Let the 6 months begin

I've been struggling with the idea of "Do I REALLY need WLS to drop this weight?" I know I posted on here a week ago or so contemplatinig on if I should go through with surgery or not, but after some reflection, some research, and talking with some post-op friends, my decision is "yes".

I keep falling onto that "social stigma" that WLS is for people who are severly overweight, or for people who just don't want to actually try to lose weight the conventional way. I've heard of people lying to get WLS done, which made me afraid that maybe I wasn't being honest enough with myself. Maybe I wasn't following my "diets" or "new ways of eating" to lose weight honestly enough, or as closely as I could be. These thoughts made me feel like maybe I shouldn't have WLS because I should be able to lose weight.

I then spoke with my supervisor who is a huge advocate for WLS. I shared with her my thoughts on that maybe I wasn't following my previous diets as well, or maybe the nurses and surgeons are just trying to sell me this surgery to make money. She put my concerns to rest and said that I'm an excellent candidate for surgery and that it will help improve my life in so many ways.

She re-iterated that the purpose of having WLS is because she would eat and eat and eat and not stop becuase she didn't know what "full" was. Having her stomach stapled restricted her in such a way to give her that full feeling (satisfaction of being full) without the consequences of high calorie absorption. That's when it all clicked.

Yes, I know this is a tool. Yes, I know it's restrictive. I have a problem with food addiction and over-eating. Dieting alone, or dieting and counseling cannot solve. I've been in counseling for almost a year now. For me, this surgery is helping me to understand what full is, while helping me make better food choices since my stomach will be so much smaller.

I had my appointment with the nutritionist and she asked me what was "not hungry" or "full" meant to me. I figured it was one of those "ah-ha" moment questions that she asks most of her food-addicted patients, because I sat there for a good minute or so realizing that I had no idea, other than I made a groaning sound most often heard at the dinner table during Thanksgiving.

I gave her the same speech about maybe I wasn't being honest enough with myself in how I'm dieting and trying to lose weight. She said absolutely not because I face a food addiction which WLS will help me with.

I told my mom about all of this, and she thinks it's crazy that I don't know when to stop eating. But she's supporting this all the same. I sat down with my husband, my mom, my step dad, and my step grandmother (she just happened to be there), and said that instead of going to food for comfort, I am going to turn to exercise, and I'll need their help with reminding me to exercise when I feel sad/mad/whatever.

I want to shift my addiction from food to exercising now, so that after surgery I will have already started that mental process of associating sweating and physically exerting myself instead of just eating something.

Anyways, I'm content with my decision to have surgery, and now I'm making up my meal plan list for the weeks ahead to try and lose 25 lbs before surgery.

Well, I don't think WLS is really for people that just don't want to try to lose weight the conventional way.  Most insurance companies and most surgeons require that patients have a history of failed diet attempts before they will pay for or perform WLS.

I think attempting to transfer your food addiction to exercise is a really bad idea.  An addiction, by definition, is something that controls you and screws up your life.  You don't want to be addicted to exercise.  People that are addicted to exercise do things like get up in the middle of the night to exercise, or keep exercising even after they are exhausted and dehydrated, or exercise to the point of injury, or miss important family functions because they can't miss a single day at the gym.

Exercising after you have surgery is good.  Being addicted to exercise, though, is not good.

If you are addicted to food, you really need to get treatment for addiction.  Surgery is a tool that can help you a lot with portion control.  But if you don't get into recovery for the addiction, your tool won't be enough to keep the weight off.  And transfering to another addiction is not a good way to deal with it.  Why swap one problem for another, just as serious?

 Hello,  i can only tell you about my experience.  I have had my weight problem since I was 5 years old.  I have been able to lose my weight a total of 4 times in the past 25 years.   Persoanlly I get to the point where i look and feel great but then my body became too efficient and I was eating very little (1600-1800 Calories) a day and having to go to the gym and lift for 1.5 hours 3 x week and then do at least 40-75 minutes of cardio 5-6 days as well to maintain it.   I seem to be able to do that for about a year and then I just break down and get exhausted.  I  can only maintain it with that level of activiity and that means no life outside of work and the gym. 

 I may have been able to lose this weitght again this time without surgery but after long discussions with my primary treatting doc as well as the doc and dieticians in my bariatric team I decided this may just be the tool I need to lose the weight and hopefully maintain it this time for good.  I can't tell you what is right for you, but can only share the reasons I went ahead with WLS, knowing full well that I could probably do it again without the surgical intervention. 

http://diet.markwhitford.com/history.html    for some infomation on my history and photos of my diet cycles.

Good luck!

 funny i have been having that same discussion with myself over and over again, even asking my closest friends if it was justa cop out - and they all agree that no it is not - but like you said - there is a lot more to it than just the surgery - for me the biggest thing is exercising - i am actuall considering the gastric sleeve procedure - good luck

I can totally relate to your thoughts.  I have waffled back and forth with this decision for about 10 years now.  I kept thinking the same things.  Maybe I didn't try hard enough?  Maybe I never found the right diet program?  All the same thoughts that you had.  The only program that was even slightly helpful was Weigh****chers.  I must have done that plan 6 or 7 times, each time losing, but never getting below 200 lbs. 

After finding this site, I realized that I never felt full.  I never knew satisfaction.  With the diet plans I would eat my meals, but still feel unsatisfied.  Truly, I've never felt "full" unless I gorge myself to the point of misery.  I think for me RNY is my only hope of getting this weight off and learning how to eat normally.  I've already started having one to two protein shakes a day, I've cut out the soda and caffeine, and most sugars.  My surgeon wants me to lose 5% of my body weight prior to surgery, so that's about 12 lbs.  If I keep up with what I'm doing, I should be able to do that.

The WLS program that I'm entering is a team with a surgeon, nutritionist, physical therapist, and a psychiatrist.  I see each one of the prior to surgery, and often after surgery.  I'm looking forward to the visits with the nutritionist so that I can learn how to eat better foods and gain healthy eating habits, and the visits with the psychiatrist so that I can learn how to treat this addiction to food.