I can't tell you how much I have enjoyed our communications. The information you have conveyed so well has prepared me in many ways — from eating to exercise, from expecting pain after surgery to dealing with plateaus. So thanks so much for your sharing, help and personal experiences. — Patricia
You are the best source of information and support I have found! — Dana K.
After communicating with you, I'm deeply moved and feel like I have found someone who is going through profound experiences very much like my own. I studied up on the WLS process for 11 months prior to having my procedure, but never in all my reading did I come across any significant discussion on the early pre-op months and the related emotional and physical challenges. Thanks for your gift!
Through Thick and Thin #30 (September 20, 2003)
The Birth of A Weight Loss Surgery Coach
or Your Invitation to Join A WLS Virtual Coaching Support Group
It takes nine months to grow a baby. It's taken me almost eleven months to achieve my ambitious pre-op Weight Loss Surgery goals, and, in the process, I've become a Weight Loss Surgery Coach. Before I share and invite you to consider my new concept for Virtual Coaching Support Groups, I want to catch you up on my WLS journey, present status and future plans.
As I write to you, I am at my goal weight! I weigh less than 200 pounds for the first time in my adult life. In the almost eleven months since my Weight Loss Surgery, I have lost more than 160 pounds and shed my corpulent mass, my diabetes, my sleep apnea, my lethargy, my despair and my shame. My BMI, originally way over 50, is now under 30.
Every day I either walk several miles, vigorously and uphill, or engage in resistance weight training. I look and feel great, I wear "Large" size clothes (down from 4X), bought off the rack, and my energy and life force have multiplied exponentially. After my recent annual physical exam, my doctor reported that I am of "normal size and great health" for the first time I can ever remember. My body, spirit and life have been transformed through my diligent and effective use of this incredible tool of WLS — and this precious gift of a fully functional appetite regulator. I thank my God every day for this miraculous second chance at good health and a long life.
I also honor and acknowledge myself every day for the commitment, strength and courage it has taken me to achieve my goals and my new vitality, health, body and lifestyle. My recovery and path have not been easy, and I still struggle with the severe limitations I experience with respect to both the amount and variety of foods I can comfortably consume. On balance, however, having Weight Loss Surgery has been a blessing, and it was one of the smartest, best and most life-affirming choices I've ever made.
When I created my website and started writing these newsletters more than a year ago — right after I made the decision to have the surgery and about three months before my operation — I had two positive intentions. The first was selfless — to share my experience, strength, encouragement and hope with others journeying on the same path. The second was quite selfish — to reinforce my commitment, and to avoid sabotaging myself the way I had for several decades of compulsive overeating, obsessive dieting, gluttony, and self-blame and shame. I figured that by "going public" with my decision and my progress, I would gain a valuable and powerful tool that would help me avoid the humiliation, defeat and disaster of backsliding and failing yet again. Both intentions have been realized.
When I started on this path, however, I had no idea of the way that my life would be changed and improved by the dialogue my website and newsletters have created with thousands of incredibly brave, wonderful and powerful people throughout the world. I had no idea that I would be both joining, and helping to build, a dynamic "virtual community" of people with common objectives, concerns and experiences.
This past year of deep, honest and authentic sharing of myself with others, and learning from them, has helped me to feel part of a community of special souls who can understand my feelings, experiences and challenges like no one else in my life had ever understood. I can't overstate how much it has meant to me and how much it has helped me to achieve my WLS goals to be part of this vibrant community of sensitized, open, caring and loving people.
I have now corresponded with several thousand Brothers and Sisters of the Scale, exchanging information, suggestions, insights and support. I have devoted several hours a day, every day, to responding to people suffering pain and despair, to people tearing themselves down because of their seeming powerlessness over their demons of food and weight, to people making brave decisions and struggling to cope with their aftermath. They — you — have become my most treasured community and (other than my life partner) my most precious source of intimacy, connection and inspiration as I create my new life built upon a foundation of health, not food.
