Considering VSG and looking for info and support
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MJ5898
Posts: 1,549 Member
Hi all, my name is MJ. I have been overweight my entire life. My Mom was an emotional eater and turned to food when she was upset, depressed, happy, sad, etc. She also rewarded my sister and me with food - especially sweet treats. So, I quickly developed the same emotional relationship with food. I would binge on sweets and salty foods and began sneak eating as a young teenager once I had an allowance and the ability to acquire foods on my own. Once I could drive, the situation got worse. I recall sitting in a college history class once feeling tired and sad and then cheering myself up by thinking of all the yummy food I was going to have for lunch once the class was over. Ended up hitting 2 different fast food places and then sitting in my car in the park inhaling probably 3K calories!
Throughout the years, I have been somewhat successful with losing weight. Back in 2006, I lost over 100# with weight watchers while my Dad was fighting a battle with lung cancer. The tracking and logging gave me something to focus on and obsess over rather than thinking about my Dad. However, when he passed in Nov 2006, I used the loss and my grief as an excuse to return to my old emotional eating habits and re-gained the weight.
I also lost 100# using MFP about 6 years ago. However, after a beach vacation where I did not restrict myself at all, I was unable to get back on track and regained the weight. As an obsessive person, I am about "all or nothing" - either I am perfect in following my plan every single day or I am completely off track eating crap.
A couple of years ago, I took over my mother's finances - she was an undiagnosed and thus untreated bipolar sufferer - and became very depressed about my own circumstances and dealing with hers. So, I self-referred to my employer's mental health services and started seeing a therapist. In the beginning we dealt mostly with my co-dependent relationship with my mother and my sister - my need to solve everyone's problems and their willingness to let me/expectation that I would do so. When my mom passed suddenly in June of 2016 due to cardiac issues, I did not have a chance to grieve due to the need to deal with her house - she was a life-long hoarder and the place was nearly inaccessible. My therapist and I never discussed my weight to that point as we were focused on other aspects of my mental health.
In late Nov 2016, I joined WW again at a weight of 415#. At 5' 1", that is a TON of weight. After joining, I started talking with my therapist about my weight, my eating, my relationship with food, etc. We have certainly not tackled it all, but we are getting there. I have lost 34# on WW in 3+ months. Given my starting weight, I feel like this is happening slower than I like. Of course, at 45 year old, it will not be as past as it was 11 years ago. However, I feel like WW is having me eat too much each day - 58 Smart Points. In fact, there have been days that I have drank 2 cans of regular coke just to get in enough calories, etc. to hit my SP target. I decided to track on MFP again too to compare my eating just based on calories and macros.
Anyway, I feel like I have wasted so much of my life being overweight that I am considering discussing VSG with my doctor at my follow-up later this month. I have been reading everything I can about it and understand that it or any WLS is not a "cure" for being overweight. This is especially true for those like me with OCD and emotional eating. I will have to come to terms with the eating limits imposed by the procedure both in terms of quantity and type of foods/beverages allowed. But, I feel my current weight is putting so much strain on my heart and other organs than I am not sure I have the time to wait for slow weight loss - i.e. 2# per week.
I joined this group this morning in hopes of getting more insight about the process, pre and post op, and learning from your experiences as to whether this is something I should pursue. Thanks for reading!
Throughout the years, I have been somewhat successful with losing weight. Back in 2006, I lost over 100# with weight watchers while my Dad was fighting a battle with lung cancer. The tracking and logging gave me something to focus on and obsess over rather than thinking about my Dad. However, when he passed in Nov 2006, I used the loss and my grief as an excuse to return to my old emotional eating habits and re-gained the weight.
I also lost 100# using MFP about 6 years ago. However, after a beach vacation where I did not restrict myself at all, I was unable to get back on track and regained the weight. As an obsessive person, I am about "all or nothing" - either I am perfect in following my plan every single day or I am completely off track eating crap.
A couple of years ago, I took over my mother's finances - she was an undiagnosed and thus untreated bipolar sufferer - and became very depressed about my own circumstances and dealing with hers. So, I self-referred to my employer's mental health services and started seeing a therapist. In the beginning we dealt mostly with my co-dependent relationship with my mother and my sister - my need to solve everyone's problems and their willingness to let me/expectation that I would do so. When my mom passed suddenly in June of 2016 due to cardiac issues, I did not have a chance to grieve due to the need to deal with her house - she was a life-long hoarder and the place was nearly inaccessible. My therapist and I never discussed my weight to that point as we were focused on other aspects of my mental health.
In late Nov 2016, I joined WW again at a weight of 415#. At 5' 1", that is a TON of weight. After joining, I started talking with my therapist about my weight, my eating, my relationship with food, etc. We have certainly not tackled it all, but we are getting there. I have lost 34# on WW in 3+ months. Given my starting weight, I feel like this is happening slower than I like. Of course, at 45 year old, it will not be as past as it was 11 years ago. However, I feel like WW is having me eat too much each day - 58 Smart Points. In fact, there have been days that I have drank 2 cans of regular coke just to get in enough calories, etc. to hit my SP target. I decided to track on MFP again too to compare my eating just based on calories and macros.
Anyway, I feel like I have wasted so much of my life being overweight that I am considering discussing VSG with my doctor at my follow-up later this month. I have been reading everything I can about it and understand that it or any WLS is not a "cure" for being overweight. This is especially true for those like me with OCD and emotional eating. I will have to come to terms with the eating limits imposed by the procedure both in terms of quantity and type of foods/beverages allowed. But, I feel my current weight is putting so much strain on my heart and other organs than I am not sure I have the time to wait for slow weight loss - i.e. 2# per week.
