To consider a gastric band/sleeve?

[user1488819536]

I’m really struggling to loose weight.
When I had my little boy almost three years ago I was very sick during the pregnancy and ended up being thinner than I had ever been after he was born. We had a very difficult start and I ended up with PND and they put me on anti depressants. This combined with my contraceptive pill has ( I think) caused me to pile on the pounds and I actually hate looking at myself in the mirror And avoid it at all costs.

I also avoid having pictures taken which is really sad when I have memories to have with my little boy.

I have a very active job ( I can easily do over 40,000 steps per day) which involves a lot of manual work and sweating, I do this six to seven days a week as it’s my own business.

I have been eating sensibly for a few months now and I lost about six pounds and then it stops and I am convinced it’s the medication but the the doctor thinks otherwise

My daily intake would be as follows

Breakfast. Cereal with skimmed milk

Lunch . Tuna salad and a packet of snackerjacks with a go ahead or cereal bar

Dinner
Salad with grilled chicken or prawns with a jacket potato

I drink flavoured water or Diet Coke

I am so fed up with looking how I do and feel surgery may be the only option

Has anyone had it done as was it worth it ?

Thanks

I had one and I lost about 25 of the 60kgs I needed to lose. Then it started to come back on. I also have problems with mineral absorption, which has lead to hair loss and issues with my bones. I have to say that it was only when I stuck to a diet seriously and consistently for a long period of time - a loooooong period. I have genuinely made it my permanent lifestyle now, my weight has come off. I am much healthier, but the absorption problems are still there as a result of the surgery. Think carefully before you do something that drastic. (As it is, if you do have the surgery, you will have to permanently change your diet anyway.)

Look at the weight loss section. There’s a recent, long thread in this that you may find useful.

You haven’t said your actual weight and height. If your depressed you may have a skewed idea of how big you are. I know that society is more body positive these days and I think it’s hard to get a genuine answer from people as to if someone looks overweight sometimes. Surgery of any sort is a last resort but I used to assist at general anaesthetics so have seen how helpless people are when under. Always a risk when under and also infection plus with the pandemic surely medical settings best avoided at the moment unless necessary.

Look on YouTube for gastric band fails/gastric sleeve fails. A lot of people have this done but restricting what your stomach can have is only a small part of the problem, plus if it’s the medication then you need to be off that in order to see success.
A friend had a gastric bypass privately lost ten stone and has put 5 back on. Until you fix the mental issue of overeating the operations can only help for a short time

I had a bypass and it was very successful weight loss wise, but there are many complications to consider and wls is certainly not a magic wand, but rather a tool that can help as you change your lifestyle.

You can put weight back on, bad habits don't disappear and most importantly, nor do the mental reasons behind why people are overweight or overeating in the first place.

A bypass in particular is a permanent, life long change and I will always have to take vitamins, always have to have regular vit B injections and always have awful reactions to some kinds of foods.

I don't know how overweight you are but I lost so much that I'm left with sagging skin everywhere and no ability to afford the surgery that could alter that. I'm ok with it, I had my operation for health reasons and was very morbidly obese, but if you're self conscious, I guarantee hanging folds of skin will make you more so and there's nothing you can do exercise wise to get rid of them.

Your example diet also makes me wonder whether you're actually eating enough to enable weight loss. Through the process that led me to surgery, I was taught that bigger people trying to lose weight often make the error of cutting their calorie intake too drastically, too soon - a gradual decrease over a long period of time was recommended to maintain long-term weight loss.

My bypass was one of the best decisions I made for myself but there are very real costs to it - I just weighed it up against the costs of staying morbidly obese and the associated risks. It's not an easy path and again, it's no magic wand and it very definitely won't solve any mental issues affecting diet and eating habits.

