Hey everyone,

I am a yo-yo dieter of the worst kind. I have been dieting since I was 9, stuggling with my weight since age 6, and bulimic since I was 12. I am now 26. I have been 205 pounds, 145 pounds, and everything in between. I've tried every diet, every workout, every lifestyle change, therapy, hypnotism, everything.

After having one of the worst body-mental health-image wise years of my life and gaining 35 pounds 4 months after my wedding (which I crash dieted and was skinny for), I have made the decision to grasp this moment when I am not dieting and have a BMI of 30 to take the opportunity to have this surgery, which I believe, will save me from myself.

I beleive this surgery will cure me of bulimia, as this disease has always been a vicious cycle of feeling out of control, then shame, then guilt The VSG will take out the first variable (feeling out of control) and will force me to face my issues and eat like a normal person.

Has anyone else here actively struggled with bulimia in the days, weeks, months before getting sleeved? I would like to chat about the effects of the surgery on eating disorders, and if alternately, the ED had any effect on the actual surgery itself.

If this is successful for me in beating my bulimia (which i truly believe it will be, or else I would not be doing it), I hope I can shed light onto how this wonderful surgery can do more than save lives through weight loss, but that it can save the lives of those suffering from bulimia as well.

xoxo

WOW...

I see people every day on this site post that they are going CRAZY because they are not losing weight "fast enough" or are on a stall... What am I doing wrong? What can I do to start losing weight again? What can I do to lose faster? ...and generally feeling out of control of their bodies and life experience. The sleeve does help us to lose weight and if we follow the rules, and have faith in the process, and develop patients and a long view, it works. If you have a chronic go-to like purging or starving or overexercising or using sugars as a sedation drug... the temptation to practice them will still be intense! This is not to keep you away from researching the sleeve, but to really understand that it is not a quick fix! It is not brain surgery. Best of luck to you, and surgery may be great for you to lose weight... just make sure you have the other stuff in hand first.

Either you want it candy coated or straight up? I think when you said "No my surgeon does not require a mental evaluation, but I have been through enough therapists and counselors to BS my way out of anything"...I find that sort of disturbing. I am a firm believer in therapy if you have a "disorder". I am in therapy for my ED..what's the point of lying? So you can have surgery? Then you've lied to the psych and yourself and 1 surgery later you still have an eating disorder. Till you get your head in the right place and face the issues you have by getting into some good therapy and give them no "BS", you will still have the same issues. It's like trying to fix a broken leg by pulling your tooth.

There's a reason that almost all the surgeons require a psych eval before surgery. It's not just to make extra money. If you aren't upfront and honest with your surgeon then you are setting yourself up to fail. Many people regain their weight a few years after surgery because they don't deal with the underlying issues. Please don't go into this believing that the surgery will fix the problems in your head.

I do not have experience with bulimia, but I was under the impression that bulimia was a contradiction to weight loss surgery. Most of the guidelines for weight loss surgery limit it people over 40 BMI or over 35 with comorbidities. I guess the reason for this is that it is a very drastic step! I guess it is obvious - but this is a permanent removal of part of your stomach. It would really suck to do it and still struggle with the gain/loss cycle because of the underlying bulimia issues.

I am very sympathetic to how useless counselors are though - I really have lost faith in talk therapy. I get more out of talking to supportive friends. I did find EMDR to be a very useful treatment for post traumatic stress, but I am not sure if treatments like that are useful for eating disorders.

Hope you find support in resolving this. I am glad you shared this with us here, and I would encourage you to share this with your surgeon before you are operated on. Take care

This is a support board but there are a lot of veterans on here who we also rely on for good, sound advice (and not a bunch of candy-coated BS). For your health, I would STRONGLY recommend counseling for the underlying eating disorder before jumping right to surgery. At the very worst, if you don't follow the protocols of the post-surgical diet and binge shortly thereafter, you could have serious, serious implications to your health due to a leak or rupture of your staple line. At the very least, you'll quickly learn to binge around your sleeve and you will not help solve the underlying problem.

I'm sure I can speak for many in this community when I wish you the best of luck, but also hope that you take the time to evaluate what this will mean for you before making a rash decision.