Why, Charlie Brown, Why? (1990)

It’s been over eight months since I had my gastric bypass surgery. I am (obviously) very open about the whole thing and when people find out about it they are always curious. And I can state without any hesitation that the number one question I get is, “Why.” People always want to know why I chose to have an operation. It’s a question that tells me more about a person than I sometimes want to know. Because that’s not the real question. There is another question just under the surface of that innocent sounding query. What they really want to know is “Why couldn’t you lose the weight without surgery.”

And I will admit that it’s a very valid question. I had been dieting on and off for years with no real results. I could never get motivated to get into a gym on a regular basis. I was unmotivated because I was content. I was comfortable and not thinking about the future. I never thought about what my life would become if I continued living the way I was.

You see, my doctor was very clear with me before I had my operation. She told me that the surgery is only a tool. That unless I used it in conjunction with other tools (diet & exercise) I would eventually gain the weight back. Hell, there was even a chance that I could mess around and not even really loose any weight. She told me that she had seen it happen many times. The thing about this operation is that like most things in life, there are ways to cheat it. There are loopholes that will allow you to continue doing the things that got you so big in the first place.

The point is that it wasn’t a magic wand that would make all the weight fly off with no effort. It would be hard and it would take commitment and willpower. I can tell you that those were two things that I had never had when it came to weight loss attempts.

So why choose to have a surgery that could fail? And what made it different this time around from all the previous times?

First off, weight loss surgery may only be a tool, but it’s one dozy of a tool for sure. The first month after the operation my stomach was so messed up that I didn’t even want to think about food. I lived on water and Jell-O and didn’t even like the Jell-O. And even when you get to the point where you can eat food the quantities are extremely small. I was told that my stomach would be about the size of a ping pong ball post surgery. I thought that might be an exaggeration right up until the first time I ate solid food and after two bites felt like I had swallowed a twenty five pound turkey.

But as to the willpower and commitment needed for something like this it was pretty simple really. I was pushing thirty years old and huge. I knew that diabetes, heart attacks, and any other number of awful things were just around the bend if I didn’t change my life. I wanted to get married. I wanted to have kids and be able to see them grow up. I wanted to live for as long as I could. I can tell you that death is one hell of a motivator.

But we’re alone here you and I. Let’s be really honest for a moment. Let’s talk about what made me go from thinking about it to wanting to do it.

I remember I worked with this girl. She was my age. She was pretty. We got along great. We had so much in common. One night out at a bar she told me, “You know Rod … if you lost some weight I can see that you are a very handsome guy.”

Then a few nights later she went out and slept with some other guy. She slept with some random good looking guy who she barely knew.

And it hit me. I knew I was a nice guy. I knew I was funny and smart and able to have fun with almost anyone. And I knew that all the girls I knew would always think of me as that great, funny, cuddly, friend who they would never be interested in as more than friends. I would never get the girl of my dreams because she would never go out with me as fat as I was.

Suddenly I was not content. I was not happy to be as big as I was. I deserved better from the opposite sex than what I was getting. I deserved happiness. And I was instantly willing to take the risk of surgery so that I could make the girl of my dreams see me for the man of her dreams.

Why? To get the girl.