11 years today!

11 successful years here!

It's been beyond hard but worth every single second of doing battle (war?) with my brain. It has taken everything I've got and then some to work at managing myself lovingly, thoughtfully, and well, but OMG I can testify that it's been worth every single hard won step. My journey hasn't at all been in a straight line, it has been full of mistakes and falls and potholes and detours, but I live by the realization that what is most important is to keep practicing and pushing forward because any skill takes forever constant practice.

Height 5'3"

High weight: 230 lbs, BMI: 41

RNY 7/15/10

Weight for past 9½ years: 122-127lbs, BMI: 20.3

What I have to practice forever:

Awareness that surgery does not operate on the brain or the emotions.

My commitment to learning how to manage my mind rather than it managing me.

Embracing the challenge as an opportunity.

Mindfulness, one day, sometimes one minute, sometimes one second at a time.

The work begins with me and is solely up to me, my responsibility, my choice.

Commitment, determination, consistency, and perseverance over time.

Staying focused on goals and concrete results even when I forget what they are and have to operate on blind faith stumbling forward.

Motivation doesn't happen waiting for it.

Keeping my feet moving literally and figuratively no matter what, no excuses, no vacations, no matter what I feel like or am thinking or how much my head is having a temper tantrum or what my life cir****tances are.

Making my mistakes part of my music.

Forgiving myself lots (did I say lots?) for being an imperfect human.

My journey:

Self vigilance and discipline were not and are not and never will be by any means my favorite things to do but I do know I must not give my mind any room to weasel. Period. Surgery truly does not operate on our heads or emotions.

Has my recovery journey been the hardest work I've ever done? OMG, yes. Has it been the most worthwhile? Yes, beyond yes, way way way beyond yes.

Have I been perfect? Far from. It's been a process of learning and practicing and keeping in front of my nose that it takes only one more time to get up than I fall down.

Since childhood I have been an addict with seeking short term destructive self comforting. My family and my childhood were deeply painful. Thank heavens I never got hooked on drugs. I smoked as a teenager until 1990. I've flirted with alcoholism a couple of times. I struggle with impulsive spending. I struggle with depression and anxiety and destructive negative thinking. OMG I fight my addiction to self pity. Eating is my true addiction. My partner says cookbooks are my porn.

My recovery is my highest priority and has been for many years including way before surgery. Working it has gotten easier over time because working with myself constructively is now mostly what I just do. I struggle to practice self compassion. I know I can fall off the wagon in a nanosecond. I practice not beating myself up if I make a mistake. The trick has been catching myself as soon as possible if I do slip.

What has been working for me with maintaining my weight loss, just me because everyone is different and needs to find their own path:

I sought out whatever support I could and put it to use.

I looked for and have had an excellent therapist who is kind, validating, insightful, skilled, and firm- he wouldn't let me weasel.

I had accountability buddies for the first two years. They wouldn't let me weasel either.

I exercise a lot. Exercise is the cornerstone of my program and I build my day around it. I speed walk at least 2½ miles daily (I figure I've crossed the country coast to coast at least three times since I started walking six months before surgery) plus hike and bike. Before surgery I hated to exercise. Starting six months before surgery I consistently dragged my screaming head out the door, now it's mostly habit and I just do it though I still have to argue with myself sometimes. I like how I feel when I'm done plus it makes managing my eating easier because my headset is clearer.

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Very important: I need to emphasize that the following has been only since getting to goal weight and that I developed my maintenance program very gradually, experimenting with where I could be flexible yet not tip myself over into self sabotage. Before I got to goal weight and for a year afterwards I followed the rules absolutely.

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What I have done and do since beginning maintenance (the hitting me in the face cold reality of maintenance scared the bejesus out of me):

I weigh myself daily since getting to goal weight and keep myself within a 5 pound margin. I hate hate hate doing the work of losing 2 pounds let alone lots of weight.

I eat healthy most of the time and pretty much what I want, focusing on balance and moderation. I eat on a mostly regular schedule. I've learned what works for me regarding how much and what to eat when. I have pretty much learned when I can't eat a bite more or there's hell to pay, thanks to the blessing of my small tummy. I still dump sometimes, especially with fat and sugar together, ice cream being my drug of choice. I'll never learn.

I get regular medical follow up and with my doctor's OK since maintenance use my blood results to determine the vitamins I take beyond my daily multivitamin, calcium and iron. For years I haven't needed to take more.

I take medication for being bipolar with depression- I call it eyeglasses for my soul.

I keep myself very active and occupied out in the world.

What I don't and won't do: Log my intake, count calories and protein grams, measure portions, drink protein shakes or not drink during meals. I would much rather, as in totally rather, exercise and eat right than do those things.

Results:

My increasingly poor health including mental was the primary reason I had RNY and improving it has been my main driving force. I want to stay on the right side of the grass. I'm now in excellent health for the most part with all of my co-morbid conditions handled- breast cancer (which my oncologist says was likely related to my obesity) now 11½ years cancer free, severe GERD, a huge hiatal hernia corrected during my bypass surgery, Barrett's esophagus, a cholecystectomy for gallstones, high cholesterol, and stress incontinence. My chronic conditions have not worsened other than arthritis and degenerative disc disease. One incurable condition is cured (Barrett's).

*****

If I could say anything to all of you, it would be just do the work, do it like your life depends on it because it does.

