I mentioned my weight loss to a friend the other day and he said in jest, “yeah but you cheated”. I know he was kinda joking and he struggles with weight too. But why is it considered cheating? How is what we did different than what everyone else does? I mean everybody needs to do something right? Some people get lipo, others use drugs, a personal trainer is just the ticket for others. Some lucky people are able to do it by themselves with strict control of their diet. It seems to me almost everybody needs some sort of tool or trick, ours is the band, I just don’t see how it is cheating.

It's bad that so many people feel like we are cheating. There is a TV show on about a living facility for the morbidly obese. Some of these people weigh 800 lbs or more. They have tons of other health issues besides their obesity. The name of is Brookhaven Obesity Clinic. Maybe some of you have seen the show. Anyway, they discourage their patients from having any kind of WLS, telling them it is the easy way out. Well, I don't agree with them at all. Some of the people do really well there, but there are tons of others who end up dead due to their co-morbidities. When a bariatric living facility thinks it's taking the easy way out, how are people in the general public supposed to react? Lots of people need lots of education about WLS.

Joan

I think it's because most people don't understand what all is involved with the lap band. It's easy to say " you took the easy way out, or I lost weight the hard way, working out with a trainer or whatever" The thing to remember is that we are not only making the decision to do the work necessary to get the weight off but to "buy" the tool that will work to keep it off and make a lifelong commitment to being healthy.

Ifyourstomach...

I just read a bit of your blog and I think it is well written and makes a lot of sense. Thank you for posting the link. I also think the purple ribbon thing is a good idea. I'm going to explore that idea a while.

I've beaten myself up over the years with guilt because I was "bad" and ate too much or bad stuff and it always is a down ward spiral. Over the last few years, I've been working on the guilt thing and deciding guilt doesn't help anything, it only detracts. So if surgery is cheating, I'm sure not going to feel guilty about it.

I'm also one of those fatties that thought people were crazy to go through WLS because of the profound affects it could have on the negative side. You know the stories of malabsorption and needing vitamin shots weekly, torn staples and all the other bad things that can happen. Up until recently I didn't believe I would do this either, but I was crazy not to consider it.

Cheating? There is no cheating with this, it's just a different type of tool, like the gym or Nutrisystem, or Medifast, or Weight Watchers, etc. You just have to work the program.

For ANYONE to lose weight successfully, you have to have a whole aresenal of tools to help you. Health club memberships, weights, jogging shoes, fat -free this, sugar free that, trainers, fitness instructors, classes, exercise videos, diet pills, meditation, spiritual guidance, appetite suppressants, weight watchers meetings, support groups, steps, bunge cords, calorie counters, scales, ........ God I could go on and on. They are all tools to help you. Why can people not see that a lap band is a tool like ALL the other things used to "cheat"? It's just a little more serious and expensive of a tool. In my mind, the person that makes this choice is DAMN serious about it!! More power to ya!