Help me understand why people would turn to diet pills, etc. after WLS

I have never criticized ANYONE *****gained weight on this board OR in this post..  If you saw that in what I posted, it was because you inserted it.  

I am 5 years out and know very well what can happen once tha caloric malabsorption is gone, how difficult it can be to NOT take those extra bites, etc.  I have also  had some weight creep of my own (when mine hits 5 pounds, however, I get VERY serious about what I am eating until those 5 pounds come back off... However long it takes).  I do not panic... I do what I need to do to take care of the problem while it is still very small.  If there comes a time when I cannot take care of the problem myself, I won't panic. What I will do is seek help from a nutritionist or a bariatric surgeon (mine is no longer practicing) before it gets out of hand.

I spend a lot of time here warning people that this surgery is not a "get out of obesity free" card, that maintenance can be much harder than losing the weight in the first place, and that regain is a very real problem and possibility.  I routinely get chastised by a couple of people here for warning people that they shouldn't say "x pounds gone FOREVER" because it may very well NOT be true (and, in fact, the statistics say that the chances are that it WON'T be true).  

You clearly know nothing about me, and I do not particularly appreciate the lecturing tone in your response.  

Lora

I wasn't offended by the CONTENT of your post.  It was the obvious lecturing tone that I found distasteful.  I am sorry you are experiencing unexplained regain..  I am honestly seeking to understand why people who know the pills won't help turn to them anyway.

Lora

Lora, I wasn't trying yo start trouble with you, I am struggling right now and I take everything personally. I am not a bad person just a hurt one. I am one of the diet pill people and I shouldn;t have responded to your post so angrily.  I of all people do not like to be lectured and I didn't mean to sound like I was lecturing. This weight loss journey is a hard one and especially right now for me. You have  a right to ask whatever you want to without being attacked , that wasn't my intention.

I understand.  No worries... we're good.    I probably overreacted a bit myself because, although I certainly have my share of faults, one of the reasons that I continue to post here after 5 years is to try to help people avoid having to deal with regain by encouraging them to address the emotional/psychological issues that contributed to the obesity in the first place,  really embracing a new way of eating (instead of having a "how soon can I eat xxx again" mentality), reinforcing the new healthy habits when there is a stall or small regain rather than turning to things like the 5 Day Pouch Test that just reinforces the diet-deprivation-regain mentality we all struggled with for so long, etc.

Yes, this journey can be VERY hard, and it definitely doesn't end once someone stops losing.  Hang in there.  If there is anything we can do here to help, let us know.

Lora

No way did Lora criticize you! Who you really are angry at is YOURSELF. Failures come in all forms in our lives and getting desperate and using diet pills is an issue that needs to be dealt with in some form of counseling. If you saw your weight creeping up why did you continue to eat the incorrect things knowing full well was going to lead to weight gain? This sight in not to hold and pat your hand and tell you everything is going to be ok. You just can't handle the truth. You owe Lora an apology. Jane

I had my surgery a year after you, and believe me, I know how the pounds can creep on! I see new ops on here that lose their weight despite not really changing their lifestyles - they are constantly trying to find ways round doing what they are supposed to do because they haven't worked on their heads, the way the surgeon worked on their body, and quite frankly THAT is a recipe for long term disaster...

Over the 8 years I have hung out on here I have observed SUCH a pattern that I can almost point out those that I'll see in a year or two or five bemoaning regain ... because statistics say that an awful lot of us will be exactly where you are (50% EWL at 5 years) and that is considered an RNY success!!!

I have bounced up and down during my 8 years but work really hard to try and stay in control and not regain - at this point, I am at 100% EWL and no, it hasn't been easy. I have bounced up as much as 30lbs when I had some real health issues, but getting those issues dealt with and plugging away at my healthful lifestyle meant that those lbs came off - no daft diets, no drugs, no surgery - hard work and tenacity and belief in my surgery!

I'm not superwoman or special in any way, I have just worked on my mental issues as well as my physical ones to embrace this lifestyle for life. 60lbs does not normally necessitate a revision and I'd be surprised if you got insurance to pay - unless you have a physiological defect or if 60lbs brings you back to morbid obesity and I have seen many people successful in losing that amount of weight years out - without resorting to drugs or diets! Whatever your outcome, I wish you well!

 If we don't address what made us numb to food, exercise and general life before surgery, how are we going to prevent ourselves from being numb to it after surgery?  

It's all part of magical thinking.  I don't know why we do it, but we do.  Almost all of us.  If you can find a cure for magical thinking that doesn't require real insight and real work, you'll make a gazillion dollars.  

In other words, that you can't understand it is understandable.  It defies logic.  It's just that most of us have so many balls in the air all the time that we tend to let some of them fall.   Hopefully, the person's priorities work for them, but I think I get it.

I'm almost seven months' out, and at this point, I can lose focus on the WLS in the struggle of dealing with everything else.  This is where the hard work begins.