Talking to Mom

Last night, I talked to my Mom about the weight reduction surgery. It was interesting, mainly because she has plenty of direct experience with it.

You see, obesity is an epidemic in my family. The entire family - and most of the extended family - struggle with being overweight. As a result, we are one massive study in weight loss technologies, and the only thing my Mother has seen work is a gastric bypass.

My father, prior to surgery, weighed nearly 400 lbs. He was active, but he ate massive quantities - much like I do. He got the full gastric bypass, and lost almost 200 pounds; he's in the best shape that anyone has ever seen, and after 10 years is mostly keeping the weight off even as his eating has returned to normal (human-level, not pre-surgery).

On the other hand, my mother and sister both had lap-band, and neither appears to have gained any benefit at all. I think they've given up, and are no longer maintaining the band inflation. I also clearly see that their eating habits have not changed at all, and the have seen 0% benefit.

Add this to decades of Weight Watchers, Opti-fast, Adkins and other processes, and the whole thing looks like failure-in-a-bag. No wonder my Mom thinks that WLS is the best thing she'd ever seen happen to someone.

I hope it is as successful for me...

-sd