I worked on a bariatric ward (bands, sleeves,bypasses etc) get some counselling first, people think its a quick fix, but you have to get in the right mind and accept the limitations. No point in having a life changing big op if you do what some patients talk about doing (putting Mars bars in a liquidiser, melting whole tubs of ice cream and eating it via a straw) ..a complete waste of time for all concerned

I know a few people who have had massive success with weight loss ops (3 friends have lost between 8-11 stone each) and all have kept the weight off.

I’m extremely intrigued to know what job you do to do that amount of steps OP. I sit at a desk all day and some days only manage between 2-3K, so to say that I am hugely impressed by your daily steps is an understatement! Well done

Opps, just to add incase it’s not obvious - I voted that YANBU, you should definitely get it done if you want.

Had mine nearly 5 years ago. NHS BMI 41.

19stone 4 at the start. Chronic arthritis in knees. (Kept going by Cortisone injections 4 monthly for 2 years. ) Depression (medicated) Insomnia (turned out to have sleep apnoea) High BP controlled by pills. Stinking lower back pain after walking more than 20 steps as carried it all out front. Was like being permanently 9 months pregnant. I actually wore maternity clothes to find things that fit. .. and urinary incontinence .

Went to GP and asked to go on Tier3 Bariatric pathway. 6 months of workshops, counselling, 121 with dieticians. Then allowed to have operation. Recommended the Sleeve as I'm not a sweet eater - but my portion control was fucked. Had the Op and 2 years follow up. Now 11stone .8 . Have been that more or less for 3.5 years with a fluctuation of 5lbs either way in that time.

Completely life changing. No more BP pills. ADs, Walk for miles every week with no knee or back pain. Am much more sociable now as no longer embarrassed by myself. No longer incontinent . Even have a sex life again. (Was way too self conscious to even contemplate sex - not that DH fancied it either - which I completely understand)

I belong to a group of my fellow once fat cohort from the same hospital. There are 15 of us. Not one regrets it.

You will always here negatives about Bariatric surgery as for some bizarre reason judgemental people feel it's 'cheating' .. yet those with life threatening heart problems aren't tarred with this brush for having new valves or a quadruple bypass.

Morbid obesity is equally life threatening. Why would you not have a life saving operation if it were available.
Obesity is often accompanied by diabetes and cost the NHS a fortune.
I was at the GPS pretty much every month for one thing and another. The OP cost the NHS £8k and I haven't had to visit the doctors for nearly 2 years.

My recommendation is to do your research. Bariatric Surgery is still the ONLY long term SUSTAINABLE (5yrs plus) weight loss solution . That is why the NHS pays for it. It's tried, tested and found to be good . If it wasn't , they wouldn't offer it.

They very rarely do bands for this exact reason.

Diet and exercise do little to help those with a BMI of 35 plus. Statistically the evidence shows that it is such an incredibly small amount of people that can diet from BMI 35 back to a 'healthy weight' (BMI below 25 ) AND sustain it for 5 years .

For women those statistics are 1:124 and of those single minded '1s' 78 % put it all back on and more in 5 years.

For those in the morbid obesity range (BMI 40+ ) it's 1:677 with the same regain (Kings college London centre for obesity research) .

Having been one of those in the constant yo-yo diet /regain trap. I can say with out hesitation that it feels fantastic to be off that awful merry go round.

I think that you’ve probably got an extremely skewed view of what you look like. What you’re eating, the steps you take and the fact you say you were at your thinnest post pregnancy indicate that.

I’m not prepared to vote until you share your height and weight. I think it’s dangerous to get lots of votes for a surgery when you haven’t shared that.

What's your height, weight, BMI OP?

With the diet and activity level you've said it your OP there's no way you can be overweight by much. If you are, then has the doctor checked anything like your thyroid etc?

I'm a nurse, have looked after a few patients with gastric bands, seems like it can cause complications quite often and cause more problems than it solves tbh. Not sure about gastric sleeves.

