Jean McMillan

10 years ago, I wore size 22-24.

Summer has arrived in TN (where it will last at least until Thanksgiving), and today I bought shorts in size 2. First I tried on size 4 and was puzzled to find them a little...loose...what, loose?!?! Then I tried on size 2, and they fit perfectly.

I've been thrilled with every pound lost, every inch lost, every size lost during my WLS journey, but never, ever did I dream I'd wear a size 2.

Yikes. Dealing with a medical "train wreck" like yours would put anyone off course. I'm so glad to hear that your health is now improved enough to allow you to concentrate on working that band of yours. Just understanding that your band alone can't do it all gives you an advantage. And as far as I'm concerned, exercise is super medicine. It not only helps me burn calories and stay fit and healthy, it's better than any psychiatric med I've ever taken for improving my mental health and outlook! And since I exercise with a group of women, it's a great social thing.

I'm 3 yrs in and only down 27lbs. To explain its not the LB's fault. Just a month after my surgery I had a major diverticulitis attack. Hospital for 4 days - I new antibiotic that almost killed me-shock reaction. Went home & started on the LB after surgery diet. Everything went through me nothing stayed in. Was told I needed a Colon resectioning -12" removed or it might rupture & be much worse. Still could not eat any kind of food went right thru again. 3 months of this & I lost 25 lbs. Stomach dr (3rd one) finally told me to take Florastor(probiotic) & aloe Vera juice. After a week on this I was finally able to eat & keep it in. Now is where the trouble starts- yeah I can eat & eat I did until I was back to my pre-surgery required weight. For 2 yrs I said the hell with it. Last Sept. I got the exercise bug. Been going to the gym associated with the LB surgeons 2-3 times a week Love my trainer. Finally broke down & went to the new dr who took over for my original dr. Got a plan for one month then I will see if I need a fill or they'll do one of those swallows to be sure the band is working. I am hopeful now after 3 years thought the band could do it all- realized I have to work at it too. Stupid me. I don't regret getting the band now I have to do the work that comes along with it. Sorry have read so many stories here had to share mine.

FIT AND WELL-NOURISHED. Can't get much better than that!

At the end of the visit the last time I saw my internist (routine checkup), he said, "You're doing a wonderful job of taking care of yourself." That short sentence is solid gold to me.

And the years keep going by....
Isn't it all so relative? I'm thrilled when my size 10's get loose. Not so thrilled when my 12's feel snug.
And again. Another fill or another unfill of a tiny bit.... And another year goes by and still I'm so thankful to be on this side of " normal sized"..... Whatever that means to each of us.

And I'm so happy to read other veterans posts because it gives me much hope that my 2006 lapband is staying and doing it's job.
I think my ( retiring) doctor said it best I'm my medical records ..... FIT AND WELL NOURISHED. I might want a bumper sticker or tattoo .... It made me feel wonderful !!!

I did something similar. I bought a beautiful skirt that was about 2 sizes too small, hoping that one day I could wear it. Sort of a motivation garment. Every time I saw it in my closet I was reminded of the future's "maybe". When I could finally wear it, I felt like a million bucks every time I put it on. The sad part is that eventually it became too big for me...or should I say I became too small for it...

People told me to shop second hand stores till I stabilized but I tend to learn better through experience. I lost inches at a different rate than weight this time and I breezed from 42's to 36's in around a month. Therefore, I purchased a pair of 40x30 jeans that haven't even been worn yet as well as a pair of 38's.. Hmm....I'm thinking "I WILL NEVER LOSE PAST 36's", but I've been proven wrong before.

Amen to that!

One of the nicest compliments I got when I'd lost 30-40 lbs was, "I the outfit you have on. It fits!"

You're smart to start to envision your future now. Health, lifestyle, relationships...so many things change as your weight goes down. And I'm glad to encounter someone who realizes the importance of taking good care of your appearance no matter what your body size. I think it's a sign of strength and good health (mental and physical). ... You didn't have to ask me how I felt back then - you could see it in one glance.

The American Cancer Society has long understood the relationship between looking good and feeling good. They have a program called "Look Good, Feel Better" that partners with Cosmetologists and provides spa days and other services for women with cancer. I know I definitely feel much better about myself when I take the time to do my hair and makeup and accessorize on weekends and days I work from home.

It's a challenge during weight loss, but I'm determined to wear clothes that fit now. I've been lost in shapeless knits and elastic waistbands for too long, and I'm ready to look as good on the outside as I know I'm going to feel on the inside.

I know constantly buying clothes can get expensive, but this is a peeve of mine. As people lose weight, I feel it's SO IMPORTANT to wear clothes that fit your ever shrinking body! Not only does it just make you look more put together, it makes you FEEL more put together, thus encouraging continuing positive behaviors that got you there! Even if it's just a few nicer pieces you can mix and match until you have to buy the next size down.

