People Suck!

To all of this.

Totally agree with Kathy S & a few others here. Frankly you can read every response, write it down on an index card & still find something else that can put you on the regain train. Really it's up to you to reinforce the good habits you've learned along the way & keep applying them for the rest of your life.

You're early out, it's easy right now to say you'll never go back & fear can be a great motivator in the beginning, but later you'll get over it. You've shown signs that you're already getting past your fear of regain & doing the little things that lead to regain, but being in your honeymoon period you won't see anything right now.

Just recognize the clues within yourself & take appropriate action. It'll help keep you at goal, or at least prevent a significant regain.

I have 2 BFFs...we all started out huge. One just celebrated her 4 year RNY surgiversary. She's a size 8, and doing great. She's the only long-term WLS recipient that I know personally.

My other BFF just had RNY a month ago. Hopefully she and I will continue to do great, since we have such a wonderful role model.

Thanks for all of the response. I have some hope by the positive comments, as well as the not so positive. It is important perspective that the way my body is working now won't last.

I will never live down asking about "cheats" on a previous post. What I meant was: are there foods that I can eat at 8 months that I couldn't eat before? I was dumb to not carefully choose my words. Cheating isn't something any of us want to do (being doomed to failure).

I need you to be tough on me so that I am motivated to succeed. I'm having way too much fun buying a 42 Regular sportcoat and 33 pants. I like to succeed when people think I can't. The challenge motivates me :) I do remember the dozens of diets that I failed at before RNY. This is my last chance to be successful in this quest.

I've heard that over and over. I agree it's extremely frustrating to hear from people like that. My perspective is that people suck because I DO also hear constantly 'Oh, I have a friend-relative-sister who had breast cancer too. They died.' WTF is wrong with people??? Because I actually had breast cancer and let me tell you - that **** is seriously offensive and right after cancer and during treatment made me cry. ALL THE TIME.

But regain is real. I haven't regained, but I'm only 2 years, 3 months out from surgery. I'm just out from the honeymoon stage and am hyper-aware that this is when a lot of people gain. I don't want to be those people. How do I deal with the people who tell me about regain who have no personal experience? The same way I deal with the cancer people. I ignore them and only pay attention to the people with actual personal experience.

The people on this board are the ones I listen to. The ones further out who have and haven't regained are the ones I want to listen to - the ones who HAVE regained have valuable information I've learned from. The ones who haven't I want to learn from as well. Read and learn from them and hopefully you won't be on the regain train.

First,

Thanks for starting this post. This is ANOTHER great inspirational read on OH.

Hearing all the comments about regain on WLS used to drive me crazy too. Then one day I realized that every weight loss program has participants who "gained it all back" - probably more than maintained their loss. It's one of the reasons the diet industry is so lucrative and busy. And didn't we all try several of those programs before we turned to surgery?

The reasons regain happens on Weigh****chers or South Beach is the same as WLS - what happens in your head is reflected in your body. You make a choice to live by the rules, follow the plan, use the tools or you make the choice not to. What sounds so simple is actually a hard DAILY struggle. Overeating was a habit and a COMFORT for decades. Part of me misses this everyday. Part of me is always on the look-out for that life event that may overtake my resolve, that will throw me back into old habits. I realized early on that I would have to be vigilant to maintain the "I'm never going back." I realized early on this happens to the most amazing people who were success stories for years and is a possible outcome for me. I remember this everyday.

I have respect for anyone who has lost weight and maintained that weight loss. Maintenance is so very much harder with fewer tangible rewards that the initial massive weight loss. And I have profound admiration for anyone *****gained and re-lost the weight. Will I have that patience, forbearance and persistence to accomplish that task?