Tough love time...and many of you won't like me after reading this

This should be required reading. Well said Nik.

As R. Lee Ermey might say: "Maybe we can prance on over to mamby pamby land  and get you some self confidence ya jack wagon!"

mamby pamby land,,,hahaha i love that comercial,,,ya know yesterday at least i think it was yesterday maybe the day before,,i read a post on here that stated "help i'm home from the hospital,,now what do i do,,, when do i start my protien,, vits and so on",,,...I was absolutly terrified for the person,,and then i thought they must be joking or something cause i mean how does one take this leap and have this major surgery and not know each and every step their gonna take before hand..? yes there are things that come up from time to time that you don't expect to happen to you but before i had this surgery i went to every forum and wls page i could find and found out all the things that could might happen just so i would have a plan of attack,,and yes things did hit me out of the blue post-op but i rolled with it and didn't panic becuase i researched ,researched ,researched...this is a life chnging event for me,, i am a newbie three weeks out and have lost almost 40 pounds already,,,if i only lose that much it would have been worth it to me...

everything you have said Nik is the absolute Gosbel,,God love ya..:)

I completely agree with you and Nik's original post. I will be having my RNY on 7/28. I started this process mid-March. I went to a seminar and was handed a notebook with tons of information. I was told that it was my WLS bible. I have read and re-read every word. I researched online for over a year before deciding to even call the surgeon's office to sign up for the seminar. I glean every bit of information and advice that I can from all of you have gone before me. I have a very hard time believing that someone can have wls and be sent home with absolutely no instructions. They either have selected an incompetent surgeon *****ally doesn't care about them or they haven't listened to anything they've been told. And when I see someone post 1-2 weeks out and trying to eat solids then complaining about pain and asking if they did something wrong??? HELL YES! They did do something wrong! They didn't do any of their homework and think that they can just go back to eating the way they did before wls and some kind of magic wand will make all the ugly fat go away. These people are setting themselves up for failure.

Stepping down from my soapbox now...

Kristi

Great post NIK, But so so true.

I will concur with most everything you said EXCEPT the poor mental health. There are just too many factors out of our control that can contribute to mental health issues...hormones, malabsorption of medications, and years and years of self esteem issues rearing their ugly heads in frightening and unexpected ways. So yes, we are in control of many, many issues relating to our process, but the tricks our minds play on us isn't one of them.

Living the dream,

Denise

Well...I agree and disagree. And this is coming from someone with a diagnosis of clinical depression.

My expectations for my mental health are NOT for life to be all sunshine and roses. I choose not to take anti-depressants so I don't even let my expectations go anywhere near sunshine and roses. And I do understand all the factors you gave, but I might have been unclear. By poor mental health I'm mostly referrring to people who would rather deal with the food than their brains.

The five day pouch test is a BIG example of this. You're not eating too much because of your pouch. It doesn't need to be "shrunk." You are eating too much and too much of the wrong things because of what is going on with your HEAD. The "test" does nothing for that. Only you can address that. So insofar as that behavior can contribute to poor mental health, yes, we are responsible for it.

But I do agree there are larger issues that are harder to control. Thanks for pointing that out Denise.

Back to what I said well before I decided to have the surgery, "You can bypass your stomach, not your mind".

I'll be honest, despite researching my face off and being on these boards for a long, long time before my surgery, I still had things come up that I didn't know and have as recently as just a few months ago. It is such a learning process. Hopefully we all learn more about ourselves and find that we are able to navigate the notoriously slippery slope that is life after gastric bypass.

Never a bad thing to be reminded that despite our deepest desires (and an ongoing secret wish that it was), this surgery is no magic bullet.

Be good to yourselves everyone!

Denise

Nik.. your words are like candy.  You can never get enough.  Keep them coming.  Most everyone has been to the school of hard knocks, and your words are gold to others.   I always love your advice, keep it coming. 

Mattie

I am a newbie and I researched this procedure for two years, asked a hundred questions and I am still asking questions. Nothing can fully prepare you for this surgery. You can conceptualize and anticipate the transitional issues but it is never the same as the actual encounter. Yes, you have to deal with it, this is the choice that you made for yourself. However, it's comforting to know that you are not alone. So, please be patient with us as we transition and become veterans. It just takes some time to develop any level of empowerment...especially since most of us were slaves to food for so long. It's a process.

I absolutely agree. But YOU have to be the driver of that process.

I am mostly speaking to the tendency I see of people to give up before they have really started. I see posts like:

"how bad is it if I don't get enough protein?"

"What if I don't drink my water? What will happen?"

"Will I die if I don't take my vitamins?"

Those are statements of submission. Statements of empowerment might read like:

"Help me figure out how to get more protein"

"How are you guys getting in your required water?"

"Can folks share their vitamin regimens?"

I see that...but not nearly enough. So my point is YES it's an adjustment, YES it's hard, but if you concede the fight before the battle begins, you really are short changing yourself.