The night before Hanna Westwell had a gastric bypass at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, she wrote a farewell letter to her mum.
To be eligible for the surgery, the 27-year-old from Banchory had lost four stone in weight, down from 30.
But as she still weighed 26 stone, doctors warned her of the risks a general anesthetic carried for someone her size.
So, ever a practical person, Hanna decided to jot down a few last words. Just in case.
“I was in tears,” says Hanna, who stayed up till 2am writing the message. “All the emotion came out.”
The note was mostly a thank you to her mum – her biggest supporter through a near lifelong battle with fluctuating weight. But it also contained everyday things, such as a plea to look after Hanna’s two cats if anything did go wrong.
“I also wrote down all sorts of passwords to different things just on the off chance,” Hanna adds with a wry laugh.
What is gastric bypass surgery?
Fortunately, the passwords weren’t needed.
Hanna’s gastric bypass, which took place on the morning of August 19, 2021 was a total success.
In a four-and-a-half-hour operation, surgeons stapled the stomach to create a small pouch, which was connected directly to the small intestine.
The intent is simple – by bypassing the stomach, recipients feel full from less food, and therefore consume fewer calories.
On average, a gastric bypass patient loses about 30% of their body weight.
Hanna’s operation has been even more successful. From 30 stone at her heaviest, Hanna is now 18 stone, well on her way to achieving a goal of 15 stone.
It is a journey she charts on her Instagram account, appropriately called Half of Hanna, which follows the ups and downs of gastric surgery.
“When the weight started to come down, I was very curious to jump on the scales almost every day,” she says.
“I know that’s not healthy to do, but it was exciting. Before, getting on the scales was a disappointment. Now, it was a happy excitement.”
As she nears her goal, Hanna is keen to speak out about her surgery and the changes it has made to her life. She touches on less-discussed consequences, including the skin folds left behind by rapid weight loss.
But she also dispels some of the judgements people have about gastric surgery, especially the idea that it is an easy way to lose weight.
Because what Hanna’s story shows is that her weight loss has been anything but easy.
Bullies, taunts and overeating
Hanna knows a lot about other people’s judgement.
As a child she was aware that in family photos she was bigger than her brothers and sister.
At the age of 13, she was diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome, or PCOS, which confirmed why she couldn’t keep her weight down.
PCOS causes an insulin resistance in the body, which means Hanna was not getting rid of glucose quickly. A consequence of that is a very slow metabolism.
Through high school, Hanna faced bullying and taunts. Nicknames followed her around the playground. Boys in the corridors sucked in their breath when she walked past, pretending there wasn’t enough room.
But it was after leaving college and starting work as a hotel receptionist that Hanna’s weight became a health issue.
Shift work messed with her routine and meals increasingly became takeouts.
Her portion control, she says, was her downfall. She’d eat two burgers for one meal, including any sides that were going with it.
Her PCOS meant her body didn’t feel full and she found it impossible to stop eating.
The mental minefield of ordinary life
She tried countless ways to lose weight. Slimming world three times. High intensity workouts at the gym that because of her PCOS left her exhausted and even more prone to overeating.
Her health was impacted but the mental toll was just as hard. Going out was an anxiety minefield, with potential embarrassments around every corner.
She would “want to go home and hide myself” whenever she was out of the house, and dreaded people doing a double-take when they saw her walking down the street.
There were other fears. A simple trip to TGI Fridays meant dealing with the restaurant’s booth seats.
“I’d be worried about getting myself seated into a booth that had a fixed seat,” Hanna says. “At other restaurants I’d be worried about whether the seating would be substantial enough to hold my weight.”
The decision to get a gastric bypass
In 2019, Hanna went to her GP to discuss something she had read about online – gastric bypass surgery.
After a number of consultations, she was accepted for the operation. However, the hard work still lay ahead.
The operation was pushed back multiple times because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Undeterred, Hanna used the lockdown to lose the required pre-surgery weight.
As many in Scotland piled on the pandemic pounds, Hanna committed herself to a strict calorie-controlled diet combined with lockdown walks in the Banchory countryside.
Then, with the operation looming, Hanna faced another test. To ensure the surgeons could get past her liver, she had to go on an ultra-strict diet for the organ to reduce in size. That meant consuming just 800 calories for 10 days.
A determined Hanna stuck to the diet for two weeks.
“There was an end in sight at that point,” she explains. “That was what kept me going – there was a light at the end of the tunnel.”
The hard work continued after the operation. She felt little pain, but some discomfort. She also had to get used to new eating habits.
“It’s being able to sit in a cinema seat and not have to worry about taking up half of another chair,” explains Hanna, who now lives in Aberdeen and is an events coordinator.
“I would normally be a leggings person but now I’m more comfortable wearing jeans, so that would be a non-scale victory. Being able to play with my nieces, having that energy is a non-scale victory.”
‘It’s totally changed my life around’
Last weekend, Hanna travelled to Coventry for an annual get-together of the online gastric surgery community.
The Bariatric Ball, as it’s known, is a chance to cut loose and share some recent NSVs with people that understand the hard work that went into achieving them.
Hanna says she marvels at the difference in her life now. And she’s doing her best to make up for lost time.”
“Before, I was just in a routine of going to work and then eat and sleep. It wasn’t a life I should have been living in my 20s.
“But now I have that confidence and self-esteem in me, it’s totally changed my life around. It’s given me a new lease of life.”
Meanwhile, she has a message for people that say losing weight after bariatric surgery is easy.
“It’s a tool,” she says of her gastric bypass. “You still have to diet and exercise. The more you put in the more you get out.
“It’s not an easy fix.”
Follow Hanna’s weight loss journey on her Instagram page, Half of Hanna.