average person, yet i am not the skinny girl that eats whatever she pleases and never sees a new thigh pop up. I am the person that can eat carrots and cucumbers and gain 10 pounds. When i didnt exercise for 1 week twice daily, i got fatter, actually fatter, it was ridiculous, what motivation could i possibly have to stay with that lifestyle if i cant even enjoy life.

Also food, i want to be able to enjoy food. I dont even think this is bad, is it? Food is meant to be enjoyable right? It is normal to be able to have a cup of ice cream or a slice of cake and say you enjoyed it and to not gain 10 pounds the next day. I like to eat, i am not going to pretend that i do not. But, i know for a fact i am not a binge eater, i am not eating a whole cake at a time, i may have an extra piece of this or that, BUT SO DOES THE SKINNY GIRL on occassion. WHY am i the fat one? Do i sit around too much, many people have sedetary lifestyles today, didnt we as a society move away from a lot of manual labor to more paper pushing for employement, and arent our lives as a whole so busy that we do not do as much physical activity anymore. I have two kids nowdays and I am fatter than i was beforehand and i certainly do not sit around all day doing nothing with them, so why then am i so fat?  

basically i just dont get it. I know life is not fair, and i can accept that this is just the hand i was dealt, i am okay with that, but that really doesnt seem to be what society is pushing at me. I really feel like society wants me to basically "acknowledge" that the reason i am fat is because my day consists of eating 10 pizzas in bed while drinking 15 liters of pepsi, followed by 10 donuts and a nap.  Please note that in no way am i trying to make fun of people that do have serious eating disorders but as far as i know that was not most of the people preDS. 




this is really long but this crap is in my head all day long .  I dont know why i am thinking about this stuff, i could instead just think: surgery, recovery, goal weight, weee happy life, but..... my brain doesnt work like that

 Your random thoughts make perfect sense to me.    I'm going to be the first to tell you that it is SO MUCH FREAKING DIFFERENT with the duodenal switch.     After being on some sort of diet or another for 75% of my life, I completely understand your thoughts.   I felt the same way - it COULDN"T be that hard for everybody.    Were their stomachs always feeling the need for more?   Did they lie awake in bed at 2 a.m. feeling like their insides were being gnawed out when they attempted to cut back on calories?   Did they need to spend two hours a day working out?   Did they always feel like they were on the edge of a cliff, and that if just one little equation went out of balance, they'd fall right off?    I spent so many years blaming  myself - my own weaknesses, my own lack of self-control, my own addictive personality.   Since my DS - I now know what it's like to be "normal."    I gain a few pounds?  I cut back on the crap a bit and it's gone.   That self-deprivation, that diet mentality is so modified.   Yes, I still have to watch my carbs a bit, but it's just so different, that I'm not even sure if I can articulate how different it is.   Yeah, I do need to get my ass out there and exercise, but now it's for strength and cardio, not to try to sweat off 150 lbs. 

I know one thing for sure - I would have never, ever, ever been able to maintain this weight if I'd lost it on my own.   Twice in my life I'd lost 100 pounds.  Twice, I gained it back.    My body - my metabolism - something other worldly, almost, was in the driver's seat, not me.    Now, I'm in the driver's seat.   The playing field is now level, and not one single day goes by in my life that I do not take a moment to express gratitude for this.   

very well said julie. so very true. 

Hi SpQr,

I know how you are feeling.  I am also a pre-op.  The only times in my life when I've been thin or even average were when I was starving and obsessed with food all the time (other than my early childhood, I was "medium sized" then and very active).  The most I've ever lost was 34 lbs when I was 20, I did that by exercising at least 2 hrs per day and eating mostly soup.  I got down from 154 to 120 in 5.5-6 months.  I was a size 7/8.  Of course, I started slacking off the exercise and started gradually eating more, and it came right back on within 3 years.  I simply couldn't tolerate the constant hunger anymore, or keep up that level of exercise.  Five years ago, all I could get down to was about 148-154 (still considered "overweight" for my height) while eating only 800-1300 cals a day and exercising 1.5 hrs a day.  My stomach would growl during classes, and I'd only eat Slim-Fast and Smart Ones.  I was working so hard, and still overweight and a size 13/14!  (I am only 5'4".)

IMO, there is definitely something else going on with our bodies that cannot be explained by simply calories in/calories out.  If that was the case, I would've gotten back down to 120 within a few months back in 2006 and been able to maintain it comfortably.  I can feel that as I get older, my body is unable to take the extreme measures I did when I was in my teens and very early twenties, and when I attempt them, the measures are unsuccessful.

