URRRR easy way out?? RANT
I am just getting so sick and tired of people saying WLS surgery is the easy way out of weight loss . #1 they didnt have this surgery ,, nothing about it is easy !!! I watch everything eat , keep a diary everyday , take vitamins everyday and WHAT about this is easy ????? I made a choice to have this surgery yes I did . I am better for it by far. But it just burns me up when i hear comments that I took the easy way out. I am just venting uuuggggg thanks for listening ............ I know it shouldn't bother me and I really have been understanding to others view point on WLS surgery , most of the time I take the extra few minutes to explain to people how really the WLS isnt an easy way out ,,, but I guess today it just got me .
I know what you are saying. My husband is silently saying the same thing to me. I have WLS scheduled for 4/11. He keeps saying, I certainly hope you are doing this for medical reasons and not for losing weight. What the hell is that? I wouldn't have medical problems that I do if I wasn't overweight! He says I need to make time to exercise, thats it. I work 14-hours a day at my 2 jobs, raise 2 teenagers, and run the books for our business in addition. So.. exactly where is the time to spend hours a day exercising? Mind you, I do exercise at least 20 minutes every day.
And... my best friend is 118 pounds soaking wet and makes comments about how I am not "that big" and so many people fail with this and blah, blah, blah... so and so got WLS and she is gaining all her weight back, and so and so ate like a pig before the WLS so she will fail too. As she is eating a big fat juicy cheeseburger.....
Nice support, eh? All I want is to be healthy. Is that too much to ask? I guess it is too hard for someone who never had to diet a day in their life to understand.
Thanks for letting me rant on your post. WLS scheduled for 4/11 and scared as hell about all the new changes, but i know they are for the best and I AM DOING IT FOR ME!!
And... my best friend is 118 pounds soaking wet and makes comments about how I am not "that big" and so many people fail with this and blah, blah, blah... so and so got WLS and she is gaining all her weight back, and so and so ate like a pig before the WLS so she will fail too. As she is eating a big fat juicy cheeseburger.....
Nice support, eh? All I want is to be healthy. Is that too much to ask? I guess it is too hard for someone who never had to diet a day in their life to understand.
Thanks for letting me rant on your post. WLS scheduled for 4/11 and scared as hell about all the new changes, but i know they are for the best and I AM DOING IT FOR ME!!
I hear you!!! I'm sure it doesn't help that the news has been doing articles on how it is the easy way out! I had my surgery on 3/5. Last week was a tought week of recovery. I am doing better now. I heard for years that all my health problems were because I was obese, the minute I decided and began working toward weight loss surgery, I started hearing negatives! Since my surgery, it dawn on me that there's no such thing as the "easy way out", there are just different paths.
I've done lots of diets and exercised like crazy when I was young, only to end up super obese at 54. I made the decision to take a different path this time.
If you haven't been there, you can't know what it is like. I tell people I'm doing this for my health it is the truth. They are going to think what they want to... I can't change it... drat
I've done lots of diets and exercised like crazy when I was young, only to end up super obese at 54. I made the decision to take a different path this time.
If you haven't been there, you can't know what it is like. I tell people I'm doing this for my health it is the truth. They are going to think what they want to... I can't change it... drat
YOU IGNORE THEM! It is really hard to deal with that.
Your husband may be threatened about what life will look like once you lose the weight. Unless someone is walking around with the 100 plus excess pounds we live/lived with, not to mention the medical issues, they have no idea what life is like for us.
My take on your friend is the same thing except she may not want to give up her position as being the skinny one in the room. I had a family situation with someone who, since her teens, has essentially weighed the same..give or take a few pounds. She has always been the perfect size 4 for most of her life. She intimidated the heck out of me...still does. I am 56 and have known her since high school.
The woman has the figure of a teenager, even today and the benefits of skin that go along with one who never stretched their skin out. Nevertheless she was the singular person who tried the hardest to talk me out of having surgery telling me, like your friend, I was not" big enough" and didn't look "that bad." Her husband said I would never even qualify for WLS. She told me to just exercise, be happy as I was, and said I was only "fluffy." Really...size 24 or 26, depending if I could find the largest 24 on the rack, regardless what it looked like, just so I would not have to buy a 26, and you say I am only fluffy? What an insult. In the end, she did support me, but I was emotionally exhausted by the time she did and always wonder how sincere she really is.
Stay focused...in the end you will know it will be among the greatest gifts you have ever given to yourself.
Your husband may be threatened about what life will look like once you lose the weight. Unless someone is walking around with the 100 plus excess pounds we live/lived with, not to mention the medical issues, they have no idea what life is like for us.
