I just met the weight requirements to have the surgery. My preparation was meeting with the nutritionist, attending group meetings, going through some medical tests, and a few sessions with a psychologist. Also, to be sure I did not lose any weight during the six month period, which might have disqualified me,

I told my family and took my mom to meet with some successful patients. That eased her mind. My surgery was scheduled for the first of December and my family was planning this huge Thanksgiving "last supper" for me. I ended up getting the surgery in October and could not eat more than a few ounces on Thanksgiving. That was in 2007. Surgery was the best decision I ever made. I have put it off for years and years.

This board is mostly dead. Join the RNY menu thread and I suggest just copying this post to the RNY. There are people there who will help and support you.

Counseling and behavioral therapy was key to maintaining my weight loss for many years. It kept me accountable and helped to to mostly stay on track.

I do think weight loss therapy is key. I lost a bunch with my RNY but then my ahead got in the way. I spent a good deal of time working thru those issues before scheduling my conversion to DS. I have already given my counselor some talk tracks for post surgery to make sure I don't fall down the same rabbit holes.

I say it like that because I've been here before. Roughly 10 years ago, I opened a profile on this forum, and immediately forgot about it, hadn't posted since, and here we are. I'm actually surprised my profile is still active. Pleasantly, mind you. Anyway, here's my story. I'd be willing to bet that most of us are more or less in the same boat. Unhealthy relationship with food, we eat our emotions, hate our physical selves, eat, and the cycle continues until we see 300 on the scale. Same here. Well, 270 to be precise. I started down the RNY path almost 20 years ago. I lived in Virginia, and had a cushy county government job, and good insurance that paid for bariatric stuff. A requirement of my procedure was completing some counseling, some personal and some group. I had finished the personal and was in session 3 out of 5 in the group. I didn't have a surgery date yet, but I was close enough to taste it. The counseling was the last hurdle, if I recall. Even in my late 20s I was not scared of the surgery. I didn't want to be fat anymore, that's all I knew. As it turns out, my family talked me out if it, so I bailed on the whole thing. Within a year or so, I got divorced, moved across the country, I had a new job, new insurance (that didn't pay for this), so I just kind of put it out of my mind. My family was only thinking of my health, and wanted me to be safe. Note that they were all thin - I was the only fat kid in my family. They didn't talk me out of the procedure out of anything but love for me. So, I went with it. For 20 years. Now, I find myself scaring 50, but starting 1/1/22, I will have insurance that says they pay. Blue Cross Gold Options PPO something or other. I don't know all the details, but I made an initial appointment at The Bariatric and Metabolic Center of Colorado on 1/20/22. Dr Long is the guy. He has good reviews, here and other places. Not one bad review that I could find.

So, here we go again. Has the "onboarding" process changed? Is the counseling still a requirement? I'm all for it, just a little eager to get past it, since I've done it before. Most of it. If anyone has any input about that insurance, the location, the doc, any of it, I would certainly listen.

For what it's worth, I remarried 12 years ago to a wonderful beautiful awesome woman, I have a joyous, bright, shiney 10 year old daughter, who is my sunrise and sunset, and not to sound cliche, but I do have a wonderful life, and I am so grateful for it. My wife and I actually haven't discussed this, yet. My previous exposure to this was before we met. I had done all my homework, and all that long ago. She is new to this idea, so it's going to take a little time to let her absorb all that this is, and all it means. If anyone has any pointers on bringing the spouses around to our way of thinking on this, I'd be all ears for that too.

My first appointment is almost a month away, so I don't think I'll be updating with much until then. I'll just have to wait. Hopefully I'll have good news.

Cheers!

Counseling was so very key for me. I was on the fence about whether to have the surgery and had all kinds of questions in my mind. Was I really ready for such a big step? What if this? What if that? I didn't know if I was mentally ready to take the steps to change my life and learned things about myself in counseling. Things that helped me address even more than my food issues. My counselor was really good so I was very lucky!