Surgery fixes your stomach, NOT your head.

Being successful after WLS requires constant vigilance and a completely new relationship with food. The folks who slide into old habits, like emotional eating and binging, tend to be the ones *****gain.

The people here who've been successful at losing and maintaining for 5, 10, or more years continue to weigh, measure, and log their food, and stay accountable for everything they eat and drink. Surgery is not magic and it requires a lifetime of hard work.

If you don't think you can commit to that, spare yourself and don't have surgery until you're ready to commit and follow-through.

Hi. It's been a long while since I've been here. My journey started a number of years ago leaning towards the DS and RNY. Back then I didn't have the coverage, but now I finally do. My surgeon recommended the VSG and I think it's the right choice for me. I can't believe I'm typing these words, but my surgery is coming up on 3/5. I check in at 9am. I'm currently struggling with the pre-op liquid diet (I miss chewing!). I can't believe I'm almost there. I'm so grateful for OH. It helps reading the posts -- ups as well as the downs. I hope to be on the loser's bench one day. Hope you're all settling into a great week.

xo Kami

I like to look at WLS as something of a "do-over" - it allows us to get back to a normal-ish weight and gives us a second chance a keeping it there, but it doesn't allow us to make the same mistakes that got us MO (morbidly obese) in the first place. We need to learn how to maintain ourselves as a "normal" person does (and/or to compensate for whatever metabolic deficiencies we may have that has helped keep us MO.) One of the problems is that maintaining our weight, while related to, is not the same as losing it in the first place - that's why diets alone don't work in the long term (about a 5% success rate beyond a year; WLS is more on the order of 50% after 5+ years.) Also, those who do lose a lot on a diet program alone tend to snap back and regain that weight fairly quickly, usually within the next year; with WLS, the regain process, if it happens, tends to be slower as there is still restriction at work, so there is more time to catch it and make corrections.

Another way to look at it is that this is a team effort - neither we, alone, nor the WLS alone will do the job - it is a combined effort; we need to learn how to use our WLS to maintain our weight and health in the long term after it has helped us lose the weight over that first year or so.

You mention discipline, and to me, in this realm, this implies sticking to some prescribed diet - certain calorie or macro counts or ratios - whatever the diet promotes - which tends to work OK as long as one has the positive feedback of the weight coming off. Once that stops, there is little incentive to stick to the diet and the weight starts coming back - this is why diets fail 95% of the time. You speak of having a hard time sticking to an eating style before surgery - whose eating style are you trying to stick to. To me, this is something that we have to make our own (much like a tailored suit, versus a borrowed one - it has to fit us, not someone else.)

When I started this game some fifteen years or so ago, when my wife was getting serious about WLS and I was going along for the ride with her, we needed to do the typical six month insurance diet/exercise program. My philosophy on it, as long as we had to spend the time on it, was to work on what my diet and lifestyle should look like in 5-10 years, rather than some quickie weight loss fad diet. I studied nutrition and worked to drive my tastes toward that goal of a sustainable healthy diet that would help control my weight. It wasn't perfect by any standards (most particularly whatever the fad diet of the day was) but was getting as close to the ideals of nutrition science as I could get, and it was (and is) a work in progress. But it was "good enough". I lost around 50 lb, or about a third of my excess, over those months and it felt good. It wasn't quite a "I've got this nailed, I don't need surgery..." moment, but more of a "if I can be one of those lucky 5%, that's great, but I'm not counting on it - just yet." That was about what I could lose on that basis - a few more here or there, but nothing that stuck. I became more of a test of maintenance - can I maintain this loss? As it turned out, yes I could over the next several years, as my habits had evolved enough to do that, but ultimately I did need the WLS to finish the job (I probably could have jumped onto one of those fad diets to lost more, but that would most likely have resulted in the total regain that is typical of them.) This exercise did teach me a lot about myself and what I needed to get the job done, and helped drive the decision as to what procedure was appropriate for me. I went with the VSG as I seemed to have developed a reasonable level of weight control; had I gone the total regain route as so often happens, that would have pointed me more towards the DS, as that offers better regain resistance than the other mainstream procedures like the VSG or RNY

A good RD (nutritionist or dietician) can work within your tastes and preferences to adjust your diet in the right direction, and help you evolve your tastes, making it more sustainable effort than some packaged or fad diet. Some bariatric programs are more flexible than others - some can be quite cookie cutter, which is great if you fit their mold, but counterproductive if you don't. It may be appropriate to take a step back and really evaluate your needs, and what the program you have chosen provides in that area - a delay or change might be appropriate.

Good luck!

You basically have to start drinking from the time you wake up to make it a little easier....Try maybe ho****er sometimes that makes it easier. Just keep sipping and walking and before you know it you'll get more water in.

It gets easier.

Try liquids of a different temperature. I could not drink anything cold, but hot tea worked great. Just keep trying. Dehydration is not something you want to deal with.