I had some what of a flash of insight tonight. It was sparked by a thread called Magic Pill.... http://lapbandtalk.com/showthread.php?t=14566

It occurs to me that in fact, the band is taking the easy way to weight loss.

I mean, I can't even begin to count the number of people who've lost 50, 75, 100, 150, even 200 pounds with the band. For the first time ever for so many people, they have success. Not only have they lost the weight, but they have kept it off. They have success. For many, it is the first time they have kept the weight off.

So, what's so wrong about taking the easy way? Why does it make it better if it's a struggle than if it is easy to lose weight. Is the weight loss less valuable, less worthy of celibration than if every ounce is a struggle like mine?

Why do we get so defensive about this? Why must we holler and shout whenever someone says WLS is taking the easy way? Is it because it is less noble than folks who do this withought the extra tools and support that WLS provide?

How many people do we have that have lost weight with the band, but never could seem to lose without it? I know tha6t we have many people that have lost and gained weight over and over without the tool.

Has it been harder for people to lose weight with the band, than without? It is my understanding that it is easier for most folks to lose with than without. Our friends who've had the RNY or some other GB lose even faster than we do. Doesn't that make it at some level easier?

Do we feel on some level that it isn't "honest" weightloss, or do we perceive that the the general attitude of the public? I mean, after all, we all see the magazines in the check-out isle that So-and-So lost 100 pounds WITHOUT drugs or WLS.

I would like to explore these with you. Why do we get so defensive about our WLS? Why do we get so defensive about not taking "the easy way" out?

Of course, what the hell do I know. I can't even manage to lose a full 30 pounds.

I dont get defensive about it personally. I mean, it is way easier than trying to diet without the band. You can have a breather, you can plateau, you can get through Christmas and even if you do gain, it's only going to be a little. And when you lose the weight, it stays lost. Previously without the band hunger did my head in. Now I dont have to "diet" because I dont really get hungry.

What's not easier about that?

BUT - that doesnt make me somehow morally weaker or less tenacious than the next person. If someone wants to think that's cheating, then that's their problem.

I have a co-worker who started Atkins with me going on 4 years ago. She only needed to lose about 60lbs. We both lost, we both stopped losing at the same time. She's doing the gym sometimes 2 times per day and not losing. She knows how I've struggled and last year I said I would give myself 1 more year and if nothing happens, I'm going a different route. I'm glad she is there to support me, she agreed, after watching me give up the doughnuts, Cookies etc. that are constantly displayed on the counter behind my desk, that I am right in having the band.

I'm sure there will be others who have nothing good to say to that and will say it's an easy way out. Screw them......but what I do see going on in my office is a bunch that is always on weight watchers maybe for a few months, going to the gym, then they stop, and they gain back what they lost plus more. I'm not going to be in that cycle anymore! I actually saw someone in the store the other day and had to look twice at her because she had lost a lot of weight, was very thin, she's gained almost all of it back.

At one of Dr. Spiegel's recent "crazy mass fill appointments," his nurse came in to talk to us. She had recently been banded and had lost 30 lbs. She wanted to lose 60 lbs. total. A really obnoxious woman in the back yelled, "Sixty pounds? Oh my god, if I was only 60 pounds overweight, I would be so happy! I wouldn't have surgery for 60 lbs!"

I used to think the same way... but if I was 60 pounds overweight and knew that I could get up to 150 overweight... maybe I would consider it too. This 60 pound over weight lady probably doesn't want to see herself getting as bad off as some of us.

I never thought about WLS being the easy way out, but vines has a great point about so many of us doing great with the band that have failed every other diet.

For the very first time in my whole life, I see a "normal" girl in my future, not a morbidly obese person who will always be that way.

I HAVE NEVER had this much hope with any diet I have ever been on. I have never thought that I would be normal until now! I really do believe that I will get to my goal of 190 and my secret goal of 175~

The band has been and EASY way for me to lose 43 pounds in 3 months and I have NO FEAR that it will come back!!!

Thank you for this post VINES!!!

