What do you say?

[Julie norton 2,850]

Djmohr

Enjoy every minute of your visit. You have worked hard daily to ensure that you got the results you wanted.

This is just a wonderful moment to savor all you have done for your health.. With a bonus of looking and feeling great????in front of a few naysayers .

[Sajijoma 1,324]

This is one of the reasons I'm not telling anyone about the wls. I also want them to see and respect that I AM exercising AND watching my diet and not taking any perceived "easy way out" and the fact that I'm having wls is just another thing I'm doing in that regime. They don't have to know about what exercises I do every day, what equipment I use at the gym(unless there's a funny story attached) or that I've had wls to speed it up and make it stick this time.

[toasty 371]

You know that WLS snob? I shudder to admit this, but that used to be me.

I deserve every bad word, evil look, or snide remark I ever get about this. Although I don't think I ever said anything directly hurtful to anyone about it, I certainly was skeptical about WLS and its benefits. I saw it as the easy way out, for people who did not have the willpower to lose weight through diet. And I have been overweight/obese since I was in my mid-20s (I am now 49).

It took some mighty strong levers in my own life to finally turn around my thinking on this. I am scheduled for Gastric Bypass surgery on Sept. 11.

I decided to tell all of the people around me about my surgery. I am not going out of my way to find people to tell, but I am letting those people I work with and those who are important to me (wife and daughter, brother, mom, aunts and uncles, etc.) know I am having WLS. I have found most people are curious about it, so I tell them what I know about what I will be experiencing and what I expect.

So far, all of the feedback has been positive, with the exception of my mom, who is not very supportive (she thinks I should be able to do it with willpower). But whether or not they are supportive, this is my life, my decision, and my way. I hope that through sharing my journey with those around me I can help dispel myths about WLS that lead to my own ignorant judgement.

I fully expect there will be those who will say, behind my back, "...can you believe he got his stomach stapled! tsk, tsk, tsk.". Oh, yes. But I refuse to hide, or drop my head in shame. I am proud and excited of my very responsible and considered decision to have WLS. And I will be proud of the results I get when I get to a healthy size, and all of these co-morbidities go away. And if they can't understand that, then that's their problem, not mine.