Long Term Weightloss Maintainance -- any opinions?

I've been approved for WLS and am in the pre-op testing stage but am still having doubts, more of them the closer I get to surgery. I'm still not decided on whether it will be Lap Band or RNY, though I'm leaning toward banding. After reading answers to questions regarding weight re-gain & anectdotal stories about people who've had WLS, I wonder if WLS is any different in the end from a good diet. It seems as if most obese people regain all their weight within a year or so of dieting, unless they have a helluva lot of self discipline to keep it from coming back. WLS sounds no different. So does WLS REALLY work any better LONG-TERM??? Are there many WLS patients who have had the surgery years & years ago and still maintained their losses? I see a lot of personal pages kept up by WLS patients in the first 1-2 years, but very few that jounal or post pics in the followup years. This makes me VERY concerned about risking major surgery for something that has no better long-term chance of success than say a lowcarb diet. I understand that it really is different for DS'ers, but would the people who've had RNY or Lap Bands 3 yrs. or longer and maintained their weight loss, expalin why this worked for them when diets didn't? If both methods require diligence, discipline and permanant change in habits, why were you successful after WLS and not after diets? If my post sounds negative, it's not meant to. I'm just really, really worried about the long-term results. It seems to me that it would be heart-breaking to look & feel great again, just to have it all come back, worse than if you'd never lost it at all. Sort of like Charlie in "Flowers for Algernon"... Does anyone REALLY know what percentage of patients have maintained good weight loss 3, 5 or more years down the road? Reliable statistics would be great, but even rough estimates from your observations on this message boards would be a help in my decision. Thanks for any & all replies! Barb

We greatly appreciate your interest in helping us build our Q&A database. To discourage vandals from posting garbage, however, we require people to register before posting.

You must be logged in to post an answer. Click here to log in.