What is "Back to Normal" After Gastric Bypass Surgery?

By Kaye Bailey

It is common for new WLS patients to ask, “How soon after surgery will I get back to normal?” This is understandable. We’ve spent a lifetime dieting for the short-term – the 30-day diet, the six-week program, the lose-ten-pounds-over-the-weekend diet. Remember thinking, "If I can stick with this plan for just 10 days, then I can go back to normal.”

The diet industry has conditioned us to think long-term lifestyle changes are unnecessary to accomplish weight loss. We are impatient and demanding, we want a quick fix. Expectations are unrealistic and result in failure, disappointment and self-loathing.

But weight loss surgery is for life.To that end, we must re-define normal:

• Normal is living without co-morbidities: asthma, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, sleep apnea, heartburn, and knee and back pain.
• Normal is feeling your body in motion, walking up stairs briskly, and bending to tie your shoes.
• Normal is playing children’s games on the floor and getting up without struggling.
• Normal is hearing compliments about how great you look.
• Normal is ACCEPTING compliments about how great you look.
• Normal is fastening an airplane lap belt and pulling it tight.
• Normal is enjoying clothes shopping.
• Normal is the thrill of amusement park rides.
• Normal is waking up early to jump on the scale – and thrilling at the number.
• Normal is living without the incessant distraction of food and the relentless hunger.
• Normal is feeling proud – not ashamed – of your body.
• Normal is savoring food one bite at a time, not ravaging it.
• Normal is having the power – the tiny tummy - to control eating behavior.
• Normal is eating three meals a day and not snacking in between – and doing just fine.
• Normal is feeling immediate discomfort when too much food, or the wrong food is consumed.
• Normal is taking vitamins every day.
• Normal is drinking water – lots of water.
• Normal is enjoying exercising!
• Normal is boundless energy.
• Normal is a positive outlook, not fearing the doom of an early, miserable death for obesity related health complications.
• Normal is eating lean protein at every meal.
• Normal is declining doughnuts or pizza – and not feeling deprived!
• Normal is making healthy eating and behavior modification a lifestyle for the whole family.
• Normal is quality food, not gluttonous quantity.
• Normal is taking responsibility for your own health and wellness.
• Normal is respecting the science of your body, respecting the tiny tummy, and respecting yourself.
• Normal is constant attention to weight maintenance.
• Normal is feeling deep compassion for the obese.
• Normal is being scared of the rapid transformation your body makes.
• Normal is bouts of anger over years of self-loathing, discrimination, isolation and suffering.
• Normal is the occasional departure from the rules that results in dumping or vomiting.
• Normal is a rapid return to appropriate eating behavior.
• Normal is seeing, for a time, a stranger in the mirror.
• Normal is freeing yourself from obesity’s prison.
• Normal is understanding that the pre-surgical behaviors and habits were unhealthy, destructive and abusive.

Copyright © 2005 Kaye Bailey - All Rights Reserved.

Kaye Bailey is a gastric bypass success story having maintained her health and goal weight for more than five years. An award winning journalist, she is the author and webmaster of http://www.livingafterwls.com and http://www.livingafterwls.blogspot.com - Fresh & insightful content about living after weight loss surgery is added daily, check in often.

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