Weight Gain After Gastric Bypass

click here for another blogger's excellent article 
on the negatives of WLS 

I'm feeling fat and slightly miserable regarding my weight gain over the past year.
In my quest to feel normal I Googled "Weight Gain After Gastric Bypass".
On top of the search results is an article from 2008 about Carnie Wilson (click here and scroll down a bit for the 56 comments)

Reading the 56 comments confirmed what I've suspected all along:
- that more people than doctors wish to admit regain a significant amount of weight after WLS (the current statistic is 5% which I think is way too low)
- that people become depressed and discouraged when they regain the weight
- that folks are even more despondent than they would be with mere dietary weight gain because they believed that surgery was truly their last resort
- that people are blaming themselves for being weak willed rather than look at the biological reasons for weight gain after severe starvation
- that the few post-ops who have kept their weight off are especially unkind to post-ops who have regained
- that support groups for post-ops focus on rules, measuring, excessive exercise and dieting - the same methods that failed for people BEFORE they had WLS
- that folks who regain weight feel they have failed but take on the persona of "failure" to the point where they are unwilling to seek further help
- that carbs, sugars and processed foods have physical properties that set people up for weight gain and compulsive eating behaviors that can be corrected with a more nourishing (and filling) diet
- that I have a job to do!

Here are some of the disturbing comments
that confirm my above conclusions.
Keep in mind there are many more at the article site!
I've altered them to make them shorter.
click here for the full article

gzimmerman is
"...mentally beating myself up every minute. My metabolism is worse than ever and due to the malabsorption I stay anemic. My bones are being leached of calcium. I am an emotional eater and food is my medication...sad to say."

deinisem says
"my metabolism which was already slow - slowed down even more. And all these people were constantly saying, "Gee, you must feel great now that you've lost all that weight." The truth is before I lost the weight I walked 3-4 miles a day - no problem. After I lost the weight I looked great but I felt awful. .... I didn't have the energy to exercise. And I let myself get addicted to sweets again. ... Over the last two years since that second surgery I've regained half the weight I lost and I'm just beside myself.  I'm so upset about it."

shoukry says
".I am hungry all the time, and I am snacking all day because Normal meals take more effort. ...Please beware, weight gain after surgery can lead to extreme depression. Dr Jorgensen told me that the bypass would be permanent, he didn't tell me the weight loss wouldn't be. I thought that even if i did something like that and lost a little weight my problems would be over. But my will is not strong enough, and i don't think it ever will be. My fight against weight lost will never be over. I think at the moment I've given up."

poetessinga says
"when you have the Gastric by pass you swap one addiction for another"

babiesgizmo says
"What does that say about our society that someone would be willing to give up 2 yrs of their life to fit in for 5 minutes? Well unfortunately his dream never came true and he died from complications."


linn says
"I had bypass surgery in 2003 and have gained a little more than 1/2 of my weight back...I am miserable over this and yes it is easier to say, diet & exercise but hard to do for us emotional eaters...I am so embarrassed that I don't even go out...for the majority of us, bypass surgery does not work because it doesnt take care of the true nature of the problem...we find ways around it and eventually can start eating more & more, thus putting on the weight."


rogersstephanie says "My sister and my uncle both had the surgery done and they both have regained about 30 pounds of there weight back so it easy to regain."

sarahglynn says
"ive gained 15 pounds. i cant seem to stop. ive prayed and barained and started a brand new day everyday, only to fall to the temptations of junk. sometimes i just give up, but then i think of my family and i stay another day. it's not the doctors or anyone, just me. i take fault,blame,resposibility. i just wish i could get off the merry go round of guilt and stress and over eating."


anasdream says
"Unfortunately, 3 years later I gained most of my weight back. I gave birth to my son December of 2003 and that was another ordeal since I realized my husband and I would not be able to have children naturally. I think a lot had to do with the fact that he was severely obese just like me. We both had the surgey done and lost weight but that didn't help. I am disappointed now that my husband doesn't want to have anymore kids with me. I think it is because I have gained a lot of my weight back and that he doesn't find me attractive. He has been depressed lately and when I ask him what is wrong he says that he doesn't know. He gained weight back to. I don't want to be the fat mom at the football games but I don't know what to do anymore to get back on track. I have tried all the diets and weight watchers and you name it. I don't want my son, Nathan, to grow up being embarrassed of me; fat and ugly. I am so disgusted with myself right now."

