Re: Another article about the importance of planning and thought process if you want to make it happen

[Guest guest]

Is it About Your Weight . . . or About Your Destiny?

by Ken , President, Bariatric Support Centers International

I have a very good friend, Tina Fuller, (also known as “Giggles” on our website) who is a gastric bypass patient - almost 4 years post-op, who has not yet achieved her goal weight. When she first joined BSCI as an online member she was three years post-op and very discouraged because she never reached her goal weight and she’d also regained about 25 pounds above her lowest post surgery weight. She had surgery with a surgeon who didn’t have a comprehensive post surgery bariatric education and support training program so she’d been left on her own to do the best she could to reach her goal weight. She wasn’t doing well and she honestly wanted help to get back on track.< p/>

She joined us as an online member and participated in our forums and group chats. She bought a copy of The Success Habits of Weight-Loss Surgery Patients and read it, and a copy of the accompanying Final Success Workbook. She had her Resting Metabolic Rate tested and purchased a copy of the BalanceLog software so she could easily count calories. She was already a fairly regular exerciser.

She told us she was “doing it all right” but . . . She couldn’t seem to lose any weight.

One Tuesday night, while we were chatting with a group in the regularly scheduled BSCI Tuesday Night Chat, I paid particularly close attention to some of the things she was saying and compared them with the mental notes I’d made about previous forum posts and chat posts that she’d made and I decided to really investigate what was going on with her. So, I sent her a private message during that chat session and we began a long discussion in the private chat room that night that has continued through chats and emails and phone conversations for about 8 or 9 months now.

Watching her posts I‘d noticed a common theme that seemed to run through all of them; she frequently put herself down, and her vision of the future seemed to expect failure to overrule her best efforts at losing weight. Considering what she’d been through, these were very natural and normal reactions. Natural and normal . . . . but not healthy.

As we talked, I asked her about her hopes and dreams; about what she wanted out of life. Were there any goals (or wishes) she had made earlier in her life that she hadn’t been able to reach because of her weight issues? She seemed to be content with her life and her daily routine, except for the continuing weight problem. She also had something to be depressed about, and maybe a little bit scared about too; her husband was in the reserves and he would be going to Kuwait for nine months and this would be the first time she’d been left all alone in her 21 years of marriage. I suggested to her that she could use this nine month period of time to break out of her old mold and create some new interests in life. We talked about classes she could take. We talked about stresses at her job. I encouraged her to set an intermediate weight-loss goal that she could work towards and so she could get that feeling of success that comes when you reach a goal, even if it isn’t your ultimate goal.

I challenged her to a weight-loss contest . . . just the two of us . . . the first one to lose 25 pounds wins. She killed me in the contest. I’ve lost 6 pounds since then . . . she’s lost 25. And she’s still losing. She conquered her initial goal of getting her weight down to less than 200 pounds. Now she’s on track and seems to be confident that she’ll continue losing as long as she stays on track. When she hit 199 I asked her to post her story in the Back On Track forum so others could benefit from her experience, but she declined. She “didn’t want to jinx it.” I’ll bet I asked and begged her to post her story at least 10 times before she finally did. You see, she’s proud of her success, but she’s worried that it won’t last. And she doesn’t want to step forward and be seen as one who is “successful” until she proves to herself that she can reach her ultimate goal and then maintain it. What she doesn’t realize is that she’s already developed the habits and character traits that

will carry her through to her ultimate success. It’s just a matter of time now until she reaches her goal weight. And I have complete confidence that she’ll be able to maintain it after she reaches it.

So, why have I used all this space to tell you about Tina? I’m describing all this for two reasons: first of all because I think Tina is quite typical of many WLS patients who didn’t have the benefit of a strong education and support program, or who chose to think that they were somehow special exceptions to the principles they were taught by their support leaders; and second of all because she is an excellent example of someone who has applied all of the techniques that are necessary to make permanent changes in their life, and I believe that understanding her example will help many people who are in similar circumstances like the one she was in when she first joined us.

Look how well she's done so far!

