Dear Friend, Get Bariatric Surgery and Give Us All of Your Money

I received a letter in the mail recently from HCA/TriStar Health System, touting the wonders of bariatric surgery. The headline states boldly in red, “The more you lose, the more you win”, and the letter begins, “Dear Friend”.

My “friend” goes on to tell me “One of the worst consequences of being overweight or suffering from obesity is that quality of life suffers. Enjoying life’s simple pleasures – traveling, experiencing the outdoors or being socially active and meeting new people – can be difficult when living with this disease. If obesity is affecting your life or the life of someone you love, TriStar Health System can help. Our surgeons are experts in a variety of minimally invasive bariatric surgical procedures, including: gastric bypass, gastric banding, sleeve gastrectomy… Think of everything you have to gain when you decide you are ready to lose!”

This was sent to me, not based on a doctor’s recommendation, not because I am working with a psychiatrist or a nutritionist or trying to overcome morbid obesity. It was sent to me merely based on the fact that HCA has my mailing address because my doctor practices under their umbrella. It has nothing to do with my medical needs. In fact, it even says “If obesity is affecting your life or the life of someone you love...” Who doesn’t have someone they love who is affected by obesity?! Their marketing team is counting on that, and therefore this letter is suddenly, miraculously relevant to every patient in their purview.

I know lots of obese people, most of whom do not have difficultly “experiencing the outdoors” or “meeting new people”. Most of them are working tirelessly to achieve a healthy weight, or they have made peace with their bodies as they are. If the extra weight is dangerous, their doctors and counselors should be the ones to help them decide which interventions are best… not an advertising mailer made out to “Dear Friend.”

Call me old fashioned, but I find this kind of shameless, money-grubbing, condescending advertising to be totally and utterly disgusting. HCA/TriStar Health System should be ashamed of themselves. Instead of spending their money on marketing flyers and postage, they should donate a few hundred thousand dollars to healthy school lunch programs or food banks. Then maybe I would be proud to be one of their patients and happy to refer my friends and family for their services. Shame on you, HCA. Shame.

But I Can Be Perfect! Tomorrow.

Any of you who know me well have heard my mantra about setting small, easily-achievable goals. Just a couple of blog posts ago in Set, Point, Match, I was ranting about setting a goal you know you can reach and then hanging out there for a while, getting accustomed to how that new behavior or the new body feels in space before moving on to bigger, more exciting goals. And my last post was about our need for Quick Fix Clutter and how the resulting, inevitable failure can lead down a rabbit hole of obsession and insecurity.

Well, along those lines, Dr. Will Aguila has recently posted a brilliant blog on Huffington Post about The Link Between Obesity and Perfectionism. In reference to himself and others struggling with obesity, he says, "We're not the lazy procrastinating, passive-agressive people that many think we are. We set very high, sometimes unreachable, standards for ourselves... When we find we cannot achieve our goals, we stop trying because we fear failure."

His post is extremely insightful. I see it all the time in myself and my clients. It's the impulse that prompts you to go from pizza at the office party to skipping your workout because... well, you blew it with the pizza, so why bother? You'll just have some ice cream tonight and start fresh tomorrow. Oh yeah, and might as well have some chocolate sauce and a cookie with that since today is blown anyway. The next morning your clothes feel a little too tight, and you know you won't make your weight loss goal for the week. You feel low-energy and depressed, so your diet and workout plans suffer that day too. Rinse and repeat.

Dr. Aguila's point is that perfectionism can drive us all directly down the path of obesity. We must give ourselves a break, set goals we can achieve, and give ourselves a healthy reward if we get there. Small changes are the ones that change lives and bodies permanently. Reaching too far, too fast will likely only lead to crash-and-burn failure and even more unwanted weight gain.

I implore you to give yourself a break. Only then can you see clearly and discover exactly which goals make sense in the long run.

Quick Fix Clutter... had enough already?!

I am soooo very tired of reading about the latest, NEWLY IMPROVED, SUPER-FAST way to lose weight. I've been seeing a lot of this junk on twitter lately. These obnoxious, grandiose weight loss promises are exhausting. Can we just stop for a second and take a look at the track record, take a minute to consider how fad diets have worked out for us all?

The diet/fitness craze that started in the eighties has continued ad nauseam through today. Meanwhile, over those thirty years, adult obesity has doubled and childhood obesity has tripled - http://1.usa.gov/gY12RG.

Something is very wrong here. Extreme manipulation of our bodies clearly does not lead to a healthier life; it leads to obsession and insecurity, which, in turn, lead to depression, overeating, isolation, and lack of physical activity. Super-sized portions and endless hours in front of flashing screens don't help either. We are surrounded by body-centric, quick fix clutter. Can we tune this crap out, please? Stop buying it so they will stop selling it? Maybe then I could stop choking on it like a cat with a hairball.

There is no quick fix. Everybody knows that, whether they want to believe it or not. We need to simplify, re-engage... eat things that are living instead of boxed, find out what the air outside feels like, take a walk with a friend... rediscover the ever-shrinking parts of life that are not filled with pre-packaged, plastic, electronically-operated, bullshit-infused distractions.

I've been staring at the computer screen for too long.

So with that, I am signing off from this lighted box and going to bed to listen to my dog chasing tennis balls in his sleep and my dreams calling me back to the hills of California.

A New Right to Free Birth Control

This is huge, HUGE news. As of August 2012, all American women will have the preventive care and birth control that they need and deserve. The world of healthcare and insurance coverage can look awfully bleak at times, but this time we get to rise up and cheer!

"U.S. health insurance companies must offer women free birth control and other preventive health care services under rules released on Monday... The health department's guidelines followed the IOM's recommendations to require free screening for gestational diabetes, testing for human papillomavirus in women over 30, counseling for HIV and sexually transmitted infections, lactation counseling, screening for domestic violence and yearly wellness visits." - Yahoo News

http://news.yahoo.com/federal-health-department-approves-free-birth-control-women-143218278.html