BeautyLocs40

Since I've known me, I've been a fat girl. I joined Weight Watchers for the first time when I was 10 - I'm now in my late 40s, so that gives you some sense of how long I've been trying to change my body and relationship with food. I decided to have weight loss surgery because I felt I had exhausted all other options, and my PCP at the time said it was the only thing that had been proven to work over any extended period. 
 
My first surgery (yes, I did say first) was a gastric band and was performed in 2009. I lost about 50 pounds, 35-40 of which I was able to keep off. Overall, though, I was embarrassed by my results. I knew of others that had lost hundreds with the band, and I couldn't even manage to get myself on the low-side of the 200s. Not understanding that many more people were not only not achieving long-term success with the band, but also having serious medical complications as a result of it, I trudged ahead destined to be WLS failure for eternity.
 
Then, something happened that pissed-me-the-f@#k-off! Friends and work colleagues, people familiar with my failure, started having WLS and being successful. They'd have the nerve to send me photos of or appear in person with their new svelte bodies, and I couldn't take it. I rejoined the BariatricPal community and started reading up on revision surgeries. Once I understood that a lot of people hadn't been successful with the band and were exploring other options, I thought, "why not me?" 
 
In 2013, I joined the Bariatric Program at Henry Ford Health Systems with the goal of being revised to a sleeve. Changes in my health and ongoing discussions with my doctor ultimately led me to decide on the bypass, which was performed in February 2015. I'm still very early on in not only my recovery, but also use of the tool, but I feel optimistic - not a word I choose lightly - about the possibility of reaching a more ideal weight.
 
I've also re-thought my position on my band experience. Having the band gave me the time and discipline I needed to restructure how I eat and my relationship with food. Food isn't the enemy or scary or controlling - it simply is. I need it to live, but I choose what of it I use to sustain my life. I think food can be delicious, satisfying, connecting, and educating, but it's not the boss of me and never will be again. So, I didn't fail my band, and it didn't fail me. I had different expectations about our relationship that didn't pan out, but it and I did just fine together.