Before we get into the details of how she did it, I’d like you to start with an understanding of a major principle that was discovered by Drs. O. Prochaska, C. Norcross, and Carlo C. DiClemente and which was published in their book Changing For Good . . . A Six-Stage Program for Overcoming Bad Habits and Moving Your Life Positively Forward. These three men (who I’ll refer to as “the Drs.”) decided to search for and scientifically study the common traits of thousands of people who had decided that they wanted to kick a very bad habit and WHO HAD ACTUALLY SUCCEEDED in overcoming their bad habit(s). The Drs. discovered that people who make lasting changes to their habits go through at least 5 separate stages of change before they are finally successful at kicking their bad habit. There isn’t space here to describe all those processes, so I’ll simply suggest that you

pick up a copy of the book and read all about it. The major discovery that they made that I want to discuss here is this: People who make permanent changes in their habits start out with a few pros and a few cons on their list of advantages and disadvantages of making the change; but those who are ultimately successful at making permanent change end up with a list that has TWICE AS MANY PROS on it and HALF AS MANY CONS on it as they had when they started thinking about making the change.

Tina started out with a fairly short list of reasons to change her habits and a fairly long list of reasons NOT to change them. I think the biggest reason on her don’t change list was “I don’t really think I can do it” attitude. I don’t think her attitude has ever been that it couldn’t be done . . . it was just an attitude that SHE couldn’t do it. But she was willing to try the techniques I asked her to try.

First we needed to address her statement that she was “doing it all right.” Meaning, she thought she was following all of the principles taught in The Success Habits of Weight-Loss Surgery Patients. It turns out she wasn’t. She was following most of them but not all of them. You see she had this thing about bread and refined carbs, and she thought “just this once won’t hurt.” But, just this once, this week, and just this once last week, and just this once next week, were preventing her from achieving the metabolic state commonly referred to as ketosis. Ketosis is actually the evidence of a shift in your body’s primary source of where it obtains the energy it needs. When an unusually high number of ketones are found in your bloodstream and your urine it is evidence that your body has shifted away from its craving for carbohydrates as

your primary source of energy and is, instead, focusing on getting it’s energy by burning your fat stores as its primary source of energy. By eating an occasional dessert or other type of refined carbohydrate Tina was telling her body, “Carbohydrates are available for use as energy; you don’t need to touch our fat stores. Just turn up the cravings and I’ll go find some carbs for us today.”

She could not lose weight, even though she was exercising regularly, until she completely stopped eating refined carbs and her body got the message that carbs were not going to be available so it had better switch over to fat consumption to keep itself running. Once her body made that switch, which took about a week or so, it stopped craving carbs and it became much easier for her to remain on track. Now, as she continues to lose weight, she eats protein first at every meal and then some complex carbohydrates (meaning vegetables) as well. Three bites of protein, to one bite of vegetables. This is how she accomplished the physical/technical change that was necessary to be successful, but how did she accomplish the mental and emotional change that was necessary so she’d have the will power to stick with her plan long enough for the carb cravings to subside and her weight-loss to begin?

She searched for reasons to believe she could succeed. I cannot emphasize this concept strongly enough! Searching for reasons to believe you can succeed will produce the actual ability to succeed. I’m not talking about going to some kind of dieter’s rally and getting yourself all jacked up to go out and eat tofu for the rest of your life. I’m talking about studying WHY you do the things you do and then finding other things that are better for you that you can exchange those bad habits for in a trade. I’m talking about searching for and finding new goals outside of weight-loss itself that you can focus your energies on so you have a goal that’s bigger and more important than losing weight. Think about it . . . how much easier is it to maintain focus and energy when you’re working to acquire something new, compared to the level of effort that is required to rid yourself of something old?

We are hard wired to expend the most energy and focus acquiring new things, not giving them up and getting rid of them. Your mind and will power will fight much harder to acquire the ability to play with your children and grandchildren than they will to simply “lose a few pounds”. And that’s just the mental side of it; your body is also physically hard wired to hang on to every ounce of stored energy it has unless it can be convinced that there is an unlimited supply of food available so it doesn’t have to store any more fat and it can safely give up some of the stores it already has.

If you are stuck and cannot break through a plateau, or you’re actually gaining a few pounds, try this: Instead of focusing on losing weight, focus on finding just one new reason why you can lose weight, or one new reason why you should lose weight. But don’t settle for easy answers like, “I’m more likely to die by [insert the latest obesity = bad health article here] if I don’t lose weight.” Make sure your new reasons are positive goals that encourage you to lose weight because of a new opportunity that will be opened up to you when you lose some weight. Notice I said “lose SOME weight”, I didn’t say, “lose ALL of your excess weight.” You don’t need more reasons on your list that depend on you losing ALL of your excess weight; you already have enough of those. What you need are reasons why life will be better just because you’ve reached an intermediate goal.