We lived our lives being frumpy and wearing over sized, ill fitting clothes to hide our bodies. Why continue to do that as we get smaller? We need to flaunt our confidence and success to the world!

Shoes! I'd forgotten about shoes! Pre-op I wore size 8-8.5. Now I wear size 6.5-7. Too bad shoes are expensive. And I'm bit uncomfortable with wearing anything from Goodwill that can't be washed before I put it on.

You're smart to start to envision your future now. Health, lifestyle, relationships...so many things change as your weight goes down. And I'm glad to encounter someone who realizes the importance of taking good care of your appearance no matter what your body size. I think it's a sign of strength and good health (mental and physical). As a pre-op, I would tear off my work clothes the instant I came home (well, not that very instant...as soon as I got to the bedroom) and put on something from the loose, bland, I-don't-care-about-me, please-don't-stare-at-me wardrobe in my closet. You didn't have to ask me how I felt back then - you could see it in one glance.

I love this! The project I've begun is sorting through clothing that I had grown out of in the past couple years, culling the "nope!" items and sorting the others by size so I've got some backups when I start shrinking postop. Today I'm assembling a covered closet rack up in our attic where I can hang it all so it will be easy to try on when the time comes. I'm really enjoying this, some of these items are old friends that I will enjoy being able to wear again for a while postop.

I'm also going through shoes and accessories and thinking of new combinations for things. I'm really enjoying the process. There is something very satisfying about taking better care of how I dress, even preop.

Are you glad or sad about what’s tucked away inside your clothes closet? Today is Saturday, a day off for some of us, and a good day for peeking at the hidden trash and treasures. Let’s have a look in mine…

My clothes closet is hidden deep within the house. It’s a very small interior room, the one where we’d hide if a tornado came our way. I’m glad to have it, but for most of the time we’ve lived in this house, that closet has not been a place I enjoyed visiting. The not-so-secret evidence of obesity was hidden there – 10 sizes of clothing (from 24 on down) in “slimming” styles and colors – souvenirs of my many trips up and down the scale.< /p>

But unless you’re expecting a tornado, the closet is a lousy place to live. Let’s open the door, let the light shine in, and ask ourselves the $64 million dollar question: WHY ARE WE HANGING ON TO ALL THIS STUFF? Let’s grab a jumbo trash bag and get busy working on a Goodwill donation or a batch of goodies for the local consignment store. What, do I hear groaning?

The short fat girl who dwells inside me whines, “But we might need them again someday!”

The other day, I cleaned out my clothes closet. I had done that before, about 6 months into my WLS journey, with great difficulty. I was fond of some of those outfits even though they could work as window drapery as well as clothing. I had spent a lot of money on my work wardrobe, to say nothing of the shoes. I feared that the instant those clothes were gone, I’d gain 50 or 75 or 100 pounds and need them all again. I had little faith that my post-op weight loss would be any more lasting than my weight loss had been in previous dieting attempts. Eventually I acquired enough new-to-me, smaller-size clothing that the closet was about to explode, so I made myself cull out the big stuff and haul it off to the Goodwill Store. Getting rid of it turned out to be a relief, and then of course I had the fun of filling up the closet with more clothes in smaller sizes. Back to the Goodwill Store I went...again and again.

In the 8 years following my WLS, I’ve dealt with some unexpected medical problems that led to band removal and a sleeve revision. While all that went on (and on, and on), I regained 30-35 pounds, and sizes 12 and 14 appeared in my closet again, followed all too closely by a few size 16’s. Eventually I lost that weight regain. When seasons changed and I hunted for something warm or cool to wear, I was delighted to find that most of that clothing was too big. I had nothing to wear!

That’s what I call a First World problem, something foolish to complain about when so many Third World people have little or no food, clothing or shelter. But…there’s no denying that morbid obesity is also serious problem, so I can’t bring myself to downplay my weight loss success. The weird part of this is that saying goodbye to the big stuff wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be.

You’d think that weeding out mountains of Goodwill donations would be a festive occasion, but my inner fat girl begged, “OK, get rid of the 14’s if you must, but please, please keep the 12’s! You never know!”

I’m happy to report that I managed to ignore her. In the past 4 years I’ve waved goodbye to the big sizes and welcomed back the small sizes. No, we never know for sure what’s going to happen in the future, what unexpected event will drive our weight back up or our weight management commitment back down. But we don’t need to see constant reminders of past failure, and we shouldn’t give space in our closets or our minds to the negative stuff that weighs us down and slows our forward footsteps.

So, whoever you are, whatever surgical procedure you had or will have, whatever your weight or clothing size is today, I challenge you to clean out your closet. Look at every single garment in there and ask yourself:

1. does this fit my body now?
   
2. does this fit my lifestyle now?
   
3. is this required by law (state, federal, religious, or employer)?
   
4. does this make me look and feel great?
   

