What does it mean to be "successful" after WLS?
I have been thinking about this for several days. Almost all of us go into our surgeries with some sort of goals for our weight loss. I have a goal of 144 pounds, and I had a goal of wearing a size 12. I have met the clothing goal, but not the weight goal yet. As I read message boards, I see more and more about who is "successful" and who is not. What does that mean to you? I guess my concern is this. The national average for weight loss with RNY is 80% of what you are overweight within the first year or so. The national average for adjustable gastric banding is 40-60 % over 2-3 years, DS is about 80% with up to 91% at 3 years. (this is per the American Society of Bariatric Surgeons). Does that mean that if you don't get to your "Goal", you failed, or weren't "successful"? I get this impression more and more. I am also concerned about the rigidity of some post ops. In drug and alcohol recovery, being "rigid" about your program often causes cross addiction. I want to be healthy, physically and emotionally. I want to make realistic goals, change my lifestyle, eat healthily. But, I also want to enjoy my new life and not let it make me crazy if I slip, or judge other people if they do. I'm not saying we shouldn't have goals, we should, and we should do our best to get to them. What I am saying is that as fas as I am concerned, I don't want to exchange one emotional problem (overeating) with another (perfectionism, rigidity). What do you think?
Marilyn
Smoky Mountain Obesity and WLS Support Group
1/17 6:30 LeConte Medical Center
on 1/17/09 11:52 pm
After years of therapy, I have finally realized that good enough is good enough. Perfectionism is such a terrible thing. It made me anxious and created so much stress. And I see it negatively affect some of my friends with the same tendencies.
Your tool is what you make of it and some people do better than those averages, some do worse. I just think of them as general references and not a prediction of my future.
I want my goals to be realistic and achievable. If I exceed them, then whoopie!!! But I don't want to set myself up for failure.
I want to get to less than 200 pounds. I want to get off of my Byetta (injectable medication for diabetes). I want to get of cholesterol meds. I want to reduce my joint pain. I want to have more energy.
I'm not really going to choose to worry about a specific clothing size or number on the scale. It would be nice to get down to 150-ish, but we'll just see what happens. Even if I were to only drop 50 or so pounds, I know my health and daily quality of life will be improved. And that is good enough.
It's very easy to get swept up in intense goals (I WILL LOSE 3 POUNDS PER WEEK with my band!) and then when reality throws a few kinks in life, you set yourself up for immense frustration.
It's all about perspective and keeping expectations realistic. A balance of having realistic goals without getting obsessive about it but putting effort and maximizing your tool.
Great post, Marilyn!
Denise
Each of us have different ideas about success. What you view as success and what I view as success could be two very different things. The beauty of that is there is no right one and wrong one. There is no winner and no loser. That is because SUCCESS is a state of mind.
I believe success is an inside job. Success comes from within. Learning how to be successful is no easy task but if you have the courage to look at yourself for who YOU really are, congratulate yourself because you are already way ahead.
If we really want to learn how to be successful we’re going to have to face up to who we are today in order to become the person we want to be tomorrow. This grueling task includes examining our thoughts, actions, beliefs, emotions and also who we surround our self with. Surround yourself with winners. Look back in the pages of history, you will find many people who seemed to have the Midas Touch, they seemed to be able to achieve greatness despite insurmountable odds. While some may attribute pure luck as the reason for their success others claim it was nothing short of sheer hard work.
Pay attention to what you are afraid of because fear is the ultimate destroyer of success. How do you talk to yourself? Are you constantly criticizing yourself? Success is a process.
To achieve our own individual version of success for me it means making a plan and staying focused. Staying focused means being able to accomplish what you set out to do with unwavering concentration. Do you know how difficult this is to do? Life is full of distractions such as spouses, children (not only small children, but those that grow up and move off leaving a gigantic void, and the ultimate worse the death of ones child), jobs, money (or the lack thereof), demanding parents, disappointment (cause life wasn’t turning out just exactly as you had planned), and the list goes on and on and on.
To answer your question about your concern of post-op rigidity which the definition of rigidity is stiff or unyielding, not flexible, firmly fixed or set, so as to meet precise standards, stringent…. I guess I have to say I am confused as to your concern. Are you saying you are worried about becoming a post-op that is firmly fixed or set and very stringent with your new way of life and not willing to bend or maybe the opposite, not becoming a rigid post-op?
What I find myself to be doing at this point is examining my fears. As I stated earlier I have been told that “fear is the ultimate destroyer of success." And that could apply to many aspects of our life, Our WLS success, Our marriage (no one wants to be divorced so we fear this), raising our children (everyone wants to raise beautiful, intelligent positive contributors to society, not drug addicts and delinquents so we fear this), and that list could go on and on too but ultimately it all ties back into how we deal with our fears and that ties back in to our coping skills which leads us back in to medicating with food which leads us back in to cross over addiction.
Becoming successful requires commitment and commitment is about having the trait of steadfast and sincere fixity of a purpose.. (wow steadfast and sincere fixity tied right back in to rigidity, so don‘t be afraid of this pre-op or post-op it looks like it might not be such a bad thing) Commitment most of the time involves being willing to pay the price that everything has. I think this is important because no one wants to put all their effort into something only to discover later that the price they paid was too high. The price may not only be in monetary terms, it could also be in sacrifice, effort, time or something else. The point is in order to become successful, you must be fully aware of the price involved and be ready to pay it.
