Did the RNY surgery cure your diabetes and are you eternally dieting?

Easy as that... was this surgery a magical cure?  If you are dieting... why couldnt you diet before but you can now?

My diabetes was put into remission the day of surgery...surgery didn't magically cure it. I am not dieting.. I have changed my lifestyle.

RNY is a tool... a very useful tool, however you have to know how to use it.

Best to you!

Thanks for writing this, so I can just say ditto.  Ten years out and counting.

I can't answer about the diabetes because fortunately I dodged that bullet but I have seen others with diabetes either cured or improved.

As far as dieting I was at the point with my first WLS that I could diet a day with a gun pointed to my head.  I had just lost the ability to do that.

I don't diet today and I haven't since I had my revision.  What I have done if figure out what I need to eat in order to maintain my health and weight and eat that.  Period.  When I was losing weight I figured out what the best way of eating was and did that.

The difference?  Two things, simple really.  I have very little capacity for food and I take advantage of that by eating in the best way to fill myself up, dense protein before anything else.  I get full sooner so I don't eat as much.

I also don't get hungry like I did before.  I don't know if it's due to lack of ghrelin or lack of refined carbs but I am able to wait because meals.  I don't get that ravenous hunger where you want to put anything into your mouth just to stop it.

I am able to have better judgement regarding food and avoid those things that I know I cannot eat happily or long term in moderation.

"If you are dieting... why couldn't you diet before but you can now?"

Because before surgery, my stomach was the size of a football and now it is the size of an egg. Yes, I will eternally be careful of how much I eat (a "diet" mentality) because I am determined not to gain it back. It is easy to gain back all of the weight you lose after weight loss surgery if you are not careful. I am determined not to fall into that category.

Ive tried "changing my lifestyle" and Ive lost a ton of weight... then put it back on along with an extra 20 each time.  I dont see the difference in eternally dieting and changing ones lifestyle.  Im not knocking it... I just dont get it.  I dont understand how so many of you are able to lose weight and keep it off based on a change in lifestyle.  I want to stop my diabetes and keep it stopped but I absolutely suck at sticking to any program.  Anyone like me had the surgery and made it work long term?

I was like you, I have actually been a normal size many times in my life, although never for any long period of time.

I knew exactly how to eat to lose weight and even how to keep if off.

Even though I knew what I needed to do to maintain it was unsustainable, not because it was unrealistic because it was (and is) a very generous and satisfying way to eat.

It was because I am a food addict and before long the cravings for the food I am addicted to were stronger then the desire to stay a normal size, although I wasn't consciously thinking that way.

I would tell myself that now that I have lost all this weight and kept it off for a little while I could handle bread, cake, cupcake, muffin, candy or whatever it was that I wanted.  I lied to myself, and even knew I was lying to myself because I could not withstand the cravings.

Now I can.  Simple as that.  Part of that is just long term experience on the results of giving into that cravings and the other part at this point isn't even a conscious decision.  I just look at it and say "Nah, it isn't worth it."  I know I can't eat it in moderation and don't even try to convince myself.

Also, another thing that helps is the fact that i know from experience that I cannot eat those things without consequences and I don't just mean gaining weight.

If I eat things with gluten I tend to have a lot of intestinal distress.  If I eat things with sugar I dump and having experienced that when I accidentally consumed something with sugar in it I'm not about to volunteer for that experience.

So for me the physical side effects are a deterrent.  It wasn't the case before, after my first WLS when I had a lot of consequences for eating the way I did but I was so addicted that in my mind it was worth the pain.  Today I have some clarity and know that no, it is not worth the pain, it just isn't.

But see, that's the thing... It isn't a "program"... At least not the way my surgeon set up the post-op eating plan.  I will be honest... if I had to track calories and/or carbs every single day, I wouldn't have been successful long term. (I am almost 8 years out and until I had two knee replacement surgeries, ws maintaining within 5 pounds of my goal weight for 5 years. Ai am currently up 14 pounds after the recuperation fro the knee surgeries). The dieting mentality brings up for me years and years of the dieting cycle (strict diet leads to feelings of deprivation which leads to giving up (and often overeating of the things you felt deprived of during the diet). I failed at dieting DOZENS of times. 

My surgeon's post op plan (and part of the reason I chose her) had us start back on soft foods on Day Three (assuming no complications or problems with full liquids the previous day), and the only thing we were told to count were protein grams.  The rule was "protein first always" and all meals and snacks had to be at least 40% protein. Without the tracking and obsession with calories and carbs, it allowed me to really, TRULY change how I looked at (and used) food.  Yes, I still struggle at times with old "demons", but it is just how I eat now, not a perpetual diet.

If I really want a particular food and it isn't a very healthy choice, I stil allow myself to have it, but I eat very little of it (and I don't give in on a frequent basis). 

Now that I am trying to lose the 14 extra pounds, I am tracking everything I eat, and I am dieting.  It sucks, but I need to get those extra few pounds off.  Once that happens, I will go back to what had been working for 5+ years until the limited mobility of the knee surgeries.

This may or may not apply to you, but for some people it is getting to a point where you care more about getting healthy and to a healthy weight than you care whether you ever eat another slice of pizza or another bag of potato chips again.

Lora

My diabetes and high blood pressure are gone. I record everything I eat but that is how I manage my weight. Not for everyone. As others have said it is a different way of eating. I now have restriction in portions which help me restrict crap from my diet. I could choose to eat junk and I would gain it all back but I enjoy being healthier. I have seen the other side and do not like it.

Maintenance is hard but for me it is worth it. When I am out and eat crap I cut back the next day. Before when I went off a diet I could do it spectacularly with large portions of junk. Now I have a few candies or a small slice of pizza then back to basics

So along with counseling to deal with my food demons I now try to pick sensible choices always protein first

I was never diabetic, but this surgery is not a magical cure for anything.  It does resolve diabetes in many cases.  But that doesn't make it magical.

I am not dieting.  I eat healthy, delicious foods in small amounts multiple times a day and I am as physically active as I am able to be (due to a disability, I am somewhat limited).  But I am not on a diet.