What surprised you the most after you had your VSG surgery?

Hi Everyone,

After you had your surgery, were there any things that surprised you? (i.e. - was it less of a deal than you thought, did things change with your eating that you didn't expect, did people treat you very differently, etc.)

I'd love to hear anything about your experience! You all are amazing and I feel so lucky to have found this community.

Paige

Hi there!

Pre-op, I read through every post in this forum back as far as I could access, so I felt super prepared. I made this list of promises to myself. (It includes some edits I've made since then.)

WLS Promises

1. I will not panic if I stop losing weight for a few weeks. Instead, I will re-evaluate that my eating is on plan and wait until the stall has lasted 4 weeks before I start to panic.

2. I will not ask OH what I need to take to the hospital, I know these things. Chapstick and a pillow. And the pillow really just needs to be in the car for the trip home.

3. I will not lie when people ask me how I've lost the weight. I will either be honest and tell them "surgery, diet and exercise" or I will tell them "I'm not comfortable talking about this with you." These are the options, lying by omission is not one of them.

4. If I screw up, and I will screw up, I will forgive myself and return immediately to plan. It's okay to screw up, it's not okay to beat myself up for it or let it become the start of a downward spiral. It's also not okay to say "I'll return to plan tomorrow."

5. If I don't start losing sizes right away, I won't freak out. Chances are the clothes I wear now are too small and tight, and I just deal with it. It might take awhile for my current clothes to fit correctly and that will happen before I can get into smaller sizes. (This was true, I think I lost about 50 pounds before needing to buy new clothes.)

6. I will own my mistakes. They're mine and result of my own choices, no one is ever going to hold a gun to my head and make me eat crap, I control what goes into my own body.

7. I will not compare my weight loss to that of anyone else. I'm me.

8. I will do everything I can to find a therapist I can work with. This will help me out in the long run. (Therapy = awesome.)

9. I will be hyper aware of potential addiction transfer issues and especially aware of getting too caught up in numbers as I already know I am want to do.

10. Extra skin is a fact of life, get the **** over it. If I really hate the way my body looks, I can save my pennies and nickels for plastic surgery once I've maintained for a year or two. People will still have sex with me if I have weird skin, and lots of places sell compression gear. I will, however, have every issue with my skin documented. (This didn't happen as planned, but hey, life rarely does. People did still have sex with me even if I had weird skin.)

11. I will be kind to myself. I will keep getting to my monthly massages, I will keep engaged in my hobbies, and I will spend time with my friends.

12. I already know that being a "hero" about medication is stupid so I'll work on remembering that when the time comes. Pain keeps us from healing, it's not noble.

13. I will only weigh myself once a week. I will not let myself get obsessed with the scale. See #9. (LOL, this definitely didn't happen. I weigh daily, but I don't obsess thanks to TrendWeight.)

14. My stomach will probably gurgle after surgery, this is normal. Just don't go to silent Meeting anytime soon.

15. I will not worry if people don't comment on my weight loss. I will assume that they're being polite and not commenting on another person's body, which is what they should do. (I wish people didn't comment on my body.)

16. I will work to break the compulsions to "clean my plate" and to "not let food go to waste." Sure, there are starving kids in Africa, but throwing away food will not change the situation.

17. There is nothing to be done for hair loss, assuming that I'm eating on plan. It will happen, or it won't, but I will remember that it will grow back eventually. I will be a shavee with St. Baldricks six weeks post-op. (And I've kept my hair short ever since.)

18. I understand that my hormones will be all messed up after surgery. I will do my best to remove myself from the company of others instead of taking my hormonal changes out on them.

19. I won't weigh myself for the first two weeks post-op because I know that I'll gain weight from all of the fluids and swelling that surgery entail. I'll wait to weigh until I'm off liquids. (I made it one week...)

20. I will not panic if I don't feel restriction immediately post-op. Chances are restriction won't kick in fully until I'm eating dense proteins and that will take 4-6 weeks on my plan. (This, indeed, was the case. I never had any issue with liquids.)

Surgery itself was ultimately no big deal. I can't eat falafel anymore, which surprises me since it seems like such a weird thing to have problems with. People do treat me differently, but I treat myself differently too. So I don't know if they treat me differently because of the weight loss or because of how I present myself.

One surprise that did happen, and I'm not sure if it's weight loss related or just -everything- related, is that my sex drive is non-existent. However, since weight loss surgery I became a full time college student, my dad died, and I've had lots of reconstructive surgery. So it's unclear the ultimate cause.

Oh - I guess I can attribute my decision to go back to college directly to weight loss and I was definitely not expecting that pre-op :D As I've told people who have asked me, losing the weight didn't let me live a live I dreamed about, it has let me live a life I hadn't even thought I could dream about :D

I'm also surprised that I turned into someone who loves exercise. Never in a million years did I think that would happen. But I ran my first half marathon this year :) Definitely in the category of dreams I hadn't even dreamed to have. :)

GWEN!

Fist off, YOU ARE AMAZING! I LOVE this list and it's inspiring me to do the same. SO GOOD! I love the whole being kind to yourself part and appreciate the reminder.

Interesting about lower sex drive and enjoying exercise. Look at you running half marathons and getting your college degree - GO GWEN GO! I hope after my surgery that I will like exercise. I'm actually wondering if for me my whole resistance to it is that it has been so tied up in unsuccessful attempts to lose weight. I actually think of exercise/being at gym as a waste of time for me because of it. I'd like to look at exercise as having benefit in and of itself and as a method to connect and care for my body instead.

Thanks for all your shared. It's awesome!

Paige

Thank you!

I had to work at my love of exercise for sure. In the beginning I definitely felt like I was forcing myself, but I knew it was important, so I did. With exercise classes I basically tried everything that sounded even remotely appealing and forced myself to give it four tries. I figured that four would let me get past the "I feel like an uncoordinated ungainly whale" stage and, for the most part, it did. I found things that I love and I actually enjoy trying out new classes when they're offered. My biggest fear is that I'll fall in love with something new and have to figure out how to fit it into my schedule.

But.. I started with walking for the first 6 weeks. Lots and lots of walking.

I'm totally going to do this! Thank you, Gwen, for the inspiration!

Paige

Gwen,

You are awesome. I admire you. And thank you so much for sharing. So many of the things on your list were things that I had thought about and promised myself. Some made me go, 'huh... I hadn't thought of that, but it is oh-so-true!'.

I love your style and your attitude.

Diane

Aw, thank you so much.

I referred to my list often and I feel that it helped to keep me in a good place - I could say "Oh, this is normal, it's okay." And, hopefully, kept me from asking a lot of repeat questions here in the forums ;)

Gwen,

Thank you! This list in incredible and has helped me pull together my promises to myself out of my head and onto paper. What an inspiration!

You're welcome! I tried to put my pre-op OH reading to good use :)