Scared ..

I am so glad to have this board you all .. This is something that I do not feel I can post on the Main board .. why .. there are just so many new pre-ops and post ops .. and I just do not feel it would get the attention or the experience I know us grads have . I am almost 20 months out .. And I fear daily I will regain .. or that I am fat .. sometimes I even feel like I am fat .. when I know damn good and well I am not .. ( Size 3\4 ok from a 26 ) I have been told I am the poster child for WLS from my docs office .. and I have and always followed " most " of the rules .. no one is perfect .. I have yet to gain anything and struggle to keep it on . I keep loosing .. even this far out . But am doing a lot better now with this .. Why do I have nightmares about waking up Fat .. or walk past a mirror still and see myself as Fat .. AT this far out should I not be feeling more comfortable in my body .. will this fear ever go away .. I spend my entire day worrying about my food .. my exersise .. and I guess I will always have to do this ??? I am ok with this ya know .. but I am just wondering am I the only worry wart out here .. or am I obsessing ! ? Love you guys ! Natalie

Hi Natalie...I do this also. I don't have nightmares but I do worry about getting fat again. I am also a Poster Child for WLS, I follow my doc's rules, I work out faithfully, weigh every day (heaven forbid if I don't). I am currently trying to lose another 5 lbs. Why? I'm not sure. I have suffered from bulemia and a bit of anorexia. I got some counseling for it. I wasn't binging but I was purging. And within the last two weeks I have begun this again. I have never gained weight. I won't let myself get above 3 lbs over my goal. I am obsessing and I have turned obsessive compulsive! Oh my oh my. I am in a 6/8 from a 36. I look great even without plastics and I'm 59 years old. I feel wonderful. Do anything I want to (still haven't ridden a horse that will happen this spring). So what is the answer? I'm not sure there is one. I get focused again and tell myself stop purging -- I always have an excuse like I ate the wrong thing, it didn't agree with me, yada, yada, yada. Any thots from all of you great grads, I'm open. I'm not majorly concerned about this as I will seek more counseling if I need it but I have to admit I wonder: Is this because I was super morbidly obese all my life and I'm terrified I will be again??? Sounds like a good reason to me!

Natalie, I am about 1.5 yrs out and I know exactly what you mean... I live in fear that I will gain it back and my weight, food and exercise control my days... still. Even with the First, I had to start a new diet...just cause I always did before. I feel like I must be crazy most of the time. It's strange, when I saw the Biggest Loser, I was so proud of those folks, they looked great... but yet, I have lost more than any of them and I don't feel that way about myself.... I know I need to work on my head now, and realy all along, I have been.... It's just now evident to me that the weight was not the problem, only the symptom.... So I am trying to rethink my life and events that have significantly affected me, and sometimes that is so sad.... I have been looking at old pictures of me when I was just a little kid, and you know I have come to love that little girl, and this is helping me. Somewhere throughout my life, I lost her. But I know I love her and she is really me..... so I am trying to love myself now and accept me just as I am... which ain't so bad!!! I hope after ps, my body image will change in my head and I hope to feel good about myself and all my accomplishments. I hope the same for you too.... you do look beautiful!! Congrats on all you have acheived, and you'll get where you need to be by being who you are right now.... Good Luck! Laurie - minus 174 lbs!!

My take on the whole body image thing is this: ...likely you had been MO for a long period of time. You have been in transition since your WLS and it takes time to come to terms with what you look like, and that you look different while you know that you are the same person. Keep looking in the mirror, and at the same time study other people as well. Try to figure out how you look vs. how they look. Are you the same as other women your age, build, etc.? Are you smaller? larger? normal? I am in the 4th month of my 5th year post op and to this day often catch my self by surprise! As for the fear of gaining weight...just remember that you have had incredible success. Not because somebody made you that way, but because you have had the determination and drive to make your dreams come true. No person, food, or situation can control you. You are responsible for you successes and challenges. Do not live in fear...face it and deal with it, and take control of your outcomes!!! Continued success in the best of health, Karen

