You eat anything you want and you still lose weight!

My brother (18 months my junior) is a highly intelligent man. This was proven decades ago, when IQ tests performed while his teachers and parents tried to figure out why he was such a miserable little bugger showed a genius level IQ. I know that sentence sounds unsympathetic to my brother, but we were all miserable - our parents, his teachers, me, and my brother.

When I first talked with him about weight loss surgery, many years later, this highly intelligent and (by then) well-read man said, "Wow! So, you have the surgery, and then you eat anything you want and you still lose weight!"

Well, no. Not really. In fact, nothing like that.

During the 6 years of my weight loss surgery journey, I have (over and over and over again) witnessed bariatric patients who came out of the operating room after surgically successful procedures still wondering why they couldn't eat anything want and still lose weight. Their disappointing weight loss was and is a perpetual puzzle to them because somehow they had not grasped that behavioral change is required for weight loss success.

It's easy to label those patients as stupid or ignorant or deluded, or to blame their bariatric team for failure to properly educate those patients about what would be required of them both pre- and post-op. All of those things could be a factor.

In March 2012, almost 6 years since the start of my own WLS journey, I attended 2 sessions of a required pre-op nutrition and education class. My BMI then made me obese, but not morbidly so. I had gained weight after a complete unfill and was preparing to say goodbye to my beloved band due to medical problems aggravated by my band, planning to revise to vertical sleeve gastrectomy in the same procedure.

The dietitian leading the class was a perky, pretty 20-something girl, adorably pregnant, who had clearly never struggled with her weight before. Her slightly condescending attitude was hard to take, but about halfway through the class I thought I could understand her attitude. She had just named a long list of foods we should not eat after surgery (fried foods, candy, baked goodies, soda, alcohol, salty snacks, etc.) when I heard a woman nearby say bitterly, "I don't know. That seems like an awful lot to give up."

Since I had known the before and after of WLS, I was strongly tempted to respond to her, but I held my tongue (wisely, for once).

I don't know just why so many people think that WLS is magic, that you can eat anything you want and still lose weight, that you don't have to give up a single food or behavior or attitude in order to succeed. Maybe we can blame that attitude on the media, or maybe we can blame it on the deeply-entrenched denial that tends to go along with obesity. But the fact is, you can't eat anything and still lose weight unless you're dying of cancer or AIDs or some other fatal disease, and probably don't want to eat a single bite of anything anyway. And I'd trade dying of cancer for WLS sacrifices and success any old day.

The Secret to WLS Success

 

 

What is the secret to being a weight loss surgery success?  

When aspiring writers ask me, “How can I become a writer?” my answer is invariably, “Be one. Write.” I’m a writer not because want to be one, but because I write. I’m constitutionally unable to not write. It’s not always easy, but I always do it. Writing keeps me alive and vital. In that sense, it’s a big part of healthy living for me. 

So, do you want to know how to be a successful WLS patient?  

The answer is: “Be one.” Make your health a top priority, not because you’re so ridden with medical problems, but because it will help you thrive. 

Sounds so simple, doesn’t it? But exactly what does that mean? It means that I write every day. Other than finding or making the time to do it, it’s not hard, because I love to write. So to be a writer, I practice the art of writing every day. What I write varies, just as what you eat varies, depending on how much time I have and what I’m in the mood for. Within 15-30 minutes of getting up each morning, I write something. I write e-mails to my accountability partners, telling them about my eating, exercise, and perhaps some funny, or infuriating, or interesting stories about my daily life. I write down the thoughts I have about magazine, newsletter and blog articles. I write lists of things to do and things to think about. At some point during each day, I write sentences or paragraphs or chapters of articles, essays, stories and books. I write journal entries that help me muddle through puzzling situations and relationships. 

I also love being slim and healthy, so I practice the art of being slim and healthy every day. This too varies, but within 15-30 minutes of getting up each morning, I practice my healthy lifestyle. I update my food log and report my food plan and eating behavior to my accountability partners. I get dressed in workout gear and spend 45 minutes at an exercise class, 5 days a week. I write a weekly menu plan and I write my grocery list. Even when I’m doing something that isn’t directly related to weight and health, I’m practicing. I see a plate of home-baked cookies on the break room table at work and think about whether I want to eat one or if I’ll regret doing that. In a short 15 minute break, I practice good eating skills as carefully as I can despite feeling hurried. When I get in my car to go home and notice I’m thinking wistfully of Chicken McNuggets or Dulce de Leche ice cream, I take a deep breath and ask myself if I really need those things or just want them as a quick fix. I try to see myself driving home and preparing the healthy meal I’ve planned. I try to remember how good I felt when I did that the day before. I think about how happy my dogs will be if I get home on time (anybody who claims animals can’t tell time has clearly never lived with a dog).

