Paying for my own surgery

Question
Hi, my BMI is 35 and I am considering having gastric bypass surgery out of the country. Paying for it myself. I have no other serious health problems right now (just sore hips and feet)but know that I am a strong candidate for Diabetes in the future,  Lots of relatives have it and so does my Dad.   If I don't have any health problems right now I am being foolish considering this?  I am about 70lbs overweight and have never lost weight just gained a few pounds every year. Numberous diet attemps.
I want to relearn how to slowly eat small portions of healthy food but I have never been able to do this on my own.  Now my health is good but continuing on this path of weight gain each year I know I will have problems in the years ahead.  
Part of me thinks that it would be easier on my body to do this now instead of waiting until my BMI increases to 36 or 37.
Sorry this message is so long. Thank you inadvance for responding.

Answer
Hi There,

I don't want to sound like I'm telling you what to do as it is a very personal decision to have weight loss surgery.  But I do have to say that without comorbidities here you would not even be considered with a bmi of 35 in Ontario.

In my opinion, I think the guidelines are there for a reason and I would really consider doing some things before I'd get surgery because realistically, there will be a time that you are two years out, and you will be right back to where you have started. You have to learn to deal with proper food portions first, educate yourself and see if there are other ways that you can deal with your excess lbs before resorting to an extreme such as surgery.   Surgery should literally be your last resort.

I don't know your history of weight loss so I don't know what you've tried and how much effort you put into things but if you have not tried these options, these two options are the most likely to help get your weight loss. If you've given them both a serious go, then I'd say that you have done your best.

1) I would first try Weight Watchers.  
2) I would work with a personal trainer and a dietician.

If you've done these things in the past, then I think you might want to give the lapband a go.  It is about $16,000 in Toronto.  

Gastric bypass should be considered your very last resort when your health issues come into play. It is not a quick fix and realistically you could end up with far more health issues after surgery than you have before. Right now, you are not considered morbidly obese and you don't have diabetes, so to me surgery would be more about vanity than health.  It would be too drastic for you in my opinion and I think that there are other routes to go before going to such a severe extreme.

There is always time to have gastric bypass if normal routes fail you but please don't think that the gastric bypass will be a quick fix.

Dawn  

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