Now when I see MO people...

[Sheribear68 3,200]

... I have this almost irresistible urge to talk to them about my WLS.
At first, this was happening with some family and friends. One month after I had WLS, one of my good friends who is super-MO,had a heart attack (at the age of 45) and spent over 2 months in the hospital, had multiple surgeries and now has to wear an LVAT and will either die early or need a transplant.
I desperately wanted to talk to her and our other MO friends who I would meet at the hospital, but obviously it wasn’t the appropriate moment.

Since then as I edge ever-closer to GW, I find myself being drawn to MO and super-MO people and I want to scream at the top of my lungs that there is a way out of that living hell.
It’s also complicated by the fact that I’m a healthcare professional so I see these guys day in and day out.

I’ve had SUCH a positive experience and my life and well-being have done a complete 180 that I feel almost as if I have a personal responsibility to let anyone and everyone know about WLS.

[GreenTealael 25,330]

I know exactly how you feel 🙌

but not everyone is ready, willing or able to take the journey. So I refrain and I only really talk in depth about it if someone is really seeking answers.

[Sheribear68 3,200]

On 09/02/2019 at 12:00, GreenTealael said:

I know exactly how you feel 🙌

but not everyone is ready, willing or able to take the journey. So I refrain and I only really talk in depth about it if someone is really seeking answers.

Yup. This is what I’ve been doing so far.
I just get so dang tempted though sometimes

[GreenTealael 25,330]

20 minutes ago, Sheribear68 said:

Yup. This is what I’ve been doing so far.
I just get so dang tempted though sometimes

Me too 😭

[Recidivist 1,141]

Count me in as well! I'm now very conscious of morbidly obese people and want to share my story in hopes of inspiring them--but of course I never do. However, my sister and one friend are so impressed with my results that they are considering the surgery as well.

[JessLess 1,163]

If someone is MO and asks me how I lost weight, I tell them I had WLS and that I'm happy to talk to them about it if they want to. My doctor suggested the surgery to me and I was extremely against it until a couple of my close friends and my massage therapist all had it with good outcomes. After talking to them a lot, I finally decided to do it. And I've been VERY happy with the decision.

[AZhiker 2,252]

I feel the same way. But hardly anyone really wants to make the lifestyle changes. Before surgery, my grocery cart was filled with veggies and healthy foods. I really did not eat junk or processed foods. I was trying to make the positive changes - I just couldn't stop eating and ate from emotional origins.

But look at the carts from so many MO folks - soda, beer, chips, donuts, sugary cereals. Surgery is not going to fix that. My heart goes out to them, it truly does, but at some point folks have to start helping themselves by education, first of all. The saddest ones are the kids. LIttle fat kids who don't have a chance.

[Healthy_life2 8,324]

I talk about WLS when someone is genuinely interested.

My first year out, I had to realize my enthusiasm about bariatrics is not at everyone’s level. Learning the basics was eye opening and life changing. IDK. I would be offended by someone approaching me about WLS when I never asked about it.

Grocery shopping - When I see a cart of unhealthy stuff. It’s a sad reminder that I used to shop and eat like that.

[Sheribear68 3,200]

On 09/02/2019 at 14:55, AZhiker said:

I feel the same way. But hardly anyone really wants to make the lifestyle changes. Before surgery, my grocery cart was filled with veggies and healthy foods. I really did not eat junk or processed foods. I was trying to make the positive changes - I just couldn't stop eating and ate from emotional origins.

But look at the carts from so many MO folks - soda, beer, chips, donuts, sugary cereals. Surgery is not going to fix that. My heart goes out to them, it truly does, but at some point folks have to start helping themselves by education, first of all. The saddest ones are the kids. LIttle fat kids who don't have a chance.

Ageee!

Although my grocery cart back in the past would sometimes look like a health guru, and sometimes it looked like a 30yo bachelor planning a super bowl party loaded it up

I’ve tried almost every fad diet known to humanity and then I’ve had periods where I got despondent and didn’t even try. I shudder to think what my cart looked like during those dark periods. To the average onlooker, it wouldn’t have seemed I would’ve been able to do this lifestyle, but the truth was that I was just sick and tired of being sick and tired in that moment.

Luckily I never stopped searching and refused to just lay down and die. I kept fighting and came to know that WLS wasn’t just for the “my 600 pound lifer” it could be for “normal” people like me who honestly needed the metabolic reset and I knew in my heart if the metabolic reset was real instead of being a myth, then I had a great chance at making this work.

Yes it’s VERY hard work and always will be, but so is being 100 pounds overweight.
My heart aches now when I see people in actual physical pain from merely walking in their own body.
Last week I went outside my pharmacy to give a lady her flu shot because she came through the drive Thru and when my tech asked her, she said she couldn’t get around very well and didn’t think she could make it inside to stand and wait.
I knew who the lady was (EXTREMELY MO) and told her I wasn’t going to let her miss out and that I would go to her.
I desperately wanted to have some kind of dialogue about my WLS, but just couldn’t figure out how to open it.
At the end, I simply gave the shot (had to use a 1.5 inch needle and I pray that was long enough to get in her muscle) and moved on with my day.

[ummyasmin 1,603]

Oh gosh I hear you. But unless they have known "fat" you, (& even sometimes then too) it's still going to come across as another skinny person giving them shame.

Because my head still hasn't caught up to my size, I'm constantly looking at people trying to assess (privately) "am I bigger than them?" "was I bigger than them before the surgery?" Etc. I was almost always the fattest person in a room and I'm still shocked at not being that way anymore. And I want to go up to them all and tell them there's hope. But I don't of course because that wouldn't help. I'd have HATED someone to do that to me.

