After WLS: How Much Weight Have You Lost?

Weight Loss Definitions, Terms and Acronyms:

Atkins Diet - weight loss diet that involves restriction of the intake of carbohydrates in order to switch the body's metabolism from burning glucose to burning fat, especially stored fat.
Dieting - to eat and drink according to a regulated system, especially to lose weight or control a medical condition.
Anti-obesity drugs - some work by suppression of the appetite.
Calorie restriction or Caloric restriction (CR) diet - limiting dietary energy intake to improve health and retard aging.
Food guide pyramid or food pyramid - a nutrition guide created by the United States Department of Agriculture.
Zone diet - a diet popularized in books by Barry Sears that advocates hormonal thinking instead of caloric thinking as an approach to eating. The intake of food that produces the best results within our bodies is based on a hypothesis of how the human body has evolved to cope with the food intake throughout history.

I had lost nearly fifty pounds before anyone mentioned my weight loss. Then, all of the sudden, everybody noticed! As soon as they noticed the questions began. The most often asked: "How much weight have you lost?" People who I barely knew asked me this question as if it were their right to know. I was never sure of the motive for the question? Did they want to celebrate my weight loss? Did they want to gasp knowing just how fat I was?

How much weight have I lost? I have shared the answer with very few people - it's nobody's business. I know many weight loss patients who are proud of this number and I admire them. I wish I had more confidence in myself. But truthfully, I'm embarrassed by how fat I was and how much weight I had to lose.

These days when I'm asked this question, with a curious tilt of my head I ask back, "Why do you want to know that?" Never has anyone answered my question with a valid response. This data, the number on a scale, means nothing to anyone but me. I don't care to give someone an opportunity to marvel at just how huge I must have been that I could lose that much weight.

Most of the time when I ask in return, "Why do you want to know?" the busybody retreats. In general, we know when we've crossed the line - sometimes it just takes a gentle reminder. If, however, they persist, I say I prefer not to share that information. Only on one occasion has a nosy person continued to pester me, at which time I said I wouldn't answer a rude question.

I admire the courageous patients who openly and proudly answer this question. Patients who are comfortable sharing this number must by all means include others in their weight loss celebration. We are all different and whether our approach private or public we have only have to answer to ourselves.

Kaye Bailey is a weight loss surgery success story having maintained her health and goal weight for 5+ years. An award winning journalist, she is the author and webmaster of http://www.livingafterwls.com and http://www.livingafterwls.blogspot.com

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