Courage…One reason why bariatric surgery isn’t “taking the easy way”

It takes a great deal of courage and humility to ask for help with your weight.  Weight is very personal and patients must “swallow their pride” and admit that their way of managing isn’t working.  Oftentimes, patients have tried for years to manage their weight and have failed more often than they have succeeded.  If they were successful, they wouldn’t be asking for anyone else’s help!

One of the greatest challenges for patients is to truly let go of their own beliefs about weight loss and dieting.  They have to adopt a different stance for optimal success…really successful patients focus on the long term.  What is the long game here?  What is my long-term objective? Really successful patients are humble.  They admit when they make mistakes and take responsibility for it.  For example, if a patient has the habit of stress eating at night, they don’t excuse the habit, they recognize it and allow others to help fix this issue (remember…when they tried to fix it themselves, they always failed).

Are bariatric patients forced to do this?  Are they forced to look inside themselves and re-evaluate?…NO.  However, if we as the healthcare team bring up these issues to patients, they have a greater chance of working on their habits.  They have a greater chance of working on their perspective.  This is a big task…it’s not taking the easy way out.