To have surgery or not??

I am 25!  I love my life and I have plenty of self confidence!  Yeah, I would love, love, love to go shopping at a "skinny store", but my health is the reason I'm even here considering this.  I am very skeptical, and not sure if I can go through with it!  I've always been a big girl, and it's hard to imagine myself any other way.  Does anyone else feel this way or felt this way before? 

Plus, my best friend is skinny, married, and a marathon runner, and she just doesn't understand where I'm coming from.  She hasn't been very supportive because she thinks I should just lose it the "old fashion way".  It's very discouraging to hear from your best friend. 

Anyway, are there any thought or comments to maybe help me out?

hey there,

see i wasnt the same as you, i have no self confidence what so ever. I also have been a big girl my entire life, i have no idea what i will look like thinner, its so hard to imagine because i have always been big. I am 21, turn 22 in august and honestly i was also skeptical at the beginning as well because mainly i was afraid of dying or something. But I decided that the fears will go away eventually and i will be much healthier and happier! i considered it for awhile before i even joined this site but decided it was definitely the right choice for me.
About your friend, no one understands what we are going through until they have been here with us. Thin people always think this is the easy way out when really its anything but! After people get their surgeries they have to work very hard to lose all the weight they want to! Excercise is a big part of this whole thing, i think uneducated people think we just lay on the couch and the weight comes off with no effort, which is sooooo not true. tell your friend to not make anymore comments until she knows the facts, i hate when people do that. grrrr
and if shes a true friend she will support you in any decision you make! if not then screw her (harsh i know) but its true.
My surgery is August 13th and even though i am scared i know it will pay off in the end. Some people dont have any other option because we cant lose weight on our own!
the choice is yours , do all your research and make a decision that best suits you :)
i wish you all the luck on your journey!

I applaud you for taking a big step and posting on here.  think it's fantastic that you already have great self confidence and self-love about yourself and your body.  Like you said, your health should be the biggest motivator in researching and ultimately going through something as major as weight loss surgery.  It is not at all a walk in the park.  No matter which procedure you have, it takes work.  Recovery isn't always a breeze.  Your entire life will change on a lot of different fronts.

I, too, was always obese.  I had no frame of reference as to what it would be like to be thin.  I was worried I'd miss the "old me"...like I was somehow telling her that she wasn't good enough.  Well, I quickly got over that.  I'm currently 5'10 and a half and 225 lbs which is the lightest I have been in my entire life.  I don't miss the old me at all.  In fact, my brain hasn't caught up with my body, so when I see myself in the mirror I STILL SEE the old me.  

With regard to your friend, this is the type of attitude that I can't stand from skinny people.  Not all of them are like this, but a blazing majority think that they're thin because of something they're doing RIGHT, therefore if you're fat, then it must be because of something you're doing WRONG.  Which, I think we can all agree it's just not true!  It's going to be hard to win over her full support, because she's just not gonna GET IT.  You can try talking to her, but you will most likely be beating a dead horse because a lot of people just can't conceive of it.  Especially if they've never had an issue with their weight.  You could always try the "I'm doing it for my health and I want to live long enough for you to see ME walk down the aisle and be in my wedding" or something along those lines.  Tug at the heart strings, ya know.  I'm sure you can come up with something, lol.

The most important thing is YOU.  If you and your doctor(s) think this is your best option, then do it!  Do this for YOU.  Not anybody else.  If you are having issues finding support, there are other places to turn to obtain it...this site is a great place, for one!

Good luck on your journey.  :)

Some people just can't lose weight "the old fashioned" way. At my heaviest I was 415 lbs, and it took a massive effort just to get to 405 lbs - I starved and exercised about 10 months to get that weight loss. I would have loved to do it the old fashioned way - it's safer if you can actually keep it off, you cat eat normally, you can go out drinking if you want. But that wasn't going to work for me - I'm guessing you have a pretty good idea if it will work for you. I had an RNY, and the results pretty much astound me. I'm now at a lower weight, a smaller shirt size, and a smaller pant size then I was when I was 13. I couldn't have done that without surgery.

You need to figure out if your friend isn't supporting you out of worry, or if she doesn't want you to succeed. Some people absolutely cannot wrap their head around the idea of WLS, but come around when they see the results.

Hi! 

Your story is similar to mine in the fact that I love my life and did before WLS.  I have a wonderful husband and a beautiful little boy, I love my job, family, etc.  The only thing that held me back was my weight and I knew I had to do something about it.  I did try many times to lose weight on my own but the sucess would only be temporary.  People who have never been in the position of real morbid obesity don't understand.  We aren't dealing with 10 or 20 vanity pounds to lose, we are talking about massive amounts of weight that don't come off easily. 

Not going to lie, WLS is difficult and it will require you to overhaul the way you think and live with food.  I think the secret to sucess is to have to want it and not let food get in the way.  If you can make those changes, I have no doubt WLS will be the best decision of your life. 

Best of luck to you!

Emily

You and I are very similar! I'll be 25 in September (9 days after my surgery in fact ). I don't have a lot of major health issues....yet, I've always been a big girl, and while I'm not exactly bursting with self-confidence I feel pretty good about myself. That is until I go to buy new clothes, go to an amusement park, to some of the movie theaters around here (not all of them have smaller seats), try to walk for a long time, or do anything else that is remotely physical or where my weight will have me at a disadvantage. Going out to eat is sometimes difficult since those booths seem to be made for what they assume is a "normal" person.

I also feel pretty good until I go to the doctor and they start talking about me being morbidly obese and start suggesting weigh****chers. Or they weigh me and make a comment about my weight.

I guess at this point you probably see where I'm coming from. I feel great about myself sometimes. I want to feel great all the time. Most of my issues stem from my excess weight. My future health problems included. While you may be healthy now you might not be in a few years. It's easier to do something now rather than wait until you're sick.

As to your skinny friend, I also have a skinny, healthy best friend, but I'm lucky in the fact that she's supportive. She's worried about the surgery itself, but she knows that I'll be better off after the fact because I've shared with her some of the facts and statistics. It's extremely hard to loose weight and keep it off the "old fashion way." Maybe you should mention to your friend that 95% of the people who loose weight by themselves gain the lost weight and them some back. Share some of the info about WLS with her so she'll understand more about the procedures in general. It might help her change her mind. If it doesn't then honestly she's probably not the true friend you thought she was.

Thank you all for your input!  I actually have talked more to my friend about the wls.  She is more accepting of it, and she really is a true friend.  She is just concerned about the surgery part.  She's never had surgery at all so it scares her to think of voluntarily having surgery. 

I have had several surgeries in my few 25 years so I know that part doesn't bother me too much!

Thanks again for your thoughts!

Hey...

It's a hard decision to make. I am only a month out so I don't know if this surgery will be sucessful for me yet. I had a major stall a couple weeks out and broke it with a low carb diet. I would first want to know what you have tried to do to loose weight already. I was able to loose 55lbs in 6mo. before surgery. I am able to loose weight when I have a plan but I plateau and get pissed off and quit. Have you tried any structured diets yet? Many insurance companies require that you do a medically supervised weight loss program. Idk what's right for you but I would definatly talk to a doctor about your concerns. Also I would say that if you are not willing to change your lifestyle (i.e. work out daily. choose better foods) you will be misserable and gain the weight back. I know a few people who had WLS and gained back there weight. Plus the surgery hurt a lot for me. Well good luck. Let us know what you decide.

FYI . . . for the most part I eat healthy.  I have a personal nutritionist that I have been seeing for several months now.  I also excercise most of the time on a regular basis.  My best friend and I walk about 2 miles 2x week, and I do thinks at home.  So . . .