Morbid Obesity and Weight Loss Surgery

by Lisa P | More from this Blogger

09 Nov 2007 03:14 PM

There comes a point where a person has become so obese that weight loss simply stops and other health issues arise. When you get to that point, diet, exercise programs, appetite suppressants and behavior modifications are just not effective any more. When you weigh 264, losing 5 pounds is a drop in the bucket. When I took this before picture, I was eating a healthy diet (and much less food than my husband who weighed far less than me) as well as walking for an hour on a treadmill every day. I couldn't run because the weight was too much of a strain on my knees.

There will always be those people who think that losing 100 pounds is just as easy as losing 10 pounds and that it just takes ten times longer. Well that simply is not the case.

When you become morbidly obese, it is called morbid obesity for a reason. It is killing you.

Losing weight at that point isn't as easy as just "not eating". It doesn't work that way.

You also can't just eat yourself into morbid obesity and then say "I'll just get a bypass and start over again".

After I had my bypass in 2001, I had to make a serious commitment to my health. I had to do regular aerobics and weight training as well as watch everything that I ate and drank. The hard part begins AFTER the surgery.

For those who may be wondering, I became obese through years and years of yo-yo dieting. I used every fad diet I found as a quick fix instead of using them as a jump start to a healthy lifestyle. I'd gain weigh, diet, gain more, diet more and so on until I'd dug myself into obesity and then there were no fad diets or exercise programs that would work any more. When I saw professionals (dieticians, doctors, nutritionists), they all told me to cut back on meat and fat and increase my carbs. That advice took me from obese to morbidly obese.

Some things you'll never see me do here:

1. Bash people who choose bariatric (weight loss) surgery

2. Tell people to use high-carb diets to lose weight

3. Tell people that quick fix diets are a be all and end all

Learn more about Lisa P

Lisa used to be a freelance writer and Community Manager for Families.com, but she has finally made the jump to novelist.

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