Any garment that gets 2 or more “No” answers goes in the Goodbye Pile. Simple enough, isn’t it? No, it’s not easy. I go through this at every change of season and probably always will, because my inner fat girl will never forget what pre-op life was like. The only residents of my closet are one fat girl outfit (that I drag out and try on when I’m having a fat day) and way too many adorable size 4/XS outfits. Spring is (I pray) just around the corner here in Tennessee, so I’ve been trying on my warm weather clothing and cheerfully telling the rejects, “Goodbye!”

If the key to weight loss success is self-esteem, and you’ve got none stashed in the pantry where you used to keep Cookies and potato chips, where do you go to find some?

HOW WE GOT HERE

In Part 1 of this article, I introduced the idea that positive self-esteem is the key to weight loss success. In Part 2, I’ll talk about why so many obese people have a negative self-esteem

Now let’s have a quick look at how we came to be such sorry specimens. Any psychologist or sociologist will tell you that some of the most troubling factors contributing to low or negative self-esteem (on the levels of individual people as well as the aggregate of citizens called American society) are a person’s physical appearance, weight, intelligence and peer pressure. Very often all four of those factors are tightly intertwined. In an elementary school cafeteria, Jane, an obese girl with a tray piled high with food winces at her classmates’ teasing. Unable to find a friendly place to eat her lunch, she sits down alone and cries at the sound of other kids’ voices: “Fatso!” One of the school bullies shoves Jane’s lunch onto the floor and laughs, “You didn’t need that food, Fatty!” Jane heads to the lavatory to cry in private. She hides in a stall and hears the popular girls chanting, “Fatty Fatty, two by four, can’t fit through the bathroom door!” I’m sure you’ve guessed by now that Jane’s name is actually spelled Jean, and that the school cafeteria scene above lives in my distant memory. Even when I don’t consciously think about that unhappy incident, it and many others like it formed my beliefs and feelings about myself a long, long time ago. Sometimes I feel that I’ll never get them all weeded out of me. In my case, that ancient stew of negative self-esteem flavored my life with some miserable symptoms: hypersensitivity to criticism, perfectionism, guilt, shame, irritability, a defensive attitude, a sense of defeat and insignificance, and a persistent, low-grade “fever” of dissatisfaction with myself, my life, and everybody else.

And yet, despite all that, at age 62 I can call myself a success, not just at weight management but at a host of other things. No, car repair is not one of those things, but on the whole I’m doing pretty well. I have my husband, my friends, and my own determination to thank for that. If I can turn myself around, you can do the same for you.

Low self-esteem is not something that gets fixed overnight, and having bariatric surgery is not the cure. Choosing surgery is a wonderful first step, but it’s not the end of the journey. So please, be kind to yourself! I’m not talking kind in the sense of indulgence but in the sense of a loving caretaker who understands that you’re weak and believes that one day you’ll be strong.

WHERE ARE WE GOING NEXT?

Psychologists say that self-esteem is linked to a sense of competence – the awareness that you have the knowledge, skills, and resources needed to accomplish a task. It’s unlikely that you’re going to start your weight loss journey with a strong sense of competence regarding weight loss. In fact, it’s quite likely that your self-esteem in that area is torn down and tattered from all the diet and weight battles you’ve fought and lost in the past. No matter how much information you’ve gained from your pre-op education, you don’t yet have a history of weight loss success to buoy you along.

So how do you even begin to feel good about your ability to make the lifestyle changes required for weight loss - make good food choices, control portions, take tiny bites, avoid grazing and so on? I’ll adapt the take tiny bites strategy to this effort. You tackle the weight loss project one tiny bite at a time. You repeat the effective actions of making good food choices, controlling portions, taking tiny bites and avoiding grazing over and over again until you’ve learned how to do it with less effort and more enjoyment. You seek and acquire the knowledge, skills and resources to help you succeed. You seek assistance from your surgeon, your support group, your family and friends. All this work may never become fun for you, but in my case, weight loss made it all worthwhile.

TODAY’S WEIGHT LOSS SUCCESS FORECAST IS…

Does the importance of positive self-esteem mean that you’re doomed to failure if your self-esteem isn’t already strong on the day of your bariatric surgery? Certainly not. If you take on the challenge of a weight loss winner’s lifestyle one tiny bite at a time, your WLS journey can actually help you increase your overall self-esteem while decreasing your weight. Each step you take, each new behavior, each pound you lose, will prove to you how capable and worthy you truly are.

From time to time, you may have to ignore or silence the voice of self-doubt. I like the way my friend Lisa counsels self-doubters. She says, simply and firmly, “You can do this.” So when your inner Doubting Thomas (or Thomasina) whispers (or shouts), “Forget it! No way! Lost cause!” take a deep breath and tell her “I can do this. I will do this.” Eventually you’ll turn your eating behavior around, reach your weight loss goal, and finally feel proud of what you’ve accomplished.

