HAVEN'T I ALWAYS BEEN A FAILURE?

Okay,, its me again the annoying lurker! In the shower this morning, I was again thinking (always am) about WLS. I was asking myself this question,, and I wanted (needed) to know how you all would or did answer this. "Okay Annette, you are a failure...You have always been fat,, you have failed to lose the weight soooo many times,, you have tried everything,, and either FAIL,, or just never finish..Sooo what makes WLS "so different than all your other attempts at losing weight?" Thats the fear I feel inside me. What if I continue to be a failure,, even if I have the WLS? Being overweight,, we all have felt that self-defeating loathing for our failure to lose weight. Am I asking too many questions? Thanks again for your consideration.

In the beginning it really is impossible to fail. You WILL lose weight no matter what. The long term is the key. There are poeple out there who are able to maintain a healthy diet and never waiver from that. I am not one of those people. There are many of us on this board who struggle. I tell people this: get an exercise program very early on. Learn all you can by reading and researching. Get that program and hang on to it like your life depends on it, becuase it just might one day. This is not a free pass and there are certainly no long term guarantees. I can tell you that just getting a taste of being healthier and more fit will make you never want to go back ever again. You will do what it takes to keep what you have. Just know that a couple of years down the road will mean diligence on your part to maintain. It is worth every effort. Terri

You aren't asking too many questions.. there's no such thing ;) Its a natural fear but you have to pick yourself up and stop saying these things to yourself. My husband would say "get your self-esteem OUT of the toilet woman!" Instead of telling yourself that this too will fail, say "this WILL work for me." Negative thoughts only serves to breed more negativity. Think positively instead. When you find yourself thinking negative thoughts just STOP everything you are doing and reprocess your thoughts into positive ones. I wish you the best!

Don't base your self worth on other's opinions and beliefs! If you have felt this bad (physically) you owe it to yourself to take charge of your own life. There are many nay sayers about this surgery...but have any of them ever experienced what we go through on a daily basis? I am currently awaiting my surgery. I have contemplated this since 2002 when my mother took the steps to change her life forever, at 420 pounds. I thought to myself... "How could anyone do that to themselves? This is procedure is body mutilation!" My mother told me I could never understand, until I got to that point. She hoped I never would...but I did! I am 32 years old and have dieted my way to 326 pounds. This is my truth, since I was six years old. I finally had to get real with myself and admit defeat! Dieting to me is a state of denial! I watched my father almost die three times in the hospital, before medicaid would approve his surgery. He was a severly insuline resisitant diabetic...450 pounds...wheelchair bound...he couldn't live. The doctors gave him a low chance of surviving the surgery and after care. He did live and is now 1 1/2 years post op...down 200 pounds. Now he is able to be active, he runs his own business, and can take care of himself. Let me tell you about failure....it is a state of mind! If you feel like you will fail...you will. It is called a self fullfilling prophecey. If this is how you feel in your heart, take a step back and reconsider this procedure. You will never make it past the psych evaluation. My mother lost 100 pounds in one year. While trying to take care of my father, she put back on, 70 pounds. Take about feeling like a failure! She is struggling, but has relost 50 pounds. This path isn't one to be taken by yourself...you must have the support of those around you. Get a new doctor!!! I had two doctors prior to being approved! Perhaps your husband is apprehensive, because he is uninformed. Does he really understand the procedure and aftercare? Does he understand the medical conditions you are enduring? Does he understand, that he will have to take care of you after the dabilitating effects of diabetis set in? This is a scary place to be...I watched my parents go through it, you don't want to go there! I would suggest going to some support group meetings and listen in...take him with you. You have to make peace with yourself over the dieting failures. Society has pushed diet after diet at fat people for years...it isn't you that failed...it was the programs that let you down. Most commercial plans, pills, and eating "ways of Life" pushed us to being morbidly obese, because they weren't designed for long term maintnence. I have heard things like... why do you need to have surgery? If you follow the eating plan as if you had surgery, you will loose weight! I wi**** were that easy! But that is only the talk of someone who doesn't know what it feels like to be trapped in a body 300+ pounds! My rollercoaster has stopped, and I am getting off! At the end of March I will be joining the "loosers" and finally win the battle! I hope you will too!

Haven't we all failed with our weight at some point? We wouldn't be here on either side of the surgery spectrum without having failed at losing and keeping weight off. I am in the process of getting approval, and I am just like you in the sense that diets either didn't work or I couldn't do it for the long haul... I would give up. To me..this surgery is a tool that WILL WORK if I use it. Nobody and nothing can do it for you. Like Terri said, in the beginning it's going to be impossible to fail.. but eventually it will come to your willpower once again..but the good news from how I understand it is this time I will have a tool that WILL WORK!!! Not just a diet book, or a meeting to go to telling me "buck up there sweetie...just keep counting those calories and eventually that 150 lbs will come off...".. this is a tool that if you apply yourself to it's guidelines, we will NEVER have to deal with failure in this arena. By having surgery you are really asking for help..help to succeed..help to no longer be a failure at this. From the looks of it, it works!!!! Think postivie and I know when I receive the go ahead for this procedure, I will thank the Lord every day (even on the bad ones) for bringing me to a process that will finally match my desire to be healthy and help me get there!!! You gotta just "stop the stinkin thinkin!!!"

