Gastric band

[thisisasurvivor]

Hello all

Aibu to consider this
20 years dieting
Lose some put it on
Same old same old
20 stone 5 ft 11 and bmi 40

My knees right now are so so sore

I walk one hour each day
Try to eat well

But trauma leads to overeating

What you all think?

Please be kind I know not everyone agrees with this

Thank you all guys

So much appreciated

I had a sleeve at the end of Jan. You're unlikely to suffer malnourishment as you eat so carefully to prioritise nutrition and your bloods are checked regularly. Dumping syndrome (which is not to do with bile but is now like a hypo ) is common with bypass but not sleeve. It's bloody hard but for me at 17st was the only realistic chance of losing the weight after 20 years of battling.

At your/our weight the chances of losing and keeping the weight off without surgery is very very slim indeed and I consider this not just life changing surgery, but life saving.

I had it done in Turkey and am recovering well.

@Dinoswearunderpants I assure you there's nothing lazy about surgery. It's incredibly difficult and I'm proud of how brave I was to do it.

Ps, I didn't have to do a liver shrinking diet at all, they have equipment that moves it out of the way in Turkey. In the UK you'd need to liver shrink which is normally between 2-4 weeks (not months as previously suggested)

Ultimately, your surgeon will advise you on the correct procedure. Do loads of research. Be aware that the NHS route can take years.

Whoever says it’s the ‘lazy way’, dfod, you are obviously clueless, best not to comment when you know nothing about the issue. I’ve lost weight the ‘hard’ way, blood, sweat, tears, now I’m going the surgery route. It certainly isn’t lazy or easy.

The sleeve can be reversed to a bypass
the bypass initially hasn’t got as much restriction in the first 2 weeks as the sleeve
I’ve had both

The bypass was due to reflux / gerd / heartburn
mine was done privately abroad

I wanted this on the nhs. The first step I had to do, to be referred onwards, was to go to slimming world for 3 months.

Unexpectedly, it worked. I think, because for the first time life was calm and I could focus on what I needed to do (COVID) and make diet the priority. So here I am, 5 stone down, 2 and half years later. Working on maintaining my current weight.

Don't give up. Do whatever it takes. If you are eligible for bariatric surgery, and you need it after following their plan, then do it.

Life is a lot easier now than it was before I lost weight.

Oh and for my bypass I wasn’t that overweight
only had to do a liquid diet for 48 hrs same for the sleeve

if your very overweight please be prepared for loose skin can be awful after losing a lot of weight
I didn’t luckily have any loose skin but it can be a huge problem

If your knees are giving way surely you need to lose weight now. A referral could take up to 2 years on the NHS possibly longer.
I would imagine you would be sent to weight watchers etc.

I’m similar but…..

do you want the rest of your life having restrictive eating and minuscule portions

I love cooking and that would be my idea of hell. Even small restaurant portions would be too big.

id rather die fat than live like that.

my friend had one fitted (paid privately).
lost loads of weight, really fast.
never learnt to eat healthier though, just couldn’t eat very much.
Kept throwing up.
was quite unwell, went back to see doctor… band had moved in front of her stomach opening (or something to that effect), needed to come out. People who put it in washed their hands off, NHS wasn’t responsible as it was put in privately, Didn’t have the money to pay for it. Then almost died- so as it became life threatening NHS sprang into action.
band out. Weight back on.
it’s not without risks.

I would have said that previously, but you get to a point (or I did) where your knees, ankles, blood pressure etc become more important than those lovely big meals. Interestingly in peri menopause I became less able to eat huge amounts and big plates of food made me feel a bit bilious to look at. I lost substantial weight before the op, preparing myself for my new habits, I love cooking and trying new things. And continue to do that, just in small portions which are enough.

Its a balance, what I want for myself now is more important and more enjoyable than my previous habits (enjoyable as they were at the time). Its about what you want out of life and out of your future. One size does not fit all (no pun intended!)

I rarely comment on weight loss threads because of comments like these. "eat less, move more, it‘s simple!" Like it has never occurred to an overweight person that consuming more calories than they burn is the reason they‘re overweight - if only someone had told us!

Would you tell an alcoholic that giving up alcohol is easy? Just don‘t drink it!
Drugs? Well if you didn‘t take them in the first place...
Depressed? Well you wouldn‘t be depressed if you just cheered up a bit...!

Very few people who are overweight don‘t know about nutrition, healthy eating and HOW to lose weight. Knowing how to is the easy part, but when your overeating is so tied into the psychological side, it is very hard to extrapolate. In fact, it would be a lot easier if you could just give up food altogether, in the same way you could give up alcohol.

So no, I don‘t think surgery is "lazy". But I do think that people who have never struggled with their weight don‘t really understand. In the same way as I don‘t really understand depression, because I‘ve never been depressed.

