How did you let it happen to you?

[Katrina]

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I was looking for some pictures last night of my dog when she was a puppy and came across these pictures of me. These pictures were 10 months and 3 days before I had weight loss surgery. Not even a year before surgery! I was 140 pounds, a size 8, not skinny but certainly not fat. Looking at them made me wonder what happened. How in the hell did I go from that to WLS in ten months!? What happens to us that causes us to lose control so much that we end up having to take such drastic measures? It made me really sad. It also made me really scared. Will that happen again?

[Truffles]

Well, the first surgery was after an adulthood-long battle. Mine started in my mid twenties when in college. Then, fertility treatments, then pregnancies. Aging. Genetics. Aversion to exercise stemming from childhood trauma.

The second time it was a combination of two terrible physical illnesses, back to back, combined with mental illnesses spiraling out of control and medication for them.

I think for a majority of people, obesity is a complex disease that we have battled over many decades. There is no easy answers nor fixes.

[Ann2]

Katrina, our stories are very different.

I've battled weight since I was 6 years old. I wasn't overweight or obese because something mysterious happened to me a single time. I was a pretty successful lifetime yo-yo dieter -- losing weight, regaining it, exercising, not exercising, eating sensibly, eating too much, etc. And through it all I was very busy putting everyone else's needs before my own -- frankly, because it was easier than trying to figure out my own issues and because I got lots of positive rewards for helping others (love, attention, compliments, promotions, more money, awards, etc.).

IMHO, WLS is most useful for people who have tried everything else to lose weight but can't do so and/or can't keep their lost weight off. I think the personal power of finally finding a solution that actually works is immense for people who, like me, have spent a lifetime struggling not to be fat.

At age 68, WLS was the very last option I could think of. I simply had no more options.

BTW, I am not afraid I'll regain the weight I've lost. I've worked my ass off building a new lifestyle. After 3+ years post-op accompanied by great stress -- 3 family deaths, my spouse's cancer diagnosis, which has now come back for the third time, a couple of big moves, retirement, my own cancer scare, etc. -- I am as stable as I can possibly be in my continuing self-care. I am not going back. I'm in therapy and plan to stay in therapy. I am execising and will continue exercising. I plan and track my meals every day; the result is that what I eat doesn't "happen" to me -- I decide what to eat, whether good or bad. I take full responsibility for my inputs and my outcomes.

[AnnieG]

Ann2, our stories are almost the same, except my husband is healthy & I haven't been in 15 years. Weight was not my concern....but balance is now. Thanks for your post. Prayers for your DH.

[Kimsterama]

Zyprexa happened to me! A medication for mental illness. I was on it for 10 years. I did not have a problem with being overweight or obese before it. It saved me from the mental illness but sure did a number on my body. It is a highly weight gaining, and diabetes inducing medication. With all it's benefits for the mind, it doesn't have great benefits on the body. I just kept gaining weight on it, and the longer I was on it; I exponentially gained. It is hard to get off. I had to wean off it, and tried 4 times and the 5th time I tried, I got off it, and onto another that is weight neutral.

I considered surgery 3 years ago, when I was still on it. Glad I didn't do it then. As I was still on the weight gaining medication, don't know how successful my weight loss would have been. Once I was safely off of it and onto another for 10 months I decided I was still the same weight basically as I was 3 years ago when I first thought of it. And I had tried every diet under the sun, sometimes successful; but it all came back and with a vengeance. So I made the decision and had weight surgery on Oct 6/17. I'm now 42 lbs down and 4 pant sizes down and counting. I really think it was the best decision for me.

[Stacey03]

Gosh Katrina, that seems like it was quite a quick decision. Why do you think you put on weight so fast at that time? It's all quite complex though this stuff i reckon. My story is more like Anns with a lifelong battle and trying very hard along the way, up, down, up, down. I think now that i have a long term exercise plan in place and that i had already maintained a 40 kilo loss i have a good plan for the future. I think a lot is in the planning. I also have a therapist and I'm finding it so useful to have those appointments especially at the moment, and who knows, i may continue. I've totally put myself first for possibly the first time in my life. I could have before but i chose not too... this is where those therapists come in handy!!!

[Christie13]

Agree that for most of us sleevers it has been a long weight loss/gain yo-yo dieting battle. Very few just gained it quickly the way you did. I also, like Ann, do not fear the regain. My gain started after years of bulimia and then pregnancy. I just could not keep the weight off. I was always hungry. Could lose some weight if I exercised a lot and dieted but as soon as I didn't have the same amount of time to commit I would gain and then some. I know that now I have complete control over what goes in my mouth and weighing myself daily is my ritual. I know that there is no way I will go back.

[Katrina]

My post was misleading. This wasn't the first time I got fat. It was the third. Each time it happened exactly like this. I was a normal, healthy size (usually between 120 and 140) then boom 200 pounds within months. I'd take it off, and keep it off for years, then it would repeat.

[Gege1061]

For me, I was born fat. Never had a "normal" weight time in my life. I battled it over and over losing, gaining it back, and on it goes. I though about surgery when my children were young but it just wasn't safe enough for me. I let it happen. I ignored what I didn't want to know. Comfortably numb I think they call it, but it was anything but comfortable. My weight is my misery and this surgery I pray is a piece of the solution. I'm a work in progress and I have a lot to learn.

Gege

[BlueUmbrella]

I believe that after I was starved as a child (doctor recommended I be starved for 3 days - to combat pneumonia and gastroenteritis) that this resulted in a lifelong overproduction of the hormone ghrelin in my body. Before the childhood illness happened I was a slender child with a healthy attitude to food. Afterwards, I could not stop eating and eating. as I got older it was a struggle to leave food alone. It absolutely became a compulsion to overeat.

My surgeon and I had a long talk about this and he was the one who schooled me on the science behind it and the discovery of ghrelin and how removing the fundus stops the hormone from flooding my brain . He explained it far better than I am able to. But suffice to say, he blew my mind when he explained to me that my issue was physical and not behavioural. I thank God for that revelation. I'd been blaming myself and my inability to "get it together" my entire life. To have that burden lifted off my shoulders was a freedom from all the blame, guilt and shame I'd been carrying since I was a child.

[simplyseahorse]

I was never overweight - I was the skinny kid growing up. Then my depression hit in my late 20s. After zoloft, cymbalta, zyprexa, xanax, etc etc did not seem to improve things, I eventually sought inpatient treatment and was diagnosed as bipolar. Now in order to function (and pretty well since I hold down a full time job), I have to take lamictal and depakote - both of which will cause weight gain. The fact that I had the diagnosis was an adjustment, and I ate more for comfort. The medications increase appetite, so I ate more. I am hypersensitive and easily stressed, so I ate more. No one thing did it, but I went up from 160 to 260 over the course of several years and hardly seemed to notice. Of course this surgery is not going to make me less stressed, less sensitive or less bipolar, but if I have this as a tool to get me started and give me hope in my personal life again, I truly think that I can be successful. I have already made changes to my eating habits - not enough, but I am working on it - and I play solitare or slot games on my ipad when I am watching TV and get bored and feel the munchies coming on. I think I decided that I wanted to actually live again - not hide out and stay at home because I am so uncomfortable in my own skin that I can't enjoy things. The thought of being able to get in a bathing suit - not even looking good but being able to fit in one - is awesome. Being able to be comfortable in a booth when I go out to eat, being able to bend over to tie my shoes - these are the things I look forward to. The things you all have accomplished astonish me. I just hope for a little portion of that success!