The importance of your team - a message to preops

If you're considering this surgery, are you worried about being successful for the long term? Do you worry that you might not have what it takes to be successful in the long run?

We've all been there.

My approach has been to surround myself with a team to support me as I make the transition from obese woman to normal sized woman. I urge each of you to consciously choose a team to support you on your journey and RELY on them. Some of my team members are with me by their own choice, others are with me because I pay them to be here. They may not all need to be around me forever, but they are critical to my success this first year as I make my transition from Laurie 1.0 to Laurie 2.0 (I seriously call it that!).  All are important to me. Here is my team listed in order of amount of contact I have with them:

1. My family
2. My trainer
3. My online friends
4. My chiropractor
5. My image consultant
6. My therapist
7. My executive coach
8. My hair stylist
9. My physicians

I wanted to provide details for each of these people, but it got too long to put into a regular post so I created a blog entry here: http://www.obesityhelp.com/member/atl_gadget_grrl/blog/2013/ 09/15/the-importance-of-a-good-team

If you are a preop, I'd really encourage you to think carefully about who is on your team, particularly for the first year as you make your transition from who you were to who you are going to be. It is a LOT of change and can be a big scary journey if you do it alone. Don't be afraid to ask for help when you need it but even more so, try to anticipate what you are going to need and figure out how to make it happen before you get into a crisis situation.

Post-oppers, please chime in with your most important team members!

Laurie

I this the concept of a team is awesome. Pre-ops need to know that the team concept is critical to the success of WL. Great info.

just a question, what is an imagine consultant? i have a really good support team, but an imagine consultant sounds super, how do i find one??

 

Yep, it is a real thing! Think of it as "What Not To Wear" home game version. Here are some links that will give you more info.

Here is the "about us" page from the AICI website that gives a bit more context of what image consultants do: http://www.aici.org/?page=AboutImageConsulting

Here is a link to my image consultant's blog page, to give you an idea of the sort of things she advises me on: http://www.styleyouniversity.com/blog/

There is also this post going on about clothing that has some similar topics: http://www.obesityhelp.com/forums/VSG/4854089/Clothes-clothe s-and-more-clothes/#40574350

Laurie