I am so glad you brought this up. Not because I have anything ingenious to say, but because I realize I really need to explore these issues. Just this weekend I was speaking to a friend who had RNY and was feeling as if I had to let her know “I knew it wouldn’t be easy.” Well, as it is, I have not lost any weight at all, so that was true. Still, I realized that I was trying to convince her of something she knew just as much about (or more) as I did. Part of this was because I thought she was judging me (I only had 80 lbs to lose and the WLS hierarchy head game I, too, play with myself was creating a chip on my shoulder.) This story, including other conversations about where the chip came from, goes much deeper, and I do not want to bore you with the details, but I do really need to think about this. This will be good for me and help me to be honest with myself on a number of issues. You always have the best questions, Vines! :puke:

Nothing is ever easy. For anyone who thinks any form of WLS is the easy way out they can kiss my arse. All the paperwork and insurance hoops, the pre surgical testing, pre surgery liquid diet, UGH!, IV's, foreign objects inserted in and taken out (laproscopic tools), the gas, the bloating, the pain, those awful protein shakes, PBing, constipation, plus the struggle to still lose the weight. Need I say more? WLS is not the easy way out, it is a tool. JMO.

i don't think of WLS as an easy way out. my aunt really needed it to get her weight and health back (ever?) in control.

and, for those of you who don't know my background--i don't have or need a band. but if a band had been available 16 years ago when i was 19, and i'd had the money, i would have gotten it.

but since i didn't have a WLS option, and since i didn't want to be overweight, I had to do something about it. i had to exercise (the least of my "had to's"), i had to educate myself about food, and i had to find a way to eat that worked. trial and error on that last one.

but most of all, i had to keep trying. i've gone up and down since my intial weight loss of about 65 pounds. i gained about 35% to 50% of it back 4 times. but i kept on it. discouraging at times, but a helluva lot better than the alternative.

i'm sure most people who say WLS is the easy way out (if they are healthy themselves) feel that way because they know that being healthy requires consistent, life-long attention, education, and effort. doesn't have to be strident, 100%-all-the-time effort, but effort all the same.

and so if a WLS patient continues to eat a high percentage of unhealthy food and does not exercise, then yeah, it does look like he/she took the easy way out.

The band IS a blessing and a great help. But I think that we need to be giving a lot of credit to ourselves in this too. We could choose to eat around the band, many know how and are struggling to fight the temptations. No, the band alone won't do it for us. It takes a lot of ourselves to get it done. But I will agree that the band is a safety net. When we fall, we don't seem to fall as hard. And getting back up seems easier.

I'm still too close to surgery to say it's easy. But I am grateful for that safety net.

And about the people who get the band with only 60 or 80 pounds to lose. I used to think that was rediculous.. until I realized just how much my life would have changed had I been able to have this band when I was 23 and hit 200 the first time.

You're so right PhotoNut. This week, I've eaten really badly and it's reminded me that it was ME doing the work the last 8 weeks and it will continue to be ME doing the work for the next 8 months. The main difference to me is I can get back up on the wagon after a little spill.

As someone nominally doing the diet 'the hard way', I don't think any WLS surgery is the 'easy' way out.

Most people who go for WLS have done the 'hard way' to the max and it just doesn't work for them. Maybe its weakness, temptation, a society that is not accomodating to a healthy lifestyle. Regardless of that, of all the WLS surgeries out there, the band is the easiest one to cheat.

Watching my wife be monumentally careful in all her food choices, and the mthod of eating, convinces me that the band is a powerful motivator to 'do the diet the hard way'. Don't wanna PB? Feel pain? Walk around gasping and stretching to move that lodged bit of food? If the answer is "hell no I don't wanna do those things!" you have to diet 'the hard way'.

In summary, I think the band is a simple tool to help you do it on your own. It provides negative reinforcement if you don't do it right.

The band IS accountability. If that means easy... sure its easy.

If it was truly easy, you wouldn't see threads with the word "PLATEAU" or "Slow losers - UNITE!" in the subject line.

I have thought about this "easy way out" thing quite a bit & I have to say I don't get it! Even if WLS is the "easy way out" (& I don't think it is), so what!?! Why is it considered better or more deserving of recognition or praise to do something the hard way or a way that takes or can take so much longer? If I were building a house would anyone think that house would be better built if I used hand tools instead of power tools just because power tools were easier? I don't think so.

