I have a friend who had gastric banding, which is a less dangerous surgery than an actual gastric bypass, but watching her experience was still enough to scare me. At first, she was losing right and left, and within six months of the surgery, almost all of her excess weight was gone. Then she got pregnant, and she had an *awful* time -- literally spent all day long trying to eat, got forced into bed rest so she wouldn't burn as many calories, threw up constantly, and wound up in the hospital a couple times with dehydration. She continued to lose throughout her pregnancy, which really upset her doctor, although her baby wound up doing just fine. She wound up having the band removed shortly after she had the baby, but I shudder to think what would have happened to her if she'd had a non-reversible surgery. She'd gotten down to a healthy weight, but she was not a healthy person at all; I don't think she could have lived 10 more years in that state, let alone her natural lifespan. I worried about her constantly, and was so glad when she got the band removed. Being thin just isn't worth that.
And yes, it is possible that the surgery will not work for you as well as you think it will. My friend lost all of her weight, but another friend of hers had the same surgery done at the same time, and lost maybe 50 of 150 lbs. She stretched her stomach capacity back out to where she can eat pretty much normally instead of starving herself, but that means that she didn't lose all that much weight. I can't stress that enough, BTW -- you will lose weight because you are STARVING YOURSELF. You will have a difficult time getting in subsistence levels of important nutrients, for the rest of your life. You will never be able to eat normally, or eat certain foods -- breads and pastas are pretty much out, too much volume for not enough nutrient -- or even drink a can of diet coke. If you're unhappy with the level of food restriction involved in Atkins, weight-loss surgery is probably not a good idea for you.
Also, you'll lose a tremendous amount of muscle along with the fat, which will serve you in very bad stead if you do regain the weight. And with 90 lbs to go, you're going to have some skin issues -- my friend was seriously considering a tummy tuck when she got pregnant, and had problems with her arms and thighs as well. You may get to goal and look fine in clothes, but you're not going to have a body like a lingerie model, or even like someone who weighs 130 and has never been significantly overweight. To be frank, judging by my own results, you're not going to totally get that with Atkins either -- I have stretch marks and a bit of loose skin here and there from my 80 lbs. But the slower you lose the weight, the happier you're going to be when you get to goal.
Please, don't do this to yourself. You seem to be losing very well -- is it worth jeopardizing your health just to have it a little bit sooner?
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