Who do you tell and what do you say?

I'm sure this is somewhere on this board, so I apologize. I've told my immediate family about my upcoming surgery and have told 4 close friends. Anyone else are people I only see maybe 3 or 4 times a year. However, I am also a teacher, so I have colleagues and students around me.

Who did you tell about the surgery before? After? I don't know if I will get questions as I lose weight, or if it will just be "Have you lost weight?", to which I can say "yep." Do people ask how you did it? What do you tell them?

Responses will definitely vary! Some people choose to keep it a secret. I figured, losing 150 lbs in a year would be pretty noticeable and likely hard to pretend I did it through diet and exercise :) I found the right answer for me. If people asked why I was going to be out for a week, or especially after as people would say "omg look at you!" I would just say (and this is all truthful), "Yeah, ya know I haven't had health problems yet but I really want to keep it that way so I decided to have a procedure and eat high protein and low carb and really commit to exercise". And no one judged me (to my face) or made comments about their cousin's neighbor's daughter who gained it all back...everyone was supportive and wanted me to be healthy too. I have even had two morbidly obese people have surgery after seeing my results. So that is what worked for me :)

I have only told a few people, but I'm only 4 months out. I am about 90 pounds down since I started over a year ago (most being in the last 6 months though) so its starting to be noticeable. I have been working out and biking a lot more and have made sure it gets posted on Facebook. This kind of lets people know I am doing exercise and so far no one has asked how I've done it. Surgery or no surgery it is diet and exercise that is causing the weight loss. Surgery is helping the diet tremendously and will help me maintain for hopefully decades to come. If asked I will talk about it but to me its extremely personal and I really don't want to deal with all the questions after people know I've had surgery.

I had surgery on December 16th, and it took me 4 months and 4 days to lose 100 lbs - no one was gonna believe I did it with diet and exercise :) I definitely know that people's decision of whether or not to share that they had surgery is personal, and some people decide not to share. I was ok with sharing it when people asked, but I never did an announcement via Facebook or anything like that. Totally comes down to preference :)

If someone compliments you, thank them for noticing.

If someone asks how you did it - that's where you need to decide how honest you will be. I'll warn you though, if you lie and it gets out at work, your credibility will be shot, for they'll wonder what else you think it's okay to lie about.

This is exactly how I handle it...

If it is just a compliment, I thank the person.

However, usually along with the compliment comes the "what did you do?" type of question. For me, I feel like I need to be truthful, and will tell them I had WLS surgery. Again, for me, I don't think I should be ashamed of the choice I made to have WLS.

As a qualifier to the above comment, I did lose 38 lbs before surgery by limiting calories and tracking. I do feel the need to share that as well, since so much of my post-surgery success is still by watching my caloric intake and tracking everything that I eat/drink.

Yep, the truth is much easier to keep track of, yanno?

I decided just to address it head on. I didn't tell anyone but my closest friends, siblings, and husband before it was scheduled. After it was scheduled I pro-actively told folks that work for me (the 7 people who directly report to me). Everyone else, when they asked about my weight loss or told me I look good/awesome/wonderful, etc I just say "Yep, I had weight loss surgery." I'm still using that direct response 6 months later.

Pre-op, the only people I told were the people who needed to know because they shouldn't find out with a phone call saying I'd died in surgery (grim, but that's how I think) and a few "service providers" who needed to know due to the service provided. So this means I told my parents, my brother, my partners, my three best friends, my voice teacher, and my massage therapist. I had no desire to invite conversation about my decision or to hear everyone's urban legend horror stories about "well someone I know did blah blah blah and DIED."

After surgery? Well I waited until I knew that it had "worked" and then told everyone. That was maybe 5 months post-op, I'd lost about 80 pounds. I had a big convention coming up where I would see many of my friends and I know that the best way to control gossip is with the truth. So I made a post to Facebook to share my surgery and my happiness and success and I was blown away by the overwhelmingly positive response I got. It was amazing :)

I knew, going into this, that people would ask how I'd lost weight, because people are nosy like that. I also knew that I firmly believe just saying "diet and exercise" is a lie. If I could have lost this weight with diet and exercise I wouldn't have needed surgery - and the fact that I couldn't do it with diet and exercise pre-op always made me feel like a failure. So there was no way I was going to do that to anyone else. People ask, and I tell them "diet, exercise, and I had weight loss surgery in 2014."

I have learned that most people just shut down at the mention of surgery, which is fine. (Or they start in on the urban legend horror stories about "well someone I know did blah blah blah and DIED.") I've also learned that when obese people ask me how I've lost weight so that they can lose weight too, it's very, very rare that they actually want to pursue something as drastic as surgery and that once they learn I have no magic wand to wave for them, they tend to seem dejected about this. I don't take these responses personally, but they are something to be prepared for.

I change the subject a LOT when my weight comes up, since people feel that it's an open topic for conversation all the time - people I don't know, randoms I see in the locker room or in my development. Like... you don't even know the names of the people I live with, but you think it's okay to quiz me about how much weight I've lost?! ARGH. So be prepared for that.

Thank you all for these ideas. I didn't want to say "diet and exercise" as it hasn't worked for the last 44 years :) and I didn't want feel comfortable just outright lying. I think I will stick to just the ones I have told (and yes, I also had the morbid thought of what if people find out because I died during surgery), and then face it when it happens.