In 2015, I decided after several years of back and forth, at the strong urging of my physician, to have bariatric surgery - specifcally a laparoscopic vertical sleeve gastrectomy. My reasoning for this and the decision process really aren't pertinent here; they'll be different for everyone. The shortest summary of mine I can give you is that it had reached the point, in my mid-forties, of being about immediately-visible health reasons as opposed to future health reasons or cosmetic reasons. My goals are very specific: I'd like to stop taking at least two of the maintenance drugs I'm on, and ideally all three; for a bonus, I'd love it if I no longer needed CPAP (or even needed it every night).
I decided against the lap band due to both its lower effectiveness and its higher complication/failure rate. In addition, I don't like the idea of putting foreign objects into my body; I'd rather contemplate removing parts of it, a process which seems, somehow, safer when we're talking about the torso and abdominal cavity.
In order for my insurance to cover this surgery, they required me to be on a doctor-managed weight loss/weight management program for four months. Between that and scheduling delays, my surgery date was set at May 2, 2016. This category comprises the daylogs before and after the surgery and related to its effects.
One last thing - the two weeks prior to the surgery, I am required to follow a very restrictive liquid-only diet, with as close to zero carbohydrates as possible in order to 'de-fat my liver.' I am told this is because the surgeons will need to physically move my liver around during the surgery itself, and that most overweight people have fatty liver disease which is just what it sounds like. Healthy and lean livers are much more resilient to pressure and being moved, having a much much lower rate of bleeding and clotting. Since the liver will burn all the fat within itself, preferentially, when a very restrictive diet is maintained, a two-week course of eating less than one thousand calories a day and no carbs will tend to clean the liver out and increase the chances of a smooth surgery and recovery. This of course also means I have to eat something less than a third the calories my body requires to maintain its weight per day, using nothing but willpower and fear of the complications. Sigh.