Weight loss surgery is not the solution you are looking for. If you’re calling it a ‘solution’ then you better go look somewhere else. Solution implies that you found something that will fix your problem. 4 is the solution to 2 plus 2. Solutions are clear and there is one right answer. Solution implies that you’ve figured out the what the problem is, and you’ve found something that will make it magically disappear.
Solutions Don’t Exist
Weight loss surgery is not even close to the solution for obesity. Do you know why we don’t have before and after pictures on our site yet? We have people routinely offer us their pictures to post. And we routinely turn them down. Do you know what one of the highest Google search keywords is for weight loss surgery? ‘Before and after pictures of (fill in the surgery).’ We could create a massive gallery of online before and after pictures that would inspire hundreds, nay thousands, of people to have weight loss surgery. And we’d rank highly in Google and we’d have thousands of new visitors per day. Then why don’t we?
As I write this, all that traffic sounds appealing…But I’ve drawn a line in the sand. ObesityCoverage has been around for almost 10 years now. We started out small, offering well researched information and articles that people cared about. During the process, we found that honesty eventually gets found on the internet. Integrity gets rewarded. And doing what’s right just feels good.
So we don’t post before and after pictures because pictures do not tell the story. The surgery did not create the change you see in those before and after galleries, no more than the Super Extraterrestrial Formulation of protein powder created the buff guy you see in the latest supplement commercial.
Tools Exist
Weight loss surgery is a tool – nothing more, nothing less. Not a solution. You’ll see us say this a lot on ObesityCoverage. It’s a tool to get your weight down to where it is easier to work out. Your knees don’t bother you so much. Your diabetes is under control. You start to gain self-confidence and see progress that encourages more effort and more gains and so on. And honestly, if you are over 300 lbs its going to be hard to get the rock hard body you always wanted. Not impossible but very hard. Set realistic goals. But also make them impossible. I know that makes no sense. But you need to do both. You need to be able to achieve your daily goals while pushing yourself to do what you don’t think you can do. Because those impossible goals, with the right mindset become possible.
Your realistic goal is to walk 1 mile today. Your impossible goal is to join CrossFit in 1 month. We aren’t used to sore muscles. Heck, we aren’t used to sweat (unless we are walking up a flight of stairs or we live in the South). Those mindsets have to change. 1 by 1 every single one of them has to change. You have to embrace sweat. You have to embrace the stairs. You have to give a rat what other people think about you. The world is too big to care about you or me. They have their own problems. And while friends and even spouses will listen, they aren’t going to help you change – really help you change. I’m going to refer you to this article because I like it. It’s honest and true and if you are planning having surgery – and please don’t get me wrong, surgery can be a very good thing – you better plan on conquering the rest of your life.
Change Is the Solution Not The Surgery
Our weekly newsletter will provide you with goals, stretch goals, honest motivation and sometimes my own personal baggage. I’m honest and sometimes brutal. But again weight loss surgery is not the solution. The solution is us. Its our mindset, its the impossible goals we set. Its the amazing breakthrough we have when we achieve an impossible goal. There are plenty of sites that will inform you about weight loss surgery – this one does a pretty good job of it. But there aren’t many sites that give us what we need, a kick in the pants. A dose of reality.
We are obese. We made ourselves this way. Maybe our parents put us on the wrong path. But you’re smart enough to be reading this. You’re smart enough to know what good food is. Now you need to be smart enough to realize that weight loss surgery is not the solution. You are the solution. Fix yourself.
One day we may have before and after pictures on our website. But if we do, we’ll have a story. And its not going to be the 2 second blurb about how weight loss surgery made me more energetic and it was the best choice ever.
The story will be the the real story. You’ll have to read through the lines. It’s the details, the changes, the habits, the nuances that make successes. I’m a big proponent of weight loss surgery, but because I’m not affiliated with any one bariatric surgeon, I can get away with saying it how it is. And it is truly up to you. Change. On the bottom right of our website is a newsletter subscription link. Subscribe, you’ll be happy you did. You’ll get a weekly honest email with no selling, no BS and only the truth. Some of it is already outlined above. Get a weekly dose of reality. We all need it. Writing this is my dose…off to CrossFit.