rhodywoman

What a super small world (and state)! I'm going through Miriam Bariatric and I have Dr. Ryder. I'm so impressed with the support from there. My pre-op appt is Aug 18th so I'm pretty close. Getting excited and nervous. I live in Charlestown, you?

I know it may not be what you want to hear but each doctor has a specialty and although the others may not be concerned in his specialty perhaps his reasons for such concern are valid. Ultimately, the goal is to have the surgery to improve your health but if you rush it you can get the surgery but lose your quality of life or even your life. I'd err on the side of concern and check everything out before switching to another doctor. Best of luck with this.

I exhaled a tremendous sigh of relief after reading your comments. I was hoping there were some others who had similar experiences. I really buckled down today. I don't have a date yet but I can't wait until I do. It seems like it's just within my reach and I need to leap and grab it! Keep in touch and I love to hear how you guys are doing. Thank you for commenting!

Hello! I'm from Rhode Island. I live in Charlestown. You?

It varies by insurance requirements and surgeon availability here in the states can be as little as 3 months more closer to 6-8 months. Not sure how your national health program works in Canada but that will be a big part of the timeframe. Good luck!

Up until Saturday it was a hope. It was a prayer. It wasn't quite real. I was on the way and doing my best to maintain a level of calmness because if I didn't get approved for surgery I didn't want to be upset. I would've been upset anyway but I certainly would have been MORE upset had I gotten excited, told everyone I knew, and then didn't get approved. When my surgeon's coordinator told met that she was submitting my paperwork for approval I asked her how long is the "usual" turnaround for my insurance. She said it's been as short as 2 days and as long as two weeks. She called me as I was leaving for vacation. I was happy that all of my insurance work was officially done before I left. I went on vacation feeling like I accomplished something. Not 24 hours later my happiness and feeling of accomplishment was eclipsed by the anxiety of the wait. Did I make it? Why would they NOT approve me? They don't approve people every single day so maybe there was something they could use to deny me. Ugh. I tried to put it out of my mind and just enjoy myself but it was hard. When we returned from vacation I waited for the phone call. It's been a week now. Still no call. On Friday I told my husband that I didn't think that I was approved. He asked why would they deny me. I thought maybe we haven't had this insurance long enough, maybe I need to try something else, maybe, maybe, MAYBE. I went to bed Friday feeling a little defeated. On Saturday when I checked the mail there was a letter from my surgeon's office. I wasn't expecting a letter. I was approved. All of a sudden it seemed like stress and pressure of 30 years of battling my weight were finally released and I cried. I should have known that it's always darkest before dawn. Always. I'm approved. I'm ready. This is going to be the fight of my life... FOR MY LIFE. I know it won't be easy. I know that it won't be pretty. I do know that it will be absolutely worth it and now it's going to happen. Why didn't they call? She didn't want to bother me on vacation. Another lesson in just letting things happen as they should.

I look forward to following your progress. I like the advice from Sherbear911 as well. Best of luck to both of you!!

I'm praying that this becomes better for you. Do you have a plan in place if you have to see someone before the 27th? It just seems like a little while away still when you aren't feeling well.

I think there's a big misconception about people who are overweight. It seems as though skinny people seem to think that we have no idea how to lose weight. Perhaps that's true for many overweight people but my experience is that the exact opposite is more accurate. I think we all have that Fit Friend that wants to help us by imparting their knowledge to us. I've explained that it's not knowing what to do that's the disconnect... it's actually doing it. I think - in theory - most of us know exactly what we need to do to lose weight. It can be boiled down to a simple math equation: calories burned > calories consumed = weight loss. My brother is a personal trainer and he always tries to thow some wisdom my way and I had to share with him how he should look at my situation: It's like having all the weapons but now I need to fight. See, I have all tools and information in my weaponry arsenal but I haven't quite mastered the fight. I've won a few battles but even more have won me. Many of us lose the long term war. We know WHAT to do but we have to master the long term execution of the plan. I'm viewing this surgery as my next foray into the fight with a pretty defining weapon. It may be the ultimate tool but it's only that: a tool. I'm still going to have to be ready for the fight. This will be the hardest part. I've had 30 years of failing. Thirty years of giving up. Thirty years of resigning that this will be my life and my body. What's to say that I won't show up to fight this time too? The answer is that in all the years before and in all my failures before I was more comfortable where I was than where I was going. It's like the old adage: Change only happens when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of change. I'm 30 years older, 30 years wiser, with 30 years of failure from which to draw strength. I am no longer comfortable getting winded in minutes, sweating at the first hint of exertion, or my knees opting to work or not seemingly at will. I have all the weapons and I am finally ready to fight!