The self-image of obese (or any other) people is complicated, isn't it? I've been contemplating that for years. On one hand, you have obese people who don't see themselves as obese, and apparently don't recognize the health risk that poses. On the other hand, we're living in a society that holds up "skinny" as divine, is extremely critical of the obese, and yet goes on super-sizing every meal we eat. In that setting, it's hard to keep your balance.

its a part of it surely, but i know many obese people who think they look wonderful and dont see themselves as fat. So it needs some serious help.

Perspective is a highly under-rated thing, isn't it?

When I look out the window at my worktable, I can see a neighbor's barn (we live way out in the boondocks, where barns and cows are more populous than shopping malls and poodles). From here, it looks tiny, but in fact it's huge. It's just one of his barns (we're in the agri-business heartland) and he can fit several pieces of modern farm equipment in it, things that look like they just landed from Mars and are getting ready to take over the world.

That's why I have to constantly supervise my own thoughts and make sure I'm reacting to real things in the appropriate degree to achieve the end I so very much desire.

Thanks for the reminder. For me, learning to keep things in perspective really helps to make life more manageable.

I have something important to tell you today about success with weight loss surgery. When you hear it, it may strike you as obvious, but I’d be willing to bet that your surgeon never mentioned it to you. Don’t begrudge him or her for that, because this particular crucial thing is something no surgeon can give you anyway. It’s something that no insurance policy covers, no pharmacy sells, and money can’t buy. You may already possess this thing in some degree, but do you have enough to ensure weight loss success?

THE KEY

This very important thing, the key to weight loss success, is self-esteem.

Success requires positive self-esteem in a part of your life that’s never before given you a lasting good feeling about yourself: weight loss. If you were good at that, if you knew you were good at it, you probably wouldn’t need bariatric surgery in the first place. You’d already be maintaining a healthy weight, happy about that, and working on attaining goals in some other area of your life, such as qualifying for the Olympic pole-vaulting team.

Self-esteem plays a role in many areas of human endeavor, and psychologists have identified it as an important predictor of relative outcomes. They believe that your level of self-esteem affects (or even predicts) the results of your efforts and activities, be they academic, athletic, professional, interpersonal, you name it. Their studies show that a person with high self-esteem (whether generalized, like “I’m a good person”, or specific, like “I’m a good tennis player”) is more likely to succeed at a given task than someone with low self-esteem.

Although the Stuart Smalley School of Positive Affirmations would have you believe that chanting, “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough…” six times a day will bolster your self-esteem, it’s not quite as simple as that. While I agree that our thoughts and beliefs about ourselves have an enormous effect on our behavior, self-esteem often involves feeling rather than thinking. Let’s demonstrate how that works through 3 short interviews with Jean.

Interview #1:

“Jean, are you a good car mechanic?”

“Heck, no.”

“How do you feel about that?”

“Perfectly fine.”

[Translation: Jean knows she’s not a good mechanic and feels just fine about

that because it’s not something that engages her emotions at all. Her self-

esteem in this area is neutral.]

Interview #2:

“Jean, do you have a flat abdomen?”

“Heck, no.”

“How do you feel about that?”

“Lousy. It makes me feel unattractive, I struggle to find attractive clothing to hide my

belly, and I feel frustrated that none of my exercise routine seems to improve my

mid-section.”

[Translation: Jean knows her abdomen is not flat and feels unhappy about the

way she looks and feels. Her self-esteem in this area is negative.

Interview #3:

“Jean, are you a good writer?”

“Heck, yes.”

“How do you feel about that?”

“I feel wonderful about it. I love writing. It’s fun, challenging, and interesting. When

I’m writing, I feel that I’m a talented and worthwhile person.”

[Translation: Jean knows she is a good writer and feels happy about it. Her self-

esteem in this area is positive.]

The final step of this educational exercise is to look at the following list of endeavors and predict which one Jean will be most likely to succeed at. Choose one of the following:

1. Rebuild her car’s engine.
   
2. Compete in and win the swimsuit competition at a beauty pageant.
   
3. Write and publish a book.
   

Yes, you’re absolutely right. Endeavor #3 is the most promising one for Jean given the current state of her self-esteem. Not only does she enjoy writing, she has succeeded at it in the past and has plenty of confidence that she can do so again.

CATCH 22

So, let’s take it as a given that positive self-esteem about weight loss is important for success with our bariatric surgery. We know objectively (through the weight on the scale in our bathroom or doctor’s office) that we’ve never enjoyed long-term success with weight loss, and we presumably feel miserable about that. It’s affecting our health, our relationships, and our careers in ways that make us unhappy enough to seek bariatric surgery. Our self-esteem in this area is negative, yet we need positive self-esteem in order to succeed.

