Is it me or the surgery???

So being 3+ years from WLS I have been giving this question alot of thought and am curious what you estimate after 1-2-3-5+ years what % success can be attributed to the surgery and % that can be attrbuted to your own personal grit and work.

My estimates are >1 year 95% surgery , >2 years 75% surgery, >3 years 40% surgery >4 years 20% surgery, >5 years 10% surgery or 90% grit, 6 years out I'd estimate 5% surgery 95% grit.  But the tool is always there but it is more like a dull knife.

What is your opinion 

   

I'm not sure how to answer this question, because I wouldn't be where I am now if I hadn't gotten VSG.  That means that, ultimately, all of my success is because of the VSG.  Sure, I've done a huge amount of work beyond just having surgery, but I wouldn't have done that work if not for the surgery.  

Yet I'm also the one who had the "grit" to choose surgery.  Which makes it 100% grit.  

So it's probably 100% surgery and 100% grit :)  (I was SMO, after all, large enough for 200%.)

Hmmm..interesting math - I'd guess you don 't work as a bookkeeper - he... 

What I am asking is as time goes by we can far more easily out eat our surgeries so hopefully we have learned 'thin behaviours' and use them as the years go on.

I could have out-eaten my surgery immediately post-op.  Ice cream is a liquid.  

My point is, that for me, my brain and my stomach are too interwoven to be able to separate out which is responsible for my lifestyle changes at any given point in time.  

And, really, when you get right down to it, it's ALL brain.  Because it controls everything we do.  

At 8 years out, I would say maintaining my loss is 50% surgery, 50% my effort and vigilance. I still feel restriction, but could eat around it if I wanted to.

You look incredible and healthy too!  I could only hope to look like that at the 8 year mark!  I am only a little over 3 years out.

So you had the famous TV Doc Garth Davis for your surgery?  Did you like him?

 

 

Clare Anne

Ontario, Canada

 

Thanks Laura...this discussion makes me wonder if anyone has studied the effects of a placebo surgery???

I am 8 years post op. I can tell you it is 50-50 for me. My surgery gives me a tool and as long as I do my part - I maintain or lose. 

In my case, I'd say it was 85 percent surgery 15 percent effort.

My wife is always surprised how much I can eat. The malabsorption helps a lot. I recognize I have issues with food.....that's what got me up to 500 lbs.

I take vits everyday...but I really dont' work to keep off the weight. Currently, I am low carbing it, because I had a 20 lb weight regain over the last 10 years...that I finally decided had to go.

Scott

A placebo surgery would not work.  I still have restriction and I believe that I still have some malabsorption.  There are times for me when it is 100% surgery and times when it is 100% grit.  I will go for periods when I have no hunger and no interest in food and to me that is a metabolic effect caused by the surgery.  Then I have periods where I can eat a lot and everything sounds delicious and I eat more and gain quickly. 

Carbs, protein and exercise all play some part in it, but there are definite changes in my body since surgery.  When I gain an appetite and start gaining weight, it is rapid.  That is when I have to pull in the reins and get back to my plan.  At first it takes 100% grit, but I soon go back to the no interest in food state.  No matter how I feel about food, I always weigh daily.