Have you ever thought....what if...

Ok, I know to some of you this is going to sound crazy.  But...please hear me out.  What if you had the chance to go to a retreat (of sorts) to re-train your brain on how to eat properly? 

You would start out with the optifast period...then a day or two of clear liquids.  After which you slowly start introducing foods again.  Just like when you were a baby.  In a controlled environment where you could work one on one with people who understood and wanted to help you.  Would you choose to have WLS or would you go to the retreat? 

Of course OHIP would cover the cost of this.  It would only be available to people who fall into the approval for WLS, but would be a different option.

What would you do?

I haven't had the surgery yet, so I have no idea what it's like afterwards.  But I think that unless you can go and stay in this proposed "retreat" for the rest of your life, it probably wouldn't work - it would just be another crash diet, followed by relapse after you got back home and into the normal routine.

My understanding is that WLS changes your body so that you basically HAVE to adapt your life and surroundings to your new physical reality, as opposed to just being taken out of your life and surroundings to be taught something new and then put back into it again.

But it's just not that easy. Your retreat idea sounds like a cleanse or just another version of a diet. Been there...done that.

I would still do the sugery. For me, it's a combination of retraining myself on the mental side of it sure, but it's also having the physical fail safe of knowing that I CAN'T go back...I can't eat too much, because my body will physically reject it... It keeps you honest so-to-speak...

When you start to lose with momentum, I think it reinforces the positive lifestyle and diet changes, and then you just sort of keep on going...

I haven't had my surgery yet... but this is my thinking anyway...

I completely understand what you are both saying.  I've thought this all through myself...but someone posed this idea to me today and I wondered, "would I give that a try before surgery?'  It got me thinking. 

I would love to believe that you cannot go back to your old habits but after reading some stories, hearing struggles, I know that it's not always as simple as that.  Your body physically rejecting the "bad" foods, that is.  There are some people out there that go right back to eat the wrong things or amounts. 

So for me, before I have the surgery I want to be a sure as possible that there is nothing else for me.  I was just wondering how others felt or if they had ever thought about things like this.

All the best to everyone...this isn't meant as a negitive post...just food for thought. (LOL)

Sunny - they do have hospital based programs with this philosophy behind them.  They also have "food rehab" or "fat camp"- which is basically what you're talking about.  I think that maybe it would work for a while, but the truth is that extreme diets don't always work.  The problem is returning to the "real world".  I looked into those options but knowing myself and my dieting history, I knew I would just go back to my old ways.  I tried several times to go on an extreme diet, and always ended up being so damn hungry that I "cheated" and then never looked back. 

Surgery is scarily final but seemed like the best (the only) option where I would have the best chance to experience long-term success.

Nope definitely not. I needed something hugely drastic to change my ways. I am a food addict, I am well aware of this now where I was in so much denial about it before.

Hmmm.. well, it's a great thought.  But I know myself and my metabolism.  If, and it's a big IF, I lost anything, I would quickly put it back on once I got home. 

Some people say WLS is the "easy way" - I say WLS is the ONLY way I could finally lose, and keep off, weight.

I would still pick the surgery!
Love my sleeve.


Char

 I'm not sure if every weight management clinic has it, but here in Ottawa there is a full fledge Optifast diet that you can do instead of surgery. You do a few weeks of just opti, then a few weeks where you can have breakfast, then a few weeks of breakfast and lunch, then full fledge real food. All in the while you attend weekly classes where they train you to eat, shop, and adapt to your new lifelong diet.

I had the opportunity to attend to do that diet and if I wanted it later on down the road still have surgery. I immidietely decided no, that's not what I want, like Karen I belive that this my ONLY option, it's what my body needed it's the "gold standard" didn't you know (that was just for you Karen lol)

The surgery made me realise what I had done to my body, mistreating it my whole life and never litening to it. Since surgery I HAVE to listen to what my body needs otherwise I may get really sick. 

I found that like most shake programs (which I have tried) the second life got hard, or busy I turned right back to my bad habbits, and because of surgery I can NEVER return to those habbits, I don't wanna be sick, I hate being sick. I know that this was my final option and I refuse to waste this oppertunity. I know how I want to live my life and my basic wants in life (HEALTHY CHILDREN, and A LONG LIFE)

So no way surgery all the way for me!
 

The thing is, it's about more than "retraining your brain".  I've tried to retrain my brain for the past 20 years; behavioural therapy, psychotherapy, W Watchers, Overeaters Anonymous... none had any lasting effects for me.  There is a strong physical component here.  The doc *****ferred me for WLS told me there is research showing that formerly obese people need to eat significantly less than "regular" people to maintain the same weight; 20% less, in fact. 

All to say... no I wouldn't choose the retreat option.  I spent 20 years trying to lose weight and maintain the loss.  The only thing that worked for any period of time was an amphetamine addiction.  WLS was a great choice for me.