Sounds like a classic “Catch 22”, doesn’t it? But wait, it gets worse! For many people, negative self-esteem erodes not just one area (like weight management) but many areas in our lives. For some of us, negative self-esteem so pervasive that it taints every cell of our being: “I’m a bad person, and I feel bad about that.” That doesn’t mean that we’re hopeless neurotics or that our negative self-esteem is a permanent and unvarying feature in our lives. A few years ago, I had a very nasty telephone argument with someone whose company provides an important service to me. In fact, we were both nasty, and two days later I regretted that I had acted so obnoxiously. For an entire day, the balance in my self-esteem account was in the red. I’d have been struck dumb if you’d asked me to name even one good thing about me. The next day, I bought that guy a coffee and apologized to him face-to-face. Life went on and my self-esteem account balance crept back up above zero.

I took 2 weeks off and was bored and restless by day 3. I worked from home then (nothing physically strenuous) but if I'd been working outside my home, I probably would've longed to go home and rest after a few hours of work. And, I wasn't allowed to drive for 2 weeks - both to protect those new incisions and because I was taking a painkiller.

Some very simple, basic things were a challenge for the first month or so post-op. Like getting up out of a chair, reaching to get something out of a kitchen cupboard, lifting my little pug.

The other thing was that sleeping when I had all those new incisions was a challenge. I used pillows to support and/or take the weight off anything tender or sore, but I can't say I got a good night's rest until a month or so post-op.

Skin loses elasticity as we age. No way around that. I'm in a tough demographic group - I've lost 100+ lbs in the past 8 years, and now I'm 62 years old. So I have some loose skin, as every older person does. But plastic surgery is far beyond my means, and in fact, I'm in fantastic shape for someone my age and size, and I want to praise God and the Universe and fate and every other thing, little or big, for that, because it is such a huge gift. And I have to praise me, too, because I'm the one who got me into this lifelong challenge, and I'm the one who's taken on the lifelong challenge of maintenance.

One of the saddest things I've read during my WLS journey was a post from a young woman who said that if weight loss left her with loose skin, she wouldn't have it at all. Maybe I'm too old to understand that...or maybe I do. It sounds like an excuse to me, something that person is clinging too because she fears that WLS won't be a quick fix for her body (and other) problems.

And it won't, I guarantee. Weight loss is never, ever going to solve all your problems and make life wonderful and taste better than a million of Jenny Craig meals (no disrespect to JC).

But will WLS and weight loss and the hundreds of changes connected to that make a wonderful change in your life?ABSOLUTELY! But...only if you take charge of it. And you can do it. Because if I can do it, you can. In fact, I double-dog dare you to it.

And...in the double dog department, I'm pretty sure I have you beat!

Friend? I think not.

CG,

You continue to amaze me with the lessons you've learned, even before your surgery. I am so, so proud to see how you've worked through your WLS journey and lots of personal issues that would make a saint cry for mercy. Please, please believe me when I say,

You are a rock star!

J

One of the things that (usually) keeps me sane in the kitchen is the Clean Up As You Go Rule. When I was single, it was easy to enforce. Then I married, and my kitchen sanity took a beating.

I love to cook, and that’s been a big help at every stage of my weight loss journey. Finding WLS-friendly food at restaurants or in vending machines has rarely been an issue for me, because I’d rather cook and eat at home. Eating my way around the world during business travels was fun at the time, but the weight I gained through the years was not in the least fun. I realize not everyone shares my love of cooking (in fact, some of you hate it), so when I wrote Bandwagon Cookery, I took pains to make the book entertaining. This is an excerpt from the book. If reading it doesn’t change your thinking about cooking, I hope that at least it amuses you.

One of my mom's cardinal kitchen rules was: clean up as you go.

It's possible to take this to ridiculous extremes. My Aunt Jeanne (for whom I was named) was not a great cook but she was a dedicated dishwasher. If you were cooking anything in Jeanne's kitchen and let go of it for a minute (let's say you were stirring the sauce and put the spoon down while you spent 30 seconds searching for the dried basil), she would wash it. You'd reach out your hand for that spoon and it'd be gone...over to the dish drainer.

And then there's my husband, Mr. P., who is (in more ways than one) cut from the same piece of cloth as Jeanne. In the small kitchen of our first home, the food prep area was to the left of the sink. We stacked anything that needed to be washed to the right side of the sink. After years of cleaning up after myself, I certainly appreciated it when Mr. P., would automatically, without being begged, coaxed, or bribed, wash anything that was sitting on the right side of the sink.

But one Sunday I spent something like 49 hours (yes, I do know there are only 24 hours in one day, but it felt like 49 hours) making my own beef stock. I roasted a cow's worth of beef bones, then I boiled them in huge vats (lobster pots, actually) of Water with onions, carrots, celery, and herbs. Then I drained the stock, put it back in the vats, and added crushed eggshells to help "clarify" the broth. (By now you're thinking, "You are a very sick lady, Jean", and I agree, and you haven't even heard yet all the gory details about the time I boned and stuffed a game hen into a chicken into a turkey before adding gourmet stuffing and roasting the whole thing one Thanksgiving).