Anyway OP, I feel you - I have a similar BMI (I weight a bit less, but am shorter than you) and my knees are also shot. I would worry about putting it all back on again though, unless you can try and solve the psychological side as well. Perhaps you could do the 2 in parallel?

There's a scientist that describes the body's way of managing energy in terms of other bodily functions like thirst and urination. That the drive to drink and pee is mainly subconscious. Hormones tell you to drink, by making you thirsty, and remove excess water by creating pee. All without a great deal of thought on our part. Similarly, the body craves, stores and expends energy via subconsciously secreted hormones.

It's damn hard to act against your body. There's more to suffering from obesity than eating less and moving more.

Speak to your doctor about Wegovy. It has recently been licensed by NICE as a weightloss aide and is as effective as gastric sleeves without the surgery, should be available in the UK sometime this spring. A weekly injection that mimics your satiety hormone so you feel full on much less food. This stuff has been around for a couple of years and is highly likely to be the reason a number of obese celebrities who have struggled with their weight for years have finally managed to win the battle (am sure we can guess who). None of them admit openly to using it, all claiming diet and exercise - which is partially true as that is also needed- but what they don't actually admit is that they used ozempic/wegovy to manage their appetite which is the biggest challenge to get over. Elon Musk is the only celebrity publically confirming to have used it for weight reduction.
The reason they don't admit using is as per the nonsense judgement from PP - anything other than their perception of 'hard work' is seen as 'cheating and 'lazy'. No one judges a smoker for using aides to quit, no one judges a heroin user for taking methadone to quit, but apparently it's OK to judge those who struggle with appetite control (by far the most problematic addiction there is).
Seriously, this stuff is a game changer. If you are BMI of 40, or BMI of 35 with a comorbidity (high blood pressure, diabetes etc) you should be able to have this prescribed via your NHS doctor if all other weightloss efforts have failed.

Obesity is a complex chronic relapsing neurometabolic disorder, saying 'eat less move more' is the same as telling someone with depression to cheer up. It doesn't work because there's a lot more going on.

Good luck OP you can do this.

I agree with this. I think that people who are only a couple of stone over weight or who have lost that sort of amount before or who havent struggled with their weight as a rule cant comment when they dont understand the difference to people who are 10/15/20 stone overweight. The evidence unfortunately shows that WLS is the best option for those people and their chances of getting that off and keeping it off is better met by WLS than anything else

Thats not to say that theres no other option but you have to weigh up the risk of remaining like that or the surgery and whats best for the individual.

In addition there are a number of reasons why people get overweight and stay there, its not necessarily food addiction, emotional eating or disordered eating, people are essentially greedy and the availability of food has contributed to this. We dont have any more traumatised people nowadays than we used to have, the food is tasty, easy to get, cheap and prompts you to eat more because its nice, its why societies with cheap and available food struggle with obesity. For some of course its something more as well and the WLS can be a tool to contribute to changing that.

I just googled wegovy, some pretty scary side effects.

I'm following this with interest as I'm in the same position OP

So so true guys

And I also agree with the eat less move more

I have been trying so hard now and genuinely think this may be the best option

Was quoted 7k earlier for the sleeve and two year after care

I have known 6 people who have had it. All of them had an overeating disorder. The only one who has not regained the weight is the one who had two years of intensive therapy to address the eating disorder. One is on month 8 post op and she still only eat skips every day. Her tummy can't cope with anything else or she vomits. Her hair and nails are falling out from malnutrition. I would never advise it from what I have seen.

Its certainly interesting how people people have stories like this.

Yet I know 4 people who have had it and they are all hugely grateful they did it, no regrets and have kept the weight off.

Someone always comes along with a negative story. I wonder what their motivation is for that.

Nooooo

Oh my gosh this is so interesting

Thank you

I'm on the fence now I must say

I used to walk two hours a day (now I can't single mother)

I can do 20:4 fasting
But then I binge

The most recent trigger was a friend ringing me to talk about someone who died
(My dad only died few weeks back also )

Really really appreciate the good the bad and the ugly

Read about transfer addiction. It's a very real and dangerous thing.

See I only know one person who raves about hers

She is the only one I know that went for it

I should haved added to that the people I know had sleeves or bypass, not bands.

I tried saxenda (wegovy) it worked well but caused me some scary stomach pains, weight piled back on as soon as I stopped. Literally within weeks.

If you're serious about bariatric surgery then do lots of research into the surgeon and surgery so you know what to expect.

I'm now transitioning back to normal foods, some things are harder than others to manage, but to give you a picture - I had a single slice of protein rye toast with peanut butter for breakfast, leftover tofu laksa for lunch (about 2-3 tbsps), a protein shake as a snack, a hummus mini wrap for dinner and 2 crispbreads with cottage cheese later on. Plus 2 bottles of protein water. At this point fruit and veg is hard to manage so supplements are plugging the gap for now until I can manage it. Right now the only focus is getting enough fluid and protein. Certainly not a diet of skips or whatever else the horror stories look like.