Weight Loss Surgery Learning Library

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Featured Article
We are each unique, but lets compare
by Kaye Bailey

One of the biggest contradictions in the American psyche is our fundamental belief that we are all unique individuals yet we suffer from the irresistible impulse to compare ourselves one with another.

Consider this: Since childhood we have been taught we are special, there is nobody else like us, we are as unique as snowflakes. Yet in that same childhood we were measured against our classmates, we competed against our peers and we were ranked against each other. If we are truly unique how can we be fairly measured against one another? As unique people how can we help but feel inferior when we don't measure up to someone else?

Read: How much weight have you lost?

In adulthood, true to this dichotomy, we pursue gastric bypass surgery each making claim to our unique circumstance that resulted in morbid obesity. No one has a story quite like ours. No one's path to morbid obesity is the same. We are truly original fat people. So the time comes for gastric bypass and then we gather in a room of morbidly obese peers. We size one another up in rank and file and we begin to compare our unique self to the other unique people in the room. Who is doing better than I am? Who is doing worse than I am? Who is fatter and who is thinner than I am? In short order we've made a bell-curve of unique individuals battling morbid obesity.

We don't even have to attend support group meetings to find contenders in this race: we have online communities where we can lurk and find statistical clones with whom to compare and compete. I did exactly that when I had my surgery. I ran a silent secret race against my cyber clone. I pitied her when I was "winning" and I despised her when she was "winning." And she didn't even know of my existence, my pity or despise.

When we surrender ourselves to the statistical comparison game we allow it to manipulate, control and exploit our feelings about ourselves. We lose sight of the present and our perspective becomes skewed as we attempt to win an imaginary race.

WLS support counselors universally report patients mentally bludgeon themselves when someone in their support group has lost more weight in a quicker amount of time. "I should be doing better, I should have lost more weight by now. Why look at Missy-Prissy, she's lost 70 pounds and I've only lost 50 pounds." When we perceive we are falling short of another's stride we produce feelings of self-blame, guilt and depression. We undermine our own efforts to succeed.

There is nothing to be gained from willingly inserting ourselves into the WLS statistical bell curve.

We are each unique. Nobody gained weight in the same manner we did. Nobody is going to lose weight in the same manner we lose weight. While WLS binds us together as a community it does not deliver the exact same results at the exact same rate to every person. Weight Loss Surgery does not produce a level playing field. We have no business suffering from comparison that results in pity or despise.

The only person with whom we can and should compare ourselves to is our former pre-WLS self. Certainly as dieting experts we can remember past efforts and then jump for joy at the present success with WLS. We have miserable dieting failures in our past, and perhaps a few short-lived happy moments of diet success. You have often heard of me refer to my former self as "Little Fat Girl." Not a day passes that I don't compare this new me to her. I celebrate how far I've come from those sad times. And I thank the good Lord and good doctor for the gift of WLS.

LivingAfterWLS Empowerment Philosophy

We hold sole ownership of our past and we own our present and our future too. When we liberate ourselves from the comparison game we can truly celebrate our uniqueness. We can move forward in a state of learning, thoughtful contemplation and success. With WLS we can win the race against our former self and that's the biggest race of all.

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