I originally posted the stuff below three years ago on my personal site… and with today being Mother’s Day I was reminded of it… with an additional thought. Recently in one of the support groups I attend, telling others about the decision to have weight loss surgery came up. I was pretty lucky I think – I didn’t get any sort of negative feedback from anyone.

Maybe the closest to it came from my mom – she had reservations… but they were of the very best kind.

She didn’t express anything negative about the surgery, I think because she has a number of co-workers who have been through the surgery. Heck, I had a very nice leather jacket compliments of one of her co-workers who had the surgery and it was too big for him now. (I gave that jacket to someone else when it became too big for me.) No, all of her reservations I believe were strictly for my safety. Not because she had issues with the surgery… but simply because I’m her son. And while I’m sure my being morbidly obese also caused her concern, any time someone you love “goes under the knife”, there’s a level of concern that bubbles to the surface.

She was there (along with Dad) when I was wheeled away… and she was there when I woke up. And true to form, she’s “been there” ever since, just like she always has been.

Anyways… here’s what I wrote a few years back…I was listening to one of the local talk stations yesterday while heading out to the paintball field, and they were taking calls for listeners to tell why their mom is the coolest. I would have called in, but talking on the phone will driving a Jeep is difficult at best. Too much background noise.

So I decided I would post what I would have said to the radio guy…

This needs some setting up…

Back in fifth grade I had this teacher, Mrs. Swanson. She was your stereotypical … nasty teacher. Big hair, glasses, grating voice. And I used to swear she had it out for me. I’m old and senile now, so I don’t remember a lot of specifics… but there was the one time she almost gave me detention for touching a 9-volt battery to my tongue. We were doing some science stuff that had to do with electricity, so we had an assortment of batteries. You put a 9-volt in front of group of boys, and what are they gonna do? They’re gonna touch their tongues to it. Anyways, she caught me doing so and yelled bout how I was going to get electrocuted or something.

Anyways, that spring, with just a few weeks left in the school year, we were out playing softball and I was our team captain. Being the captain, I had to talk to the team while they were on the bench waiting to bat, right? Figure out who is batting next, fun stuff like that. Well, Mrs. Swanson started yelling at me for turning my back on the batter… I guess she was afraid I was gonna get clocked in the back of the head by a foul ball? ( nevermind that from home plate to the bench I would have had just as much a chance of getting out of the way of a line-drive foul facing it or not.) So being the mature fifth grader that I was I politely apologized and moved to go back around the bench or something, muttering a single word under my breath. A word which also happens to be the dictionary term for a female dog.

“What did you say?” she screeched.. Ok, here I admit the limits of the fifth grade mind. My snappy comeback was about how I had an “itch”.

I was doomed. I had to write out about 20-25 times “I will not call Mrs. Swanson a bitch.” and bring it home to be signed by my mom. And just to further prove the limits of the fifth grade mind, me an my friends (who of course thought what I said was cool) figured we would forge my mom’s signature. After repeated attempts, it was painfully obvious none of us boys were going to duplicate the flowing, feminine curves of my mothers signature.

Then I realized, wait… I can forge my own writing! Thank goodness they did not let fifth graders near pens for school work. I quickly erased all the B’s and chanced them to W’s. (making it seem as if I only called her a “witch” for those keeping score.) And my plan probably would have worked with me getting maybe just a few days to a weeks worth of grounding… if it wasn’t for the fact where my mom needed to sign the paper, it was painfully obvious numerous attempts to sign for her and erease it had not already been made.

The sentence: Grounding. Two weeks.

Now we’re finally to the “why my mom is the coolest” part of the story.

Years later, she and I were having dinner and just talking. Somehow, the topic of fifth grade and Mrs. Swanson came up and I decided since over twenty years had passed, the statute of limitations surely had expired, so it was safe for me to confess to her my true crime and what I had done all those years earlier.

After a moments pause, her response was a simple. “You’re right, looking back, she kind of was a bitch.”

Love ya mom…

(Be sure to read Part 1 of Larry’s Story first…)

My wife Beth and I discussed having weight loss surgery in early 2008.  We had heard good things, and bad things about it.  As far as I know, we only knew one person who had actually had weight loss surgery.  That person was not very compliant, and didn’t receive much education about her procedure and follow-up.  She didn’t have a very good result, in fact she ended up having her band completely drained and is living with no restriction at all… and consequently little to no weight loss.