OK, one last thought from “the Drs.” study of successful habit changers. They found that the biggest reason why people fail to make permanent changes to their lives (even when they truly want to change) is that they try to spring right from the stage of thinking about their goal all the way to the action stage where they are actively working on the change, and they miss the most critical stage that all of the successful habit changers go through . . . that’s the Planning Stage. Those who jump over the planning stage almost always fail and then they have to pick themselves up again and start over at the beginning again. They only achieve lasting change when they spend enough time planning what they are actually going to DO to change BEFORE they actually jump into action and start doing it.

Perhaps if you’ve tried and tried and tried and failed and failed and failed, it’s time to change the way you’re doing it. Research and Plan first, then Work Your Plan. If you believe you’ve tried that before and you’re still unsuccessful, perhaps, like Tina, you just don’t have enough information yet, or you haven’t built up enough reasons to change yet.

If you’ve got enough knowledge, get more reasons. Where do you get more reasons? . . . at support group meetings, in online forums, in online chat rooms, in books, in discussions with people like Tina who’ve been where you are and have worked their way through it. Who knows? . . . maybe along the way you’ll pick up some new knowledge and that new knowledge will give you one more solid reason to believe you can reach your ultimate goal weight.

A recent discussion with Tina convinced me to write this article. A key moment in our discussion was when I noticed she still seemed to be focused on weight-loss as the most valuable part of the journey she’s making. Apparently she isn’t able to see the changes that are occurring in her attitude toward life. She’s become a much more confident person who knows where she’s going and how she’s going to get there. Not just while she’s standing on her scale, but also when she’s at work, or at 5:00 in the morning when she gets up to go for her morning walk, and I’m sure in numerous other aspects of her life too. I can see it because I’ve watched her from the outside. It’s going to take a little bit longer for her to see it, but one day she’ll be doing something she never dreamed she could do and then it will hit her. She’ll say, “I never dreamed I could do this. I wonder what else I could do if I dreamed a little bit bigger dreams . . . forgot about the weight-loss . . . and

concentrated on the excitement of the journey instead.

After all, it’s not just about the weight-loss . . . it’s about discovering who you can become when you take charge of your destiny.Tina Fuller knows where she’s going, and she has a plan for how she’s going to get there:Shell wrote:

Cathy,Thanks so much for your support. I'm not sure if not having a goal weight is good or bad. I am very healthy now but really loved what Martha wrote (thanks Martha) The one thing I can say for sure is this:This surgery for sure has a honeymoon period for me it was about 2 1/2 years, longer then some I've heard. Weight just dropped off me like magic. Now I am like anyone else. I must must must work at it everyday. This surgery is only a tool out of a large tool box of all the other stuff we have learn. Its hard ,its tuff.I now need to lose 10 pounds and although 10 pounds is much less then 175 its still tuff. I love that your all here. I started this group for very selfish reasons, I needed someone to talk to who knew were I was coming from. The growth of this group is amazing to me. You all thank me for

starting this group ,but truly it is ALL of you who have blessed me. You all mean so much to me!Shell> > Hello Friends,> > > > I need a bit of feed back please.> > > > When I started this journey I was 370. I have never had a goal > > weight,ever. It was never a big deal to me. Almost all of you on > the > > board do.> > > > I lost 175 pounds, which had me at 195. I was ok with that. I felt > > losing 175 and maintaining is for almost 3 years was great! Well > now > > I'm not so sure. I went from a size 32 to a 16, I thought that was > > huge, but most of you are like

size 4-12's a size I'll never see > > > > I have been having major major cramping (middle schmits)Like alot > of > > you were having (i loved that topiclast week I truly thought I was > > the only one and going crazy!)> > > > My doctor put me on some medication kinda like a birth control to > > get my bleeding under control, well i have gained weight up to 208> > in that last two weeks,she told me this could happen. I am still a > > size 16,but am worried. I am in a lot of pain physically due to the > > cramping.> > > > I don't think I'll ever get under 195 which I was really ok with > > but after reading how all of you are around 140-160 I'm staring to > > think I'm not such a sucsess after all. > > > > I am not the best eater,nor do I like to exercise. We do ride are

> > bikes a lot though as we love to do that.> > > > Anyway I'm scared and am feeling like Im going to fail at this > > surgery. My three year anniversary in on Jan 16,2006> > > > Thank for listening> > > > Shell (hows kinda blue today)