It's repeatedly said "Weight Loss Surgery is a TOOL, not a magic cure" - and that is absolutely 100% correct. A lawn mower is a tool and if you don't crank it up and use it your lawn will grow unsightly. If you don't do the proper maintenance on the lawn mower - change the oil and spark plug - eventually your lawn mower (tool) won't work so well, or at all. A garden hoe is a tool, but if you don't get it out and work it - which is hard work - the weeds will overtake your garden. Well, when someone has bariatric surgery and gets their weight loss "tool", they have to use it and maintain it correctly.
They HAVE to be diligent, dedicated and determined in following their WL post-op program - otherwise, it won't work as effectively, and may even (probably will) fail eventually.
Obviously, no one is perfect. I think we've all made or will make some mistakes or bad choices at some time or another along this journey. I also think the key is that if and when we make a mistake to learn from it and try not to repeat it. In that sense, I think we have to be somewhat rigid in our approach to nutrition and exercise. We have to take responsibility for our actions. Some folks may think I'm a mean old rigid hard-assed ogre because when someone posts about a screw up I don't coddle them and tell them it's OK to do that. I tell them to get back on track and do not do it again and to learn from it. I believe that supporting someone means encouraging them, offering an opinion when asked, and applauding them when appropriate. But I also think a part of support is holding one another accountable for our actions or inactions. I don't want to sit back and say "Ahhhh, it's OK that you ate a whole box of sugar-free whatever and got sick as a dog". I want to encourage them to take responsibility for their action that wasn't good for them and to not do it again. I want to encourage them to take control of the situation and not let it get out of hand. Why - because I want them to be a success - whatever that may mean to them - in their personal WL journey.
Just my $.02!
Oh, morning Marilyn!! Great topic!
ROLL TIDE!!!
[IMG]http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e82/BamaVulcan04/2661045004_3d63fb2244.jpg[/IMG]
[
For me especially, I think maybe getting close to goal or reaching goal brings these questions more into focus and since I'm at this stage this post definitely rings true. I've half my weight down from 320 to 160 -- 100 percent loss but I'd still like to lose 15 more but I don't for a minute hold that as not being successful. If I stay at my current weight I have been successful. My real measure of success isn't so much getting to this weight although its a great thing ...it's the day by day of keeping (for the most part) OFF. After a lifetime of weight issues I look this as a "do-over". I don't have to be so rigid or compulsory that that I can't eat, enjoy -- but I can never again ignore the obvious and let it get out of control. Also just allowing yourself to not be perfect does wonders in not transferring the addiction. If you still have a deeper issue that has to be "coped" I would encourage to get to the deeper issue and getting healthier not just the "losing weight" kind. For me this has work so far -- I don't know for some having to be "strict" may work for them but I think this method would actually cause me more stress in the long term - setting myself up for failure. I'm totally comfortable with the idea some days I will do better than other days but one thing I'm committed to is to never allow the weight to come back in the same out of control way.
Let's see:
down a 100 percent weight loss BMI over 50 to around 25
no real dumping although I don't push the bountries too much
no vitamin deficientcies or health problems
no serious complications
no addiction transfers
size 12 from a size I don't even want to mention
no real obsessing over what I do or don't do.
of course, I will always have to keep at
exercising enough
keeping the weight in that managed 5 pound range
not slipping on the good principles for eating without being overly rigid
Yeah, I'd say I've been successful - but as anything that's a journey that's a on-going process
I enjoyed reading all the posts here... great insights... nothing more I could add really... just tossing in my "agree" button! Like Trina said, each person defines his/her own meaning of success. But, here is what I see as a failure.
1. Someone who never changed their eating lifestyle, expects to lose all the weight, and keep it off. This leads to trouble down the road... maybe not today, or tomorrow... but surely it will come.
2. A person who has not implemented exercise into their routine. That's how I mostly became obese... I did not exercise, and led a very sedentary lifestyle. We need to "move"; get off our butts like Bob says...
3. A person who is not taking their vitamins! Oh this one is a huge one for me... Because, we did this in order to be healthy. If one does not take the vitamins necessary, how are they going to STAY healthy?
These are 3 big things in my book that would lead us down a road of trouble in the future...
As far as the weight goals, each of us could say "well you lost (insert number of pounds) and therefore are a success." Or, "you only lost (insert number of pounds) so you are a failure" when its all in what you wanted to lose. Are you happy with what you have done? Its really not for me to say "that person only lost 80 lbs." Maybe that was their goal. Maybe that's all they needed to lose. So that's when we search inside ourselves and determine our definition of "success".
One last thing, if a person has an unrealistic goal... such as, "I will be successful when I wear a size ZERO"... and there is no way he/she could ever wear that size EVEN if the skin was gone and all they had were their skeletal bones... then does that mean all their life he/she would feel like a failure? It's about having realistic expectations according to body type, height, structure, etc.
