I wasn't fat enough.

.... apparently.

I have been trying to keep my banding on the down-low for a variety of reasons, but one of them is that I didn't want to get grief for getting it done. Specifically, the why would I get it done "at YOUR size?!?"

See, I know a lot of women who are, or have been, much larger than my starting size of 18/20, or my starting weight of 268. Some of them have undergone WLS of their own over the years, others have not. But most of them have expressed envy at one point or another for my size.

But that doesn't mean I wasn't fat enough to consider WLS myself. At least I don't think so. My weight has gone up and down and up and down and up and down (etc., you get the picture) over the years, but has only dipped below 200 pounds once since my early 20s.

Yes, I did lose a good bit of the weight before my actual surgery date. I certainly would never have qualified for surgery approval if I had started out at my surgery date weight. But just because I *CAN* lose the weight on my own doesn't mean that the band wasn't for me.

I can lose weight without the band.

I've done it....

over, and over, and over again.

I just can't keep it off, obviously. For me, getting the band was finally saying to myself that I was willing to have help. That a tool to make the yo-yo finally stop was something I wanted. Not only the big rollercoaster ups and downs, but the smaller ones that always happen while I'm losing weight. I want this weight to not only come off this time, but to STAY off for once (and for all).

So the idea that I've just jumped on something popular (WLS in general, I don't know many other bandsters, mostly bypass/sleeve patients) makes me really sad. I'm not just following a trend here, I soul-searched long and hard before deciding to get the band.

Maybe the folks that have been talking about my surgery with disdain really didn't realize that I was as heavy as I was, late last year or at any other point when I've gotten close to that weight. I do tend to become really reclusive when my weight gets past a certain point. Maybe they didn't know that I really was carrying 120 pounds of excess me around, again. Maybe they don't think that my 150 pound goal is a reasonable weight for my height (just a hair over 5'6"), or something.

I don't know, but I do know that I hate feeling like I have to justify myself or my decision. Just because I don't/didn't have two or three hundred pounds to lose doesn't/didn't make me any less a good candidate for WLS, especially this WLS. The band isn't going to do this for me, but I sure hope it will help me do it for the long haul.