Not so great bariatric results

summerbreez1132

Is there anyone out there who had a successful bariatric surgery but didn't get the results anticipated because you didn't eat out exercise as directed? Im that person also and would like to hear from others who have. Let's encourage each other top get back on track and finish out quest with amazing results. My name is summer

beebopbalouba

I gained 9kg afterwards due to old habits coming back. Yes I have a much small stomach however I can still binge eat and east every few hours if I want. Trying to get back on track now before its too late.

RodaRose

Here is a group of people dealing with this: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/637-gastric-bypass-vsg-lapband

HamsterManV2

The inherent problem is your eating habits. Go on google, calculate your TDEE, and eat -10% to -20% of that (a deficit of -500calories = 1lbs down per week). This is the golden rule - it doesn't matter what else you do, as long as your calories in < calories out. There is no short cut to this.

What does your food log look like? Track EVERYTHING you put in your mouth, even on days where you 'cheat'. You get a good idea of what progress you can expect to make. 1 lb a week is a good, long term result. That means 12lbs in 3 months and ~50lbs in a year.

Anything more aggressive is too hard and sets you up for failure - why do you think the "new year crowd" in the gym dies in 3 weeks? People go from 0 gym days to 5 times a week and get discouraged when they don't see immediate changes. A long term solution would be go to the gym 2 or 3 times a week, and keep at it for the whole year.

The longer it takes for your change, the more permanent it is. Don't look for shortcuts, look for long term habits. The rest of your life will thank you for it.

coreyreichle

There's no magical difference between someone who had bariatric surgery, and someone who didn't.

Log everything that goes into your mouth.
Exercise for at least 30 minutes a day.
Consume fewer calories than you burn.

fatfudgery

billieljaime wrote: »

BARIATRIC has a great failure rate for this reason. People dont change their habits and follow through completey. You need to make a life style change to get the results you want.

Bariatric surgery does not have a "great failure rate." Longitudinal studies have shown an average long-term weight loss of roughly 50% of excess body weight [1, 2, 3] - far, far, FAR more successful than any other weight loss method out there for the population in question (i.e., morbidly obese people.) Now, notice that this means a 6'-tall, 450lbs man will still weigh 300+ lbs several years after surgery because, as you correctly point out, most people don't grasp the idea that their surgery is just a tool to help them change their habits. But the issue there is one of unrealistic expectations - people seeing bariatric surgery as an easy way out of having to do any work to reach a normal body weight, rather than as a last-resort way to drop a lot of excess pounds so they don't die within the next couple of years, or whatever.

OP, I'm one of those few outliers who got rid of all their excess weight after surgery. If I could give everyone undergoing surgery one piece of advice, it would be to make them understand that "surgery is just a tool." You probably heard that a million times going through the pre-op process, but nobody seems to really grasp what that means until it's too late. Surgery will only really restrict your intake and force you to drop weight for a year or two (the so-called "honeymoon period" after surgery.) If you don't use that time to learn proper eating and exercise habits, you're pretty much back where you started, just at a lower (but probably still high) body weight. If you want to lose weight you still have to do all the stuff that people who didn't get surgery have to do: learn to read nutrition labels, track your calories, weigh and log your food accurately, monitor your weight consistently, choose lower calorie density, highly satiating foods, increase your physical activity, etc.

Good luck, OP!

---

[1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23235396
[2] http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=199587
[3] http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1900516

kommodevaran

fatfudgery wrote: »

billieljaime wrote: »

BARIATRIC has a great failure rate for this reason. People dont change their habits and follow through completey. You need to make a life style change to get the results you want.

Bariatric surgery does not have a "great failure rate." Longitudinal studies have shown an average long-term weight loss of roughly 50% of excess body weight [1, 2, 3] - far, far, FAR more successful than any other weight loss method out there for the population in question (i.e., morbidly obese people.) Now, notice that this means a 6'-tall, 450lbs man will still weigh 300+ lbs several years after surgery because, as you correctly point out, most people don't grasp the idea that their surgery is just a tool to help them change their habits. But the issue there is one of unrealistic expectations - people seeing bariatric surgery as an easy way out of having to do any work to reach a normal body weight, rather than as a last-resort way to drop a lot of excess pounds so they don't die within the next couple of years, or whatever.

OP, I'm one of those few outliers who got rid of all their excess weight after surgery. If I could give everyone undergoing surgery one piece of advice, it would be to make them understand that "surgery is just a tool." You probably heard that a million times going through the pre-op process, but nobody seems to really grasp what that means until it's too late. Surgery will only really restrict your intake and force you to drop weight for a year or two (the so-called "honeymoon period" after surgery.) If you don't use that time to learn proper eating and exercise habits, you're pretty much back where you started, just at a lower (but probably still high) body weight. If you want to lose weight you still have to do all the stuff that people who didn't get surgery have to do: learn to read nutrition labels, track your calories, weigh and log your food accurately, monitor your weight consistently, choose lower calorie density, highly satiating foods, increase your physical activity, etc.

Good luck, OP!

---

[1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23235396
[2] http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=199587
[3] http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1900516

I'd guess those methods would include any fad and crash diet. Do you know the success rates of healthy and sustainable eating/exercise plan vs surgery?

fatfudgery

@kommodevaran

Yes, it's virtually zero.

callsitlikeiseeit

I have known many people who had various weight loss surgeries.

only ONE (out of a dozen or more) kept the weight off long term.

it requires lifestyle changes, the same as following MFP would.

And MFP is free.