My take on your friend is the same thing except she may not want to give up her position as being the skinny one in the room. I had a family situation with someone who, since her teens, has essentially weighed the same..give or take a few pounds. She has always been the perfect size 4 for most of her life. She intimidated the heck out of me...still does. I am 56 and have known her since high school.
The woman has the figure of a teenager, even today and the benefits of skin that go along with one who never stretched their skin out. Nevertheless she was the singular person who tried the hardest to talk me out of having surgery telling me, like your friend, I was not" big enough" and didn't look "that bad." Her husband said I would never even qualify for WLS. She told me to just exercise, be happy as I was, and said I was only "fluffy." Really...size 24 or 26, depending if I could find the largest 24 on the rack, regardless what it looked like, just so I would not have to buy a 26, and you say I am only fluffy? What an insult. In the end, she did support me, but I was emotionally exhausted by the time she did and always wonder how sincere she really is.
Stay focused...in the end you will know it will be among the greatest gifts you have ever given to yourself.
This bothers me so much too! I only told my family about my RNY but overhear people bashing WLS all the time and it's just ridiculous..obesity is a medical condition, just as a heart condition or broken leg...WLS is a tool to help correct the condition of obesity, so why should people not use that tool to help them lose weight. I equate it to saying then you shouldn't get a heart transplant or wear a cast to fix a broken leg, because any sort of treatment is the "easy way out." Why should anyone have to live with it if they don't want to and there is a solution for the problem?
Actually, when you compare having surgery to what you would otherwise have had to do in order to lose the same amount of weight, it is easy. In fact, if it had been even possible to lose so much weight so quickly ANY OTHER WAY, you would not have NEEDED the surgery, right?
Even if you do not keep a food diary, watch what you eat, exercise, etc. you WILL lose weight for at least 6-9 months. You might not lose as much weight as you would with doing those other things, but you WILL lose weight simply because of the surgical malabsorption and restriction. It is physiologically impossible not to. LOSING the weight, despite the emotional rollercoaster we put ourselves on worrying about it, is the easy part. MAINTAINING the weight loss -- just as with losing weight without surgery -- is the hard part (and is -- or should be -- the reason you are tracking your food and learning how to make healthy food choices). When we talk to people about "losing weight", though, the focus is always on the LOSING part, never the MAINTAINING part... So, from that perspective, WLS is, indeed, the easy way out. What most people don't understand is not that "it's not the easy way out"; what they don't understand is that, for many of us, "it is the only way out"... easy vs hard doesn't even come into play. Yet most of us are probably not willing to be open (and vulnerable) enough with those people to simply tell them "it wasn't the easy way, it was the only way".
I will be honest. I don't understand why people get so angry when people say that surgery is the easy way. No, it is isn't "easy", but it is a hell of a lot easier than trying to do it without surgery. In the end, it doesn't matter what they think, anyway.
Lora
Even if you do not keep a food diary, watch what you eat, exercise, etc. you WILL lose weight for at least 6-9 months. You might not lose as much weight as you would with doing those other things, but you WILL lose weight simply because of the surgical malabsorption and restriction. It is physiologically impossible not to. LOSING the weight, despite the emotional rollercoaster we put ourselves on worrying about it, is the easy part. MAINTAINING the weight loss -- just as with losing weight without surgery -- is the hard part (and is -- or should be -- the reason you are tracking your food and learning how to make healthy food choices). When we talk to people about "losing weight", though, the focus is always on the LOSING part, never the MAINTAINING part... So, from that perspective, WLS is, indeed, the easy way out. What most people don't understand is not that "it's not the easy way out"; what they don't understand is that, for many of us, "it is the only way out"... easy vs hard doesn't even come into play. Yet most of us are probably not willing to be open (and vulnerable) enough with those people to simply tell them "it wasn't the easy way, it was the only way".
I will be honest. I don't understand why people get so angry when people say that surgery is the easy way. No, it is isn't "easy", but it is a hell of a lot easier than trying to do it without surgery. In the end, it doesn't matter what they think, anyway.
Lora
14 years out; 190 pounds lost, 165 pound loss maintained
You don't drown by falling in the water. You drown by staying there.
I feel the same way. To me, WLS is not easy but it's easier. And I don't see what's wrong with that. I do many things in my life the way that is easier for me. I drive my car to the store instead of walking. I use a washing machine instead of washing clothes by hand. I type letters on a computer instead of writing them by hand. And I never feel the need to apologize for those things. So why is it bad to lose weight in the way that is easiest for me?
Kelly
Please note: I AM NOT A DOCTOR. If you want medical advice, talk to your doctor. Whatever I post, there is probably some surgeon or other health care provider somewhere that disagrees with me. If you want to know what your surgeon thinks, then ask him or her. Check out my blog.
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