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WeightLossSurgeryCoach.com(formerly GastricByPassCoach.com) |
Information, inspiration, coaching and support for obese people wanting a longer, healthier life through Weight Loss Surgery (WLS) |
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Through Thick and Thin #33 (October 24, 2003) TESTING THE SAVE Dear Oprah and Dr. PhilI just sent this letter to both Oprah and Dr. Phil to try to correct their misperceptions about Weight Loss Surgery, and to celebrate the one-year anniversary of my WLS. Hope it works. Dear Oprah and Dr. Phil: I appreciate and honor your extraordinary and continuing efforts to inform, motivate, encourage and empower people suffering the risks, pain and limitations inherent in morbid obesity. Dr. Phil: your book, The Ultimate Weight Solution: The 7 Keys to Weight Loss Freedom, is a brilliant and insightful tool that can help liberate anyone struggling with weight issues from the oppression of obesity and emotional hunger. You have both consistently demonstrated understanding, compassion, respect and acceptance for me and my Brothers and Sisters of the Scale — with one notable exception, which is the reason I'm writing. I have experienced both of you repeatedly revealing a "blind spot" and a prejudice when it comes to bariatric (weight loss) surgery. Oprah, I still remember how it surprised and stung me when you characterized WLS as the "easy way out" and reserved your respect for those who had lost weight "the hard way". Dr. Phil, I still shudder at recalling your telling some of the folks in your weight loss challenge, "If you want a quick fix, get your stomach stapled." For a variety of reasons that I will explain, Weight Loss Surgery is most assuredly NOT "the easy way out", nor does it offer any quick fix or magical solution. It does offer very potent tools which work well for the 85% of patients who use them - including a functional appetite regulator and an effective mechanism for immediate negative reinforcement against excessive or inappropriate food choices. These tools can make the critical difference for tens of thousands of people like myself who do their emotional work, their legwork and otherwise work the program. I speak from experience. One year ago, I tipped the scales at 360 pounds, and was a prime candidate for premature death. I was morbidly obese, and suffered from the dangerous co-morbidities of adult-onset diabetes and obstructive sleep apnea. I couldn't walk farther than mile without intense back pain, and my life was defined and severely limited by my weight. As I write to you today, approaching the one year anniversary of my Weight Loss Surgery, I am at my goal weight! I weigh less than 200 pounds for the first time in my adult life. I have lost more than 160 pounds and shed my corpulent mass, my diabetes, my sleep apnea, my lethargy, my despair and my shame. My BMI, originally way over 50, is now under 30. WLS gave me the tools to succeed, and I used those tools to recreate my body and lifestyle. Every day I either walk several miles, vigorously and uphill, or engage in resistance weight training. I look and feel great, I wear "Large" size clothes (down from 4X), bought off the rack, and my energy and life force have multiplied exponentially. After my recent annual physical exam, my doctor reported that I am of "normal size and great health" for the first time I can ever remember. My body, spirit and life have been transformed through my diligent and effective use of this incredible tool of WLS — and this precious gift of a fully functional appetite regulator. I thank my God every day for this miraculous second chance at good health and a long life. But I want to help you two "get it" that Weight Loss Surgery can be an appropriate and necessary (although not simple or easy) medical intervention for the serious medical condition of morbid obesity. I want you to understand that for many morbidly obese people, such as myself, who have already and painstakingly done their "emotional work" and developed a prudent and informed eating program, this drastic procedure may be their ONLY realistic and meaningful strategy for health and longevity. It's important to all of us that you understand that Weight Loss Surgery offers a legitimate and valuable tool, and that those who use this tool deserve your respect, understanding, support and applause as much as others choosing other paths. There are many, many individuals like me who are so morbidly obese — and with so many life-threatening co-morbidities (like diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, sleep apnea, etc.) — that we require Weight Loss Surgery to have a reasonable chance to live. I'm not sure why we are so different. It may be because we're simply carrying too much weight to deal with losing it incrementally, or because our metabolism has slowed down and become stuck and nothing we do will speed it up. Maybe it's because our appetite regulator simply doesn't work and never has, or perhaps it's just the accumulated burden of a lifetime of blame, hopelessness, and despair. But my experience is that for me, and for many other morbidly obese people, WLS may be the ONLY realistic alternative for achieving a long, healthy life. My observations are supported by new research findings. They provide irrefutable evidence that body weight may be largely a function of genes — just like height or a family propensity for cancer. These genes help regulate appetite and metabolism. People prone to obesity seem to gain excessive weight easily, while finding it difficult or impossible to lose it. That's why diets almost always fail and why WLS is currently the only viable weight loss option for many morbidly obese people, according to endocrinologist David Cummings of the Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Health Care System. He reports that most people can lose no more than 5-10% off their "natural" body weight by exercising and eating wisely. Decades of diet studies show that more than 90% of people who lose weight by dieting gain it all back within 5 years. "There are exceptions, but when you are speaking of general rules, the only people who are able to lose more than 10 percent of their body weight and keep it off are people who have had...bariatric surgery" Cummings notes. In the years after my diagnosis as diabetic, and before my Weight Loss Surgery, I acquired important information about nutrition and dramatically improved my food program. I had already invested decades of therapy, 12-step, and other emotional and spiritual work in addressing the origins of my obesity and learning self-acceptance and self-love. But I still needed something more. My Weight Loss Surgery gave me something I had never experienced before — a fully functional appetite regulator — and it's made all the difference. Since my surgery, my body gives me clear and unambiguous feedback. When I'm full, or when I eat something my testy digestive system can't handle, it lets me know and I stop. Using these powerful tools effectively, and combining them with healthy replacement behaviors and vigorous daily exercise, I've been able to do what had previously been both unthinkable and impossible. You are both absolutely right when you note that Weight Loss Surgery is NOT a quick fix, or a solution or salvation. It's only a tool, and it's only as effective as it is used. If a WLS patient refuses to change their mindset, perceptions, habits/addictions, and lifestyle, it probably won't work for them in the long term. On the other hand, it CAN totally transform a person's health and extend their life if they do their work to end their love affair with food, see and use food as fuel, and let go of food as their friend, companion, comfort, solace, and primary strategy for mood management and dealing with feelings. As a WLS patient I've learned that, as in any diet, if you seek the easy way out, you won't ever get out! My experience, and the experience of tens of thousands of others, proves that WLS is a reasonable and appropriate response FOR SOME MORBIDLY OBESE PEOPLE that can, if properly used and conscientiously applied, offer realistic (85% success rate) prospects for health and longevity. I have sent you separately my own list of my top ten reasons why Weight Loss Surgery is NOT "the easy way out". Oprah, I wrote it after the first time I heard you disparage WLS. I sincerely hope that my letter and list will enlighten and inform you and help erase the one misperception that I believe has heretofore distorted your perspective on Weight Loss Surgery. The negative judgments you have expressed about bariatric surgery may have discouraged many people from considering it who could benefit from it. That's a outcome I'm sure we all want to avoid. Thank you for your consideration of my thoughts and perspectives. With warm regards, GlennMy Top Ten Reasons why Weight Loss Surgery is NOT "the easy way out" Click here to read another newsletter.
Click here if you have a “fruit and vegetable problem” to see if my solution (see Through Thick and Thin #19) will work for you. |
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Copyright, © 2003, Glenn Goldberg. All rights reserved. |
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