In January of 2003 I had a friend ask me if I had ever considered WLS and I told her no. I had a poor picture of it from one person I knew years before and at that time I honestly had no intention of ever considering it. God definitely has a plan in place for all of us and I soon discovered that the plan he had for me was to have this surgery. After I had spoke with my friend about this, she had it done and when she returned to work I was really amazed. I started hearing about others who had it, people that I already knew but didn't know they had had the surgery. As I saw them it became clear to me that maybe I had missed something along the way and I needed to at least check it out. I believe this was God's way of telling me that he let me do what I wanted my way for so long and failed also now it was time basically for me to sit down, shut up, and listen to what he had for me. By April I was sitting at an orientation getting the information I needed to hear as well as the time I spent talking with people who had already been there and done that. Less than a week later I called back up and said this is what I want so what do I have to do and how soon can we get this done. I did a lot of praying about it and was very much reassured this was my answer. I feel that God gave me my own little miracle in guiding me to this and I just knew it was going to work and is going to continue to work for me. I have felt very successful with this. I have gained a lot more confidence and self esteem in so many ways. As a result I don't think I have ever been more confident or comfortable in any decision I have ever made nearly this huge. I feel actually that the decision was already made for me. I just needed to go through the formalities of paying attention and doing what I needed to do and I felt a great amount of strength to do it. I have failed at a lot of attempts also, this has not been a failed attempt at just another try. I am so grateful that things have turned out the way they have. I had no doubts about what I was doing and somehow I just knew all would work out very well. It was just meant to be. Maybe that is where you are as well. Everything happens for a reason and its own most perfect time although we can't always see that ourselves right then. It sometimes is very difficult to understand why things happen the way they do and in the time frame they happen in. Also a few months later, my surgeon told me at that time that I was his first patient when he came to Take care, God Bless, and I wish you the very best. Beth

Hello Annette, I am going to try to be really honest here. I don't post very often, but felt I needed to respond. I am speaking from the perspective of an 8 month post-op. I started out at 351 pounds, BMI >58. I, too, am 50 years old. I had failed my entire life at losing/maintaining any weight loss. I am not yet at goal, and still have a tremendous fear of failure at this, too. However, I think you need to analyze what has caused you to fail before. In my case, I would simply get tired of feeling hungry, almost to the point of starving, when I restricted my calories to 1200 or less. When I was so hungry, eventually I would just give in and start eating again. Then the weight would begin to come back. Now as a post-op, with my micropouch, I am quite satisfied with small portions. I'm down to 217 pounds, a 134 pound loss. I really enjoy my liquid protein. I don't allow myself to eat certain foods. Yes, the weight drops off quickly at the beginning, you can't fail at the beginning. But here is the hard question for you, even with this surgery tool, will you be able to make those hard choices, do I eat this bread roll, or french fry, or do I say no? How much is food a comfort to you, rather than just satisfying hunger? I can eat just about any food I want, except for sugar. The hard choice is, just because I can now it, do I eat it? It is often hard for me to say no to my old food friends, but I do. There is still will power required as a post-op, beginning several months out. All of this I am saying from my own perspective. I'm sure it is different for others. I don't want to go back to barely being able to walk. I don't want to go back to high blood pressure medication. I can now work again. I feel like I am fully participating in life. But it is a *choice*, and not always an easy one. When Mardi Gras rolls around this year, I'll be sad I can't eat a paczki, but at least I could walk to the bakery. Will I reach my goal weight? I hope so. In another year, will I still be able to choose protein first, low carb veggies second, fruit third, and nothing "white" (no potatoes, rice, white flour, pasta, sugar)? I hope so. There are no guarentees with this surgery, but a shot at a better, healthier life is worth it. My opinion only, Debra M.

I too feel the same way. I am so scared. I feel so hopeless. I truly feel as if I have lost myself. I look in the mirror and I truly don't know who the person is staring back at me. I am 28 years old and I never thought in a million years I would be where I am today,. I feel like such a failure! I just don't get it, with every aspect of my life I am a complete control freak, I just don't understand why the one thing I want the most, I can't control! I start everyday saying to myself "today will be the day, the day I change my life, the day I eat to live, not live to eat". And everyday I fail!!!! I am tired of failing, I want to just once be able to tell myself you are worth it, you can do it, and see it thru. Tonight I think I really hit bottom, I left work at 9:00 p.m. and have cried ever since. (It is now 3:58 a.m.) I feel defeated. I feel like I have let myself down time and time again, and I just don't know how to pick myself back up. I am so scared of surgery, but yet I am so scared to live another day in this 300 + pound body! I have never had any type of surgery ever! I want to be healthy more than anything, but then I am so scared of putting a date on the day that could be my last. I know with being obese any day could be my last, but for some reason I have such a hard time committing to a date and elect to have surgery. Please someone out there help me, I need some words of wisdom. I want to believe my husband someday when he tells me how beautiful I am, I too want to see what he sees.