I've always said that I won't believe my surgery has really worked until I've maintained my weight for five years. I understand your fears and while I'm sure there's some obsession attached, if you're anything like me, you've been successful at weight loss in the past only to gain back what you've lost and more. I have documented past weight losses (in pix and words) of more than a thousand pounds. I have been a size 9 four times, only to regain the weight into the 3X realm. The only reason I had to finally resort to WLS instead of losing weight on my own again was because my "downalator" broke (my metabolism was shot) and my body was beginning to betray me (thisclose to a wheelchair). Now that we once again have sampled the wonders of a life free of the pains of obesity, one of the worst things that could possibly happen to us is to start gaining uncontrollably. The way I see it is we are still likely to obsess; it's practically unavoidable. However, from a logical and reasonable perspective it shouldn't be any harder to lose a couple of pounds post-op than it was pre-op. We just have to be vigilant to keep any weight regain at bey. Laziness or becoming too convinced that we've become normal would work against us in a big way. As for me, I'm still working on losing another 20 lbs before I feel comfortably at goal. It has gotten more difficult to lose the further out I get although I'm really really anal about what I eat. But it's happening and will continue to happen. It's the like the AA motto (paraphrasing): It works IF you work it. Just be sure not to let the obsession lead you to anorexic / bulimic behavior. There's a middle of the road. If you find yourself going over the top in your fears, I highly recommend going to an Overeaters Anonymous maintenance meeting or touching base with a therapist. Good luck and God bless.

I am almost two years out and I, too, did everything right - most of the time! I have lost way more than I ever thought possible and am still loosing - slowly, but... Sometimes I am afraid that I am still fat. When I gain a pound (or five) of water weight, I can feel it and freak out. I mean really freak out. Now I am struggling with the need to loose 5 more pounds, so that when I DO gain the water weight (and with me it is gauranteed to happen various times of the month, without rhyme or reason) then I will still be "at goal". This does scare me, because, after all the years of not dropping easily, and now loosing without, really, any effort, I find the lowering numbers addictive. I am hearing from friends and family that I am getting too thin and should NOT loose any more. BUT..... How do you wrap your mind around stopping. If I up my calories to maintain, will I gain? If I add some more yummies to my diet, just to stop loosing, will I crave them and start the bad habits over again? How thin is too thin? How gaunt do I want to look in order to not worry about the 3-5 pound fluctuation? I look back at my profile and see that I changed my "goal" several times. Always lower and STILL, to this day, I am not sure where to stop. Somedays I do feel that I LOOK old. When I see myself in a store mirror or a window, my face, to me, looks slack and I am loosing my cruves. Hopefully, as I live in this new body, which I have fought tooth and nail for, (and I wanted for the last 25 years) I will become comfortable in my skin. I will maintain and the longer I do, the easier it will be to let go of the fear of the past. Maybe that is the only answer - TIME. If it really heals all wounds, maybe it will heal the giant emotional pain that is the result of being morbidly obese. Good luck Linda -206

There a great book out there called Feel Good Naked by Laure Redmond In this book it has the most wonderful ways to work on yourself and love your body... one thing is to write your self a love letter every month and other one of the others is to look at your self naked in a mirror for 5 minutes and I can't remember how often..I don't know where my book is right now to look it up..there are 10 steps..its kind of a diet book but to me it was more a self love book..If any one wants to know the steps I'll look for the book Or go to barnes and nobels for a couple hours and read its a quick read Wendy

Since you have such good answers already, I thought I'd just say, I can relate and shoot you a bunch of (((HUGS)))

One of my new year resolutions is to stayed more in tuned with this messageboard, so here I am again. I will be 3 years post-op in May, got to my goal weight of 125 a year out, maintained if for a year, then started regaining, to the tune of about 20 lbs. This has caused me much grief and despair. The other part of my new years resolution is to get back on track with very healthy eating, making every bite count. I have done that this past week and find that it helps keep cravings at bay when I follow that plan religiously. I pray I can keep it up and make a lifelong habit of it. Which brings me to the subject of this thread: fear! I think there's nothing wrong with a healthy dose of fear - fear of regaining the weight we have all worked so hard to lose. I also believe that many women of "normal" weight live with the same healthy fear. I started noticing my daughter-in-law, who is 33 years old, who has never had or needed to have WLS, but who has fat genes in her family, and how she keeps from becoming overweight: She exercises religiously, most meals she eats are well-balanced, healthy choices, so that she can have those occasional treats - mostly when she eats out, or has company, or such. But they are truly occasional treats, not every day. That's what I am going to work towards, and hopefully what I will gain is a sense of healthy balance in my life. Good luck to everyone... Betsy

My WL doc says it takes at least 2 years for your mind to catch up to your body. Some days they are together, other days they are way apart and I'm thinking I'm still fat. But like my therapist asked, is a person who wears an 8/10 fat??? No. So I keep reminding myself of that. I'm hoping that it will be easier after my TT on Jan 17th and all that icky hanging flab is gone for good. I still am amazed at times that the reflection is really me.