Bariatric surgery long term success (gastric bypass)

I’m about a month away from hitting the 9 year mark, I had a gastric sleeve. Prior to the surgery, my heaviest weight was 295 lbs and creeping towards 300, I’m 5’6 in height. I was on blood pressure medication, cholesterol medication and my Dr. advised I was perilously close to being treated for pre-diabetes unless I took action.

Over the first few years, my weight and motivation fluctuated widely as I adjusted to my new lifestyle. I certainly made poor decisions in eating but time and experience taught me what my system could tolerate and what it couldn’t. Certain foods and drinks were completely off limits (coffee, beer, carbonated beverages, potato chips, crackers), dense food such as shrimp, some cuts of beef were literally painful to eat for a long time. The biggest issue was portion size, it took a while to adjust to that.

I had already been working out for a while prior to the surgery and as soon as the Dr. allowed, went back to it post-surgery. Since then I’ve tried to maintain a workout schedule of at least 30 minutes per session and most often 90 minutes per session 4 days a week. Weights, cardio, boxing, and especially yoga have worked best for me. My wife has been incredibly supportive throughout and has recently started doing yoga with me.

As of this morning my weight is 160 lbs and hasn’t gone more than 5 lbs in either direction for a couple of years, even during the lockdowns. I’m now at a point where I can again have foods that were off limits such as shrimp just in greatly smaller portions. Matter of fact I just finished a dinner of steak, scalloped potatoes and mixed vegetables. An 8 oz steak now provides two meals instead of one. A tablespoon maybe a little more of potatoes and about the same for veg. No bread with dinner.

Drink tea now instead of coffee (3 visits to Scotland helped that), drink at least a quart of water throughout the day, more on workout days. Sweets are a definite weakness and I do indulge but again, portion control is key. Tracked my food intake on here for a couple of years but gave that up and focused on tracking my workouts instead. Seeing the time I put into controlling food intake, time into the workouts and the slow but steady progress made has been my most powerful motivator to stick to it. I went from a 50 inch waistband to 32 inch, best of all, I’m not taking any prescription medication at all. Only multi vitamins, B-12 and calcium citrate, per Dr’s orders, that’s a life long regimen. For the gains I’ve made, that’s a small price to pay.

Sorry to be so long winded but my advice is track your food intake, no matter how small, even if you cheat. Find an exercise that you like, join a gym, take some classes, enlist a friend or family member, whatever it takes to get active and stay active. Track your workouts. If you don’t feel like working out one day, track that too but don’t beat yourself up over it. Even top athletes need time off. If I’m able to answer any questions you may have, I’d be happy to.