[Sheribear68 3,200]

On 09/02/2019 at 17:36, ummyasmin said:

Oh gosh I hear you. But unless they have known "fat" you, (& even sometimes then too) it's still going to come across as another skinny person giving them shame.

Because my head still hasn't caught up to my size, I'm constantly looking at people trying to assess (privately) "am I bigger than them?" "was I bigger than them before the surgery?" Etc. I was almost always the fattest person in a room and I'm still shocked at not being that way anymore. And I want to go up to them all and tell them there's hope. But I don't of course because that wouldn't help. I'd have HATED someone to do that to me.

I know, right?
Back a few years ago when I was in a running phase, I could run 3-5 miles at a time and even though it wasn’t pretty, I could do a 5 mile run in under an hour.
At that time I was “skinnier” at a weight in the 230’s.
Mostly I’d run on a treadmill at the gym, but from time to time I’d run in my neighborhood.
One time I was running outside and a really fit and trim lady was heading out to her mailbox.
It was a cul de sac and she waited for me to run past because she was actually cheering and gave me a “high five” as I labored past her.
I’m 100% certain her heart was in the right place, but it was humiliating to me.
I ran on until I got a couple of streets away and then broke into tears right there on the street and walked the rest of the way home. Don’t think I ran outside again for a few weeks after that

People run all of the time in my neighborhood and I’m willing to bet the skinny ones don’t get high fives from that lady. The pain and humiliation of that memory is what keeps my thoughts to myself.
I have told myself though that if anyone ever gives me an opening, I will share whatever health history of mine they want to know if I can just impact one single person to make this choice.

[Krimsonbutterflies 661]

I really hate seeing morbidly obese on my medical records, it just hurts me. When my GP recommended me to the Bariatric program last September, I cried and felt shame. However, I was crying out for help and my GP knew I had health issues due to my excess weight. I'm tall and my weight is pretty evenly proportioned, so ppl didnt know that I was 280. I cried uncontrollably and I have been on this journey since last September 17th, 2018. I'm 249 pounds now and having surgery (vsg) in January 2020, I get my date tomorrow. The Dr. wanted to perform the surgery in October or November, but I have to wait until January to assure I have enough paid time off on the books...I'm going to be working on my fitness routine and mental health, while I'm waiting. It will be here before I know it, time is going quickly.

Edited September 3, 2019 by Krimsonbutterflies

[Cheeseburgh 3,080]

I definitely have seen people and thought, I wonder if they considered surgery, but I have never been tempted to bring up the subject.

There is something I do differently now. I go out of my way to smile and say hi. (Not in a creepy obvious way)

So many people on this site have mentioned how invisible they felt which made me more aware.

[JessLess 1,163]

12 hours ago, Krimsonbutterflies said:

I really hate seeing morbidly obese on my medical records, it just hurts me. When my GP recommended me to the Bariatric program last September, I cried and felt shame. However, I was crying out for help and my GP knew I had health issues due to my excess weight. I'm tall and my weight is pretty evenly proportioned, so ppl didnt know that I was 280. I cried uncontrollably and I have been on this journey since last September 17th, 2018. I'm 249 pounds now and having surgery (vsg) in January 2020, I get my date tomorrow. The Dr. wanted to perform the surgery in October or November, but I have to wait until January to assure I have enough paid time off on the books...I'm going to be working on my fitness routine and mental health, while I'm waiting. It will be here before I know it, time is going quickly.

Something to look forward to... I was looking at my online medical record though my medical system where it lists my medical issues and obese was one of them. I clicked on it and emailed them back that my BMI was 28 and they took it off.

[Sheribear68 3,200]

On 09/02/2019 at 21:56, Krimsonbutterflies said:

I really hate seeing morbidly obese on my medical records, it just hurts me. When my GP recommended me to the Bariatric program last September, I cried and felt shame. However, I was crying out for help and my GP knew I had health issues due to my excess weight. I'm tall and my weight is pretty evenly proportioned, so ppl didnt know that I was 280. I cried uncontrollably and I have been on this journey since last September 17th, 2018. I'm 249 pounds now and having surgery (vsg) in January 2020, I get my date tomorrow. The Dr. wanted to perform the surgery in October or November, but I have to wait until January to assure I have enough paid time off on the books...I'm going to be working on my fitness routine and mental health, while I'm waiting. It will be here before I know it, time is going quickly.

Yeah it was after cancer scare #2 in early 2018 that I was seeing a new, young, female PCP.
I was so horrified bc I was in her office seeing her for the first time and I started crying when I saw my weight. I’d managed to gain over 20 pounds in 2017 and was falling apart bc of it.

She wasn’t phased at all by the fact that I’d shown up as a hot mess. In fact, she’s the one who gently asked me if I’d ever heard of/considered WLS. I was stunned bc I honestly thought that WLS was just for the super-MO people (thanks to shows like my 600 pound life) so I didn’t even realize someone like me (bouncing between 36-42% BMI) would be a candidate.

If my PCP had not put that idea in my head, I would’ve never come to it on my own due to just assuming I wasn’t “fat” enough. It took me several more months of researching, checking with my insurance, going to a seminar, and—quite honestly— gaining intentionally an extra 15 pounds so I could qualify, but once the idea was there and I learned what I needed to do and determined I was ready it all fell into place.
Yeah, the months leading up to surgery after the decision was made was tedious. It took me over 8 months from decision time to surgery day, but now the reward is just simply life-transforming