I have no experience with Gastric Bands but I was seriously considering one before I started managing to lose weight properly. From what I do know of them, people still manage to over-eat with them if they haven't managed to get their eating under control, and I suspect that those who do succeed in losing weight with a Gastric Band probably do have what it takes to succeed in losing weight without one.

Breakfast - cereal is a really bad breakfast as it generally has very little nutritional content and you need to eat way more than the official "serving size" to feel satisfied, and it's far too high calorie compared to the amount it fills you up. Try a banana with plain unsweetened yoghurt, or half a dozen mushrooms sauted in 2 squirts of fry-light if you have time, or hard-boil some eggs and keep them in the fridge and have 2 with a handful of baby spinach leaves.

Lunch - you don't need both the snackajacks and the goahead bar - one or the other, alternate which. Does the tuna salad contain any mayo or dressing or is it literally just salad vegetables plus undressed tuna? Mayo and dressings can turn an apparently healthy meal into something very high calorie.

Dinner - watch the portion size - "a jacket potato" could be anything from 150g to 500g of raw potato so no idea where you are on this but you could easily be accidentally going overboard - aim for no more than 200g raw weight of potato. Again if you are putting any sauce or dressings on the prawn/chicken that could be adding a lot of unexpected cals. Maybe add some more "filling" veg instead of salad - some steamed broccoli or carrots perhaps?

The whole volume of each meal should be such that it could comfortably fit in your hands if cupped together to form a bowl, without being heaped up, and with the majority of that made up of (non-potato) vegetables.

Great that you move around so much as part of your work - could you consider wearing ankle and leg weights to increase the energy you need to use for moving around?

Do gastric bands work by limiting the amount of food you can eat at one time?

If that’s the case, then with how little you seem to be eating, I’m not sure how they’d work?

I would advise spending time researching diet and macros and looking at the food you’re consuming. Snack a jacks and bars are pretty awful nutrient-wise.
I did that and lost 10 stone over 2 years. I’ve kept it off pretty easily for 3 years so far.

You have to look at the whole thing as treating your body better and nourishing yourself, as caring for your health, rather than losing weight because you hate yourself.

@user1488819536

I’m really struggling to loose weight. When I had my little boy almost three years ago I was very sick during the pregnancy and ended up being thinner than I had ever been after he was born. We had a very difficult start and I ended up with PND and they put me on anti depressants. This combined with my contraceptive pill has ( I think) caused me to pile on the pounds and I actually hate looking at myself in the mirror And avoid it at all costs.

I also avoid having pictures taken which is really sad when I have memories to have with my little boy.

I have a very active job ( I can easily do over 40,000 steps per day) which involves a lot of manual work and sweating, I do this six to seven days a week as it’s my own business.

I have been eating sensibly for a few months now and I lost about six pounds and then it stops and I am convinced it’s the medication but the the doctor thinks otherwise

My daily intake would be as follows

Breakfast. Cereal with skimmed milk

Lunch . Tuna salad and a packet of snackerjacks with a go ahead or cereal bar

Dinner
Salad with grilled chicken or prawns with a jacket potato

I drink flavoured water or Diet Coke

I am so fed up with looking how I do and feel surgery may be the only option

Has anyone had it done as was it worth it ?

Thanks

Well then the band wouldn't help you at all would it?

All a band does is physically restrict what you can put down your throat. You claim you're already doing that so there will be no benefit

"I have been eating sensibly for a few months now and I lost about six pounds and then it stops and I am convinced it’s the medication but the the doctor thinks otherwise"

As you get lighter you need less calories to maintain mass, once you stop losing weight you need to reduce again.shockingly fat cells need energy too

Salads got oil on them btw? Oil approx 9kacl per g so easy to pile in lots of energy density in liquid there, again not helped by a band

If your food diary and step count is accurate then a gastric band would not help as you can’t need to restrict your food further.

My biggest piece of advice is that it is not a cure all. I still struggle daily with food addiction, transfer addiction, and lots more. I have lost weight, yes.