I chickened out....

Hey, it's a personal decision, and everyone needs to do what is right for them. No judging here. 

Keep taking the steps you are toward being healthy, and if you think OA is a good fit for continued support, do it!

Laurie

Hi Renee- you didn't "chicken out" you made a decision.  You were not ready for the surgery so you wisely decided to not have it.

Maybe you will decide in the future to have it.  Or not.  Maybe you will be successful on your own losing the excess weight.  Maybe you will change your mind again.

If there is one thing this wonderful forum has taught me it is that there is no one way to lose weight, no one way to come to the decision to have surgery and no one way to stick to a plan.  So be kind to yourself while you decide how to deal with your weight.  Tell your family you made the right decision for you at this time. Making the decision was brave, not cowardly.

And BTW, I had no nausea at all- I am 3 months postop and I never threw up, never had the foamies, never feel nauseated.

Good luck, Renee!

I don't think it's chickening out at all. At the end of the day the surgeries aren't going to be a magic fix anyway. We have to be willing to make the changes ourselves. To have VSG would only have given you a tool, a reminder if you will, that you no longer need to eat in the quantities that you do. For me, this has been a process of digging and unpacking my intentions and being honest with myself. I have lost weight twice in my adult life (60 lbs and then 90 lbs) and each time I fell back into old eating habits (binges). I believe the sleeve tool is going to save my life. 

Good luck in all of your ventures. I truly respect and admire anyone who can lose weight and keep it off. Hats off to you!

Despite losing 107 lbs during the six month supervised diet "on my own" - I never considered backing out. I knew that if I wasn't 100000% sure I could lose all of my excess weight and keep it off for the long term on my own, then I was going through with it. So, while I can't understand where you are coming from, you have to decide what is best for you - and what feels right.

See, the thing with surgery is that you may experience terrible pain/nausea afterwards - or your might have a breeze of a recovery like I did. There really isn't a way to tell. I think you have to ask yourself - what is truly different about THIS time/attempt at losing weight without the tool. Specifically - what is different. I'm hoping you can find your answer - I wish that none of us had to have surgery, ya know? I think you could still find a lot of support from people here - even if you haven't had surgery.

I know for me personally... I was just more likely to regret NOT having surgery than I was having surgery - that right there was enough for me to go through with it and I thank God every day for the second chance at life that I have received!

I never had any nauseousness or throw up since I had my surgery

 most of us have tried and failed on every diet known to man , and you will not lose weight by exersize alone unless you spend all day every day at the gym and then you may lose 1-2 lb a week 

 look at you history where you ever able to stay on a diet , lose and keep off what you need to

 some pain meds make you nauses but if you let your doctor know about it they will givwe you difrent pain meds or an antiemedic that treats the nausesness

 I don't know if wls helps migraines but it helps with a lot of health problems , talk to your surgeon , your migraine doctor go see a theropist 

if you have a great surgeon and follow a great paln there is no need to throw up

I think it's wonderful that you will do this on your own--some people can do it and I wish you the best luck in the world!! I had to mention your phobia of being sick, well I have the weakest stomach in the WORLD, I'd always be sick whenever I had surgeries and had the anthesthia, and I just thought I'd be the one who would be sick alot.  I didn't have 1 sick day (except February 4, when I had my first stomach flu).  I never felt the need to be sick through this whole time--just thought I'd let you know that for future reference if you ever need it.  You are doing the right thing for you!  

I am so sorry you are going through this. I just want to tell you I'm rooting for you and you have to decide what is best for your life.

Always go with your gut, and never let anyone make you feel bad because you decided against having an elective surgical procedure...never!  If you want some encouragement to help you do it on your own, I suggest taking some of that money you put away and see an eating disorder specialist or psychiatrist, along with hiring a personal trainer (some are not as expensive as you think).  If you have Netflix, watch every season of The Biggest Loser (even if you've already seen it before), because that's always helpful and inspiring.  Whenever I've watched that show, I've always had the sense that it CAN BE DONE on our own.  There's also plenty of websites out there for people seeking support that didn't have weight loss surgery done, just do a simple Google search.

Best of luck to you!  :-)

I had the surgery 5 years ago. I came to this forum a great deal as a preop and knew from posts by other people that many people experience that last minute anxiety, doubt and fear and nearly cancel surgery due to those feelings. Knowing that could be the case with me, I told my husband that if I got within days of the surgery and started questioning if I should go through with it and possibly backing out, don't let me do that just because I'm anxious and afraid. Remind me that it's scary and it isn't going to be easy but I have done a huge amount of research and know this is the right decision for me. I made the decision in a calm, rational state of mind and the decision to possibly back out was fear and anxiety based. Remind me that yes, people can do it on their own without surgery but to remind me of the failure rate of those attempts and to remind me of my own history of losing weight to only gain it all back, plus a few more. I nearly cancelled but my husband helped get me through those fearful, anxious preop days. Five years later, my only regret is that I waited so long. Maintaining below goal weight has not been without effort. I closely monitor my food intake and maintain an active lifestyle. However, without surgery, the odds were very stacked against my being successful in even reaching my goal weight, let alone getting below it and even less so with maintaining the loss. As far as vomiting, the only vomiting that I exerienced was on the two occasions and had nothing to do with the surgery. I had the flu.

I totally and completely support your decision.  But I would suggest you sign that form so they can sebd things in to the insurance company. 

There's nothing to fear - just because you've gotten an okay, there's no armed militia showing up at your door to march you off to surgery. 

But the approval will be good for some time.. AND should you ever consider wls again in the future, the insurance company will first see that prior approval and will rubber stamp the next one.  

Think of it as not wasting all the money spent on the supplemental policy.  That will make your spouse happier.  Now cheer up and have a great weekend!