The key words in the two paragraphs above are “love” and “practice”. 

If you’re thinking, “But I don’t love to diet!” maybe it’s time to adjust your thinking. Instead of thinking, “I hate dieting,” try this on for size: “I love being a WLS success.”  

And it’s definitely time to discard the notion of being “on a diet”. A diet is something you do for a finite period (a week, a month, 3 months). It’s temporary, and when it ends, your eating goes back to the way it was before the diet, and lo and behold, the weight you lost comes back, and often it brings all its friends, and its friends’ brothers, sisters, and cousins. I know that for an absolute fact because it’s happened to me so many times since I was 14 or 15 years old. 

Being a weight loss success means practicing healthy eating every day of your life, for the rest of your life. Some days may be healthier than others, and that’s OK. You’re just practicing, right? It doesn’t have to be perfect; it just has to be regular and ongoing. I don’t think about weight loss and health and all that good stuff every waking minute, and not all my thoughts are virtuous. I spend quite a lot of time thinking things like, “Why doesn’t that pickup truck just pass me rather than riding on my tail?” or “If he spits toothpaste on the bathroom mirror one more time, I’m gonna be one happy widow.” But thoughts about weight and health go through my mind every day. I’ve heard WLS patients say they never want to have to think about that stuff ever again. I don’t think I could succeed that way, and those thoughts are not a burden for me. The real burdensome thoughts I bear are ones like, “I should have hugged Mom more often before she died.” 

Oh, I know that “shoulda, coulda” thoughts are a waste of time and energy. That’s probably why they’re so hard to bear. But that’s a topic for another article. 

So, do you want success? I want to hear you say it, loud and proud:

I WANT TO BE A WEIGHT LOSS SUCCESS!

I WILL BE A WEIGHT LOSS SUCCESS!

I AM A WEIGHT LOSS SUCCESS! 

And give yourself three cheers for your effort, even if you feel you haven’t yet achieved success. Sports teams get cheered at every game, whether they win it or not. When they win, they want to win the next game, and the next. When they lose, they go back out on the field to practice the next day, and to play another game the day after that. They don’t do that just because they owe it to their coach and teammates. They do it because they love to practice, play and win. 

“But I’m not an athlete!” you say? Me neither. But I do love being a WLS success!

Can you win at weight loss?

I want to challenge your (acknowledged or unacknowledged) belief that you can't succeed at weight loss. Think about it. What have you done in your life so far that required long-term, sustained effort that didn't necessarily yield immediate results or rewards? School? Marriage? Child rearing? Learning to drive, crochet, play bridge, speak another language, put your eyeliner on straight? Did you housebreak a puppy, teach a Sunday school class, grow a garden, keep an African violet alive? Make a list. After each accomplishment, write down how long you worked at it, or how long you've been working at it, and rate your current results on a scale of 0 to 5, where 0 equals complete failure and 5 equals competence or success. Here's an example from my own list:

project - time spent - score - results:
graduated from high school at age 16 - 11 yrs - 5 - done (just barely)
learned to drive a car (automatic) - 3 months - 5 - done (and only 13 speeding tickets)
learned to drive a car (standard) - 6 months - 5 - done (and didn't ruin a single clutch)
graduated from college - 4 years - 5 - Magna Cum Laude
marriage #1 - 6 years - 1 - divorced
marriage #2 - 24 years - 5 - better than ever
went back to school for a business degree - 2 yrs - 3 - 24 credits but no degree
learned to speak & write French - 6 years - 4 - no longer fluent (c'est une dommage!)
learned to speak Mandarin Chinese - 2 years - 1 - I can say beer, friend, and hello
put on eyeliner straight - 43 years - 4 - not great, but getting better
learn to play mah jongg - 20 minutes - 0 - didn't get it and quit
learned to cook - 40 years - 5 - better than ever
learned to use our new vacuum cleaner - 3 minutes - 0 - haven't tried very hard
lost 90 pounds thanks to my band and 3 years work - 5 - and still working at it!

Does that give you enough of an idea?

Acai berry progress report

Well, so far so good. It's been a week

since I've been taking the acai berry

supplement and I've lost 1 lb!