Expectations. I think one of the biggest problems with my gaining and losing weight over the years is my expectation of the situation. Reading the forums here I see that I'm not the only one who suffers from expectation problems. For example in late 2012, I joined Ideal Protein. It's a medically supervised low carb, high protein diet that garners relatively fast results. I was expecting to lose weight quickly and I did. What was the problem? I expected to lose it faster than that! I expected to lose 100 lbs in under 6 months and when I had successfully lost 75 lbs I couldn't really consider it a success. I wanted to but I didn't make my goal. I didn't live up to my expectation. Had I looked at the reality of the situaton: I LOST 75 LBS IN 6 MONTHS perhaps I woiuld've been more gentle with myself. Perhaps I would have taken more pride in my accomplishment, perhaps I would've care more or acted sooner when I started to feel the weight start to slowly creep back. My reality was that I had already failed at this process and so the 5 pound gain that turned to 10 which quickly morphed to 50 lbs was simply more failure. With this process I'm trying really hard to have zero expectations of how it's going to work out but that's easier said than done. From my first meeting the expectation was that it would take months to fulfill the insurance company requirements. I wasn't going to let that deter me. Just proceed on and understand that this could take a while. Nutrition and Psychology and the toughest to schedule with people waiting MONTHS to get appointments. I was prepared. I had zero expectations. My psychology appointment was booked on a Wednesday for the following Monday. WHAT? When I discovered that my 6 months at Ideal Protein covered my nutrition requirements and I only had to see the nutritionist twice through the surgeons office I was pleasantly surprised but I was told that scheduling them could take months. I had my two appointments within 30 days. That was better than any expectation I could've set for myself. As of yesterday, I have fulfilled all of my requirements for the insurance company submittal process so now I have to wait. I know that it can take up to 7 weeks to get an answer from my insurance company but I plan to just continue to have zero expectation of time. It will unfold as it has to unfold and I will yield to the time gently. I'm going to carry this out to my surgery and then to my weight loss following surgery. I know that there are many people who have lost extraordinary amounts of weight in short periods of time. I know others who have had more stalls than a football staduim's restroom but I am neither of those people. I am me and my weightloss will be unique to me. My goals is to: Follow my surgeon's instructions Make my meal planning a priority Keep my body moving Educate my family on what this surgery is doing for me Not compare myself, my diet, my surgeon, my instructions to any other persons Have zero expectations of how this wll play out but know that if I just follow the rules it will play out as my body needs it to. Tha'ts my new reality.

I wasn't going to go here. I really wasn't. But I can't seem to shake it and when I can't shake something I usually have to write it out. I know that everyone will have opinions of weight loss surgery and I'm finding out that I really don't want to hear it. I know that I've failed in the past, I know that surgery can be dangerous, I know that life is going to change considerably for me, and I know that it's a completely different life than the life that I've led. I also know that most of the people who are concerned are coming from a loving place, no matter what the conversation makes me feel like when it's happening. But if it's one thing that I've noticed it's that the most challenging conversation and the biggest naysayers are my friends that are overweight... and it' hurts. I've tried to place myself in their shoes. I remember when I knew nothing of weight loss surgery and I considered it to be a "cop out." I even thought it was the "easy way out." One thing I never thought was that it was an opinion that I would share with someone who was having the surgery! Now that I've spent the last year reading everything I can, working on my food addiction, and learning about the procedure I understand just how wrong I was... but at least I was wrong to myself. In the meeting with my nutritionist the other day we were talking about what's been the hardest thing for me at this time and it was (overwhelmingly) dealing with the people who have negative opinions about this. As I was speaking the images of the people I was talking about kept running through my mind and I noticed the theme. They were all of my friend's that are overweight/obese. Of all of my friend's I'm quite possibly the biggest. Some are close to my 320 lbs but most are hovering around 250. Are they threatened by my potentially weighing less than them in the future? Are they concerned about my passing the "fat torch" to someone else? Will my loss make them feel worse about themselves? I did Ideal Protein last year and I lost 75 lbs and I had to go over in my mind how our relationships were affected by that loss. I guess I was so busy just trying to make it through that I didn't realize how little I saw of them during that time. I think it was self-imposed because I didn't want to subject people to my diet or make them feel badly about eating in front of me. Maybe they thought I became distant as I was losing weight. Has anyone gone through this? Were your heavy friends supportive or missing through your process? How do I maintain friendships but work on my health?

Victory on the walking! I'm so glad you checked out the book. It's been a fantastic help for me and I hope it will be for you as well. I look forward to more updates!

Terry what a great list! Thank you very much!!

Yes!!!

You have inspired me in so many ways right now! What a wonderful feeling. Congratulations!

