When I embarked on my wls journey, I truly expected to become an evangelist who would spread the word to my obese friends.

I recall people in my support group urging secrecy, but I argued on behalf of "sharing the good news".

I did tell a few close family members and all were supportive, but my 93 year old mother got problematic almost immediately. She was full of misinformation based on 50 year old hearsay. She also kept talking about it to people I'd never dream of sharing with.

Within a few weeks we decided to go dark and not tell anyone. I spoke to my mother (rather sternly) and told her to not tell anyone about it. My wife called the people my mother spoke too and asked them to honor my privacy.

That was 7 months ago and so far so good. The problem is that I lost a lot of weight pretty quickly (95 lbs in 7 months). We are very social with hundreds of friends, most of whom are overweight, and all want to know "how I did it".

I have honed a story that's close to the truth (minus the surgery part), but I'm sick of lying to so many of my friends.

If I had it to do over again, I would have been open from the start, but my wife disagrees. She's been 100% supportive and thus I respect her wishes, but I'm so sick of the lying!

Edited April 13, 201610 yr by Cape Crooner

Maybe it's just time for a, "Come to Jesus" bar-b-q. Invite everyone and then tell everyone. Be sincere about your reasons for telling "this or that", instead of "all of the facts''.

Do it once and have done with it.

On this day, MY opinion.

Good luck on whatever your choice may be.

Prayers going up for you.

There is no right or wrong answer to whether someone should mention they had WLS or not.

I told people the truth, in fact I had people tell me they respected my honesty and some people spoke to me about my WLS because they have an obese loved one who they have health concerns about.

Should everyone be this open? The answer is no. People need to do what they feel is right for them.

We should respect everyone's opinion on this and not criticize them for their personal choice to tell or not to tell differs from ours.

Edited April 22, 201610 yr by 4MRB4PHOTO