Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Own your personal journey!!

Ever heard a statement like this from someone:
I have a friend who had surgery with Dr. X and she has gained all of her weight back so I don’t want to see Dr. X but my co-worker had surgery with Dr. Y and she is doing great so I’m going to Dr. Y. 
How about the conversation where we compare ourselves to other WLS patients and their success??
One thing about WLS is that we have to own our journey! Surgeons give us a physical tool dietitians give us the nutritional tool but it's up to us to use those tools to the best of their ability. You could line 10 of Dr. X’s & Dr. Y’s patients up who had the exact same surgery around the same time and no two would be exactly alike. Every day we have a choice!! If we choose to not follow the proper nutritional guidelines, not change our behaviors, not make a lifelong lifestyle change and commit to taking care of our "tool" we have to own it.

My thought for you today is don’t make other WLS stories your own....the person sitting next to you at group who has gained weight, the person you read about who eats sugar and doesn't dump so why not have donuts for breakfast and pie for dessert but complains that they have never gotten to goal, the person who eats bread 3x a day and never works out, the one who has never taken a vitamin because their labs were good at the 2 year mark and at 5 years have vitamin deficiency and are hospitalized then go back to the surgeon and say this surgery failed me.  Is that truly a surgeon/surgery issue?
Don't let someones story become yours.  Make your own story! 
 Remind yourself this is a personal journey. This is YOUR journey.
You are not "them" and you can choose how to make this work for YOU!!!!