Many of you can probably relate to the seemingly never ending yo-yo dieting of a fat person. As I sit here and get pretty retrospective as I await my first introductory meeting at the surgeons I can't help but thinking about the journey before this journey. The many attempts at losing weight over the years and I've learned a few things about myself in the process. From when I was twelve years old I have a memory that I won't likely forget. I was putting on a little weight and I had to go to the doctor for my annual physical. After they weighed me and took my vitals I had to bring my physical paper and chart to the next room. On it was 148 lbs and the notation "grossly overweight." Grossly overweight. It was bad enough that gross was already a term with negative connotation having it used in the 80's made it worse. Gross was a Valley Girl slang term that was as overused as "twerk" and "YOLO" are overused today. When I saw it my heart hit the floor. I had to hand this paper to a doctor and he will also know my totally gross status. I wanted to crawl in a hole and die. I didn't crawl into a hole and I didn't die. I did, however, crawl into a bag of cookies and gorged. That moment may just be the very first time I took a negative situation that gave me a bad feeling and numbed it out with cookies. It wouldn't be the last. Using food as a coping strategy only made matters worse when the general population likes to celebrate with food. So now food is great if I'm happy, sad, angry, mad, or any other emotion. So then food became not a fuel source but an anchor. An anchor that has weighed me down -- literally -- for 30 years. I know that I'm not going to be successful with any form of weight loss until I change my attitude toward food and last year I purchased a book titled: The Binge Eating and Compulsive Overeating Workbook - An Integrative Approach to Overcoming Disordered Eating. I started to read it and answer the questions and then I put it down. I probably told myself I was too busy (I wasn't) but honestly I didn't enjoy uncovering all the emotion behind WHY I eat. I put it on a shelf for several months. Picking it up again when I decided that I was going to look into surgery it really hit me that my problem is more that I tend not to feel my feelings because I fear I may be ruled by them so instead I tend to swallow them... usually chased with ice cream. Like I said earlier until I understand my eating and the emotions from my eating this will be another trip on the yo-yo train and I'm not going to have a major surgery, redesign my insides, and then go back to my old habits. It's time. I'm not twelve anymore but I am truly grossly overweight and I'm sick of it. It's time to do the work. QUESTION: Do you eat your feelings? If you did would exploring it further have helped you on this journey after surgery?

I can totally relate to this! I just wrote a blog about discovering the whys behind my eating prior to surgery. The habits from memory - like the drive through donuts - are going to be really hard for me too. There's a book called The Binge Eating and Compulsive Eating Workbook: An Integrative Approach to Overcoming Disordered Eating. It's really helping me put my food feelings into perspective. Good luck on your pre-op!! You can do it!

I can't believe I'm here. I've battled with my weight for 30 years and here I am beginning a journey for weight loss surgery. Why can't I believe it? I remember when people first started having surgery in my circle of friends. I always had such a strong opinion about it. It seemed so extreme. I felt like if I even thought about surgery it only meant that I was so far gone that I couldn't possibly do it on my own. I've always had a problem asking for help. I spent the last decade especially floating from one diet to another having success for a while with each but nothing that would last. In that same time frame I watched some people have amazing transformations with surgery and just like my non-surgical diets some would maintain and others would lose it all just to gain it back. It wasn't until late last year that I decided to stop having preconceived notions about surgery and started really looking into it. The good, the bad, the ugly, and more. The complications, the dumping, the vomiting as well as the advancements and changes and the many surgical options that are available now. The more I read the more I was intrigued. The more I learned that anyone who thinks -- like I used to -- that surgery was a cop out or a quick fix is completely wrong. There's a lot of work involved and you have to be really dedicated to make these procedures work. I wish I could say that my family was immediately supportive of my decision to look into surgery but other than my husband who loves and supports me in any and every endeavor they were less than pleased. My 19 year old daughter thinks that i should be able to do it all on my own and my mother thinks that I will go through the surgery and then "ruin" it. My 17 year old son is supportive of my decision to lose weight but fears the complications for the surgery but not my choice to have it. Needless to say, I've spent the past 6 months pouring over the types or surgeries, the stories of patients, the risks, the success rates, and more. I found Bariatric Pal a couple months ago and I've been lurking through all the forums and stories and now that I finally have my initial consultation next week I figured I'd come out of the shadows and start logging my journey. There's no guarantee at this point that I'll even be approved for surgery so I may be getting ahead of myself but I figured that I would want to journal everything leading up to the big day and beyond. I enjoy blogging and I'm able to better express myself and my feelings through writing and I know that I'll be able to look over this again and see just how far I've come. All I know is that this is a Onderful Opportunity that I won't "ruin" and I'll really give it my all to be successful. Here we go! I'm reaching out for help and I kinda like it.

Amen! This site is so supportive! Congratulations on your date and I wish you well on this remarkable journey!