Don't give complacency even the tiniest opening- keep the pain green. Please consider that bounce back is not a given. Please consider that regain is not a certainty. Thinking these things gives our heads permission to believe them and make them real.

My deepest gratitude goes to the people in my life who have had my back and have been cheering me on, including here on OH. I couldn't have done or be doing this alone no way no how. I also couldn't have done it without surgery.

Hi Anne. Congrats on 11 years. I'm 13+ years out myself.

I've noticed the last couple of years that your surgiversary posts appear to have been copied and pasted from one year to the next; seemingly without material changes. Is this because you've formed your opinions and no longer feel there is anything new to add over each year? Or is a template used for ease of posting each year? Or?

Asking because every single year has been different for me. Sometimes in good ways, sometimes in bad, through physical changes all post ops go through such as decreased malabsorption, regain, low blood sugar, RH, etc. And also through emotional responses to life changing events (deaths, weddings, grandkids). Every year I learn things I didn't know and can apply to my situation if indicated. Every year the science behind metabolic surgeries improves and diversifies as we have access to new options and hopefully retire old, unsafe and ineffective practices (still can't stop looking at you LapBand). It's just a whirlwind that for me has never died down (that doesn't mean things have always been good).

I'm just wondering then, why the canned response? To each their own and all but you always seemed like a person with an opinion and I question where that went. Please take this in the spirit in which it is intended. Not as a criticism but as a sincere desire to understand your goal in these yearly posts.

This is not a "canned" post though it has been for the most part the same from year to year. It is sharing what has worked for me with maintaining my weight-that has stayed the same with adjustment as needed through the years.

Of course cir****tances for me have changed from year to year but how I've worked things hasn't, what works doesn't. Consistency of action no matter what has been the key to my success, and that includes how I respond to the ups and downs of life both outside and inside myself. My opinions, thoughts, and feelings don't matter- actually much if not most of the time they are counterproductive to managing myself. Complaining for sure doesn't help either.

My posting is a way of marking the date for me and reminding myself of what has worked and telling myself to stay on course. Also maybe I can hopefully support others who are starting out or perhaps needing to recalibrate or best yet should be congratulating themselves.

I'm soooo glad I didn't get a lap-band! I actually went into surgery for one but they couldn't install it because of my huge hiatal hernia. Which is an example of what I thought was bad at the time but actually turned out to be a good thing. I'm soooo glad I hung in there and got my RNY! I'm grateful I've learned and am still learning and will forever be learning to hang in there no matter what. Never give up.

Congratulations on your 11 years of success! I am 17 years out and here I am again using my tool to gain control over my health.

I was a lightweight. This doesn't make my struggle any easier. I have the same issues as everyone else. I lost the weight and diabetes. Many years later I gained back 3/4 of it along with diabetes again. My A1C was 12. That is in a deadly category.

I noticed in November that my body was breaking down. Things were getting rough and I started this journey again to get back my health. I got with my primary and hooked up with a diabetes clinic. They originally wanted to start me on insulin and I told them to give me 3 months to see what I can do.

It is now 7 months and my A1C is 6.4 and my guess is I lost 40 lbs. I originally lost about 90 lbs 17 years ago. Told you I was a lightweight. I gained back 60 and I now have 20 more to go before I get back to my all time low.

There is something different this time though. Struggles I never thought of before. The first time I did this was to lose weight so my diabetes would go away. That was the goal. I was mentally prepared.

This time my goal was not to lose weight but to get my A1C out of the danger zone. Losing the weight is icing on the cake and will automatically happen if I do it right.

I don't jump on the scales. I don't care what that number is. All I care about is that I eat right and the rest will follow. I never mentally prepared this time for the weight loss.

Who needs to prepare mentally? We all WANT to lose weight. We all dream about it. We all feel good when we put on smaller clothes and can do things we couldn't before. So here is what I felt this time.

I wasn't expecting to feel sadness. I have been large my whole life. It's down the family on both sides. I know nothing else. NOTHING. So I never expected to mourn the loss of who I was, the large me. I've lost before and didn't feel this way. But right now I don't fit in with large people or "normal" size. In my head, I am always plus size. I am now starting to shop outside of plus sizes and I feel like I don't belong anywhere. I am trying to make sense of this. It is possible to mourn the loss of yourself as you've always known yourself to be.

I would have never believed this possible but I am having real identity struggles.

The struggles mentally, physically, and emotionally are very real. Everyday is a struggle but my health is worth it. It is no longer about size. I loved myself as plus size. There was a security, a safety to it. That is gone now. I will love myself smaller one day too. But right now is not that day.

When did I stop caring about the scale? Switching focus was not something I was expecting. All I can say is thank God for therapy.

Your post and your sharing of your struggle is so moving and my heart goes out to you. I acknowledge your courage and I'm with you about why we need to make this work. Nothing like being up against mortality- it makes all our stuff and complaints rather insignificant, doesn't it? My worsening health is what kicked my large rear. If it stayed large I wasn't going to be sticking around long. No kidding our lives depend on how we work it. That doesn't mean at all that the daily struggle isn't painful and scary and upsetting and maddening as all hell at times.

I absolutely know what you mean about mourning the loss of the identity we knew, the loss of the safety, the known. I think that's why so many people have trouble coping with maintaining the loss. This weight loss journey takes learning a whole new skill set and self identity and that surely isn't easy. Especially the part about me living with me. You're right, thank god for therapy. I literally owe my life to it.