Even if football puts you to sleep (right alongside me), your WLS journey has a far better chance of success if you understand that WLS is a team sport.

The other day I saw a tee shirt with a great teamwork slogan:

TEAMWORK:

EVERYBODY

ACHIEVES

MORE

I believe that slogan applies to WLS as well as sports. Weight loss success depends on the efforts of everybody on the bariatric team: you, your band, surgeon, nutritionist, psychologist, exercise physiologist or trainer.

I also believe that I am the most important member of my bariatric team. In fact, I’m the captain. As captain, I checked out and selected each team member with care, knowing that they possess knowledge, experience, and skills that I don’t. As captain, I’m responsible for the team’s success or failure, and I get paid big bucks for that, in the form of pounds lost. I surround my team with strong, perky, loving cheerleaders recruited from my circle of friends, family and coworkers. I show up for every practice and every game. When we win a game, I cheer, and when we lose a game, I study what happened on the field and tell the team exactly what we’ll do better to win the next time.

If you think that working as team captain is a tall order for you – well, honey, you got nothin’ on me! I hated team sports in school, never waved a pom-pom, never won any game except Scrabble, and I’m constitutionally a do-it-all-yourself gal. If I can captain a winning WLS team, so can you.

The first step is to take personal responsibility for your success (or failure). If you can’t or won’t do that, you’ll have to find yourself another coach, because I can’t help people who can’t or won’t help themselves. I don’t know you, but I don’t believe for one minute that you can’t help yourself. The facts prove this. You decided to have or at least consider WLS. You did some research, joined LapBandTalk, and now you’re reading this article. If you didn’t care about yourself and your health, my guess is that you’d be sitting in a chair, watching TV, with one hand in a bottomless bag of junk food and the other hand clutching a can of soda. If you’ve done that in the past, it’s OK. I did too, but it’s in the past now. It’s over, because the big game has begun.

And you know what? Weight loss surgery is more, much more, than a team sport. It’s worth every millisecond of effort you give it because it is a very big deal. This is your life, your health, your future that we’re talking about. Are you going to leave all that in someone else’s hands, or are you going to own it and work it until you get it right? You are? That’s great! Now everybody shout, loud and proud: “GO TEAM! GO ME!” and get your butt out on that playing field! Because the next slogan we’re going to learn is this:

WINNERS TRAIN, LOSERS COMPLAIN

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