Cinammo,

I think that many of us posting in the Triple Digits Forum have seriously considered gastric bypass surgery. If low carbing had not worked for me, it was the only option I had left and I had done serious research into it. I am very grateful that low carbing has worked for me, but I am well aware of the fact that it does not seem to work for everyone. (Just as lowfat dieting works well for some people, but was a spectacular failure for me -- I just gained more weight.) Low carbing does require patience. I think that people need to give it a good three or four months (while faithfully following their chosen plan) before deciding that it does not work. Many people seem to stall out for a while, but then their weight loss resumes again.

As you are probably aware, there are often major complications with gastric bypass surgery, although it is a life-saver for some people. Click here for the best website I have found discussing the surgery. If you scroll down the website, there are lots of links to people's write-ups of their personal experience with the surgery (similar to the journals we keep on this site that document our experience with low carbing). Not everyone has serious complications, but I don't know of any way to predict in advance who will have those complications.

It looks like you just started low carbing. Why don't you give it a serious try for a few months and then evaluate at that time how you are feeling and if you think gastric bypass surgery would be a better option for you? I also recommend combining exercise with lowcarb eating, if you are not doing so already.

I work with a woman who had gastric bypass surgery about a year ago. She has done well in her weight loss (losing over 100 pounds in a year). However, her stamina is nowhere near where it was before the surgery. She used to travel extensively and has had to stop traveling. She is having work-related problems because she really has difficulty putting in an eight-hour day. She has also developed serious reactions to certain foods, so her diet is very limited and she is reliant upon supplements for basic nutrition. Frankly, although I have lost less weight than she has in the past year (and I am currently probably about 50 pounds heavier than she is), I am much healthier and in much better shape than she is. I am very worried about her right now. She lifted something heavy a few days ago and developed tremendous pain in her abdomen. She felt as though she had injured something related to the surgery and went home. I have not seen her since then. FYI, she says that despite all the complications, she would not hesitate to have the surgery again. She was having a lot of health complications and she feels as though the surgery saved her life. She did not try low carbing before the surgery, but she did try various lowfat diets without success.