Weight Loss Surgery (WLS) is often viewed as a quick fix for morbid obesity. One day a person is fat, the next they are not. While it may appear to onlookers that a gastric bypass patient is losing the weight without personal struggle or effort, this really isnt true. WLS patients must follow four rules for success and they experience four phases of growth following surgery.

The four rules for successful weight loss and long-term weight maintenance are: Eat protein first; No snacking, Drink lots of water and Exercise daily. Adherence to these rules moves the patient smoothly through the four stages of bariatric growth which I define as: Conception, Infancy, Adolescence and Maturity.

Conception begins when patients consider surgery as a treatment for morbid obesity. It could be prompted by a life threatening illness such as heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure or high blood cholesterol, asthma, heartburn or sleep apnea. Or perhaps lifestyle prompts it a person may lack the energy to play with their children or pursue the activities they love. Maybe self-esteem is so low because of obesity that a drastic measure surgery is needed to restore a sense of self-worth.

Conception is followed by birth, an event left entirely to a carefully selected surgeon and staff of healthcare professionals. The surgeon partitions off most of the stomach creating a pocket or pouch that will hold one ounce of food. In most gastric bypass surgeries the digestive system is re-routed to bypass the intestine and shortcut to the bowel. This prevents too many calories from being absorbed and stored by the body in the form of fat. The patient wakes from the surgery a bariatric infant.

Infancy On the second day of my WLS infancy my surgeon stood at my hospital bedside and showed me a cup, the size in which sacramental communion is offered and he said This is the size of your stomach now.

Just like bringing a newborn home from the hospital the bariatric patient brings home a tiny newborn tummy that has all kinds of requirements and restrictions. This new tiny tummy is completely foreign to the behaviors and habits that caused obesity. There is not one single thing an obese person has done in the past that they can continue doing. Patients who strictly follow the four rules quickly become acquainted with their new tiny tummy. This is the time of rapid weight loss. For the first time most morbidly obese patients are consistently losing lots of weight, something they have never experienced before. Infancy for most bariatric patients lasts from nine to 18 months.

Similar to parents of a firstborn child who focus completely on their new baby, during bariatric infancy patients completely focus on their new tiny tummy. Then one day, without fanfare, they wake up and rediscover themselves. They enter adolescence.

Adolescence Adolescence is the stage when patients test the system. Many patients dont dump, vomit, snack or eat the forbidden foods until they reach adolescence. But once they approach or reach target weight a mental bad boy shows up in a shiny black corvette saying take a ride on the wild side. So a patient jumps in the bad boys fast ride and speeds down a dangerous road. They break the rules! Perhaps they eat sugar which results in a blood sugar imbalance called dumping or they may stuff themselves with starchy carbs causing vomiting. In the worst case, a patient returns to snacking, a little treat of hard candy here and a handful of popcorn there. Mark my words, nothing stops-short weight loss or maintenance more quickly than a little bit of rule breaking. But like any teenager, we all have to learn it on our own.

The good news: the duration of adolescence is up to the patient! A patient only hurts themselves when they break the rules. Successful WLS patients commit to themselves early to be in control of their own gastric bypass growth cycle. However, some WLS patients get stuck in adolescence. Ive heard many say, Oh, I can eat anything I want, just not much of it. Dont believe it for a minute. They arent saying how often they vomit, or dump or how they never quite achieved their weight loss goal. Weight loss patients who eat anything they want are abusing their tool and stuck in perpetual adolescence.

Maturity At maturity a patient understands the gastric bypass system and is living the life they dreamed. They have achieved desired weight loss and are maintaining a healthy weight. A diligent patient can enjoy this phase for the rest of their life.

I believe WLS maturity is reached when patients understand one word: respect. Respect for the tiny tummy, respect for the science of the body, and respect for oneself. Sure, we all experience an occasional lapse of judgment; that old lover of ours food - is flaunting temptations every single day. But the gastric bypass patient is a brave and powerful person.

Successful patients build on infant and teenage experiences and become an adult embracing all the good things gastric bypass has facilitated. The battle against obesity isnt easy; patients will fight old habits for the rest of their life. Gastric bypass is a tool, a weapon in the battle against obesity, but it is the patient who wins the war.

Kaye Bailey

An award winning journalist and former newspaper editor Kaye Bailey brings expertise in writing and personal experience with gastric bypass surgery to EzineArticles.com. Ms. Bailey developed a passion for writing at an early age. As a teenager she found writing her feelings about obesity helped her cope in a world that is often cruel to overweight children and adults alike.

Ms. Bailey says she found out she was fat in kindergarten when another child told her she was fat. ?I didn?t even know what fat was but I could tell it was bad and I didn?t want to be fat. Until that day I had been unaware I was different. But there I was, a five-year-old girl sitting cross-legged on the floor learning a new word that would define me.?

At age 33 she underwent laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery. For the first time in her life after multiple failed diet attempts she lost weight. She said the decision to have surgery took courage, nerve, and a little bit of plain old faith. But she learned surgery was the easy part. Dealing with newfound emotions, struggling with food choices and fighting to keep from regaining weight were unexpected bumps in the road following massive weight loss with surgery.

Having spent most of her life overweight Ms. Bailey is strongly empathetic toward the obese, particularly overweight children. This compassion compelled her to found the website LivingAfterWLS.com, a fast-growing resource of information, understanding and support for the weight loss surgery community. While weight loss surgery is publicly perceived as an easy fix to obesity Ms. Bailey maintains the struggles after surgery challenge the vigor of even the most dedicated individual. As WLS becomes more readily available patients are finding there is a lack of long-term aftercare and support from bariatric centers.

The LivingAfterWLS.com site is complimented with daily blog. The blog, livingafterwls.blogspot.com offers readers the chance to comment or leave feedback about fresh content added daily. This site contains success stories and recipes as well as general information and WLS inspired topics. Complementing the site is a monthly newsletter titled ?You Have Arrived? available exclusively to people who subscribe through the website or the blog. The path forward includes community forums, nutrition and fitness tracking tools.

Ms. Bailey makes her home on a ranch in the Rocky Mountains with her husband of eight years who has been her consort in life after WLS.