michael muia says
"Over the past couple weeks I have noticied the I just feel fat. At first I and my wife thought it was in my head. Keep in mind i dont have a scale in my home,,I refuse to own one.lol.. Well the other day I was at my mother in laws home and I decided to weigh myself.I almost cried when I saw 249.5,, So there I was very upset. .... I did quit smoking back in Feb, I have been snacking on all garbage.. to be honst I always ate this stuff bt not in the quantities like this year. So here is my plan...cut out all the junk including soda and vitimen water and gatorade. My wife has been packing me my breakfast and lunch and snack. Very healthy stuff. If by the end of 7 days of this diet I dont atleast lose a lb.. I am going to really worry and go to my doctor. I hope and pray that I dont put the weight back on and I can really get back on track. I do admit after reading these comments I am really worried that I have lost track and I will go back to being the person I hated."


This one sums up
what I've been trying to say
about this whole thing...
Margarette says "Weight loss surgery usually does not work in the long run unless you are exercising like crazy. This is a business and the Doctors will lie to you and tell you that it is your fault. It's your metabolism. I had the LapBand and I exercise over an hour a day plus I record everything I eat and it comes out to about 800 calories a day. Yet, I gained almost all of my weight back. Why? Because your body gets use to eating less and it adjusts. Check out the LapBand FDA report. It was suppose to be a 2 year study but when the FDA said, "we want 3 years", 30% of the patients mysteriously disappearred. Why? Maybe because they gained too much weight and Inamed (the LapBand company at the time) wanted their numbers to look good so they got rid of those who were lowering their weight loss numbers. Overall, for a 300 pound person, 53 pounds were lost in 3 years. For myself, I lost weight and kept it off until about year five. Then, the weight came back even with the 800 calories a day and then one hour of exercise. Don't blame yourself - that's what the doctors want you to do so they do not feel guilty about profiting from something that does not work in the long run due to each individual's genetics."

Bijoux asks
"The question remains--where does one start once you have regained a good portion of the weight loss by having gastric bypass surgery? I have been looking for some type of on-line support group to discuss this with others who feel they have "failed" at yet, another diet!"



Then of course we have the unsympathetic,
smug post-op
who says
"Okay, I am also a Gastric Bypass patient from 2004. The issue on basically all of these posts is that you expected the surgery to "fix" everything for you. The surgery is a tool to help you lose and maintain the weight. If you have no plans to change your life and bad habits, why have the surgery? It is not the surgery that failed you, you failed you. And this is coming from a woman who weighed 350, 5'7", I got their from bad habits and will go back their if I return to the habits. What the surgery did was give me a 100lb jump start to show me it was possible, make it easier to exercise and get me started. Then I needed to change my attitude, habits and life to keep losing and maintain. Yes I have had slips and gained up to 20lb's, why? because I quit exercising and watching what I ate. don't need to be perfect in eating and exercise, but what in this world that is worth it comes easy? That's the problem with people today, they expect somebody else to make their world perfect, no personal responsibility. Frankly, if I gain the weight back it will be because I got LAZY!!!!!"



Great. Just what these people need. Someone yelling at them in all caps that they're lazy.Kinda like what fat people have heard all our lives. Now the very community that is supposed to be a support system is finger-pointing, yelling and spouting rules that most people can't follow because of mental, emotional and physical issues. People need help not rules, not yelling, not calorie counting.

People (like me)
need real care
real support
real food
real balance in our lives.

We need some compassion and understanding.
We need a holistic approach to well being.
We need real solutions.

Where can we get it?

I think I'll have to come up with an answer.
A good one.
One that works.


*Lisa's Video Pick of the Day*
A reader noticed that yesterday's video did not really explain IMT (Integrative Manual Therapy).
I'm not sure there is a better video on YouTube right now but I did Google the developer's name:
Sharon Weiselfish-Giammatteo and found this: "Integrative Manual Therapy (IMT) is a unique compilation of diagnostic and treatment methodologies that assess and treat pain, dysfunction, disease and disability. Developed by Sharon Giammatteo, Ph.D., I.M.T.,C. over the past 30 years, IMT is a new approach to health care developed to address the needs of complex patients. IMT practitioners identify and address the underlying causes of dysfunction using a comprehensive and holistic approach. While IMT diagnostics and treatment modalities are predominately hands-on, IMT also integrates a wide range of diagnostic and treatment technologies, nutritional programs (i.e. natural supplements, diet, and herbs), and IMT body based psychotherapeutic approaches to develop a customized solution for an individual patient's needs."
I'm still uncertain about IMT's exact nature.
Let's see if this video does a better job of explaining.
click here or click below