Then I poured the broth into large bowls and left them to cool for about 10 minutes while I washed my hands, visited the bathroom, and had a hit of wine.

Refreshed, I returned to the kitchen ready to pour this fabulous stock into freezer containers and… it was gone! Mr. P. had discarded every last drop, carefully washed all the bowls, and was sitting virtuously at the kitchen table reading the Sunday newspaper. The kitchen counters were clean and tidy...and the stock and everything I'd used to make it had disappeared.

"Where is the stock?" I screamed.

Mr. P. looked up from the financial pages and said, "What stock?" (OK, I just added the financial pages for fun. He would only read the financial pages if there were ads in there for guns and knives - hey, not a bad idea!).

"The stock I left on the counter!"

"You mean that brown stuff in the bowls?"

"Yes, the brown stuff in the bowls! Where is it?"

"I threw it out and washed the bowls. Why?"

For a moment I was speechless (hard to imagine, I know). I looked at the gleaming, empty kitchen counters and thought of all the work I had put into that stock. What was more important, a loving husband or 20 quarts of beef stock?

And always having sensible priorities, I said, "What the f***ing f***?! That was the f***ing beef stock I've been working on all day, and you threw it out? Why would you do that?!"

He carefully set the newspaper on the table and said (slowly, and with equal care, as any sensible man must do when dealing with a loved one's psychotic break), "It was on the right side of the sink. That's where we put everything that needs to be cleaned, right? On the right hand side of the sink?"

Silence again. How could he think that those bowls brimming with fragrant, glorious, homemade beef stock were something that needed to be discarded? Was he totally witless? Or was I? Because he was right: I had put them in the Goodbye Zone. I shook my head at him ("You got me!"), wearily refilled my wine glass and retired to the living-room with two dogs who were probably thinking, "That beef stock sure would've tasted good poured over my kibble."

Kathleen,

When someone says that weight loss surgery is "taking the easy way out," I have to shake my head. They have no idea what it's like to walk this path.

In a sense, losing weight after WLS is indeed easier, and more successful,l for me. That's one of the reasons I had surgery in the first place!

I have a morbidly obese acquaintance who tells me that although she's glad WLS has been successful for me, she could never do it, because she feels like she ought to be able to lose the weight on her own. So on top of being miserable because of all the ways obesity compromises her health and wellbeing, she's also miserable because she feels like a failure.

Jean

Thank you.

I feel the tug of temptation but now that is what it is--a tug not a pull of a chain hooked to a semi-truck rig.

It takes effort to keep doing the things I need to do but I can never go back.

It takes effort to go to the gym when my mind is screaming "Take the day off!"

To anyone that thinks the surgery makes it easy--they are so incredibly mistaken.

Blessings,

Kathleen

Eight years ago, I weighed twice what I weigh today. Thanks to bariatric surgery, I’ve lost 116 pounds. Sometimes I look in the mirror and still see Fat Jean. And sometimes I look in the mirror and see Slim Jean, and I think “What the heck happened?”

What happened is that, as an acquaintance once said, I’ve lost an entire person. And what also happened is that I’ve gained an entire person. One who likes to dress in nice clothes that show off her nice parts. One who longer wishes she were invisible, is willing to chat with complete strangers, and can drive past McDonald’s and not feel French fries pulling her into the drive-through line.

And this is a person who’s willing to try new things, even as my hair grows silver and my mind and body grow slower and my energy diminishes…but so far, it hasn’t diminished to my pre-op activity level: sitting for hour after hour in a big, soft armchair with a mystery novel and 2 small dogs on her lap and a bag of potato chips within easy reach. Please God, don’t ever let me return to that!

But it’s not God’s job to prevent that. It’s my job. Forever and ever, amen. Because this journey never ends. And that’s OK. Because the day I take this weight loss and my new, energized, interesting life for granted is the day my Bandwagon veers off the road and into a deep, deep ditch. I’m determined to stay on the WLS path. I marvel almost every day not just at my size 4 wardrobe but at my mostly wonderful quality of life.

So please don’t be discouraged if, despite WLS, you find yourself plodding down the road hand in hand with your old food devils or trapped on a weight loss plateau. Sometimes we need to revisit old places, if only to help us remember how far we’ve come and motivate us to climb the next hill.

I remember when my girls were growing up and Jordache jeans were so popular. Some comedian thought it was funny to make fun of 'fat girls' and said there were plus size jeans called Lard Ass. I am 4'11" and feel like the BIGGEST giant whenever I go out of the house. It's a crappy feeling, to say the least. I plan to have sleeve surgery this summer and I pray my mindset changes along with my weight and body size. Great post. Thanks.

