If you’re reading this you’re probably contemplating, have contemplated, or have had weight loss surgery. Be sure to read our blog Is weight loss surgery worthy it?
If so, you may know that one of the things weight loss surgery candidates are told at their pre-surgery consultations is that weight loss surgery is a tool for achieving permanent weight loss.
Unfortunately, this is not true.
In this blog, we’re going to explore why weight loss surgery won’t solve your weight problem, and what you need to do to lose weight for good — even if you’ve already had weight loss surgery.
Our aim in writing this blog is not to talk you out of weight loss surgery, but to help you weigh the pros and cons but most importantly help you make a well informed decision from a place of love not fear.
People don’t have weight problems
By definition, a tool is something you use to perform a particular job or solve a particular problem. However, using the wrong tool for the wrong job, or the right tool for the wrong job is just a waste of time. For example, a knife is good for cutting, but not for cutting your hair or your nails.
Weight loss surgery is the same.
You see weight loss surgery is a tool designed to help people with a weight problem.
The thing is, people don’t have weight problems. They have personal problems (habits, mindsets, beliefs, identities and fears) that reflect in their life. Sometimes, these personal problems are reflected in poor relationships, low confidence, business or career problems, and sometimes they are reflected in a person’s weight. This concept is explained in greater detail in our blog Surprising signs you need transformation even if you’re skinny.
Permanent weight loss comes from solving the right problem
There’s no doubt that weight loss surgery helps people with initial weight loss. However, when you look at long-term results, weight regain is very common with most people gaining back at least half of what they lost. Around half gain back all their weight and more.
So why does this happen if weight loss surgery is supposed to lead to weight loss?
Well, weight loss surgery solves the wrong problem.
The problem that needs addressing isn’t the weight. It’s the personal problems (habits, beliefs, mindset, identities and fears) that led to the weight gain in the first place.
Using weight loss surgery as a tool for weight loss, and failing to address the reasons for the weight gain is like refilling a punctured tyre with air over and over again, without sealing the puncture. Weight loss surgery may result in temporary weight loss, but just like the tyre is destined to continue going flat unless you seal the puncture and address the reason why you got the puncture in the first place, people undergoing surgery are destined to gain back the weight they lose unless they address the key reasons why they became overweight in the first place. This, of course, is due to their habits and mindset.
Common habits that cause weight gain include:
- Low self-esteem and low self-worth
- Lack of confidence
- Comparing yourself with others
- People pleasing
- Putting your needs behind other people’s
- Perfectionism
- Caring about what others think
- Letting fear dictate their actions
- Self-entitlement
- The need to control everything
- Resentment
- Shame and embarrassment
Unfortunately, weight loss surgery doesn’t address any of these habits. Unless you address them, weight loss surgery will only be an expensive, painful band-aid solution, that won’t truly solve your weight problem.
Failure to address the personal problems that lead to weight gain in the first place, is why many people who have weight loss surgery end up regaining weight.
Because weight loss surgery is not the correct tool for permanent weight loss.
Weight loss surgery — the last stop on the diet train
Many people who turn to weight loss surgery as a last resort say they have tried everything to lose weight. However, the truth is they’ve only tried dieting. Many people spend years or even decades, jumping from one diet to another in the hope that they’ll find one that works. When they realise that none of them work and they’re actually in a worse place than they were before they started to diet, they consider weight loss surgery as a last resort — either lap band surgery, gastric bypasss or gastric sleeve surgery.
What chronic dieters don’t realise is that weight loss surgery is the last stop on the diet train. That means that once they disembark the train and have the surgery, there is no turning back to dieting. They’ve effectively reached the end of a long-line of quick-fix approaches to weight loss.
The only option left is to work on their habits.
We get a lot of applications from people all around the world who are desperate for the last resort. Some have had weight loss surgery (lap band, gastric bypass or gastric sleeve surgery), but the weight started coming back. Some are on the fence about whether they should undergo surgery. Some are desperate for an alternative solution because they did not qualify for weight loss surgery because they are not ‘overweight enough’. And some are trying to avoid the last stop on the diet train — weight loss surgery.
One thing is common, whether they’ve had surgery, contemplating it, or trying to avoid it – they all want the same thing….to finally address the reasons they became overweight in the first place. In other words, they want to change their habits and mindset so they don’t regain weight back post-op, or because they have already used all their quick-fix opportunities (diets and surgery), or so they can avoid the final quick-fix resort of surgery, when all the diets fail.
That’s why we are the ones that people come to when all the diets fail — because at the end of the day, the only thing that works for permanent weight loss is addressing the reasons you gained weight. We explain this more in our blog The solution to your body weight problem is not in addressing what you do, but why you do it.
The sad thing is, it isn’t until people step off the diet train and undergo surgery that they finally understand that diets or surgery were never going to solve their weight problem because their problem wasn’t the weight. It was their habits and mindset.
They turn to us to help them, because they realised they used the wrong tool (surgery) to solve their problem, when they should have focused on the right tool (changing their habits and mindset).
It’s okay to undergo weight loss surgery. In some cases, there may be some medical reasons why weight loss surgery is advised. However, just don’t expect it to solve your weight problem, because your weight problem is a reflection of your habits, mindset, beliefs, identities and fears, which can’t be solved by surgery.
The weight loss surgery paradox
The paradox of weight loss surgery is that people resort to it out of fear. (Fear that it will take too long, or be too hard and scary to address their mindset and habits that led to them becoming overweight). In other words, going to the extreme of having surgery to remove part of their stomach seems easier than having to confront their fears around addressing their habits and mindsets.
So they have the surgery. But the irony is after using their last option in the diet cycle, they finally realise they still have to address the same things they have been avoiding all along — their habits and mindset — or they’ll end up going back to where they were. We explain this in more detail in our blog Nothing changes if nothing changes: How to lose weight for good.
The truth is confronting your fears and addressing your habits and mindset is a prerequisite for permanent weight loss, whether you do this pre- or post-op. And if this is the case, you might as well start the process now instead of looking for an easy way out. There is no easy way out if you want permanent weight loss.
Weight loss surgery is not a tool for permanent weight loss. It’s just the long, expensive way around realising the only thing that will work long-term is changing your habits and mindset.
How DATSTM Program helps
The DATSTM Personal Coaching Program (habit, mindset and weight loss) helps you identify the habits that are contributing to your weight problem. Once you have awareness around these habits, we give you the specific action steps you need to overcome these habits, so you can lose weight and keep it off, without ever having to diet again. We give you the knowledge, systems, tools and skills so you can lose weight for good and gain the body, confidence and lifestyle you want. And our system means you’ll be able to stay consistent, even on your worst days.
In summary…
- Many people turn to weight loss surgery to solve their weight problems.
- People don’t have weight problems. They have personal problems (habits, mindset, beliefs, identities and fears) that are reflected in their weight.
- Weight loss surgery doesn’t lead to permanent results because it solves the wrong problem.
- Weight loss surgery is the last stop on the diet train, because once you choose this option, there is nowhere else to turn.
- People choose weight loss surgery out of fear — fear that it will take too long and be too hard to address the habits and mindsets that led them to become overweight.
- The only way to lose weight and keep it off is to address the reasons you became overweight in the first place — even if you have weight loss surgery.
- Failure to address your habits means you will end up gaining any weight you lose through the surgery.
- Our DATSTM Personal Coaching Program will help you identify the habits that are contributing to your weight.
- It will give you the precise action steps you need to take to address these habits so you can lose weight and keep it off
- Our DATSTM Program gives you the knowledge, systems, tools and skills to give you the body, confidence and lifestyle your desire, even on your worst days.
