Hello everyone, I have been on youtube, search engines, you name it, I have searched. I have found people said it took 8 months, 6 months, a year to lose weight with the vsg. Sounds like to me I can lose that without it. People said they had to exercise alot. I am just trying to figure out do I need this surgery, My actual date is Jan 26th. I will say I have been to plenty gyms, diet clinics, zone diet, atkins diet, soup diet, cabbage diet, rice diet. It worked for a very short period. If the VSG gives the discipline I need then yes. Any comments would be greatly appreciated.

I don't think the sleeve gives you discipline. Its a tool you use to help gain your own discipline. I find I still have to have will power to stay away from foods I KNOW I shouldn't eat, will power to limit the amount of carbs I take in, will power to limit snacking and when I do the discipline to make the right choices.

The sleeve is not a magic bullet. I find it does help me limit the amount of food I take in , and for that reason it works for me. I guess you must ask yourself.. why did all the other diets fail?

Thanks for your reply, I guess all the other diets failed cause of will power, I just don't want to do the surgery and fail. Holes in my stomach for nothing, I have two days left.

I see this as a tool, and like any other tool if we dont use it, it won't work. We have this awesome tool that will help us feel full faster so we won't overeat. That been said, this tool is only one piece of the puzzle, we also have to exercise and choose the right foods for this to succeed.

That's very true, I need to get my mind together. I have a excellent opportunity to finally change my life. Don't want to lose it. I am sick of my weight! I have 2 kids I want to be here for.

Diets are great for losing about 30-40 pounds. They are not something most people can maintain long term with great success. Furthermore, the regain rate is ridiculous - if counting calories worked for everyone long term we'd all join Weight Watchers and be skinny. It doesn't work for everyone and nobody would need a lifelong membership if it worked forever.

Now, on the one hand, I applaud the diligence and effort put forth by folks that do lose the weight "the old fashioned way." But I also know that I never in a million years would have shed 107 pounds if I hadn't had my VSG a year and a half ago.

The sleeve will make sticking to any diet you choose much easier. Most people don't feel hunger after surgery - I'm 18 months out and still not hungry! It will force you to stop eating if you try to eat too much. The days of finding comfort in food will be gone.

That said, the sleeve will not MAKE you choose to put the right foods in your mouth. In fact, the sleeve will probably put you in Bizarro World - eating, something you probably enjoy a lot right now, will become a hated chore! I bet you can't imagine that, can you? But for the first several months it will take effort and diligence on your part to meet your nutritional requirements, all while you have absolutely no desire to eat.

I can't speak for you but I can share my experience. I'm a dieting veteran - I'd been trying to shed the weight since age twelve. I don't lack willpower and gave every diet at least a four month shot before finally quitting. I know that I would not be at goal weight without my sleeve. There is no way I could have done this on my own. I might have shed forty or fifty pounds, but I never would have found myself sitting pretty at goal weight.

It didn't take me nine months to get to goal, it took me seventeen. I never in a million years could have worked any diet - not Weight Watchers, not Nutrisystem and not that awful MediFast, either - for the seventeen months it took to get to goal.

That said, not everyone loses 100% of the hunger and some people really struggle to battle their food demons post op. I am not the greatest role model here - I eat like a normal person. I only restricted my carbs a bit in the beginning, I hardly exercise and I eat twice as many calories as some of the people on here.

I say choose the sleeve if you want to lose the weight AND the diet mentality at the same time. Because again, while I'm not the best role model, I did it - slowly but surely. I'm a NORMAL person now, with no more food baggage or issues and a normal body weight.

Think on it a bit more before you decide. I researched for better than a year before having my surgery.

Best of luck to you whatever you choose. I believe that while the sleeve isn't a magical solution, it's damn near close in my book.

~Cheri

Octavia, It seems like everyone hits the stage you're at just before surgery. They think "Why don't I just do this myself?" and it's a valid questions. But, if you can NOW do this yourself, why couldn't you do it before? WLS surgery in general just gives us a tool to use to help us make it to our goals. The Sleeve in particular makes it possible for most of us to overcome the food issue and be able to work on the head issue.

Dr Oz has a quote: "Being 100 pounds overweight at age 50 is like having a major cancer. You'd operate to remove the cancer". No one tells someone who has been diagnosed with cancer to use their willpower to get rid of the cancer. Being obese, or morbidly obese, is a death sentence...and it's one that it's almost impossible to escape without WLS. We've all dieted and tried, sometimes even succeeded, at taking weight off. The problem is that we've all regained that weight, either slowly or quickly from complications of other illnesses. I, myself, lost 50 pounds on Atkins in 2010. It took me a year. Then I got pneumonia in May, 2011, and it took less than a month to put that 50 pounds back on because of antibiotics and steroids. I was told lose weight NOW or I wouldn't live another year. I'm almost 5 months post op and down 81 pounds...and I"m "almost" out of the danger zone according to my surgeon.

You should make your own choice about whether to have surgery or not, but I think you're having an attack of nerves like most of us do just before surgery. If you do decide to postpone or cancel, I hope you'll let us know when you come back and are actually ready to move forward. Meanwhile, we'll keep your seat on the loser's bench warm for you.

Good luck, whatever you decide!

I've briefly thought too, why can't I just lose the weight on my own. Especially since I did lose 101 lbs before on my own doing WW and exercising. But my exercise schedule was a LOT. I went to the gym 6 days a week for 1-1 1/2 hrs and ALSO ran 7 nights a week for 2-3 miles. I had to do that to maintain my weight of 165 and a size 10/12 so it's not like I was even a teeny size 2 or 4!

Now I have a child and no time to exercise THAT much. I also feel like I need a strong tool like the sleeve to help me. I need that restriction. And all my work at taking the weight off means nothing as it all came back + another 70 pounds. So I think it's good that we ask ourselves these questions before surgery. For me it helps solidify my decision.

Good luck tomorrow!