Dinner with Andrea

I found a role model in a casual friend who had gastric bypass 2 years before I did. I followed her progress, admired her dedication, envied her new found health and slimmer physique. I followed her to the surgeon's table 2 years later.

Now, I find in her a role model for an entirely different reason.  She has regained all but 30 lbs of her 120 pound loss.  I occasionally meet her for dinner not because I enjoy her company all that much (drama, whine, drama, whine), but because she's a constant visual reminder that gastric bypass is no magic bullet, no easy way out.

I sit and look at Andrea* eat -- both as an appetite suppressant and a visual reminder of just how easily we can let this opportunity slip away, wasted.

*Name changed

Comments

[RP]

I use certain people as appetite supressants too. So I'm a bitch - but at least I'm a skinny bitch!

I'll never understand how people - whether they lost weight with surgical help or through diet and exercise - can regain weight. Five or ten pounds, sure, but any more than that? I just don't get it...

[Me]

Me either. I can understand, 5, 10 ... maybe 15. It creeps up. But, as soon as you are out of ONE pant size, or dress size, you need to haul yourself up short and ask "What the EFF am I doing? and WHY? I need to get myself in therapy." We all slack. We all cheat. We all backslide. But when you backslide 90 lbs, you are doing it over, and over, and over, with 90 chances to stop and ask for help or catch yourself, and use the opportunity given you to reverse course.

I am sympathetic to a point, but with a nearly 100 lb regain, that's just pathetic to me, and suggests a deep, deep need for therapy to determine why food appears to be your only medication for life's woes.