My Path to Surgery, Pt. 1

Dec 20, 2010

My story is likely a familiar one: I've been struggling with my weight most of my life, have always been fairly hefty save for a brief spell in my early 20's where I managed to "Atkins" myself down to a BMI of 8%. I followed a very rigid regimen: nothing but carb-free, protein-ladden food products (which included a lot of beef jerky and aspartame -- first mistake), liberal use of 'thermogenic' compounds that were all the rage back then (ephedrine/caffeine/aspirin combination 'stacks'), no less than 3 miles a day of jogging, combined with 200 push-ups and sit-ups. It took 9 months, but I lost all my excess body weight and then some, and became quite the young Adonis. Those were my 'salad days' (pardon the pun): I ran at least 30 miles a week in my peak, had the beginnings of a serviceable six-pack, biceps that postively exploded out of my shirts. I could (and occasionally did) just drop everything and go off running up sand dunes for 5 miles, just because I could. It was exhilarating!

That being said, mine wasn't a sustainable solution. I was in the 'enviable' position of having a very active job at the time (military), in addition to mandatory PT sessions and my own frequent forays to the gym in what was then my copious amount of free time. I ultimately found myself in a more sedentary environment, decided that after athletes started dying off that ECA stacks were probably not a great long-term solution to my problem, tried to deal with my weight gain through increased exercise. I never did modify my eating habits, with an appetite as ravenous as my stomach was bottomless. The more weight I gained, the more frightened I became, the more I tried to exercise, the more I stressed my body and ignored the pain day after day until I severly damaged my knees and abruptly ended my love affair with running.

In short, I had terrible weight control habits that were only possible thanks to the invulnerability of youth. Not so young anymore, so I can't exactly stress my body as badly as I once did. Over time, I gained more than double the amount of weight back, and it just kept piling on. I couldn't exercise as intensely as I once did, which frustrated me. With frustration came depression, and with depression came eating. A vicious cycle ensued, as is to be expected, and years later I found myself at the end of a long progression of failed diets and a thoroughly broken will.

I don't even remember how I'd come to learn about weight loss surgery, but when I did, it was a revelation. I knew my problem lay in my appetite and my sluggish metabolism. I had not stopped going to the gym during most of this period of my life, but I found my workouts more and more futile. Surgery could provide me with a powerful tool to again realize the benefits of modest exercise, to live a normal life.

That was at least my initial calculus, based more on vanity than much of anything else. But I pursued the surgery nevertheless, spending countless hours researching the options, the methods, the results. Armed with every conceivable bit of knowledge about the procedures I could stuff into my eager mind, I opted for the famous Roux-en-Y procedure and sought out a good surgeon in my area.

That was the easy part...

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