Question:
Why don't you just cut your portions in half, push yourself away from the table?

That's what my 5'6", 90# grandmother, who couldn't begin to understand what it was like walking in my moccasins. She'd say, "Your going to eat a roll and a potato? I could NEVER eat a roll and a potato." I loved her, but I'd eat two rolls and extra butter on the potato just because! To Margaret Madison, m'dear, we're not talking about 10 or even 40 pounds. 90# is right up there at NIH statistical fatality certainty. Of course there are surgical options available. Revisions happen every day. Could you perhaps be doing more to be proactive about controlling your own weight loss destiny? Maybe. But, if I could, "Just put my fork down and push myself away from the table," as Mom-mom would plead, then I wouldn't have ever been 160# overweight in the first place. Maybe you didn't find and have the best surgery for you, in the beginning. If you and your eating disorder didn't get the right "fix" then it's no wonder you're struggling. Being re-plumbed to absorb fewer calories, or be able to eat a restricted volume, doesn't work if the plumbing breaks. Remember, the National Institue of Health reports implicitly that if someone becomes 100# or more over their ideal weight, NO MATTER HOW THEY GOT THERE, then there's a less than 4% chance they'll be able to take off the excess weight and keep it off for 5 years or longer. I'm 9 years out and still at my goal. I fluctuate by about 10 pounds, depending on everything and nothing. Sometimes I make better choices and others I grab a bag of M & M's. I try to make all the right choices, but even after WLS I still have feet of clay, and a tendency to medicate, celebrate, and luxurate (is that a word?) in food. A lot of surgeries only hope to get 60-70% of your excess weight gone. If you stop losing weight with 50#+ still to lose it can't be easy. In that case it's even easier for a few pounds to creep on from year to year, and that's what adds up. No matter what, don't take all the well-meaning sanctimony to heart. My advice is to see a medical professional and decide whether or not you want to explore having a revision. Depending on what surgery you had initially your stomach can certainly have stretched. Maybe you needed a procedure that allowed you to eat more but absorb less. To all the holier-than-thous, if, for whatever reason we are predisposed to have weight control issues all our lives, and the surgical procedure we have fails, then why would we expect for anything else, other than gaining weight back, to happen? It's not like we had a tumor or a cleft palette and now it's fixed....many of us choose food as our drug of choice. If we're going to have weight loss surgery we need the one that's right for us in the first place. If our surgery fails, or even if there are advancements that warrant us exploring our options, who are you to say, "just get back to basics and go to the gym,"? If we were cut out of that cloth there wouldn't be any need for OH or bariatric procedures in the first place.    — jjames-thomas (posted on January 19, 2009)

January 19, 2009
Juliana, WOW! I do hope you feel better. You made a lot of valid points. However, keep in mind you can't take grandma's advice here. All of us are unique, human individuals. And society plays a large part in how and what we all believe. Like I said in my post, most of us aren't super models. Who really wants to be 5'11" and weigh 130 pounds? Most of us aren't cut from that cloth either. And yes luxurate is a word; luxoriate. You are being human and that is refreshing. My downfall isn't necessarily eating too much; sometimes its eating at odd times. That is a work related thing. I'm glad for you that you are still at goal 9 years out. That is a major accomplishment. Perhaps we all need to better educate ourselves to make better choices and decisions. vinnigirl, retired RN
   — vinnigirl