I've been offline for a week and now you know why.
I've been fat my whole life.
My mother actually recently found some old health records: 316lbs (143kg) at 16. Strangely, I've never had other fat related issues like high blood pressure, diabetes, etc. A miracle of otherwise very good genetics. Still, walking around with 100lbs of extra fat on top of you really takes the fun out of things. You don't look great, you can't shop for clothes worth a damn, and everything from airplanes to automobiles to doorways is simply designed wrong for your daily existence.
Oh, and people will insult you out of the windows of their car.
I can't remember a time in life where I wasn't catching shit for being heavy. Bullied as a kid (then less when I shot up. Nobody wants to fight a nearly 6', 300lbs 7th grader). As an adult you put up with weird comments, strange looks, and sometimes people just say "hey fatass" while they drive by in their car. You also tend to discover through the grapevine that you don't get invited to the cool parties and other such things. And I'm a guy. It's worse for the ladies.
This is how the rest of the world treats you. As just in the way. Not our fault you are short and puny.
Not complaining though
Those experiences taught me a valuable lesson: most people are shit. The expression "lipstick on a pig" describes the inner lives of a lot of humanity: they might try and look nice outside, but inside they are insecure douchebags. I don't really like people. Thank goodness I'm an introvert.
The other upside is that when you start to learn to see past all the bullshit you get a good eye for people who aren't shit. I've never had a terrible romantic relationship, for instance. I truly don't have much experience when it comes to high drama stupid crap in relationships. You get enough of that in normal life that if you bother to really pay attention you learn to spot the warning signs (instead of getting desperate which is the other way these things go).
Still, I'd prefer to look great and live a lot longer.
In my various attempts to lose weight I've taken years of martial arts classes, yoga, a number of personal trainers, become a powerlifter, paid thousands to hypnotists, doctors, and others.
None of that shit works. Period. Not for the weight loss I"m talking about. Dropping 20lbs and packing on some muscle - totally works. Cutting your weight in half? Fuck no. Anybody who keeps harping about diet and exercise is just someone who has no fucking clue about it. Seriously. All the biggest losers - they gain their weight back. In fact, one of the guys in the hospital with me (over 400lbs) had been on the show. It turns out losing weight like that obliterates your metabolism and sets you up to gain weight back even faster.
So, does diet an exercise "work"? Sure, in the short term. I've lost 100lbs the "natural" way. But the natural way means you live your life as a slave, obsessing about food you can't eat, obsessing about working hard enough in the gym and using all your mental energy to ignore the flood of hunger that comes with working out.
Basically, you can try and be thin and in the process be pretty miserable and you'll probably still fail. Because let's face it, even 100lbs down from my nearly 400lbs peak I was still huge. And I kept it off for years That puts me in the top 1% (maybe .1%) of successful dieters and I was STILL fucking huge.
My rule of thumb is this: anyone who hasn't lost over 100lbs and kept it off for 5 years doesn't get a voice.
They simply don't get it. Their genetics are different, their hormones are different. Not everybody won that particularly lottery.
So after moving to Asia, working out with a personal trainer, having my GF cook healthy food, and buying and walking a dog every day.. I decided to go after this with nuclear weapons.
The Nuclear Option: Weight loss surgery.
There are a lot of different types of weight loss surgery. Years ago I worked as a medical technician and saw lots of patients who had Gastric Bypass. I cannot recommend it. I hear they've gotten better at it, but back then EVERYONE who I ever met with that procedure had TONS of complications. As fat as I was, I didn't want to be going to the hospital every few months. That's not a a trade off I found interesting since I was otherwise extremely healthy.
Lap Band
Lap band is a new, reversible surgery that basically puts a rubber band around your stomach. Nothing is permanent, and it just makes it harder to eat too much. It doesn't affect your hormones. It also tends to be really slow and if you remove the band - you're back to normal (for good and bad). A number of people in the hospital had tried lap bands. And all of them had decided that it just wasn't that great. If you have all this covered by insurance (LOL) then maybe you could try it. But seriously: if you are willing to have people stab you with knives in order to lose weight, why go so half-ass?
Gastric Sleeve
This was invented by accident. For people who were too unhealthy to do the entire gastric bypass they split the procedure into two parts. The first, they would re-section the stomach to be about 15-20% of it's original size, and in the second they would mess with the intestines. But they quickly found out the FIRST half was responsible for almost no complications but about 80% of the weight loss. The gastric sleeve has a ton of advantages: You recover fast, it's got an extremely low complication rate, and once you heal you can usually eat any type of food you like. Unlike grastric bypass, your intestines are unaltered which skips the most dangerous complications, malnutrition, and more extensive healing.
I found out about it through a female friend. She was the only person who, like me, had an inexplicable difficulty pulling off pounds despite healthy eating, exercise, trainers, etc. She had it done and was overjoyed. A few months and 40lbs later she was losing weight with the least effort ever and ZERO complications despite having a ton of other medical issues.
So sign my fat ass up.
I did a lot of research online and ended up picking a place in Poland called KCM Clinic in Jelenia Gora. One of the most critical things for surgical success is experience. KCM has a facebook support group and I could ping hundreds of prior clients and they were ALL happy.
There were cheaper clinics, but I'll take ongoing support and hundreds of references over saving a few hundred dollars.
The price, about $6.5k. I signed up, got a date, booked a flight, and patiently waited to fly into Poland.
The prep
You come into the clinic and they begin the tests. It's about a day's worth: tons of blood tests, metabolic tests, ultrasounds of my heart and stomach. Full medical histories, drugs and vitamins you take, everything. You are expected to maintain a STRICT diet for 2 weeks beforehand. It was hard, but I had done it. This plus my excellent health made most of these a breeze. Finally they put a needle in your arm for an IV and you are ready.
Before surgery
Nurses come in (they don't speak English) and start injecting you with a massive number of drugs. Antibiotics, etc.
I'll be honest: I had a bit of a panic attack right here. I turned red, started freaking out. Until this moment it had only been kinda-real. But here I was, about to get a few stab wounds in my belly and have most of an organ removed.
I had been scheduled for 1pm but they were ahead of schedule. Suddenly I found myself flying down the hall on the gurney, wheeled under bright lights. One arm was pinned and setup with a BP machine, the other got the IV. A few seconds later... I woke up from Anesthesia, struggling to breath as I was wheeled back down the hall. It was over and I was freaking out as I was disoriented and still recovering. My body coming back to breathing, regaining control, it was all disorienting and a bit scary. 5 minutes later the Anesthesia finally wore off and I was fine.
Lying in bed, sitting there, I was still worried. Was this the right decision? There was no going back so I guess I would find out.
Stay tuned for Part 2, where I talk about recovery. Then likely part 3, where I talk about how things go long term.