Im new here and grateful for this forum. Im not at all afraid of surgery, Ive had many, its failure that haunts me at night. Ive been on a diet since I was six years old and would not be here if that had been a success. I must have gained and lost a thousand pounds in my fifty two years and now here I am, hopefully still in the middle of my life, trying something totally drastic and new. My problem is not willpower or a love of food, Im not an over eater, I have an a--hole metabolism and am now disabled from a back injury after a series of bones just breaking like crazy, which caused a really bad fall. Im at the beginning of this process; I have my doctors approval, have been to my first surgeons appointment and now in two weeks have the nut and the pshyc eval. Then I guess I wait. I have Humana/Medicare so the requirements arent terrible, I think they would rather pay for this than another heart attack.

Failure at this though is terrifying to me; I cannot fail. I cannot let my daughter down who wants me with her when she gets married and has her children. My parents died very young, heart and cancer, I pray this gives me more time. Oh and God, I promise to work at it as hard as I can and use resources like this when I feel weak.....

I think fear of failure was one of biggest concerns as well. I've been overweight my entire life despite many diets, exercise and even weight loss pills. Now I'm 20 pounds from my goal weight and I have thoughts creep in like, "You made it this far but you'll never make it to 160." or "If you get to 160 you won't be able to maintain." It's negative thoughts like these that I constantly have to fight. It's from a life of never being good enough because no matter how hard I tried I was always overweight. I will tell you right now your success depends just as much on your mentality than your surgery.

You seem to have the right mentality that you know the surgery won't do all the work and that failure is a possibility. I think knowing that in the back of your mind will help you follow your surgeon's rules and keep you mindful of your food choices. You seem determined to do whatever it takes to succeed and that's what will help you become healthy :-)

Edited June 7, 201511 yr by krisrpaz

Thank you Kris for your very sound feedback and advice. Your success can be a reminder to me that fear does not rule me, but it is a healthy reminder that unless I am totaly commited to this failure could be emminent. Im going to treat this as a grand adventure!!!!! An adventure in new food choices, but mostly in smaller jean sizes and bathing suit shopping, I cant wait!!!!!

What you're feeling is totally and completely normal. I think every last one of us feared failure. After all, most of us have failed at either losing weight or keeping it off multiple times.

The reason WLS seems to work more often than not is that the surgery is a tool that is a much needed kick in the butt for a lot of us. Not only having to resort to pretty drastic measures to control our eating, but once you've got the healthy lifestyle down and start feeling and looking great, it's awesome motivation to just keep it up. But it still takes a lot if will power and work, both physical and emotional. If you're up to the task, you can take it as far as you want with the weight loss. Ultimately, it's still all up to you. But you're going to have this amazing tool to help you become successful!