Yes, there are success stories. But they put in a lot of work to make it a success story.

fatfudgery

callsitlikeiseeit wrote: »

I have known many people who had various weight loss surgeries.

only ONE (out of a dozen or more) kept the weight off long term.

it requires lifestyle changes, the same as following MFP would.

And MFP is free.

Yes, there are success stories. But they put in a lot of work to make it a success story.

I was a patient ambassador at the weight loss center that did my surgery and met literally HUNDREDS of post-op patients that managed to keep a lot of weight off. Hundreds is more than twelve. I win the meaningless anecdotal evidence game! :-D

MostlyWater

My sister got the lap band about a year ago. She found a way to outsmart it right away.

callsitlikeiseeit

fatfudgery wrote: »

callsitlikeiseeit wrote: »

I have known many people who had various weight loss surgeries.

only ONE (out of a dozen or more) kept the weight off long term.

it requires lifestyle changes, the same as following MFP would.

And MFP is free.

Yes, there are success stories. But they put in a lot of work to make it a success story.

I was a patient ambassador at the weight loss center that did my surgery and met literally HUNDREDS of post-op patients that managed to keep a lot of weight off. Hundreds is more than twelve. I win the meaningless anecdotal evidence game! :-D

well i know about 12. given your career, i would hope you know more.

not to mention hundreds out of presumably thousands isn't any better a statistic

gurlygirlrcr80

People who haven't had surgery, always have the most to say about how it's a failure. SMH
But back to the OP, I've lost almost all my goal weight, I'm currently working on what I want to do with my body now. I'm working out and lifting. Trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.

PaulaWallaDingDong

gurlygirlrcr80 wrote: »

People who haven't had surgery, always have the most to say about how it's a failure. SMH
But back to the OP, I've lost almost all my goal weight, I'm currently working on what I want to do with my body now. I'm working out and lifting. Trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.

It's not the surgery that fails. It's the patient. Seeing loved one after loved one fail at using the surgery to their advantage definitely gives an observer cause to speak about it.

fatfudgery

callsitlikeiseeit wrote: »

not to mention hundreds out of presumably thousands isn't any better a statistic

True enough. So instead of spewing out meaningless "I know 12 people!" anecdotal evidence, let's look at actual scientific research on the subject:

Long-term outcomes after bariatric surgery: fifteen-year follow-up of adjustable gastric banding and a systematic review of the bariatric surgical literature - "...The systematic review of all bariatric procedures with 10 or more years of follow-up showed greater than 50% EWL for all current procedures. The weighted mean at maximum follow-up for LAGB was 54.2% EWL and for Roux-en-Y gastric bypass was 54.0% EWL..."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23235396

Bariatric Surgery: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis - "...The mean (95% confidence interval) percentage of excess weight loss was 61.2% (58.1%-64.4%) for all patients; 47.5% (40.7%-54.2%) for patients who underwent gastric banding; 61.6% (56.7%-66.5%), gastric bypass; 68.2% (61.5%-74.8%), gastroplasty; and 70.1% (66.3%-73.9%), biliopancreatic diversion or duodenal switch..."

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=199587

Long-term Follow-up After Bariatric Surgery - A Systematic Review - "...Of 7371 clinical studies reviewed, 29 studies (0.4%, 7971 patients) met inclusion criteria. All gastric bypass studies (6 prospective cohorts, 5 retrospective cohorts) and sleeve gastrectomy studies (2 retrospective cohorts) had 95% confidence intervals for the reported mean, median, or both exceeding 50% excess weight loss. This amount of excess weight loss occurred in 31% of gastric band studies (9 prospective cohorts, 5 retrospective cohorts). The mean sample-size–weighted percentage of excess weight loss for gastric bypass was 65.7% (n = 3544) vs 45.0% (n = 4109) for gastric band..."

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1900516

So about a 50% reduction in excess body weight, give or take, when you look at thousands and thousands of bariatric surgery patients 5+ years after surgery. Notice that these are all meta-analyses, too, not one-off studies.

So tell me again how bariatric surgery doesn't work long-term...

fatfudgery

PaulaWallaDingDong wrote: »

Seeing loved one after loved one fail at using the surgery to their advantage definitely gives an observer cause to speak about it.

What were your loved ones' starting body weights? What are their weights now? How long ago did they have surgery? What types of surgery?

SWellz

Not in your boat, but I wish you the best of luck OP!

size102b

You still got that move your body and count your calories to lose weight
CICO you can still eat too many calories with surgery all because you eat get large volumes doesn't mean calories aren't large

A bar chocolate compared to a prawn salad first has lots more calories the second is more volume

MommyMeggo

My dearest friend did so GREAT- for a while.
She would actually be in a lot of pain after eating for a long while after her surgery- so she learned the hard way.
But she has slowly crept back up seeing as how she never changes her habits. I feel for her.
But just like everyone else who has to have "the talk" with themselves- surgery or not - get back on track!
You can do it!

ald783

She already had the surgery so I really don't understand the purpose of people saying "well surgery won't help". It sounds like she's looking for similarly situated individuals who are also struggling.

Of course it boils down to "calories in, calories out" and while the math may be that simple, actually implementing that into one's life and sticking with it is much more complicated. If it was that easy, there wouldn't be such a high rate of regaining, and obesity, etc. etc. I'd like to think that everyone means well but some of this comes off as condescending.

FWIW, if we're going to talk about people they know, I've mostly only seen positive experiences with WLS. Even if there is some re-gain, keeping off 60 or 75% of the weight lost is a lot better than nothing. I've never had nor considered WLS, but I think it can be the difference-maker for a lot of people struggling with weight.