Is WLS surgery elective? Thoughts?

I can comment on that. My husband is actually under weight at 124lbs for a man who is 5"7, he lives on Pepsi, potato chips and chocolate bars. (Truck Driver) Now I being his wife we do eat some of the same things and I am a hundred pounds over weight. I do not drink pop, but I do enjoy chips and a sweet treat once a week on movie night. I do indulge in having a dessert here and there, but I do not eat anymore or less than my husband!
We are all in need of the surgery, that's why we are accepting the process. If we all had magic wands none of us would wish to stay FAT as some people put it. I know I have spent tons of money on diet and exercise stuff and I am still fat. SO why don't I loose weight?

 

Talk to you soon Stephanie 

Oh I can completely sympathize with you there!! My ex lived on milk, chips, bacon, and chocolate and he was really upset because he couldn't gain a darn pound because his metabolism was so high. I absorbed all of the pounds that he couldn't gain. :-D

Dr. Savoie was saying that because of the yo-yo dieting, my metabolism was shot. I could lose 30 lbs, but I'd probably put them all back on the next week. ;-) The more you bounce up and down in weight, the harder it is to lose and to keep off later on.

I guess I am between two minds on weight loss surgery as a non elective option. I think it depends on the person. I watched on discovery channel stories about the morbidly obese people in the U.S. I think if you weighed 600 or 700 pounds and death from your sheer weight was immenent then it would become medically necessary. The catch is, at 600 or 700 pounds, they will not operate on you because of so many complications. So in order to have wls, they must lose 50 to 100 pounds.
 
I also saw where some of the obese people regained their weight after wls too. Nothing is guarnteed. It is almost like drinkers who get a new liver and are told they must stop drinking. They get the new liver and go right back drinking. Do we feel sorry for them when the new liver starts to cirrose?  Nope. Same as smokers who develop lung issues after years of everyone telling them to quit smoking. Do we feel sorry for them. Not to much. I think it is the same with the obese.
 
Drinkers who damage their livers from years of abusing booze is almost the same as the obese who spend years abusing food and become obese. I do not feel sorry for myself for getting to this point. I feel ashamed and filled with self loathing for doing something like this to myself when I knew better.

I completely agree with you Maggie! We really have to change our behaviours in order to keep the weigh off. WLS is not a magic wand to keep our weight problems at bay - we're going to have to work on keeping the pounds off for the rest of our lives, but WLS is best tool out there to help us get the weight off, and to keep it off. Also this board and support is also another way for us to keep it off because we can support each other here and we it helps us be accountable if we get off the wagon, per se.  Overeating, to me, is an addiction, but we can help each other deal with it.