More on weight-loss surgery

Well, I suppose I can't write two posts back to back about weight-loss surgery and not follow it up with more discussion. So, let's discuss.

First of all, nearly all of your comments were incredibly supportive. I was very touched. I didn't agree with all of them, to be honest, but even when people said things I didn't agree with, they came from a place of genuine caring and meaning well. So I appreciate that.

I want to clarify a couple of things about all this. I think this may be something that is difficult for people who have never struggled with their weight to understand.

If there is a diet out there, I have tried it. If there is an exercise plan out there, I have tried it.

I haven't been blogging my whole life, so you can't know. But Weight Watchers was only the latest in a lifelong series of attempts at weight loss. And when I say lifelong, I mean it. I have diary entries from second grade talking about how I never wanted to go back to school because the boys in my class were mean and called me fat.

Here's a partial list of what I have tried: the Zone, Atkins, South Beach, Weight Watchers, diet pills, exercising for hours every day, a general "healthy diet" of lean protein and good carbs, the fruit diet, drinking water instead of eating when I'm hungry, eating lots of small meals a day, cutting out all snacks, cutting out dairy, restricting myself to 1,000 calories a day, detailed meal plans, making sure to get at least 30 minutes of exercise every day (and forms of exercise include aerobics, step, weight training, elliptical training, hiking, running, jogging, soccer, volleyball, frisbee, interval training, yoga, pilates, swimming, and many combinations thereof), not going to bed until I've done at least 500 crunches and sit-ups, working with a nutritionist, working with a doctor, starvation.

I have tried these things. Some of them have been effective, but only temporarily. Not only do I gain all the weight back, plus some, if I stop doing those things--but they also stop working while I am still doing them.

I do not see surgery as an easy way out. I do not see surgery as a magic pill. I would not be considering it at all if I thought that I could lose the weight, and keep it off, any other way. But years and years of going around and around and around and never really getting anywhere has shown me that I do need to do something serious to fix this, before I develop serious health problems.

Here's the thing. I know that everyone, EVERYONE, has to eat healthy foods and exercise regularly in order to maintain their weight. What I am saying is that doing those things isn't enough for me. Having surgery is not an easy way out because it requires that I do those things after the fact. But what it DOES mean is that doing those things will actually help.

I think that this post by Mandajuice articulates perfectly the mindset that is borne of so many unsuccessful attempts at weight loss. I'm going to quote some of it here:

Halloween is a perfect illustration of the way the surgery has worked for me. I LOVE candy. I eat it every day. Normally, though, I'll eat maybe one or two pieces and then I'm done. I stop. I just... don't want any more. I think this MIGHT be how "normal" people feel about candy. They like it and they eat it in moderation and then they stop thinking about it.

Obese people? HELL TO THE NO. When I was heavy and there was candy in the house, I would eat it until it was gone. And if I wasn't eating it? I was THINKING about eating it. It was THERE and I knew it and I would spend days, natch, WEEKS punishing myself over my inability to control myself. I never EVER felt full and as soon as the candy was gone, I would just buy more. I felt much the same way about cheeseburgers. And Hagen-Daas. And everything else.

The best part of having gastric bypass surgery and why I think it works so much better than dieting is that, if you're doing it right, you lose that internal dialogue. The one that distinguishes between what you "should" be eating and what you WANT to eat. I have these vivid memories of walking into a restaurant when I was heavy and reading the menu and REALLY REALLY wanting something "bad" like a cheeseburger or the fettuccine Alfredo, but also seeing that they had healthier choices that I "should" eat and feeling like being fat was always LOSE-LOSE. You lose if you eat what you WANT and you lose if you eat what you SHOULD.

Now WANT and SHOULD are completely the same for me and that battle is over, literally for the rest of my life. I order what I want and I naturally eat the amount of it that I should. WIN-WIN.

I know that surgery sounds drastic. And in a lot of ways, it is. I haven't decided that I'm necessarily going to do it. But Tess said this to me, and it really resonated: I don't think that it's any more drastic than a lot of the other things that I have tried in the past. Many of those things were unhealthy. Having your weight constantly go up and down is unhealthy. Starving yourself is unhealthy. Being pregnant at this weight is high-risk. Being pregnant after weight-loss surgery is not, as long as you make sure to take all the necessary vitamin and mineral supplements.

Over and over again, I have tried a new diet or exercise (or both) plan. I have had great results at first. I've thought that this was really the time that I was finally going to lose the weight for good. But that has never been the case. As long as I stick with this cycle, I will spend the rest of my life having to deal with this. I will spend the rest of my life going around and around, up and down. I will never break that horrible relationship with food. The guilt and shame will never go away. Even when, according to all the diet books and research about optimal nutrition and physical activity levels, I'm doing everything right.

I'd rather go through surgery, followed by a year or so of big changes and adjustments, food restrictions, and all the rest, than deal with what I'm facing now for the rest of my life. And to be clear, this surgery does restrict not only how much you eat but also what you eat--but the latter restrictions relax with time. From what I've read, it seems that nearly everyone who undergoes weight-loss surgery is eventually able to eat pretty much whatever they want--just in much smaller portions than they did before.

If you take anything from what I'm saying here, take this: Diets might work for some people. Reasonable amounts of exercise might work for some people. But they don't work for everyone. The things that work for you are not the things that will work for all other people.

Everyone's body is different. Mine is particularly stubborn, and it's not because I lead an unhealthy, sedentary lifestyle. Multiple doctors have told me this as well: if someone with a different body were leading the lifestyle that I lead, they would be at a healthy weight. But, in large part due to genetics, those things aren't enough for me. If I choose to have surgery, it's not because I didn't feel like losing weight the "right" way. It's because what might be the right way for you wasn't the right way for me.

But having surgery will help make those healthy lifestyle habits--eating well and exercising regularly--effective for me. And that's what I'm really looking for.