I had to take my daughter to the dentist today and while we were waiting I picked up the latest copy of People magazine.
There was a big feature on Carnie Wilson, the singer who had gastric bypass surgery and lost a whack of weight. Good for her! Oh, hold on…she gained it back!! How do you have a huge chunk of your stomach removed and you gain back 2/3 of your weight!!
The story was about her going under the knife AGAIN for another type of surgery. This time, lap band surgery.
Shaking my head while reading this story was an understatement. Even my daughter asked what I was reading about, likely because of the disgusted look on my face.
Really? A second surgery? COME ON?????????? She wrecked her stomach and stretched it SO much that she gained back the weight she lost, so she decided to fix her over eating problem by making her “tiny” stomach even smaller.
So what is gastric bypass? First and foremost, it is a major surgery first and that in itself is a huge risk to your health. Gastric bypass surgery makes the stomach smaller and causes food to bypass part the small intestine. You are “supposed” to feel full quickly. It is supposed to reduce the amount of food you can eat at one time. Bypassing part of the intestine reduces how much food and nutrients are absorbed. This all sounds really healthy and such a simple way to lose weight?? NO
So what happened to Carnie and many others just like her?? They never changed their behaviors. They looked for the easy way out. They didn’t want to do the work to be healthy. They wanted a quick fix, just like the Jenny Craig’ers, Herbal Magic junkies, and every other fad of the week.
Carnie lost weight with the surgery and she likely kept eating crappy food. Day by day stretching her stomach. Stuffing in more and more food. She didn’t learn a thing. She didn’t learn to eat better. She didn’t understand the reason for exercise and tadaaaaa…she is once again morbidly obese. Repeat; AGAIN.
Her answer to “fix” this and to get healthy? Well, I’ll just try a DIFFERENT surgery. She decided lap band surgery was the answer. Oh and the surgeon who agreed to do this? I’ll say what he is…a money grabbing quack that doesn’t deserve a medical license. He should have turned her out the door and directed her to someone who would actually help her to understand what she is doing to herself and why!
So she goes under the surgical knife again and has a silicone band – (because that is a natural foreign object that should be in your body; NOT) placed around the top portion of her stomach so again she’ll feel full quickly and limit the amount of food that can be consumed.
I bet, and this is a shot in the dark, that the exact same thing will happen to Carnie. She will lose weight and then stretch the “tiny” pouch of a stomach AGAIN.
The only thing that Carnie has learned is that she can eat and eat and eat and then get some kind of surgery to fix it.
In the article she said she is doing this for her health–WOW, now that is total BS. She is doing this because she is lazy and doesn’t want to do the work. She wants a quick fix for the last couple of years of binge eating. If she cared about her health she wouldn’t eat so recklessly.
She has been on the diet roller coaster for years. She knows what to eat and what to avoid.
Here is a fact. We’re not born loving ice cream. It is a learned behavior. We mentally condition ourselves to find some kind of reward in eating certain foods.
I have been open and said that red velvet cake makes me start to drool. But I wasn’t born loving red velvet cake. I learned it.
We condition ourselves to what we eat and the habits we have. I didn’t want to ruin the surprise, but, YOU ARE IN TOTAL CONTROL of your weight.
You are in control of the excuses you make or the reasons you make.
OK, before I get hate mail from people who are pro-weight loss surgery. Yes, there are some cases that they do require surgery. Those people are the ones featured on TLC that can’t leave their homes. Most people and yes most people can eat healthy and exercise to stay healthy. They choose not to because its too hard. Or it’s work or requires commitment. There’s no instant gratification in responsible methods of weight loss.
Carnie Wilson, where does this end?? You have PROVEN that you can cheat your way out of surgical alteration of your body. Once you lose weight with this next surgery and then regain it again, what’s next?? Full removal of your stomach along with lipo suction or permanently wiring your jaw shut?
Madness….
Yes, this fires me up because people read her story and think they are in the same boat as her and then turn to these ridiculous measures.
If you are struggling with your weight, you’ve done it to yourself. There is no fat fairy that is punishing you, you are punishing yourself. When I weighed over 225lbs -I DID THAT TO MYSELF. Eating was my sport and I suffered. But I actually wanted to be healthy and I lost the weight the right way and I am never going back.
Do the opposite of Carnie Wilson. Choose health not quick fixes.
Gregg McBride also wrote a great post on this subject. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gregg-mcbride/weight-loss-surgery_b_1375800.html
