Bariatric Surgery No Weight Loss Miracle
posted by on November 09, 2010
posted in
By Michelle Meyers
Bariatric surgery a success … and then a failure
Four years ago, all eyes watched as a well-known radio personality in my city went under the knife for bariatric surgery. The metropolitan newspaper was there to take full-size “before” and “after” photographs, conduct in-depth interviews, and record the progress over the following months.
This patient/local star, who happens to be a friend of mine, managed to lose over a whopping 100 pounds! I watched, along with thousands upon thousands of readers, as he became a classic success story for drastic weight loss. He followed a strict diet, attended counseling sessions, increased exercise and activity levels, and melted away before our very eyes.
Today? He’s gained it all back. And I honestly don’t know what was worse: gaining all of the weight back, or dealing with the public judgment and scrutiny that came along with “failing” so out in the open. Feelings of shame, humility and disappointment overcame my friend, and although he is now trying to get back on a strict diet, he feels rather hopeless. So what went wrong? I asked him not long ago that very question. And this is what he said:
Once I lost the weight I sort of got over confident. It was as if I had cured a disease, and I no longer had to maintain all the efforts I had put into it. My mind went into cocky mode, and I felt like I just didn’t have to watch anything anymore. So I stopped watching my calories, I slowly increased my portions, and I stopped exercising. I put on my blinders, and I returned to every old habit that got me to the point of surgery in the first place.
The moral of the story? There is no miracle to weight-loss and good health. Even with the best doctors and the most drastic of measures, unless you continue to do all the basics (count your calories, exercise and monitor), you won’t ever beat the overweight demons inside of you. They’ll keep coming back for more.
