Question:
i am 5'4 and am 273 and have been over wieght all my life.........

i am going to have my first dr's visit with the surgen may 5th i have been on this site i swear for weeks reading everything i can getting as much info as i can do you really lose all the weight???and do you keep it off 3 years down the line??? because i don't want to put myself threw all of this discomfort and change my whole life just to turn around and put the wieght back on!!! will i have to be really strict forever or will i be able to eventually live like most thin people???    — jolie S. (posted on April 28, 2003)

April 28, 2003
Im sorry I cant tell you too much about down the road, I am only going on 8 months post-op, but I can tell you I am only 20 pounds till goal. I do fight sometimes with head hunger. I have noticed however that I eat like a normal person now. If I eat an ice cream and I feel like beating myself up I stop and think last year I would have eaten 4. I also notice I dont enjoy the junk as much as I used to, I enjoy wearing jeans and little tops better LOL. Take care, any questions feel free to e-mail. RNY 9/02 was 213 now 135 5'
   — April G.

April 28, 2003
Hi Jolie, While I'm only 6-1/2 weeks post op, I have to tell you that the answer to your question is mostly up to you. I don't mean that to be flip, I truly don't, because I had these same concerns and fears in the beginning of my journey. However, as I did my research on post-op life and as I worked, with the help of my therapist, on my issues around food, weight, body image, and the feelings and emotions that drove my out of control eating from an early age, I became more and more at peace with this aspect. I knew that the physical changes would force new and different behaviors in the early post-op period, and accepted that this would be the time in which I would work on retraining myself in more healthy eating behaviors and choices. I made that mental, emotional, and psychological commitment to myself. I vowed to do the best I could pre-op to change my behaviors and I did do the best I could at that time, but there was still room for growth.<p>Now that I am post-op, I find myself doing things that had always been next to impossible before surgery. Part of it is that with my new plumbing, I have to expend less energy worrying about taking and keeping the weight off. This releases a tremendous amount of energy to put into making the necessary changes toward a more healthy life. So for example, before surgery, I could hardly drag my behind out of bed in the morning to get to work, let alone spend the 15 or 20 minutes needed to make and pack a lunch. And if I managed to do this, on the occasions that I was successful, I often forgot my lunch sitting on the counter as I walked out the door (can you say "preoccupied"?). But now that I am post-op, I easily get out of bed early enough in the morning that I have time to make and pack my lunch and two snacks, make my morning protein drink, wash my dishes, put on makeup (haven't done that in years), leave my house on time and get to work with minutes to spare.</p><p>So, I can't speak about what I will be doing 3 years from now, but I can tell you that my appetite has been strong since week 4 post-op, and yet I'm still managing to do more now on behalf of my present and future health than I could ever have imagined possible even 2 months ago. I think to be successful, by which I mean to reach your goal AND maintain your goal long-term, we need lots of support and help in this journey. For instance, today I was feeling very scared about my eating over the past week, because as my nutritionist and I try and solve the "I'm physically hungry within an hour of eating" problem, I'm introducing scarey foods into my diet. So, instead of getting too wigged out and beating myself up over my eating, I took all my nutritional values (I track my food on fitday.com) and sent her this information along with my concerns over the types of food I'm eating. I asked her if I could use her as my sounding board for my daily nutrition stats. She wrote me back with some very good advice and help and is more than willing to be my sounding board as I learn my new ways of eating and making healthy choices. This is the type of help and support that I think is most beneficial. If your surgeon does not have a nutritionist and support groups as part of his program, I encourage you to run, not walk to your car and get the heck out of there. We cannot succeed at this alone. Alone, by ourselves, we got ourselves where we are, but with the help and support of others, we can and will be successful in reaching, and dare we even dream, exceeding our goals, whatever those goals may be.</p><p>I encourage you to read as many profiles as you can. There are so many long term post-ops here who have done incredible jobs of keeping awesome records of their successes, progress, disappointments (yes, we will have those too), and long-term triumphs, and they tell you how they did it! These profiles gave me my first real sense of hope, because each of these successful people were very much like you and me when they were pre-ops.</p><p>It seems to me that what we fear the most as obese individuals is the possibility that the social stigmas about obese people may really be true, but I'm here to tell you that these stigmas ARE NOT TRUE! We are not lazy, we are not lacking in will power, we are not stupid, or incapable of changing. What is true is that we suffer from a disease called obesity, which is at least partially genetic, which predisposes us to gain excessive amounts of weight even when we hardly eat at all, which causes us to gain back all we have lost and more any time we loss weight, and which destroys our self-confidence and self-worth because of society's disdain and judgements of us.</p><p>So, to answer your question, yes you can be successful long-term with this surgery. The crux of it will come down to you and your commitment to yourself and your ability to avail yourself of all the resources at your disposal. I believe that you can succeed, but you must believe it for yourself as well, I mean really believe at a gut level that you are not the embodiment of the obese caricature that society has served up to you. Search your soul, pray as if your life depended on it, research everything, find the best surgeon you can find, and then rely on your best judgement. It's all any of us can do. Please accept my apologies for my long-winded response to you - but your question touched a cord in me and I had more to say than I even realized. May God richly bless you, in whatever you choose to do. Robin
   — rebalspirit

