10 year

A co-worker who has had gastric bypass, told me that we have 10 year time frame when the surgery does not work anymore.  Has anyone every heard of this?  If so, what does that mean?

What does that mean?  Do we suddenly become fat again at 10 years?  Does our pouch suddenly become a full stomach again?  Our surgery is for a life time, however long that may be.  Can we regain after surgery, heck yeah.  Remember, our pouch is a tool to help us help ourselves remain healthy.  If we go back to our old ways of eating, then yes, we can out eat the surgery but that can be accomplished in 3 years time, we don't have to wait for 10 years to roll around.  I know plenty of folks on this site that are 10+ years out and they are doing just fine.  Our surgery will always be there for us as long as we work the tool.  There is no magic pill or surgery for that matter that will take off the weight and let us continue to eat as we always have.  You have about 18 months with surgery to take all the weight off that you can but after that, you have to continue to eat healthy to maintain it.  If you do not, you will balloon back up.  I guess the best part of the surgery though is that if you have a regain you can still take control with the help of your pouch and get that weight back off.  WLS is not the easy way out, it is the quickest way to drop the weight but the work begins afterwards to maintain it.

AMEN!!!  Our tool is there for us.  Making it work, and continue to work, is up to us. 

Thank you, Tess.  My thoughts exactly.  I appreciate your answer. I remember in one of your post that you said you had successfully lost 70 regain pounds.  I think that is wonderful.  I am struggling with some regain.  My honeymoon phase is over and I am trying to lose 25 regain pounds and extra weight because I never reached my goal.  I love reading your post, because I know you know how to lose the regain.