Spouses and Weight Loss Surgery

Now, here’s something I’d never thought about – spouses are frequently threatened by impending weight loss surgery. This is an article from ObesityHelp that runs down the issues spouses face.

“I just don’t understand it,” Dawn said. “Why doesn’t my husband want me to have the surgery?” Tammy agreed. Her spouse was also unsupportive: “My husband said, ‘Just keep trying new diets—you should be able to lose weight. This surgery is too risky and doesn’t make sense

Uh oh.

They’re worried you might stop loving them
Howard said, “I was worried about how our social life would change. Would she still find me acceptable?” Bruce echoed this by saying, “I was used to having a wife that looked a certain way and I was fine with it. I didn’t know what would change for her or for me after the surgery.” Mike cited statistics: “I’d heard how many people get divorced after weight loss surgery and I didn’t want that to happen to us.”

Oh, okay, here we go. Fears can be allayed with information.

Dr. Kelli Friedman and her colleagues at Duke University’s Weight Loss Surgery Center have found little to no valid research suggesting that WLS patients are more likely than others to get divorced.

And here’s what the doctors have to say:

You can help your spouse by discussing your plans and how you can work together. If you won’t be drinking alcohol after surgery, how will this affect your time with your spouse and your friends? Have a conversation where you say, “You know, I really want to keep doing the fun things we love to do. I’ve been thinking about our Friday night happy hours—let’s still go, but I’ll have a sparkling water and you can have a glass of wine. What do you think?” Together, come up with plans for several of your favorite “rituals” that will work for both of you. If you’re nervous about triggering emotional eating, say that too: “Honey, I’d love to go to the Cake Factory, but right now, I think it’s going to be too hard for me to eat there. How about the Crab Shack?”

And this to me is the heart of the article:

What spouses need is good, honest information. Mike attended a support group with his wife and asked questions; Bruce went with his wife to meet her surgeon and talked to the clinic team about what to expect. Howard explained that he needed time to process the information he was receiving, and that an ObesityHelp conference was where “the light switch came on for me to get on board with the decision

Anyway, take a look. I”m going to see if I can run down the Kelli Friedman study about divorce and weight loss surgery, and I’ll report back to you if I do.

…Works Better Than A 500 Calorie Diet!

yeah, baby, cuz I been on 500 calorie diets and they are no fun.

Alright, i don’t know how missed this study. This is good to see.

Researchers at Monash University Medical School in Melbourne, Australia, recruited 80 patients who were on average 52 pounds over a healthy weight. Half had the laparoscopic adjustable gastric band surgery.

The other half followed a medical program that included a variety of strategies such as a very-low-calorie diet (500 calories a day) with liquid meal replacements, prescription weight-loss medication and behavioral therapies.

And guess what we found out? The patients with lap band kept the weight off and the dieters didn’t.

After six months, both the surgery patients and the low-calorie dieters lost an average of 14 percent of their starting weight.

– After two years, the gastric band patients lost 22 percent of their starting weight. That was about 87 percent of their excess weight, or roughly 45 pounds. They also showed marked improvement in their health and quality of life.

– At the end of two years, the dieters had regained much of their lost weight but were still 5.5 percent below their starting weight. They had lost 22 percent of their excess weight, or about 12 pounds.

Lap bands allow you to get around the weight set point issue. After you’ve dieted a few pounds away, your body starts cranking your metabolism and it becomes harder and harder to lose weight – you’ve experienced this, no doubt. Unfortunately, it becomes easier and easier to put weight on and as soon as you stop dieting, your weight keeply rebounds to where it was before. But with weight loss surgery, the crank down in metabolism doesn’t happen and so you lose weight and you keep it off. Once you stabilize at given weight, you have the ability to stay there. That’s the key, right there.

Happy Saturday, folks. Now I’ve got a video interview to go finish cutting.