I am Facilitating the ALBANY MED SUPPORT GROUP 2/21/08!

Hello, I just wanted to announce I will be facilitating the AMC WLS support group tomorrow night 5:30-7:30pm. I look forward to covering this meeting for Robyn who will be out.
If any ? let me know [email protected]
Hope to see you all there!

I can't make it.....prior obligations....I am gonna miss ya in March too BTW.....

I'll be there... Can't wait. I leave in about 1/2 an hour for my psychologist appointment and then it is to Support Group I go, hi ho... I've scheduled myself off work every other Thursday night from work so I can go to Support Group. My supervisor is really being supportive of this decision. Now I hope my family will be as good when I finally get the courage to tell them.

Can't wait to see you either, please intro yourself to me when you get there!
Tonights focus is on realistic expectations!
Jamie

GREAAAAAT..... the ONE support group topic I honestly need this week....and I can't make it down..... I need to go back to bed....I feel sicker than a perri* dish filled with bacteria....

Tim:
You have heard my realistic expectations speil in Saratoga many times! I will include my handout here ok!

PSYCHOLOGICAL PREP TO BARIATRIC SURGERY & REALISTIC EXPECTATIONS

WHERE IT ALL STARTS! The surgical community considers anyone a success when they have lost 50% of their excess weight. Right here we have a problem. MANY approach this surgery expecting to lose 100% of our excess weight. And if we don't, then we consider ourselves failures even though our surgeon is adding our name to their success column.
The first month or two after the surgery makes matters worse. You may be losing 20 pounds +/- a month and believing that this will go on forever! I know I had my calculator out and was trying to figure out how long it would be before I hit my goal (excess pounds divided by 20). But life isn't like that for most of us. We hit plateaus. We come to the end of our widow of opportunity before we reach our goal and we stop losing. Or we stop losing and regain some of our weight. Why do surgeons consider 50% as a success? It is because there is no other method that you could use that would result in that much weight loss on a permanent basis (think 5, 10, 15 years). Remember back to your old diet days? Yes, you lost weight, but regained it plus additional weight. The best you can attain with dieting is a 5% weight loss.
Before surgery, have your eyes wide open. Although most people lose 70% to 80% of their excess weight, you may lose only 50%. Figure out what 50% is, and be sure to rejoice when you hit that mark. ANYTHING ELSE IS A BONUS!

EXAMPLE: After RNY surgery research states most people can/will loose 50-78% of their excess bodywt...lets say both of these "hypothetical" people lose 75% of their excess bodyweight....
1. A 400lb person at 5'6'' (a bmi of 64) who has 250# of excess wt (ideal is 150#) will lose 187.5# and weigh 212.5# and have a BMI of 34.5, 1 1/2-2 years after surgery.
2. A 300# person of 5'6'' (a bmi of 48) who has 150# of excess body wt. (ideal also 150#) will loose 112.5# and weigh 187.5# and have a bmi of 30, 1 1/2-2 years after surgery.
NOTICE NEITHER PERSON IS OF A NORMAL WT!
***Consider challenging yourself beyond those tasks so many of us get caught up with such as getting the right vitamin to take, amount of water to drink, etc. although the small stuff matters there are larger and more global issues as well to consider!!!***


Establish your mindset to accept that weight loss surgery is not a cure/quick fix for morbid obesity, it's a very effective/powerful/wonderful tool that can be used lifelong to combat the chronic/lifelong disease of morbid obesity that has NO *current* CURE (*So at 1 yr out when many feel/say 100# gone FOREVER in reality, it is never gone forever it is gone for now but the work has just started at 1 yr out). The tool is flawed and can be defeated as well (emotional eating, grazing, drinking calories, eating/drinking together, alcohol use, high calorie dense foods, too many simple carbs, overfilling pouch, carbonation, no consistent exercise routine). Considered WLS as part of a life-long process & commitment to challenge your personal awareness/responsibility/consistency/accountability and that a life-long requirement to follow up with physicians, a regular exercise program, and healthy eating. Accept it will come with potential challenges & imperfections (risks, side-effects, complications, challenges such as plateaus, not meeting goal, regain, possible depression, grief over the loss/safety of food/obesity may of offered/invisibility it offered although may of been unwanted at the time/the new attention you get, possible anger or anxiety w/o comfort of food as it used to be/limits it may impose, effort it requires to be healthy etc.) that these frustrations are part of the process to make you healthier see them as challenges not difficulties, positive self talk helps!.

Your mindset will be the most important tool for success, as all the challenges of traditional diets/exercise plans for health will be present after WLS as well *Although many say I will never diet again, we know diets don't work *because people go off them* but we have to be mindful of food and pay attention to intake and exercise for life, so in a sense your dieting for life! Even after WLS.... The surgery won't make a person change, but the beauty is YOU HAVE COMPLETE control over those changes/choices needed after surgery for success, the choices are there and the best use of your mind/psychology will harness those. Surgery is such a drastic choice that so many are successful due to a recommitment to healthy living and choices that is one reason it works and we say it is a 'rebirth'.

Changing habits pre-wls is the mindset that will keep you going; the surgery is a piece, the easiest/smallest piece perhaps even though we feel it is the largest. *It is however the milestone/landmark we set to focuses on. But truly the afterlife is the most challenging, the ever evolving challenges from things like getting in enough liquids to food introduction to vitamin taking, new ways of eating/drinking, introduction of exercise consistently to battling with the scale obsessions & disappointments as well as all the wonderful WOW moments. Have the support system needed to create the healthiest environment as well, willpower fades, the tools robust effects fades as well as the honeymoon closes...Harness your enthusiasm and mind for 6 months doing all you can to influence (not only wt loss) but the healthy lifestyle you want to adopt for maintenance, that elusive animal no one has mastered pre-wls. Exercise can become more routine after 6 months as well. Again the mind is just as/more useful than the pouch...it is the operator of the tool! Stress is inevitable, so see each issue/stressful time as an opportunity to use your new tool/mindset! (Like I say use things as excuses or opportunities because holidays come and go each year as do parties, office food/celebrations, hurt feelings, sadness, losses, etc)

Consider getting a good journal, start writing today all the reasons you are COMMITTED to this change, what your expectations are (hopefully realistic for wt loss 50-80% of excess not an ideal body wt) and that the goals are not wt related alone, the functional ones how you can integrate into life easier, (clothes fitting, less medical co morbidities or risk of, less meds, less pain (physical/emotional) the benchmarks you are setting, take measurements and photos each month along w/ weights to document the journey. the mind is powerful but may be challenging to change so the photos/measurements help when the HUNKAMETAL (scale) doesn't register a loss. We are much more than a number on a scale, free from the numbers and see how much you are more than that as a person, your abilities etc....The journey is full of hills and valleys, some bumps and many more pleasures to see, it can be an awesome ADVENTURE!

The letter you may write/journal entry today may save you from backsliding at your first plateau or at 1 yr out, a recommitment to those thoughts, and how you have grown over time. These are the things I recommend after you have covered all of the 'physical items you need' for WLS. These are the ever-elusive psychological things you need.

Take Care,
Jamie Ellis RN MS NPP
[email protected]