Before the surgery, there was a woman I couldn't stand to look at.
She's the one on the left in my before-and-after photos. In 2009 I wanted her gone. Not lighter. Gone. Every time I saw her, the same question came up: Erica, how could you let yourself get this big?
So when people ask what I thought surgery would fix, the honest answer is: me.
What I thought it would fix
The shame. The embarrassment of being morbidly obese. The hurt from years of trying and failing. I thought surgery would finally make me feel beautiful.
And I thought it would make things easy. That I wouldn't have to work the way everybody else did.
What I didn't understand was how deep my relationship with food went. Food never judged me. Food never talked down to me. Food made me feel good. I wasn't ready to face that yet.
The secret
Surgery wasn't an impulse. I'd been approved ten years earlier and never went through with it. Nobody knew.
This time, I was willing to risk it all. Once my mind is made up, it's made up. I told my family, and that was it. For years after surgery, I told nobody else.
Most people who meet me today have no idea.
The silence was shame. People love to say you took the easy way out. Years in, I finally sat with that phrase and laughed. Easy? They rearranged my insides. Get out of here.
People take pills. People take shots. People do everything they can to feel beautiful and wanted. Surgery is one more tool. If anyone has ever made you feel ashamed for using it, hear me: you don't owe them an apology. You owe them nothing.
The easy part
The first stretch really was easy. I couldn't eat much, and the weight melted off.
Part of that was fear. My surgeon was clear: do what you're supposed to do, follow my orders, and you shouldn't have problems. I didn't want problems. So I followed every order.
The Zaxby's moment
The first crack came in a drive-through.
The kids were with me, and Zaxby's was calling my name. Except I couldn't eat a full meal anymore. And I was angry. Really angry.
Then a question stopped me cold: why am I this angry that I can't eat what I used to eat?
That's when I started paying attention.
Around two years out, the patterns showed up. Stressed, I'd binge. Angry, I'd binge. Bored, I'd binge. A handful of times, I ate past what my body could hold and got sick from it. Those episodes went straight to therapy, where I started tracing what was underneath them.
The day the tool stopped working
About three years out, the weight just stopped. Back to basics. Back to liquids. Nothing moved.
My surgeon had warned me this day would come. It still caught me off guard.
By 2015, the scale was going the other way. Nobody else noticed. I did. I could feel it in my clothes and see it in the mirror, and there's a photo from that time that still stops me.
Around five years out, I had to admit it: the surgery had done its part. The rest was up to me.
The quick fix, again
Here's the irony. My quick fix was trying to be a fresh post-op patient again, following the early-days rules. When that didn't work, I tried starving myself. Then keto. Then cutting out whole food groups.
There was even a trainer I hired to prep for a competition. I couldn't stick to anything he wanted me to eat, and that's when the binging got worse.
Then I met Casey.
Casey taught me balanced eating. She changed how I saw macros and food entirely, and one thing she said has never left me: if you have to cut out a whole food group, that's a fad diet. You need your fats, your carbs, your proteins. You just have to learn what works for your body.
So I learned. And I lost more weight eating structured carbs than I ever did running from them.
It was never about surgery
That's when it clicked. This was never about surgery.
Food was how I coped. Call it what it was: a food addiction. Surgery was my attempt to fix it fast. It made the weight come off faster. It didn't make the work go away.
What I learned next changed everything. Weight is more than calories in, calories out. It's a reflection of what's happening in your life and of your relationship with your body. When you love yourself, put yourself first and become a steward of your body, the weight becomes a byproduct.
And it all starts in the mind. Every change begins as a thought. The body follows what the mind decides.
Meet Shelley
Here's what nobody tells you: the feelings don't leave. Mine are still here.
My triggers are clear now. Lonely. Bored. Anxious. No plan for the day. When I'm bored with my system, that's my signal to switch something up. A new routine. New food. Sometimes a new workout outfit.
Chips and sweet cereal still call me. During one stretch of depression, Double Stuf Oreos, Frosted Flakes and Krispy Kreme were staples. So I don't buy them. My kitchen has applesauce, fruit bars and snack-size portions instead. When the thought comes, and it does, I talk back: Erica, no.
Some days that's a breeze. Some days, depending on what life is throwing at me, the pull is heavy.
That's why I gave the woman on the left a name. Shelley.
Shelley isn't my enemy. Food was how she protected me. She did the best she could with what she had. But she doesn't have to cope that way anymore, and I tell her so.
Not a victim of my past. Not a victim of my thoughts. Still in therapy, because I still need it.
It has always been me against me. The commitment I made to myself is what wins.
Surgery didn't fix me.
It forced me to meet myself.
Nobody planned for the day the tool stopped working.
That's one of the ten things in my free guide, What Nobody Told You About the Years After Weight-Loss Surgery. Each one names something you probably didn't know, why it happens, and what to do about it.
None of them are about willpower.
This is my personal experience, not medical advice. Nothing here replaces your physician or your surgical team.
I almost had bariatric surgery a few years ago, but chickened out of it because I didn't think I could do the necessary work and make the lifestyle changes post surgery that I knew I had to make. I didn't think I'd be a successful bariatric patient. I don't really regret it, although sometimes I do think about it. I'm doing things on my own now, weight lifting and I was on Mounjaro for several months, and had some success with it. I lost 50lbs, but have gained back some as I have had a very stressful time in my life recently.