The Easy Way Out?

While most everyone has been supportive of my decision for surgery, there have been a few who have shown no support or even expressed displeasure with my decision. One coworker finally admitted she was jealous of my weight loss and is supportive now. Some look at surgery as the easy way out and feel regular dieting will accomplish the weight loss. For those that have been there, we know how difficult it is and what the success rate is. This surgery is far from the easy way out! We have been through a lot to get here. Tonight on Obesity Help there was a post that really hit home. I am posting it here for you to read too.


On this site we hear a whole lot about unsupportive spouses, families, friends, and co-workers. This is my challenge to those people:

I truly wish that everyone who thinks that WLS is somehow less respectable than diet and exercise in every instance for every person could spend a just a few days in my shoes. I want them to feel pain as they struggle to maneuver out of bed after taking off the CPAP machine that literally ensures they won't suffocate in their sleep. I want them to feel the workout that just taking a shower and preparing for the day gives. I want them to have to carefully powder or put ointment in creases of fat so that yeast infections or dermatitis doesn't develop or worsen. I want them not to be able to comply with mandatory seat belt laws. I want them to struggle to get in and out of the car. I want them to have to always ask for a table when they walk into a restaurant. I want them to be forced to stand in public places because seating that will accommodate them may not be available. I want them to have to special order clothing and pay upwards of $50.00 for a quality basic t-shirt or $15.00 for a single pair of pantyhose. I want them to spend quality time in the chairs at most establishments, professional and social, that are so small they must literally squeeze into them and remain squished for the duration of the appointment, meeting, or social event while all the while feeling awkward with their own largeness. I want medical doctors to provide them with standard size gowns that aren't large enough to ensure modesty for a “normal” sized person and become an almost a comical accoutrement for an obese one. I want them to avoid social interactions for fear that someone will make a remark about their weight or go to social functions where others, sometimes strangers, think it's OK to discuss what foods they are putting in their mouths or shamelessly give them diet and exercise tips. I want their knees to go out on them when they are simply walking a straight flat path. I want them to have to buy first class airplane tickets and reserve at least a full-size rental car just so that they can travel in some semblance of comfort to visit far-away relatives or take a vacation. I want them only to be able to shower because getting in and out of the tub is impossible. At the end of the day, I want them to be so physically exhausted and for their joints to ache so badly that all they want to do is to sink into a warm bath and realize they can’t because their standard size bathroom tub isn’t big enough. I want them to do all of this as a relatively healthy fat person. Once they've mastered the relatively easy stuff, I would add additional restraints that come from the myriad of physical ailments and diseases that are common amongst obese people. I would bet that they would be mentally and physically exhausted after just a few days. I want to ask them how they will be able to lose more weight than they'll eventually weigh at goal through diet and exercise alone. I want to ask them how long they think it will them take to lose over 200 pounds. I then want to tell them that the one medically proven method of achieving long term weight loss for super morbid obesity shouldn't be considered because they should be stronger than that.