Why do men have WLS

I can only hope to be able to get plastics. I am a student, and it is hard to find work to save up, but I just got a small part time job to start saving a bit. I hope I can get another part time job, so I can save more. Even small time jobs are hard to get now. All I can do is keep applying and hope to get more hours.  I hate feeling fat and lumpy, so I will deffinitely get plastics as I can afford it. I hope to at least get a male breast reduction and tummy tuck over the next two years. Lower body and arms will have to be after college when I can afford more surgery.

Yehuda

I started my journey a long time ago.  04 I think.   Then my insurance company didnt cover it anymore, so I stopped.  I tried all the fad diets, the medical diets, the WW, and got tired of all the yoyo.  Then I had a Son and everything changed for me.  I was getting pissed that I couldn't play with him like I wanted to.  I knew that when he was older, he was going to be out pacing me and then there was going to be the resent ment.  My dad is too fat to do anything with me.  My dad is embarrassing me things like that.  So I started my journey again and after about 10 months, I finally had the surgery.  

I have had a ton of NSV's, weight goals reached, and am able to keep up with my son and Wife.  

After the surgery , the reasons I chose to have the surgery are now taking a backburner I think.  

Yes I was losing my mobility, and was hating that I was breaking chairs and stuff like that.  Today I started thinking about everything that has changed in my life and I realized that I had no self esteem about myself before surgery.  I thought I did, and thought I was happy! but that was a pipedream to I couldnet see how depressed I was.  I even got what I thought was my dream job, where I get to work from home, and noticed now that I chose it so i could hide away from everyone.  This past few weeks I had to go into the office for 2 weeks straight and liked it.  I liked seeing everyone, and being seen.  I also chose to find a new position and they were popping up like wildfire!   

I like the way I look now and I dont think I could have said that even 6 months ago.  

I do think that WLS gives you a real confidence boost. It was humilating to walk around having to "scope out" places to eat, where I could fit into a booth or at least to make sure that they had tables. Public movies were almost a thing of the past, I couldn't get into the seats at most theaters; and shopping for cloths was a nightmare! THANK GOD I was able to say goodbye to big and tall stores forever.

I do think that we realize things about ourselves after surgery that we didn't realize before surgery (i.e. that we were unhappy, or depressed as MO or SMO people).

Congrats on your weight loss!!! I look forward to seeing how your new found confidence leads you into a better job! (Austin's job market is still growing).

Scott

 Good question OP. I'm keen to agree with Paul in that there is a pretty big difference in the reasons that women have WLS and men have WLS. The reason this board exists and why we're all here is that as men we have a hard time relating to the ladies and their WL journeys.

When I first started researching WLS, I found that the majority of message boards were flooded with woman and their reasons, their view, their concerns, etc. There are some commonalities, sure, but I felt pretty out of place. For a lot of woman, getting skinny is a big motiviating factor. Lets be honest, some woman do some pretty aweful and painful stuff just to look good. There's a lot of pressure on them to look good and skinny. Whether we admit it or not, in society the measure of a woman is how good she looks. Some people may argue it's the only measure that most people really care about. It's a little different for men. 

Is it hard to be a fat man? Yes. Is it even harder to be a fat woman? Much more so yes. Different pressures, different motivations.

Again to agree with Paul, the single biggest motivating factor that brought me to seek WLS is the opportunity to start my life all over again. That concept really grabbed me. I'm 30 years old. I work in healthcare, cardiology specifically, and I can tell you from experience that I see plenty of fat men in their 40's and 50's, but rarely any in their 60's and 70's. They die before they get there. I didn't want to be that. I had already accepted the fact that at my current weight, I wouldn't live past the age of 65, and that was an optimistic estimate. 

I want to get married and have kids and be able to play and be active with them. I want to be able to set a good example for my future kids since genetically their going to be very predisposed to obesity. As far as love life is concerned, I have been fortunate that I've had the opportunity to date many ladies since I started dating. But to be frank and honest, my dating has always been passive. Meaning that I dated women that chose me and found me attractive, and rarely vice versa. I don't begrudge normal size woman for not finding me attractive. I'm well aware of how I look and what people normally find attractive and I'm not it. I would like to get down to a normal weight in order to make myself more accessable to a larger number of ladies. 

I want to be able learn and practice martial arts, to be able to ride a motorcycle, so many things that I just can't do because of my weight. I've been overweight since kindergarten and have spent the first 30 years of my life as a fat child, then fat teen, and now as a fat man. I want the next 30 years to be something different. WLS for me will be a literal renaissance, a birth into a new life.

Losing a lot of weight really does open a lot of doors for you, some of them which are very good, and some that might not be so good. One of the things you realize on the other side is that there are things that we have to eventually face, for instance why we were so fat in the first place. It's not all genes, it's not all gluttony, but I believe that we (most of us) used food as our "drug" of choice....for some reason.

Good luck on your journey man...and here's to you being a 5th degree blackbelt!!!

Scott

Now I will agree with you on this point.  I think if we all look back on our lives we will see that at some point food became a friend/drug/whatever but something that filled a void in our lives.  Once that happened it is difficult to let go and change. 

That has always been a key point I try to make.  No matter what you do if you don't make some life change you will have a difficult time and may get where you want only to find yourself heading back to where you started. 

Take the do over and live a good life, that is what this is about.

Amen brother.