You cannot live a full life if you think about weight constantly, or if weight issues have become the bane of your existence. I’ve spent my career and much of my own energy taking care of weight issues. Don’t let my current “normal-sized” physique fool you: I’ve struggled with my own weight problems in the past and this has given me an intimate knowledge of how such concerns affect people’s health, life, longevity, and self-esteem. Granted, I’ve never been morbidly obese nor needed bariatric surgery, but I know what it’s like to struggle with weight and let it take control of everything.
What I didn’t learn from my own weight issues I’ve discovered through my patients. As with so many of my patients, if you can come to live a full life and be happy with the weight your body achieves after taking my techniques to heart, then I will have considered my mission complete.
Have your past dieting efforts been a series of attempts to white-knuckle it through every experience, whether it’s fighting the buffet table at a party or avoiding taboo foods at a baseball game? Has it always been about what you cannot put into your body to gain control? If so, then you know that you’re very good for a period of time, then kind of good. Then you begin to slack off, and eventually enough slacking off happens for you to forget the whole endeavor.
Not only is that process bad for you physiologically but it also affects how you feel about yourself. Nowhere else in your life do you allow this predictable and dependable cycle of repeated failure.
What if your work life went this way? How many failures would it take before you were fired or demoted? How about in your personal relationships? What if you were 92 percent monogamous? How many infidelities would it take for your significant other to leave? And what if you were careful with your toddler “most” of the time? How long would it take until Child Protective Services came to take your child from you?
In my opinion there are three things in my patients’ lives that change them forever: getting married, having children, and undergoing bariatric surgery. Maybe your list is similar. Of course, there are many other things that can change you pretty quickly, such as winning the lottery, getting divorced, going through personal bankruptcy, and losing a loved one. But for argument’s sake, I think marriage, children, and bariatric surgery rank somewhere near the top. In a single moment, any of these events dramatically shifts your life.
None of these undertakings is to be entered upon lightly. They entail big obligations. They involve relationships that require a lifetime of vigilance and nurturing. Most of us wouldn’t compromise our efforts with a spouse or a child. When things are important to you, no amount of work is too much to make them a success.
Until you approach your health in the same way, you’ll never achieve the same success. This is what I talk about when I say it’s got to matter to you. It’s true that losing 20 pounds doesn’t have same implication as being a bad parent. But you get my point.
This is one of the primary secrets to maintaining a healthy weight…
Michael Snyder, M.D., is a Board-Certified general surgeon and a highly respected leader and mentor in the field of bariatric surgery. He has performed more than 2,700 primary bariatric surgical procedures including post-surgical coaching and ongoing health care. Snyder is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and founder of The Denver Center for Bariatric Surgery, a comprehensive, state-of-the-art surgical practice specializing in weight loss. He also is the founder of FullBar, LLC, a multi-million dollar company dedicated to improving the quality of people’s lives and helping them achieve their weight-loss goals through food products that assist them in feeling full so they eat less. His book, Full: A Life Without Dieting, is about losing weight without dieting and without surgery.
Speak to the professionals at The Denver Center for Bariatric Surgery to find out more about weight loss surgery in the Denver area. Give us a call today!