What you may not know about me is that in the course of my long and varied career, I have found that my "right livelihood" (i.e. my life work that most fully uses my God-given gifts and skills, fills my heart, and inspires my spirit to soar) is COMMUNITY BUILDING. In all of my many human service careers, the one consistent theme has been helping people to connect in a deep, authentic way with their own essence and with others who are ready to support them in achieving their healing and goals.
In my work with people with disabilities, with abused and neglected children, with victims of family violence and sexual assault/abuse, with people struggling to overcome addictions, and, most recently, with adolescents and their parents, I have helped people find nurturance, sustenance and support by creating and maintaining their own communities of souls who care and connect. The feedback I receive fills my heart to overflowing and inspires me to do more in service to those in need.
In the process, I have learned that in addition to my training and experience as a counselor, coach and advocate, I have skills and attributes that help people heal and connect — a therapeutic spirit, a huge heart, deep empathy, an attitude of unconditional acceptance and respect, and a talent for group facilitation. As a group facilitator (heretofore "live" and "face to face"), I help structure communication and interactions so that ALL participants both give and get what they want and need. I have honed my facilitators skills to help keep people honest and real, and to say things that need to be said (but that may not be fun to hear) in a gentle, considerate, yet effective way.
In my volunteer service to the WLS community, I have discovered that — for the first time in my life — I am a bona fide, full-fledged MEMBER of a community I am dedicated to serving and supporting. This has been a revelation and a joy. It has led me to conclude that now that I have walked my talk and achieved my WLS goals, my "right livelihood" is to make WLS coaching and support a major next emphasis of my life work.
All of this is a preface to sharing my excitement about a new service that I'm launching today — facilitating and coaching "WLS Virtual Support Groups" via telephone conference calls. I will offer 4-week groups — "Making The Choice" — to help people trying to decide if Weight Loss Surgery is the right choice for them. I will also offer 12-week groups — "Pre-Op Prep" — to help people who have decided to have the surgery do everything they can to effectively prepare for it, and to successfully use the tool of WLS. (If there's enough interest, I'll also offer a 12-week POST-op group.)
I've explained both services in detail at my renamed website — www.WeightLossSurgeryCoach.com — and encourage you to check out the details if you have any interest or need for this new form of coaching support group. (I've decided to rename my website because some people have mistakenly assumed its only of use and interest to gastric bypass patients, when its really for anyone considering or having ANY Weight Loss Surgery.)
I sincerely believe that these Virtual Coaching Support Groups will become a very powerful and effective new resource for many pre-decision and pre-op people — especially those who have benefited from my newsletters — and that they will improve participants chances of successfully using the tool of their Weight Loss Surgery to achieve their health and personal life goals.
If youre interested in learning more about these groups, or joining one, you can find more information at www.WeightLossSurgeryCoach.com or email me at glenn@WeightLossSurgeryCoach.com. I look forward to this opportunity to help and support you in a whole new way.
Thanks for considering my invitation — and for sharing it with others who may be interested and benefit.
Through Thick
As I write to you, I am at my goal weight! I weigh less than 200 pounds for the first time in my adult life. In the almost eleven months since my Weight Loss Surgery, I have lost more than 160 pounds and shed my corpulent mass, my diabetes, my sleep apnea, my lethargy, my despair and my shame. My BMI, originally way over 50, is now under 30.
I have now corresponded with several thousand Brothers and Sisters of the Scale, exchanging information, suggestions, insights and support. I have devoted several hours a day, every day, to responding to people suffering pain and despair, to people tearing themselves down because of their seeming powerlessness over their demons of food and weight, to people making brave decisions and struggling to cope with their aftermath. They — you — have become my most treasured community and (other than my life partner) my most precious source of intimacy, connection and inspiration as I create my new life built upon a foundation of health, not food.
In my volunteer service to the WLS community, I have discovered that — for the first time in my life — I am a bona fide, full-fledged MEMBER of a community I am dedicated to serving and supporting. This has been a revelation and a joy. It has led me to conclude that now that I have walked my talk and achieved my WLS goals, my "right livelihood" is to make WLS coaching and support a major next emphasis of my life work.