I joined this group this morning in hopes of getting more insight about the process, pre and post op, and learning from your experiences as to whether this is something I should pursue. Thanks for reading!
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Replies
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Welcome @MJ5898 . first thing, ditch the "all or nothing" thinking. Life is up and down. And don't worry about losing weight FAST. Even with this surgery it's still going to take a couple years. Enjoy the journey.
Sounds like you have a good head on your shoulders. Learn all you can and follow dr orders and you'll do great!
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Thanks so much Aztec4Life! Sounds like great advice!
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Welcome @MJ5898. As @Aztec4Life stated, you have to stop thinking "all or nothing." Even after surgery, you will have good days & bad days. After a short amount of time, your body will settle into losing weight at a normal pace. At 6 months out, I lose an average of 2lbs per week now.
You also need to come to grips with the emotional eating. While WLS will restrict the amount of food you can eat at any given time, I know dozens of people who graze on crap all day long and have regained quite a bit of weight. They will eat sugary crap, knowing full-well it will make them feel like *kitten* & sick to their stomach and they do it anyway. I can eat a cup of food and be satisfied. But there are days where a half hour later, I'm hungry again. You still need to exert self-control and eat the right foods. You have to make healthy choices, exercise and focus on getting enough protein while avoiding sugars and excess carbs.
Good luck and keep us apprised of your progress!1 -
Oh my goodness, I see a lot of myself in your story. I started sneaking food at 7, would hit up multiple fast food places and hide the remnants, lost over 100 pounds three times (once using mfp to lose 170 pounds), and have been 100% unsuccessful at keeping the weight off. Therapy for many years has helped me with my all or nothing thinking and I continue to work on my emotional eating triggers with her. I couldn't face losing the weight again on my own knowing my chances of keeping it off are 2-4% - so defeating. So I started researching the sleeve early last year and had surgery last week. My doctor said it's no guarantee that I'll keep it off, but that surgery is the best chance medical science can give us today to do so. I know I can still gain it back and maintenance is what scares me most. I don't want to fail at this too. So I'm focusing a lot on learning what successful vets of wls do to maintain long term.
It sounds like you understand this isn't a guaranteed quick fix and that's good. Keep researching, especially the people who were unsuccessful with it and understand why. Keep working with your therapist on changing your relationship with food. And stick with weight watchers while you do all of this (minus the Cokes, that's nuts - do you get in trouble for not using all your points?!). Best of luck to you with your decision! It's a big one and there is no right answer.4 -
@mj5898. I'm almost 3 weeks out of surgery, a freshly minted sleever. This is easier and harder than I thought. I would do it again tomorrow and I've just started.
Find a program. Sit in on an information seminar. Learn what their program looks like. Go to a second if you don't get the warm fuzzies. Spend the time you have to to get ready mentally and physically. I had a 6 month requirement from my insurance it took over 9 months to get my surgery. You really need to be ready to change your life. This isn't a diet you can stop tomorrow. This will add years to my life It could add year to yours too. Good luck. If you have any questions ask, these folks are awesome at answering. You may get too much info!5 -
I am pre-op but in my experience, the process to getting the surgery can be long. There is no harm in getting a referral to the bariatric department and start attending the classes. I started a little iffy as to if I wanted to do this because I believed that it was the easy way out. Each step that I went through I realized more and more that not only was it not the easy way out but I could see all the short term and long term benefits to do the surgery and became convinced that this was the way that I wanted to go. Why not bring it up and start the process and determine then if you want to go down this route? I have met people on this road who were in no way ready for the change or for the surgery. It is something you need to be ready to do and fully comfortable with.
My biggest regret in the process has been that I didnt start losing the weight i needed to in order to qualify for surgery sooner. I was dead set on having surgery in November but didnt start losing weight until 1/1/17. That has delayed when I can get surgery since I needed to wait to lose the weight first. I dont know what kind of program you are going through but if you will need to lose a required amount of weight pre-op....START NOW.3 -
MJ5898 - It sounds like you have a good understanding of what weight loss surgery will do for you and what it won't do. I was a yoyo dieter for years. At the recommendation of my PCP I looked into weight loss surgery, not to lose weigh but to help keep the weight off. The sleeve can help with the weight loss because on that one day where you really want to eat the wrong thing, the sleeve will stop you after a few ounces. Unless you intentionally try to out eat the sleeve you can and will be successful. Add me as a friend if you would like to view my food log. I'm 2+ years post opt and at goal weight. HT 5'4", HW 267, SW 233, GW, 150, CW 130. I've been at 130 +/- 2 lbs since June of last year. It took me 16 months to get to 130, which was less than my original goal weight. There were months where I lost 10+ pounds and months where I lost less than 3 pounds. Good luck with your journey.3
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I also am considering wls and looking for support and suggestions for cravings (sweet & carbs). I have been overweight my whole adult life and after years of thinking I could loose it without surgery I am thinking now I have wasted enough years and need to take control of my weight! I am 40 and my weight is 360. I know that it is a tool that if used correctly the results will be amazing! But I must say I'm a tad worried about the whole process after surgery....0
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I was sleeved 6 weeks ago, and I wish I hadn't wasted so much of my life being obese. Feel free to friend me. I'll answer any questions and provide needed support. Good luck on your decision!2
