Siena Yates: Life after weight loss surgery

Siena Yates had weight loss surgery and since then has been on a journey of learning to live with her new realities. Photo / Alan Gibson / NZ Herald

A year ago, Siena Yates wrote a fortnightly column for Canvas chronicling her experience with gastric sleeve surgery. She reflects on the changes in her life and in herself

There's something really satisfying about getting better at something.

Maybe you took up baking in lockdown and are ready for the next season of The Great Kiwi Bakeoff. Maybe you just figured out how to get out of your pyjamas before noon (if so, I salute you).

However, it's infinitely less satisfying when you know that mastery didn't actually come from your hard work or dedication, but by default.

Sort of like when you get "promoted" to a role no one wanted, or when parents let their toddlers "win" a race.

That's how I feel now, just shy of 18-months after having gastric sleeve surgery; like someone gave me a cheat code to life and I don't know how to feel about it.

Before I elaborate, let me make it crystal clear that having WLS is not "cheating" at weight loss. It's easily one of the hardest things I've done or ever will do in my life and I spent the better part of a year regretting all of my choices.

For months after my surgery, I couldn't eat or drink what I was supposed to and developed various deficiencies and a habit of passing out from dehydration, and some months I was on IV drips more often than I was at work.

It's only in the last six months that I've begun to resemble a real human again and now, life's bloody grand.

I can eat what I want and my sleeve ensures that I do so in moderation. I'm no longer feeling faint and dizzy every day, I can go out for meals and walks with friends and enjoy life as normal. (Added bonus: One restaurant meal can often last me three to four meals, which will be one hell of a saving when we're allowed to travel again!)

If you followed my WLS journey when it first started in this magazine last year, you'll know my main motivation was to combat the effects my size and weight were having on my mental health and I am pleased to confirm that it worked.

These days, I barely even give a second thought to whether I'll fit in certain places or whether things will hold my weight. The other day, I sat in my nephew's sandpit and it wasn't until I was already sitting on the little wooden seat that it occurred to me I might be too heavy for it.

Writer Siena Yates pictured at home in Te Puke. Photo / Alan Gibson / NZ Herald

Things I used to think and worry about all the time are now afterthoughts at most, and I cannot tell you how freeing that is.

Another freedom is that I can buy clothes at the mall like everyone else and - get this - I can actually buy stuff that I like. That was very rarely an option for me before so for a good portion of my life, I wore what I could, not what I wanted. Don't get me wrong, I'm still severely lacking in the fashion-sense department, but at least now I can see something I like and then actually have it and that is absolutely wild to me. Not to mention I can wear those things without feeling physically uncomfortable or insecure.

But for me, the best thing about having WLS is how much I can do now.

I can do things in the gym I physically couldn't do before, including running for the duration of an entire song, which doesn't sound impressive until I tell you I used to struggle to run for just 10 seconds at a time. I've even booked a holiday to the South Island with a focus on exploring various hikes and walking trails.

But here's the problem. Much like beating your nana at Fortnite, it feels like I've won by default.

My newfound fitness and physical ability aren't because I've been working hard and training every day, it's purely by virtue of carrying less weight.

My lessened anxiety isn't a result of doing the inner work on my childhood trauma and internalised racism and fatphobia - I've been doing some of that work, but really it's just because my body is no longer triggering me every day.

This is why whenever people ask me if I'm glad I had surgery or if I'd recommend it, I don't know what to say.

It was incredibly hard and I was miserable for a long time, and even now I can't always fully enjoy the benefits because I feel like life let me win the race - and it absolutely did in that I was privileged enough to have the money and support to do it in the first place.

That said, I've started thinking about it in terms of someone getting a bronze medal at the Olympics when there were only three people in the running.

The medal might be a default, but you're the one that got yourself to the Olympics. You put in the work and weathered the storms and wore the bruises.

I can't recommend WLS because the experience is going to be different for everyone and it's a choice you can only make on your own. Even though you're going to get the medal at the end, are you willing to put in the work to get to the podium? Are you prepared for the possibility that getting that medal might not feel like you thought it would? Taking the journey to answer questions like that is not something you can recommend to someone else.

But am I glad I did it? Yes. I wish I had the strength to overcome my anxieties and insecurities without it, but I can also tell you with complete certainty that I could've never lost as much weight as I have without surgery - I have friends who weigh less than the amount I've lost. That means I never would've reached this level of freedom and physical ability.

So yes. Despite how hard it was and still is sometimes, I'm glad I did it.

It took a while to get here, but my life has absolutely changed for the better.