When I saw Dr. Anthone last month, I was told by his nurses to expect to get down to 149-159.  They would consider it a success.  I was surprised, because that is still "overweight BMI" for me.  I hope to get down to 130 or less.  I could learn to be happy in the 140's if I am not hungry all the time and battling my own body.  I think we will be successful and can pretty much be assured of losing at least 70% EBWL, although some people don't, most do.

 I think its great that you are feeling out all these questions.  I would advise finding your local DSers and talking to them in person.  Its a great way to get much of this stuff out and feel reassured and get a realistic perspective of what you're getting yourself into.

It took me a long time to decide to get my DS.  But let me tell you.  Most days it feels like I never had surgery.  I'm 3 months out.  And the weight just falls off and I'm not doing crap.  Yeah, the first 6 weeks were hard, but well, its easy now.  I just take my vites and eat my protein and after thant, I do whatever the hell I want to.  

I stay home with 3 kids ages 4, 3 and 8 months.  And I'm just a normal person now that I've had my DS.  I don't obsess about dieting, I don't worry about eating too much, I just chill.  Its the best thing ever.  EVER.

And FWIW, I too wasn't a volume eater or a "bad" eater before DS.  I was just a big girl.  Here's a great documentary to watch to help you get through this.  Its long, but so worth it, so long as you can ignore the crap-band stuff.  
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/takeonestep/fat/index.html


And the last thing I want to say, is don't rush the process.  You don't have to get the DS TOMORROW.  If it takes a while for you to feel ready in your mind, then get there.  I don't regret waiting until I was in that place at all.

I hear ya... my sister eats pretty much the same stuff as I have our whole lives, and she's half my weight. What little differences we had in diet didn't seem to be equal to a double weight gain. I ate more, but it seemed like the whole calorie in calorie out thing wasn't making any sense. 

I did Atkins and Weigh****chers very strictly, plus a general low calorie/low fat diet (under 1200 every day for half a year)... plus 2 hours of exercise daily, and I couldn't even get down below a 40 BMI. 

In Geology, there is this term called "Snowball Earth". It's when the earth basically was frozen over entirely. The reason for this was very subtle... the glaciers at the time reflected so much light back from the atmosphere that the Earth's entire temperature dropped low enough to cover the world with snow and slu**** was a runaway, cyclic effect. The more snow there was, the lower the temp got, and the lower the temp got, the more snow there was. Earth was hibernating and there was no summer in sight. It took a massive global volcanic event to produce enough CO2 to warm up the world and break us out of it. 

I have always thought this was similar to an obese person's metabolism. The fatter someone is, the more their metabolism slows down. It's subtle at first. Then the metabolism gets down to the point of not being able to be woken up with regular diet and exercise, not substantially. It's essentially in hibernation as well. The more fat there is, the lower the metabolism, and the lower the metabolism, the more fat there is. It takes a giant, body-wide event to shake it awake, to force it out of the slumber. 

Then if you consider fat people in terms of the archaeology, if you had a very fast metabolism pre-historically, you had less of a chance to survive as someone with a slow metabolism. A slow metabolism person was not obese then due to all the intense work that they did every hour of the day and because of how little they ate all the time... they had no chance to be obese in the first place. Not to mention women were almost always lactating after adulthood... Someone with a fast metabolism would be too weak and would not survive long. During harvest time or a big kill, women with slower metabolism could fatten up just enough to be reproductively viable and continue to breastfeed. It's the "thrifty gene" hypothesis. 

10,000 years ago... all of us modernly big folks would be considered lucky and be just overweight. Of course, we'd have short, hard lives too. 

So that's for the "why" part... we used to be lucky, but since food isn't scarce and we don't have to work our asses off every moment of the day, we are now a genetic relic. But it was people like us that carried the human race this far.

As for comparison yourself to "normal" people, well, if a person has been able to avoid obesity their whole lives, I think it is easier for them to maintain because their metabolism has not be affected. It's when you combine a slowed metabolism and the thrifty gene that things get bad, and it's hard to climb yourself out of the hole by just diet and exercise.

The thing I have always hated is when people say that all morbidly obese people need is diet and exercise, and then they turn around and say they are naturally thin. Or look at some person, they can eat anything and not gain weight. But they do not realize that it works the other way... Someone can eat 2 pieces of pizza and gain lots of weight from it, just as someone can eat 10 pieces of pizza and not gain an ounce. If there are naturally thin people, there are definitely naturally fat people too.

And no, don't worry about the rant. I think everyone knows exactly what you mean. Everything before now has been a failure for us obese folks in terms of our weight. Failure + some. It's natural to be skeptical of a surgery that seems so amazing for so many.