Everything I said is coming from a place of love. But in reality, it was just honesty.
And I don't personally see the problem with "educating" people. Especially when I can be of benefit. I would really appreciate it if you could expound on that.
Don't tell me what I want to hear just to be encouraging. Just give it to me straight up. Tell me the truth and the reality of it.
I'm just going to address these points from your post and give you another resource to consult.
After Weight Loss Surgery, you will need to continue your Bariatric education and knowledge of how to stay on track. We're here to help inform and motivate you to be the happiest Bariatric patient in the world!
www.bariatricfoodsource.com
Allow me to give it to you "straight up:" you are using the word "truth" as if you actually know some universal truth that you've been ordained to share with people who are asking for help.
I re-read all of your posts from the first to the last and I discovered that at least three people expressed pain because you were not being supportive, but lecturing. One of those people left the group exactly because of what you said.
You expressed an opinion, not a truth. You have an agenda, which is to change the name of this type of surgery from "weight loss" to "weight management."
To state it plainly, you are wrong. The surgery is called weight loss surgery because that is the result of the surgery. Surgery of any type cannot manage the condition for which it was used. Surgery doesn't manage your tonsils after having a tonsillectomy. Surgery doesn't manage lung cancer after a lung is removed. In surgery which is corrective, something is removed in order to stop a pathology from growing or a medical condition from worsening.
And at that point, surgery is over. We have weight loss surgery. We do not subsequently require the surgeon to manage our weight.
I don't know why this is so important to you, but it is not your job to change the way people think. People come here with the most horrifying stories of what is happening to them and we give them support and gentle personal opinions.
We do educate to the best of our abilities, but we only use information that we have experienced and found to be proven fact or medical expertise that we quote. No one in this group is any kind of expert in weight management.
The group's mission as stated, and the reason it exists, is to discuss weight loss surgery, before and after.
If someone comes here asking for our opinions about which surgical procedure is best, our job is to give that person our opinion according to our unique beliefs..
It runs counter to the group's mission to warn them against having hopes of losing a lot of weight very fast.
You shared in an early post that you had lost 20 lb the first week following surgery. That proves you had weight loss surgery.
Whatever your need is to practice or define weight management, it has nothing to do with this group. We are here to support people. How much they lose and how fast they lose it is out of our hands. But it is not necessary to try to predict that they are going to fail so they shouldn't even try to succeed.
And that is exactly what you are preaching: Failure. Unless someone subscribes to your beliefs, they are going to fail. This is not simply my opinion. Reading the feedback to your philosophy proves that you believe they will fail unless they embrace what you believe.
After being lectured by you, the people who are now wondering why they even bothered coming here are turning to others for comfort. We don't coddle them. In general, we just say that everyone has a different experience and that they are free to disagree with any member whose opinion discourages them.
What you may see as education, I see as what we used to call constructive criticism. In reality criticism is not a bit constructive. It is judgmental. And criticism must be backed up by empirical fact, not opinion. Otherwise, it is just your philosophy and your opinion, and most of the time people would prefer that you just keep that to yourself.
I have been flamed a few times because my opinion is that no one should have surgery in Mexico. There is a lot of research behind that opinion, and if only because most insurance will not pay for follow-up after you returned to Canada or the United States, I believe it should be advised against. But a few people have violently disagreed with me. So now when someone says they're having surgery in Mexico, I just keep my mouth shut.
My opinion about surgery in Mexico did not cause anyone to leave the group or to express how much my words hurt them. But a lot of us who are struggling with the decision to have surgery to lose weight are extremely vulnerable. We do not need to have anyone in a support group try to dogmatically influence us. We need love and we need support and we need to know that we are okay. If we need help managing our weight afterward, that will come up in its own time.
So, thank you for inviting me to share my own truth with you, straight up, not to be encouraging, but to be honest, according to me. I assume you will not be offended by my words, since you can't imagine why telling anyone the truth could possibly be hurtful.
I'm not giving you any advice or trying to encourage you to change your approach. What you say has consequences. The type of consequence you would like to see is within your power. I'm out of it.