April 28, 2003
Jolie, it really all depends on the person. My surgeon says that 90% of all RNY patients keep the weight off, whether it is really less than that, not sure. I'm only a year post-op, so I am no expert. I am at my goal weight of 130lbs. and still losing slowly- better than my highest expectations! No, you won't be on a "diet" for the rest of your life, but you do have to work at it a little, some more than others. You will eventually be able to eat pretty much everything you did pre-op, so if you only eat icecream and french fries, then no, you're not going to keep it off. I live by three main rules: lots of water, protein ALWAYS first and exercise. I do allow myself snacks/treats once a day or more, but I add it into my total. WLS is a blessing, but it is no miracle. I would never have been able to lose this much weight before, and although you have to watch certain things of eating and exercise, I NEVER feel like this is a diet. I feel I eat just like all my skinny friends do, but just a little smaller meals. To me this is a lifestyle change- and its something I'm happy to live with. In the end, its really up to you. Goodluck!
   — Lezlie Y.

April 29, 2003
Most people are successful, but there is an awful lot of variation--and apparently no real way to predict where you will end up. It's a calculated risk. Do your research and decide for yourself. I decided to go for it because nothing else seems to work any better, either for me personally in more than 35 years of being an overweight or obese adult, or for the morbidly obese population as a whole. You may have to modify your definition of "successful," though. I told my family a few days before surgery that I would probably always be fat, but would hopefully lose the label "morbidly obese." I HOPE I was overly pessimistic, it would be great to get down to an ideal weight and stay there, but since I'm only 10 months out it's too soon to tell. But by the typical definition of success for this surgery, I'm already there in that I've lost more than 50% of my excess weight. You ask "do you really lose all the weight"? From what I've seen, the answer is that a high percentage don't. They *do* lose enough to be thinner, healthier, more normal, happier. You ask "will I have to be really strict forever...or eventually live like most thin people"? I'd say "yes" to having to be really strict forever. How much of a burden that is will vary for each individual, and there's no way for us to know in your specific case. Will you be able to live like most thin people? Again, it depends: are you overweight because you overeat massive quantities, or are you one of those unfortunate people with a super-efficient metabolism? Caloric intake for successful post-ops also seems to vary enormously. You may be able to eat the same *things* as most thin people, though in smaller quantities, or you may end up with food intolerances that never go away. Again, it's impossible to predict. Also, watch carefully how "most thin people" eat, it may be fewer calories than you've been assuming. I don't mean to sound harsh, but you just have to realize that there's an enormous variation in the way the human body reacts, and it's really difficult to know what your personal results will be. Someone on another group posted this article about WLS success, it's a good one: http://www.wlscenter.com/ResearchArticles/DefineSuccess.htm
   — Celia A.

April 29, 2003
At 11 months out, and at goal for two months, I *still* have the same fears you do, Jolie, about weight gain. One thing I noticed in your question, though, that I've found out isn't true -- many thin people ARE "strict forever." When we're obese, some of us are not really honest with ourselves about just how much food (and how high calorie) it is we're eating every day (and before anyone bashes me for saying so, I said "some," and I definitely include me in that group). I've been kind of appalled at how little I eat now just to stay at goal, although I can eat around 1700 calories and seem to maintain there. That really isn't much compared to what I ate as a pre-op at all. But I've also been pleasantly surprised at the variety of things I can still enjoy even with being that strict. It's just not what I could do before, and sometimes, I miss being able to eat an entire Belgian waffle (or even a Family Reunion size bag of cheese doodles). It's dumb, but I still do miss those things. Just not enough to forget how much healthier I feel and am now. All I would add is that, with the surgery, the restriction really helps you through the many weak moments when you might be tempted to return to the "old ways;" and without it, there's really nothing to stop us. So if you think you really WANT to change, and you just need some serious backup or support to do it, the surgery could be the best thing you've ever done for your health. But it won't get rid of the challenges you speak of, and whether any of us succeeds in the long run with this disease is really in our own hands in the end.
   — Suzy C.