We didn’t want to be like that.  We didn’t want to fail.  From our research online we found that people who have gastric bypass surgery lose weight!  Compliant or not, they lose weight.  Not saying that a person couldn’t drink milkshakes and eat cake and ice cream, and defeat the surgery, they can.  But, a large percentage of people who have gastric bypass surgery lose a significant portion of their excess weight.  We knew that we aren’t the most compliant folks you’ll meet, so our only choice was gastric bypass surgery.

Prior to that time, our insurance company didn’t cover any “elective” surgery, such as weight loss surgery.  One day I was going thru the insurance companies website and found that they had changed their policy!!!  They had some stringent guidelines, but it was possible to get the surgery covered!

We started talking to our primary care physician about weight loss surgery in earnest in about July of 2008.  At the end of July, the company I work for announced that beginning January 1, 2009 our insurance was going to change.  We were being forced to change insurance carriers, to one that didn’t cover weight loss surgery.  We had about 5 months to jump through all the hoops and get the surgery done!  During this time we discovered the YouTube WLS community.  Going online and watching people tell about their trials and tribulations made ours a little less stressful.  Just to know that someone else had already been down this road.  We started our own YouTube channel.

It was a hectic couple of months.  We both were denied for surgery, but our surgeon personally called the insurance company and we were approved.  We ended up having our surgery at the end of the year with time to spare!  December 16th, 2008 was our rebirth day.  Our Surgeversery.

I think Beth and I are a little special.  We’ve been together since late 2001 and when I say together, I mean together.  We are basically inseparable.  There are other couples who have both had weight loss surgery, but I don’t personally know of any other couple who had their surgery on the same day.  It was pretty cool.

Because we both “deflated” together, she has lost over 100lbs and I’ve lost almost 150lbs, we didn’t have many of the issues that people who have the surgery alone do…  If someone flirts with Beth now, it tickles me almost as much as it does her.  And when some woman shows me a little extra attention, most of the time Beth has to point it out to me.  She loves it…  ( I’m oblivious to that sort of stuff…  I never had it before so I guess I failed to learn how to detect it!!!)

Weight Loss Surgery has been the best thing I’ve ever done for myself in my 54 years of life!!!  I’m totally prescription free…  Other than the vitamin supplements I take daily I’m done with meds…

Oh!  And I had those damned eyes fixed!!!  Laser surgery!  I haven’t tried yet, but I wonder if I could catch a baseball now???

Toxic waste isn’t good for ya. Plain and simple right? When it comes to WLS success, there are things we need to avoid like they are a barrel of toxic waste or there will be “adverse health effects”, just like the sign here says.

The first one I want to touch on here is selflessness. If you want to have long term WLS success, you’re going to need to learn to be selfish, or in other words you need to learn to put you and your needs ahead of those of others.

Before I was a former fat dude, I was pretty lucky. I had a number of great friends that did like me for me. But there were always these nagging feelings in the back of my mind, especially when it came to any sort of relationship with women. And these nagging feelings, I know now, led me to do things for others that I really shouldn’t have, simply to get that feeling of acceptance, the feeling of being needed by others.

Like I said, this was very much the case with some of my relationships with women – I mean heck, being kept around, even if it was just a friend was great right? Being someone they would turn to… being the shoulder they would cry on. It was the greatest thing in the world, but it was something. And it can be easy to get caught up in feeling that it’s better than nothing.

And I know I knew at the time this wasn’t a good thing for me. But that’s cause I wasn’t sure I would have known how to say no if I wanted to. And actually, deep down, it’s not that I didn’t want to say no. It’s just the need to be needed was greater. And the part of me that didn’t get something out of this… well, that was cushioned, protected, kept more or less sated by eating and that buffer of weight I carried with me.

But now, to continue to be so selfless, I know would be to invite WLS failure… or at least greatly increase the chance of it.

See, to make this work I have to think of myself first. Nobody else is going to do so… and even if others are encouraging and supportive, if I don’t continue to look out for my best interests I will end up failing at this. I’ll fall back in to old habits that will feed old insecurities, and like a barrel of toxic waste those insecurities will burn away at me and the success I’ve had.

Ok, fine… I’m not talking being a prick about it. Not a jerk, not even really being a meanie about it. But you plain and simply need to learn to think of yourself first.

