Booandfrida

I am tomorrow. Checking in at 845. I am nervous too. Like I researched and feel prepared but honestly feel like I can't expect it until I go through with it.
But we got this. We are stronger than our food addiction. We deserve a new and better life.

Hello everyone, I'm new to the community. I will be having my last dietitian meeting on 3/23/17 and will be starting my pre op diet once I have my surgery date! I'm very excited and have done my research and have decided the sleeve is the best option for me. My mom and sister are supportive but my dad is completely against it. He says he is just worried and I shouldn't take the easy way out which we all know surgery is anything but easy. He flip flops on his support and is almost hateful when he is not supportive. Have any of you experienced this with your loved ones? My whole family is over weight and I am trying to break the cycle. I know this is the right thing for me and my mind is made up. I just wish he was accepting and supportive of my decision.. Does anyone have any tips on dealing with the negativity?

I went through something similar however it was my husband that was not supportive. He was hateful also when we would have discussions about it. He would say the same things, you r just taking the easy way out, just diet and exercise, your not even trying.... finally after my psych visit I decided I was having this surgery for me and my health and if he couldn't support me then I didn't need him because I had a lot of family and friends that did support me. Finally I told my husband I was having the surgery and eventually he was ok with it. He still doesn't agree with it totally but he understood that it was my decision and he just doesn't bring it up anymore. I wish you the best of luck on your journey and hopefully your dad will come around

"The easy way out"?! I laugh my butt off every time someone says that. I'll take the opportunity to explain to that person just how "easy" post-weight-loss-surgery maintenance is. By the time I'm done, that person feels overwhelmed and leaves me alone.
To the original poster, perhaps explaining to your father that remaining heavy is more dangerous to you than getting healthy may help. Good luck!

I am 5 months post op and halfway to goal.

I no longer need to use my bipap for sleep apnea.

I am no longer diabetic. My last A1C was on the border of prediabetic and normal, so soon. I won't be prediabetic either.

My knee pain is 90% gone (losing weight doesn't bring back cartilage unfortunately).

The tendonitis in my elbows that has been plaguing me for the past two years has resolved itself. I think the main reason it wasn't healing before was because I was always having to push myself out of a sitting position.

I haven't had an edema flare in my feet in months, even though I don't take meds anymore. I don't take prescription meds at all anymore.

Do I regret not being able to gorge on the foods I loved? Sure... But that's a passing thought. I also allow myself a few bites of foods I am craving. 2-3 bites of sushi rather than stuffing myself at an AYCE. One egg roll from my favorite restaurant in San Jose (when we drive down to see the surgeon) rather than the 6-12 I use to put away. I splurge on high quality ingredients, like fancy cheese or expensive cuts of steak. food is about quality not quantity now.

So I feel like it's perfectly natural to have a period of regret for many of us post surgery. Look, we had our stomachs removed. lol! It's not a small thing.

I didn't do the 6 months pre-surgical therapies and sessions and classes. No, I was dying instead and had this done along with the removal of my gallbladder in order to save my life. I'm not even kidding, I was in and out of the hospital from February through August of last year. Once they determined it was my gallbladder that was destroying my pancreas, which was destroying my kidneys, liver and life, they asked if I would also like to have the VGS. I was unsure but my doc said this to me: Do you want me to make it easy for you? Get the surgery, recover and live. Don't get the surgery and die within 18 months.

Well, can't argue with that.

So I didn't get all that time for my Come To Jesus moment and acceptance. Not all of us do, and even those of us who DO go through all that might STILL feel a sense of regret.

For me it was between week 5 and 6 I think. I'd been sick for almost a year at that point, I depressed and ready to be feeling whole again. I was emotional and realized that the ONE thing I'd always had as my last resort, food, was gone for me now. The last hold of control I had on my fears and regret snapped and I started crying. Actually, it was nurse that started it. I had a specialist appointment and they were checking my blood sugars. I had explained to her that it takes me hours to finish a Protein Shake and so my numbers would be off. She came back at me and held the meter in front of my face and asked me why the numbers were elevated. I tried to respond and all I could do was start crying.

I'd been sick for a year, I'd struggled with almost dying, keeping work up and running, keeping my house/family up and running, I'd been doing everything I could to meet all the post surgical protocols, I was still so sore from having so many organs removed at once. I was a mess and I couldn't handle it. So I snapped. I started crying and couldn't stop. For 7 days. When I met with the doctor that day I apologized to her and explained I was pretty sure I couldn't control it and she was quite kind.

It took me that week to mourn my old life. And not just that, mourn that I would never be a "normal" person. I'd always hoped one day I could be and with having my stomach removed I realized I never could be "normal", not ever, not now.

Well, flash forward 4 months...I'm the happiest I've been since maybe childhood. I don't regret a single moment of the surgery or my decisions, I don't even feel bad that I regretted it. I had to go through those emotions and many of us do I believe. I feel like my experiencing the regret helped me tremendously. It allowed me to be honest with myself about my fears, my hopes, my needs, my expectations - not about my weight but about my LIFE. Why did I regret it and how do I come to accept what's been done? I was able to explore those things. Sure, would have been easier to do ahead of time but I'm not sure it would have been truly authentic for me. I don't think I could have conceived of life, what it's REALLY like, without 80% of my stomach until I was on the other side.

So, yeah, you might have some regret, and that's ok. This is, by far, the best thing I've done for myself regardless of any sense of regret I experienced. I hope you don't hold back your own future in order to avoid a sense of regret. Because the regret I'd be living with right now is that I'd be dying and I'd regret not doing everything I could to live longer.

Right now I'm 3 weeks out, so keep that in mind. I'm mourning normal portion sizes and missing healthy vegetables. It's nothing I didn't know about, but right now it makes me a little sad. With time, I'm sure it gets better.

I'll echo what @orionburn said. The real question you have to ask yourself is "am I ready to change my relationship with food?". If the answer is yes, then I would go for it. I joined this site many months ago as I was progressing through my six month pre-op diet program. Every day, I read posts from people who have done nothing to change their relationship with food, and the posts make me sad because I know that these folks will likely never be successful long-term.
For me, I have no regrets. This was the best decision I have ever made regarding my health and well being.

You really have to evaluate your relationship to food. If you take the approach of finding ways to get around the sleeve to still follow old (i.e. bad) eating habits then you're defeating the purpose of the sleeve. I was a binge eater/poor Portion Control person. So that would be like me asking for a smaller crack pipe but still wanting to smoke a bunch of crack afterwards...lol. The bad habits have to go if you want to be successful.
Does it make me a little sad that I can't eat and eat and eat on next Thanksgiving Day? Or go to an AYCE Chinese buffet and eat 3 plates of food? Sure. But those habits is what led me to being so overweight to begin with. I still plan on enjoying some foods from time to time, others I'm choosing to cut out completely because they're a "gateway food" for me. The sleeve is a tool, but without the right mindset you won't maximize its effectiveness.
I may only be 7 weeks out now but I know I made the right decision for myself. My back/joint pain is so much better already than what it was before surgery. I'll take being pain free every day over being able to pig out a few times a year.