There is a new show on TLC (The Learning Channel) called my 600 lb life.  Each week we watch the story of one of four people who start off being over 600 lbs, have gastric bypass surgery in the effort to achieve their goal weight.  These are extremely high risk surgeries,  and the long term success rate is very low.  We follow each person from surgery to present day, which results in 7 years of their life.
So far there have been two episodes and I have watched them both. 
The first episode involved a young woman named Melissa.  She was well over 600 lbs, and lost just over 400 once it was all said and done.  This lady not only had to go thought the original bypass surgery, but then had to endure several surgeries to remove excess skin.  Each surgery lowered her weight, but put her back in danger of infection and other complications.  She did have a major infection at one point and was hospitalized for a long time. She was able to almost meet her goal weight, but more importantly she lost enough weight that she was able to have a baby, which was what she wanted even more than losing the weight.

The second episode involved a young man named Donald.  He was well over 600 lbs when he has surgery, and was doing fine until he came down with an illness that attacked his immune system.  This put him in hospital for more than a year, until he was moved home when the insurance company threatened to move him to a nursing home.  He went down to 200 lbs while in the hospital, but after returning home each year following he gained a 100 lbs.  At the end of the episode he was back up to over 400 lbs, could not walk and was living with his parents.

This show is  very powerful, especially for those who are like me and are considering gastric bypass.  I think that these examples are extreme, but none the less they show exactly what to expect from this surgery and also what could happen.


After watching the two episodes I have discovered two very important things that I need to make sure are in place before I ever undergo this surgery.

The first thing is that you have to have the family you live with on board 100%.  If this is not the case than they will not totally support you which inevitably make the process harder, or stop it all together.  In both episodes there were family members who were not with them 100%.  With Melissa, her husband did not change his eating habits, and ate things around her that she could not eat.  Fighting a craving is one thing, but having that temptation right under your nose is another.  He did not support it all 100% even though he kept saying he did over and over.  In Donald's case, his mother started feeding Donald fast food while he was sick in the hospital.  She kept saying that he just needed to get some weight on and he would be fine, hence the 100 lbs weight gain every year after.  Also, after Donald came home he stopped trying to walk, and they did nothing to help he get motivated to do the work.  It was quite evident that his family, well at least his mom, was not ready to give up the role in her sons life that she had had for most of it.

The second overwhelming  message from these two episodes for me is to have some really good therapy in place before and after surgery.  I mean someone who can listen and guide through the process, but also deal with the thoughts you have about yourself that came from long before you ever started gaining that weight.  It was very obvious that neither Melissa or Donald had a good sense of who they were.  Even after getting their weight under control they still fought with the self image problems, their self esteem, and most importantly they both felt being abused was normal.  Donald's mother abused her son with food, and he didn't even see it.  I don't think she even saw what she was doing, she was just doing what she had always done.  Some people in your life have roles, and these roles fulfill things in their lives that is missing.  They do not want to give up those roles, and will fight the process tooth and nail.  In Melissa's case she just sat back and took it when her husband would contact other women ever single time she would go have another surgery to improve her process.  She just came back for more, and more and more.  She even had a child with the man that was cheating on her.  I am sure her whole life she had been abused, and abuse had just become so normal for her she thinks that's all she deserves.

I think this show is a great example for those of us who are interested in getting down to our goal weight using the tool of gastric bypass.  I think is shows you the process very well, but I think they did these people a disservice by not providing psychological care following the surgery.  I don't care how much you weight, or how much you need to get off, there is a reason for you weight gain, and unless you work on why you got there, you will get there again.  Sure there are those people who might have been thin all their life until they started to have kids and after each baby they gained another 40 or 50 lbs until they were out of control, but there is still a reason they started to abuse food.  Having someone help you understand your relationship with food, as well as help you work on all the psychological changes that are going to happen during the weight loss process is imperative. 

Over the course of the last few years I have met lots of people who are on track to have the surgery, or have had the surgery.  I can tell you there are people I have met who should never be considered for this surgery, as they are not psychologically ready.  There is this belief that this surgery will fix everything that is wrong with your life, but it is only going to get the weight off.  There are so many example's of people after getting the surgery who then turn to drugs, alcohol, sex,  and the list goes on to fill the whole the food has left, with therapy, that whole will be understood and taken care of without continuing to hurt yourself.

Knowing who you are and why you are the way you are is so important when it comes to altering your entire life.  I know that threw my therapy I am learning why  I do the things I do, why I think the way I do, why things hurt me they way they do, and what to do to make those things better.  The process is long, and it takes a great deal of work, but I will be damned if I change my body forever and don't get a handle on why I was there to begin with.  To think that getting to goal weight is going to fix you, you are so wrong.

This show tells one side of the story, but leaves the bigger problem there.  I am glad this show is on the air, and I think that anyone watching it that maybe considering the surgery should watch it and really ask yourself, do I really have everything in the right place to be successful.  Don't change yourself forever without real help, and that goes beyond a surgeon or a social worker.