What If?

                                            
I recently received this message from someone considering weight loss surgery:

"I read your blog and certainly appreciate your openness and frankness concerning your stuggles. I guess my question for you would be...do you think you would have lost that initial 111 pounds if you had not had the RNY surgery? Or do you feel the surgery was necessary to give you the jumpstart you needed toward reaching your goal?"

In my lifetime, every pound I've ever lost, no matter how I lost it, took a great deal of effort.
I don't consider my weight loss from 271 down to 160 lbs, with a subsequent regain back to 190,
as a "jumpstart" toward my lifetime goal of being "normal" weight.

By that consideration, every weight-loss I've ever had ... at every time in my life... would have been a jumpstart, including all the times before when I lost 100 or 50 or 30 lbs, and regained all or some of it.   See ABOUT ME for more details.

What IF?  
There is no way that I can answer your question.
What if I'd been born male instead of female?
What if I'd been born to different parents?
What if I had not chosen to marry my first husband?
What if I hadn't had children,
or if I'd had them at a different stage of my life?
What if I had developed a smoking habit in my youth?
What if I'd decided not to go to Law School & chosen a different career?

WLS is a life-changing event. It is not a final answer for obesity,
but it changes one's body permanently, it gives one knowledge,
and living through the experience changes one's life history emotionally.

It is useless to go back in time to second guess the possible results of having different events wthin our lives. Doing so is merely a meaningless mental exercise which does nothing to predict anyone's future.

Although there are life choices we CAN make, both large choices, and daily small choices, the final outcomes of those choices are not within our control.

Consider the alternatives.
Consider your own personal abilities and objectives.
As much as possible, make conscious choices.
Then,    live with the results of that choice,
while accepting that the choice you made was the right one for you.