People Suck!

You didn't ask for positive experiences. You asked for the negative stories about regain and that's what you're getting.

I think he means from people on the street, the ones who are telling him about how "everyone they know" has gained it all back.

I had RnY myself. And I personally know a lot of people who lost most of their excessive weight only to put it back on. If not all - them a lot of it. This is really sad.

I personally put back on 35 lbs. And I had too work really hard to lose it. And I continue working really hard to maintain it.

I work harder on maintaining that I did while I was losing, or in my first 2 years.

For me - the real struggle started in year 3, 4 and after.

And in year 2 I had a really hard time to keep my weight stable and stop losing. Year 2 was when I had to remember to eat and eat some more to stop losing. I could not understand why people gain weight. I wanted to gain 10 lbs and could not.

Year 3 and 4 - that what things changed for me. And I've I gained weight- I had a problem to stop gaining. For 2 years I struggled and diet like crazy to stop the regain.

Eventually- I had to face the fact that I can't really eat like a normal person, just smaller qty. I had to remove all grains, dairy, most processed foods, and alcohol from my diet too stop the regain.

Then I had to add exercise and limit calories to start losing.

To maintain now - I avoid grains, dairy, alcohol, most fruits (except berries) . I eat keto -paleo type diet. When I lose to much - I add some of the other foods for a few days - and I gain.

My reality post of RNY - I still need to diet (proteins first then fat and same carbs) if I want to remain my current weight. And add exercise to maintain my muscle volume.

Everyone's responses are very sobering. As someone who has lost well over 100 lbs multiple times only to regain shortly afterwards, I have been thinking about this a lot. Every time I lost weight before, I felt certain that I would never, ever be fat again, so pure and intense was my focus. Yet every time I hit goal and felt once again that I finally looked my true self again, I was anxious to discard all that linked me to having ever been obese. I rejected my former state in all ways, convinced I was now simply "normal". As I was not truly "normal", this tactic did not work. I have recently been mulling over the fact that I have not, in fact, been "normal" since my 20s, and at this point am the furthest yet from being so. I have a wonderful and creative mind, which nevertheless is chock full of weird reasons and rationales for deviations from strict dietary compliance. Many of these rationales are maps to supposed safety zones, which are in fact just traps. So I know that I have a lot of mental and emotional work ahead of me if I want to hold on to what loss I will experience over the next two years. I'm very practiced at deceiving myself in this realm, and honesty is going to be critical. And on top of the whole messy mind element is the fact that I am simply not "normal", not will I be "normal", physically or metabolically, in the future. It truly scares me to read the stories conveyed by responders, above. With a lot of work, ongoing work, I remain hopeful that I can free myself from the scourge of obesity from here on out. But I appreciate the scares and recognize the reality that this journey is long-haul, and that it will get harder. People do do it: a slender future can be navigated successfully. But it won't be easy.

Beautifully written reply, thank you.

Right now your body is being starved. The calories than you put in are not being absorbed. It is like trying to fill the bathtub with the stopper open.

The water runs and runs and still there is lots of empty tub. But every day your body heals a tiny bit more. That stopper settles a little more into place. Your body is smart enough to overcome the damage that was done to it. Eating and not absorbing is not normal. You will heal.

1. By year three you will be absorbing most of your calories. Most have a 20 pound regain by the end of year three.
2. By year five, 50 percent of RNY patients have regained half of their lost weight. Some have regained all of it. Some have regained none.
3. The eating and exercise habits you develop during the first two years of honeymoon will determine whether or not you regain.

It is like telling someone with a shiny new car that the car is going to need regular maintenance if they want to keep it looking and running like new.

I like the analogy of the 'new car' maintenance... that works for my brain really well!

That was very helpful!! I'm going to approach it that way :)

Go on the menu threads and see how committed people are to maintaining their loss. For years I went to the gym and thought to myself "Gee what are all these thin people doing here?" Bottom line is being fat is a lot easier than being healthy

Personally, I try to think of this is as just a prelude to the work ahead. In that way sites like this are really invaluable.

People gain after WLS for the same reasons anyone gains. They eat more than they burn. It's a very simple solution, but really hard to actually do -- that's why we're all here.

After the first year or year and a half, old habits start to reassert themselves. Concentration falters. Our capacity to eat increases. We eat more. We gain.

That's why developing new habits right out of the gate is so important. If you never change your habits, you'll lose for a while, simply because the surgery is doing a lot of the work. But when that fades, and the bad habits are still there, you'll be looking at a big regain.

People do suck. Ignore them. Use it as motivation to prove them wrong.