Gastric Bypass.... yes or no???

EmerNurse, BSN, RN · Nov 16, 2006

You know - it seems whether you have surgery or not, the key is that you're going to be changing your eating habits permanently.

This past Jan 1st, my hubby and I decided it was time to lose the weight - I needed to lose around 70# and he needed to lose.. erm.. more. Instead of following a "diet", we cut out ALL the junk - no fast food, no chips, cookies, cakes etc - simply didn't buy it and have it in the house. We experimented with low-cal everything until we found the brands we liked - of salad dressing, low fat cheeses, lunch meat, whatever. And we didn't deviate except ONE night a month, we allowed ourselves to eat out - and even then tried to stick to the low-fare menues (found out I LIKE the slim-slam at Denny's!).

So far - we're at what? nearly 11 months, I've lost nearly 70 pounds and my hubby has lost a bit more. What we found out is that... there isn't an END to this "diet". It's a permanent change of lifestyle and eating. We are occassionally more lenient now- a cookie (1!) now and then or whatever, but for the most part stick to it. Now, my 11 months is about 6.3 pounds per month or 1.5 pounds per week. So we're talking slow - it comes off a little faster the first couple months, then sloooowwwsss down, but doesn't stop.

The first month or so truly stunk as I missed everything I used to eat - but honestly, I've lost the taste for most of it.

My advice is this... if you're going to take a few months to investigate and look into the surgery - while you're doing that, try to change your eating habits/exercise habits yourself (since you'll have to do that anyway, right?). You may find that you can end up doing it on your own without surgery.