"...that didn't look like couch upholstery or tablecloths" made me laugh. My mom (who also struggled with obesity) used to say her clothes were made by Omar the Tentmaker.

I hope that no WLS newcomers were hurt by the "Lane Giant" reference. If a WLS outsider had said something like that, I'd have been hurt, but I'm not an outsider, and I have the emotional and surgical scars to prove it.

Cringed because I used the term "Lane Giant"? I'm sorry if that offended you. I can only speak from my personal experience. I DID feel like a giant when I was morbidly obese. I often felt like the elephant in the living room, this huge creature that everybody knew was there but no one dared mention. When I went to the mall and ducked into Lane Bryant, I felt ashamed. Perhaps poking fun at Lane Bryant is one way that Fat Jean tries to balance out that old humiliation.

Eight years out, and I’m still lugging around excess baggage….

I work part time in a department store. In an effort to protect the innocent (and my job), I’ll call that store XYZ instead of its real name. In some ways, that job demands more of me than any of the high-powered, fancy-schmancy jobs I’ve had in the past 30 years. Diplomacy is a major challenge in a setting that involves helping women find clothing that both fits and flatters. You’d think that I, formerly a devotee of Lane Giant, would be expert in that area, but you’d be wrong. It’s still a learn-as-you-go process, with as many permutations as there are unique female humans on this planet.

One day, I was happily straightening the XYZ lingerie department, restoring it to neatness in the way only I can (and only I care about), when an obese, middle-aged female customer stomped up to me and demanded, “Show me your fat girl bras.”

Fat girl? I thought. FAT girl?

Those two little words pressed my own fat girl button, and a storm cloud of unhappy memories instantly appeared in my overcrowded brain. Memories of being a fat girl, out in places where my humiliation played out on an all too public stage. Children pointing at me and giggling. Elevator occupants looking at me in dismay as I tried to squeeze myself into the crowded space. Walking sideways down the aisle of a jumbo jet airplane while my body brushed against the shoulders of other passengers.

My inner fatty didn’t care that this customer was describing herself, not me, as a fat girl. She didn’t care that I used to be 100+ pounds heavier. She couldn’t seem to remember my success at losing those excess pounds. All she could focus on was the term “fat girl” and how hurtful it was, years and years past my days as a fat girl.

So I’ll blame Fat Jean for what I said to that customer. I said huffily, “We don’t use the term fat girl in this store.”

Her look of astonishment clued me to the fact that I might have sounded a bit condescending. Or even…very condescending. For a moment I wondered if I’d somehow gone over to the other side – to the land of skinny people who have no clue what obesity is like, and don’t even care to understand. Then I recovered enough to say, “If you tell me what size and features….”

I didn’t get to finish the sentence. The customer said angrily, “You don’t have any fat girl bras, do you? I don’t know what’s happened to XYZ. I used to be able to get good bras here. Not any more. Now you’ve lost a customer.” And she stomped off towards the exit.

I told myself that she had an attitude problem and I’d done my best to help her, but inside I knew that wasn’t true. Part of the reason I hadn’t helped her was that my own emotional baggage had gotten in the way, and XYZ had lost a customer because I’d let my hurt and defensive fat girl take over the conversation.

I had frustrated and angered someone for whom I actually did feel compassion…someone dealing with a weight problem that probably wasn’t a whole lot different from my own. Despite my size 4 clothing, I really did understand her frustration in searching for clothing for an obese body. I wished I could run after her and say, “I wasn’t always skinny!” but that was my baggage to carry, not hers.

That unhappy encounter reminded me of how far I’ve come, and how far I have to go. Even now, over seven years after reaching my goal weight, I’m carrying baggage that’s stuffed to overflowing with the lessons I still must learn in order to spend the rest of my life as a skinny person. It reminded me that losing excess weight is only part of the work now. Learning to live without it is another.

When things go wrong (especially medical things), the bad stuff can take over everything else. After all, having weight loss surgery isn’t something you do every day, so you have virtually no experience dealing with its challenges. You’re in a strange new world. How can you find your way across a post-op territory filled with medical landmines?

I know this is easier said than done, but try not to panic over bumps in the road. What looks or feels catastrophic today is probably not as bad as it seems. That’s what my mom used to say when I was growing up and despondent about something (which was often, especially during adolescence). I was strangely comforted by her words because I knew (and she frequently reminded me) that Mom had seen some pretty bad stuff in her life.

It's easy to "awfulize" things when you have a pain, symptom or experience you didn't expect and can't explain. You're sure that's something's wrong. You haven't lost weight in three days, or you found hair clogging your shower drain, or you puked up your dinner. Don't let fear cloud your thinking. You will wear yourself to a frazzle if every event becomes a crisis.

This applies to many aspects of your life. It's extremely difficult to make a good decision when you're in a panic. Your vomiting might be related to WLS, but it could also be the result of a garden-variety intestinal bug. Your teenaged daughter's failure to return your phone call could be because she was in a terrible car accident, or it could be because her cell-phone battery died.

