Is there any one out there that is 5 or more years post op for gastric bypass? Did you regain any weight?

Question

Please do not give answers unless you have personal knowledge of someone that is 5 years post-op. I already know the stats on successful surgery and massive weight-loss. I am only interested in hearing from people with actual experience keeping (or not) the weight off.

Answer 1

I am not yet five years post op. I am three years post op. I do have friends who are five+ years post op.

I lost almost all the weight (120 pounds) in the first year. I have kept the weight off, and sometimes struggle to keep weight on. Many people do regain weight, or fail to lose to goal. There are lots of reasons for this, from a "broken" surgery to psychological addictions that cause people to find every way possible to out-eat the surgery.

To be perfectly honest, what I see in the people I know personally who are long-term post-ops and having weight problems again, is that they usually have not fixed the emotional issues that drove them to overeat in the first place.

I am not immune from this problem, so I am not sitting in judgment, but when I hear phrases like, "I did really good today. I stuck to my eating plan, except for just a spoonful of cookie dough, and just a a few sips of kool-aid," I shake my head and know that they are on the dangerous path of justification.

People are rarely honest with themselves.

The way I deal with it (so far) is to be hyper-aware of what I am putting in my mouth. I weigh myself nearly every day and I do not sit around the house in elastic-waisted pants. I purposefully increase or decrease my food intake to keep my weight where I want it to be. The surgery truly gave me a tool to help, but it sure did not change my emotional urges to eat!

The "source" area has a link to my story in more detail.

Answer 2

Yea it wasn't completly sucessfull. However, without it I would be a useless blob or dead. I lost 100 pounds in 6 months. I was still 100 over.
I was doing well until I lost my job. In the summer time I kept busy, but when winter came around, I sat around too much and ate too much. After two years, the stress made me keep eating. Returning to work had its own stresses, but at least I was able to work full time and more. The extended hours made me eat more. The long commute made me eat more. You can see where this is going. I regained 60 pounds in 5 -6 years.

To be sucessfull in this program you have to fix everything. If you have a job that is bad for you you have to change it. If your spouse does not support you, hopefully you can change them. Spouses can get angry if you start looking good, possibly attracting other people. They may rather have you fat and sitting around where they can keep an eye on you.

Hopefully the facility can put you in touch with the people they helped, you need a lot of group support to help you emotionally and share solutions to the problems you will encounter like getting sick from eating the wrong stuff, how to cook better for you, how to deal with people who don't understand.

Surgery is not a liscence to sit around and eat bonbons all day. It is a tool to help you loose weight that works. If you stay active you will loose weight. If you eat right you will loose weight. You dont have to go nuts exercising, but you can't sit around all day either.

All surgery is dangerous. You could get an infection. You could have an alergic reaction to the drugs. You could have human error. Same thing could happen going to the dentist. Some people say any optional surgery is bad, but so is growing into a huge blob. The choices have to be weighed carefully

I documented this on my web page, but it is not recent