I think it comes back to people thinking that overweight people need to be punished for letting themselves get that way and so they should have to suffer to loose the weight. Never mind we suffer every day with physical, emotional and practical issues. If WLS is the easy way out- yeah for me! And if they can make it any easier than that, I hope they do; the easier the better if it means we can be healthy and live a longer, happier, more productive life.

Someone that I told about the band said to me "Isn't that kind of like cheating?" My response was "So what if it is? If I lose weight, I don't care if I 'cheated' to do it".

I too used to be bothered by folks that got banded "only" having to lose 50 lbs or whatever (pretty much anything under 100). I have 80 to 90 lbs left to go, and if I could have been banded what it was 80 or 90 lbs to begin with, rather than adding another 55, I would have. If someone had said to me "You are 50 lbs overweight, if you get the band, you will never gain the other 80 lbs that you are destined to gain" I would have gotten it in a heartbeat, so after quite a bit of soul searching, seeing 'lightweights' makes me happy now, because their struggles will never reach the 'height' of other people's struggles. If that makes any sense.

In that same soul searching I decided also that 'easy way out' doesn't bother me so much any more. I 'easily' don't gain weight. Losing isn't quite so easy for me, but if I don't gain, even if I have to do "all the hard work" by myself, I'm still a step ahead of the game and I don't care if someone thinks it's 'easy'. A) I know the truth and who cares if I took an easier way out?! "WAY OUT" are the operative words here to me, and that's all I need.

If we truly believe that obesity is a disease (which I do) then how is WLS an "easy way out"?

Are c-sections an "easy way out"? Are open-heart surgeries? Are wearing eye-glasses? Are vaccinations? Are gall-bladder removals? Are hearing aides? Are chemo/radiation therapies? I could go on and on. Are all of these things "taking the easy way out" in order to lead a healthy productive life?

Why doesn't the woman who has a weird shaped uterus (like me) just do things the natural way and push her breech baby out? So what if it kills her and her baby. C-sections are the "easy way out."

Why doesn't the man who has a clogged artery just let nature take its course--and die. Why have open-heart surgery? After all, it's the "easy way out."

Now, Now--don't wear those eye-glasses--though they make you see better, you're taking the "easy way out."

And please don't give your children vaccines. I'm sure they were supposed to get polio (?sp). If they get the vaccine to prevent a life-threatening illness, it must be the "easy way out."

And have your gall-bladder removed? Heavens, no. Remain in pain, please. Having it removed would just be the "easy way out."

Hearing aides? Don't regain your hearing--you'd just be taking the "easy way out."

And finally, why go through cancer treatments and fight for your life. That would just be taking the "easy way out."

Sorry to ramble--but since I've embraced the fact that my obesity problem is not 100% my fault--true it is some my fault--but not 100%, I've accepted that I need medical help--WLS--to combat the demon of obesity.

I'm so thankful for modern medical advancements. Aren't you?

Considering Obesity is now ranked next to cigarettes as the leading cause of premature death in the US, I think cheating sounds DAMN fine to me.

I'd rather be a live cheat who took 'the easy way out' than a corpse!

Amen, brother!

danaclark,

a lot of the things you mention have zero to do with a person taking responsibility for his/her actions. people don't wear glasses because they sat too close to the tv or have c-sections because they didn't take care of their uteruses.

again, the "easy way out" argument pops up because, presumably, people aren't taking responsibility for their actions. they aren't making healthy food choices at least 70% of the time. they aren't exercising.

it is easier to stop eating when your stomach won't hold any more food! it is easier than telling yourself, "you've had enough" and all that jazz.

i'm all for people having it easier! my 22 year-old cousin is planning to get one soon. and i want her to become a healthier person with all of my heart. i'm doing all i can to help her.

but i tell you what, i would be very disappointed if she did not change her habits in conjuction with getting a band. i'm not in favor of her getting a band and continuing to eat lots of soft crap or just eating smaller portions of unhealthy meals. that is not taking responsibility for your health.