Obesity, Psychology and Weight Loss Surgery

by Marilyn Armstrong co. 2003 (write to author for re-print permissions)

Okay. Time to shove my (unasked) oar in these waters.

I am a gastric bypass patient (3/4/02) who has had multiple complications. In fact, I still have multiple complications. AND I have lost much more weight than I intended and am now downright skinny, although others seem more disturbed by it than I am. And no, I do NOT regret the surgery. Sure the complications have made my life difficult. Sometimes, my life has been beyond difficult ... downright impossible. But thin is STILL better.

I am not complaining.

I also greatly question Weight Watchers' stats. Do they count the dropouts who do not lose weight, cannot keep on track, and are too embarrassed to continue to come to meetings? Or do they only count those who stay in the program? This is a pretty self-selecting sample. The people who stay with the program are, for the most part, people who are succeeding at it so the statistics will clearly show that IF YOU CAN STAY WITH THE PROGRAM, YOU WILL LOSE WEIGHT. Maybe you'll even keep it off, although I doubt they have tracked the stats on those who do well, then stop coming. What happens to them?

I lost weight on every single diet I was ever on until right before surgery when my battered metabolism just gave up and refused to lose weight no matter how little I ate. Jennie Craig got me down 85 lbs. and I kept it off (or most of it, anyway) for more than ten years ... then stuff happened and I threw in the towel, regained all of the weight I lost and added about 40 bonus pounds. Why? It's a long boring story and I'll skip it for the nonce.

So here I am, 19 months post op.

Am I happy with my weight? Yes, although I admit that 10 - 15 more pounds would probably look a bit better ... but I'm a little frightened of trying to gain weight and in any case, I figure once the docs get my other issues sorted out, I'll probably put on a few pounds as a matter of course. My body has a natural set point and after I can eat more normally, I expect that I'll find it.

Am I happy about food? No. I really can't eat much and am highly limited in my choices. It has certainly taken the fun out of food for me, but I have learned to enjoy table talk and ambiance and discovered that there are other reasons for dining than just eating. Would I like to be able to eat a bit more normally? Sure, but life goes on regardless.

Has my marriage fallen apart? No, it hasn't. Is it better? No, it's about the same as it was. Whatever problems we had before, we have now. The strong points are still strong. The weak points are still weak. IMHO a lot of people have crappy relationships and all it takes is one big precipitating event and the whole house of straw comes tumbling down. Are morbidly obese people inclined to have crappy relationships more than "regular" people? What do YOU think? Take a person who feels physically poorly much of the time, probably has a self-esteem issue -- if not from some childhood issue, than certainly as a result of being a very fat adult in a society that idolizes "thin" and voila -- low self esteem served up on a silver platter.

I know a lot of divorced couples. I've been divorced too. In fact, the stats in the northeast are something like 1-in-3 regardless, and probably among certain professions (like media, say -- and yes, I do speak from experience here) it's a lot higher. Also higher in cities than in the country. Also higher among those with higher incomes. Divorce is very very very common in our society and a sampling of ten couples who didn't make it post WLS hardly constitues a meaningful sample. Among the Weight Loss Surgery (WLS) couples I know -- maybe 30 couples in all -- only one actually went to divorce ... but they weren't in great shape before. Other couples had a bunch of issues to sort out, but thus far (in this last 19 months that I've been paying attention to this stuff) seem to be working it out ... as least as far as they are concerned. Others might argue the point and some of them would probably be better off divorced ...

Should there be a better way to lose and keep off weight than massive reconstruction of the digestive tract? Yes, I really wish there were. This procedure is very drastic and not for the faint of heart. If you are doing it so you'll look better in your clothing and that's all, well, that's not good enough to get you through any rough times that might develop. But I think most of us did it because we believed that it was the last-best chance for a healthy life. In some cases, it was do or die, quite literally. As for me, I was either going to lose at least 100 pounds or probably be confined to a wheelchair for the remainder of my time on earth. That was not much of a choice.

Part II continued