Oscar Rios, Bariatric Ambassador

I was leaving work yesterday and a co-worker stopped me.

“I need you to do me a favor”, he said.

I made a face; I was in my coat heading out the door. “Can it wait until tomorrow?”

He then explained, trying to be quite, that his sister in law was about to get the lap band put in, and she had questions. He wanted me to call her and talk to her, if that was okay. I smiled and assured him it was.
I called her in the car. She said my co-worker said that I had the same surgery and had great success with it. I smiled. We talked.

The standard questions a new person asks – “What can I eat? How will this affect my cooking for my family? How much did I lose? How was my health?”

I‘ve done this a million times in the monthly meetings, I answered what I could. It went well. I left her my number and told her to call with any questions. She had some “different’ information that I did. Her surgeon told her she could eat anything she ate now, just in smaller portions. What’s that all about? I talked about the dangers of white bread, rice, carbonation, fried food… I told her about “your program” and “How to make it work”.

I don’t preach to others outside of the group. But here was someone who wanted to learn, who reached out to me.

It was nice.