Steps towards this include:

• It’s ok to say “no” to your friends and family at times.
• That taking the time to take care of yourself is not only the best thing for you, but it’s good for others as well.
• That it’s ok to put the needs/wants of others before, IF IT IS YOUR CHOICE to do so, and you’re not just reacting to the situation.

By taking care of yourself, it means you will be a stronger, healthier person who in the end will be able to much more for yourself and those around you.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

It was roughly 13 months ago that I started down the path to WLS by getting a referral from my doctor to the bariatric clinic.

One year and two days ago I met with the nutritionist and was put on a 1500 calorie a day meal plan to lose the required pre-op weight. Yea, I kinda cheated a bit on Thanksgiving… and Christmas. But I made the commitment and did a lot better than I had the year before.

Now here it is a year, and bout 185 pounds later, and I am truly thankful I made the decision to have this surgery.

I have no doubt I will be here for many many more Thankgivings to come than I otherwise would have been…. years I’ll be able to further enjoy the other many things I’m thankful for, such as my friends and family… and also thanks to the surgery I can truly add good health to the list of things I am thankful for.

Enjoy your day everyone.

My name is Tim Grayless and I’m from Indiana. I used to weigh 385 pounds until I had my RNY surgery on August 5, 2009. I have discovered so much about a disorder that used to control my life, and from time to time I will share those ramblings with all of you her at FFD.com

I am married to my lovely wife Doreen, who is the Director of Scholarships at Indiana University, South Bend, IN.

We have three children: Megan, who is 27  and going for her PhD in Communications at the University of Kentucky. Erin, who works for IBM in San Jose, CA, and Andrew who is finishing his certification for becoming a Physical Therapist. Andrew and Erin got their BA’s from Purdue, and Megan got he BA at Columbus State in Geogia, and her Masters at the University of Arkansas.

I am a part time United Methodist Pastor, and currently on disability. In the near future, God willing, I will be off disability and back to full time work.

Enough for now…see you on formerfatdudes.com.

Well, I sort of gave an introduction already, but I thought I would follow Benson’s lead and tell a bit about my motivation to have WLS. In a word, paintball.

A lot of guys play golf, I play paintball. Nearly 10 years ago I was a founding member of a woodsball team that at one point had over 50 members.

Like Benson said, most of us “fat dudes”, we’ve been dealing with weight most of our lives. But while I’ve always been big… the 300# plus kind of big the last 12+ years… I’ve always been pretty active. Not your “running a marathon” active, but active enough I could get out on the paintball field and play all day. But in late 2007 that started to change.

I suppose age has a bit to do with it. I hit the 40 year mark that year. I was slowing down… either because of the extra weight or because I was slowing down my weight had been creeping up. April of 2008 I hit my heaviest recorded weight of 377#.I played very little paintball last year. I would get wiped out just walking out to the field.

Then there’s my niece and nephew. A couple of twins who are just… well, I adore them, they adore me. It’s a pretty good arrangement. And even at 40 I have no problem getting down on the floor and playing around with them. No, the problem started becoming how to get up after I was done playing.

My Aunt had RNY in May of 2008. By that fall she had lost 80+ pounds and was running in a 5k race. Before October of last year, I had …idley thought about WLS, but realizing that it was a life-long, life changing thing, I always told myself “I can make those changes without surgery”. And I would… for a while. Losing some weight… only to fall in to old patterns and all the weight I lost would find me again and bring some buddies to the party. So I started reading more and more about WLS, and by November I decided this was something I had to do. My doctor agreed with me.

I was lucky in a way… I didn’t suffer from a lot of the co-morbidities many morbidly obese people do, but I had my problems. High blood pressure that was under control with meds, occassional acid reflux issues, and while I wasn’t using my CPAP, I had been diagnosed with sleep apnea a few years earlier. (I couldn’t keep the damn mask on while sleeping!)

And while it took longer than I had expected and hoped, I actually had a pretty easy time with my insurance company… and after jumping through all the required hoops I had my surgery on April 8, 2009. I was 322# the day of surgery. Today I’m just under 280.

I guess technically I’m not quite a “former fat dude” just yet… but I’m getting there. Mentally, I’m in better shape for this than I’ve ever been. Physically… I’ve seen the differences already. I know it won’t be easy, there are and always will be challenges ahead.

But everything is coming together, and now I have the tools I need to pull this off. For good.