Lifestyle change vs. Surgery

It might be just me or maybe a few people have gone through it. I fear the gastric sleeve surgery, I fear not waking up and dieing. This leads me to other thoughts, why can't I just go on a pre-op diet & post op diet without the surgery & hopefully watch the pounds fall off, with a whole new lifestyle approach. Why do I need this surgery if I just limit my intake of food and just block out my hunger pangs & head thoughts as well as exercise hardcore? What exactly would this surgery do for me as a tool, that I couldn't do on my own if i put my mind to it?

I couldn't eat so little food without having had WLS.  I'd be really hungry and not be able to stick to that plan. But if you are able to do it by just putting your mind to it, then by all means, do so.

If you're considering WLS, though, haven't you already tried eating less?  Were you able to do it?

I could take my laundry down to the river.  I could get buckets of cold spring water out, heat it over a fire I build, scrub the clothes against a wash board and hang them all to dry.  My clothes could definitely get clean without my washing machine and dryer -- it would just take a lot longer, they'd likely not get as clean, I'd likely have a lot less clothes and I'd be frustrated at the shear misery of it.  But, I could do it if I put my mind to it.

Thank you for that. That was a very great anology, put things better into prespective. :)

:-)  My pleasure.  

I just wanted to add: being obese is usually not due for lack of effort.  

My only regret is that I waited so long to admit that i needed help.  That's not a failure.  There's so much crap attached to obesity that we begin to internalize it.  There is nothing wrong with using the smartest and most efficient method to attain the best possible health. 

And if I had to do that, I would just be wearing dirty clothes a good bit of the time.  I don't have the energy to do that every week.

Love it. 

Damn...that's good.

Wow! Great and true analogy .

What this surgery did for me that nothing else did for me before: 

1.  Cut most of the hunger hormone out of my stomach so I no longer have hardly any "hunger pangs".  Before I would get insanely hungry and it would lead me to bad choices.  90% of the time now I eat on schedule to feed my body, NOT because I actually feel real hunger.  Therefore, I make much better choices.  

2.  I would never have felt satisfied with the small portions I eat now if I still had a full-size stomach.  I am physically satisfied with smaller amounts of feed even though my brain thinks I may need to eat more.  

3.  I don't know about you but I wasted over 30 years trying to stick to countless diets, losing weight and then gaining it all back with bonus pounds.  

4.  I was MUCH too heavy to engage in serious physical exercise.  I would get easily hurt and then stop doing anything while I recuperated.   The surgery allowed me to lose and quickly get to a much safer weight for serious exercise.