So ask yourself:

Is this an emergency? Is it life-threatening, disabling, or just inconvenient? What will happen if I don't do something about it right now?

Can I deal with this myself, or do I need help? What kind of help (medical, emotional, spiritual, financial)?

Who can help me (my surgeon, therapist, best friend, minister)? Be careful how you choose your helper(s). I know you love your sister, who might tell you that everyone in her family has been sick with a bug since you saw them (and their germs) on Sunday, but she probably can’t accurately tell you whether your symptoms are related to your WLS.

Is whatever you fear might be wrong really, truly the very worst thing you could hear? I’ve survived some scary and disappointing stuff during my WLS journey. I’ll probably never forget hearing my surgeon say, “Jean, your band has to go,” and “Jean, I removed your band but I wasn’t able to do your sleeve revision today because of a stricture in your esophagus.”

I’ve also gotten bad news about friends who are fellow WLS patients. I mean really, really bad news, when death was reaching out its evil hands to take my friend away forever.

In my own life, nothing can top losing a parent. “Jean, your mother died today,” is (so far) the worst bad news I’ve ever heard. A cancer diagnosis, the death of my husband, or the loss of my home to a tornado (entirely possible where I live) would also be mighty devastating. But if I dwelled on those possibilities, I’d spend the rest of my life in anxious misery, and I’m pretty sure that’s not what God has in mind for me.

I'm not saying that your struggles aren't important. They are. But it will be easier for you to handle them if you do it with a clear mind and a calm heart. So take a deep breath. And when in doubt, call your surgeon.

The road to weight loss can be a slippery one. We’re on this journey, with bariatric surgery packed in our bags, because so many times before we lost our way and found ourselves back at the beginning, maybe with an extra 10 or 100 pounds inour bags. So how can we drive on these icy roads and arrive at our destinations safe and sound and thin?

Brrrrr. It’s winter, and a bad one in some parts of the country. I’m somewhat safe because much of the time, I can work from home, but that can be risky business too. Just think about it: my office door is only six feet away from my typically over-stocked middle-class American kitchen. There’s no caramel gelato in the freezer, no Cookies in the cupboard, but despite that, my brain keeps wandering back to the kitchen, over and over again. No doubt about it, winter driving is tricky business for WLS patients, indoors and out.

This doesn’t mean that your most precious vehicle (your body) is destined to slide off the road despite the nifty tool of bariatric surgery. These are just some musings from a formerly fat girl with a lot of miles on her. I’ve writtena lot on that subject – a lot? Heck, I wrote a whole book about it, but I’ll start by introducing myself. Here goes:

Hi, I'm Jean, and I'm a control freak. I have a really hard time trusting thatfate, or God, or anybody else, is in control of my life, my weight, my health,big things, small details, anything. The story I’m about to tell you is absolutely true.

Years ago I was a passenger in a car driven by my boyfriend. I was in the passenger’s seat; his 9-year-old daughter and her dog were in the back seat. It was a very cold, dark, snowy night on a curving mountain road in New England (not much different than conditions up there was I write this).

Suddenly the road before us was a sheet of ice and in panic, I said, "Slow down, Jack, that's glare ice ahead." He didn't slow down, didn't even respond, soI cried, "Jack! Are you nuts? We’ve got Kristin and Taffy in the car!"

He said, "If I brake now, we'll spin out. We're just going to roll over it."

So we rolled right over the ice, and we all survived. The car was silent for amoment or two, and then we heard Kristin behind us, saying, “Can we stop at Friendly’s for ice cream?”

What does this story have to do with bariatric surgery? Sooner or later on your weight loss surgery journey, you will hit a stretch of bad road. It will be dark out, and you’ve never driven this road before, and it’s raining cookies or sleeting potato chips and the visibility is terrible.

You'll be lost, without street signs or landmarks or a map to guide you, facing unexpected events or conditions. You'll hit a weight loss plateau or experience a weird symptom or your beloved surgeon will leave his/her practice and move to Tibet to study Buddhism. If you're like me, a person who always has to be solving a problem, you'll ask yourself, "What am I doing wrong? What can I do to fix this? What should I do now? Right now."

The answer to those questions may very well be, "Nothing." Sometimes the best course of action is no action. Sometimes you just have to stay the course.

So the next time you face a rough spot in your journey, try not to panic. Don't hit the brakes, or speed up, or turn suddenly. Just roll over it. You’re notin charge of the world and someone in heaven’s got your back. The ice and snowwill melt, you’ll be able to read your map again, and you’ll crawl out of thatditch you’d slid into. You’ll firmly tell Kristin that no, we’re not stopping for ice cream, and you’ll hit the WLS road again, one foot at a time, over andover, while your destination grows ever nearer.