Surviving the Dutch Obesity Clinic

Here in the Netherlands, they actually have Obesitas Klinieks or as we say in english, Obesity Clinics.

In 2010, when I made the appointment, I was working close to Utrecht so it made sense to try the one that was half way between my house and work.  That would put me at the Hilversum clinic.

Now, before I go much more into the story, I’ll explain about these obesity clinics and weight loss surgery.  Before the surgery happens, you’re required to do a 2 year “course” which consists of food counseling, exercise, group therapy, individual therapy, and consulting with their on site doctors.  Insurance will happily pay for the surgery itself, but it doesn’t pay for 2 years of the classes.  I can’t remember the exact cost anymore, but it was well over 2,000 euro.  And, it’s all in dutch.

So I go in for a consultation and we all agree I’m at the BMI where they’ll happily do one of the surgeries on me.  However, my lack of dutch kept coming up over and over again.  So what we all agreed to do in the end was I’d do the in depth consultation and then we maybe would transfer to the Amsterdam or Den Haag clinic where there were more expats and foreigners (this clinic is out in the middle of a beautiful wilderness area and where a lot of rich housewives apparently go to lose weight…so having a foreigner in their midst probably upset the delicate balance somehow).

Early 2011 I go back for the in depth consult.  This would give me 30 minutes with a dietitian, exercise specialist, psychologist, and a doctor in that order.  Before I start seeing these guys, I needed to fill out this really in depth questionnaire about every aspect of my life.

The first consult was with the dietitian who got the past year of my food logs…

I came prepared.  To even entertain the idea of weight loss surgery, I was at the end of my rope with trying to lose weight.  At this point I was already working out with a personal trainer for 2 times a week, following the weight watchers program in a massively OCD manner, and on top of it all I was jogging about 5-10km every other day and I’d been doing this for some time.  The weight just wouldn’t come off.

So the dietitian glanced through my food logs and the only thing she could say about it was “I see you’re eating a lot of protein.” Um, yea.  I’m lifting and exercising massively.  I need my muscles to recover.  Her answer was priceless, “You need to be careful how much protein you eat because you’ll gain weight through muscle.”

Yup.  That conversation happened.  If I was 295lbs of pure muscle from the amount of protein I was eating, I wouldn’t be there in her office flabbergasted at her comment.

The next consult was with the exercise specialist…

The next stop at the obesity clinic was the exercise specialist.  So she puts me on an exercise bike, throws a chest strap on me for the built in heart rate monitor, and sets up a program to see where my fitness is.

I can’t remember what the test is called, but it’s the one that increases the difficulty until you can’t maintain the 70rpm any longer.  Needless to say I got nearly to the end of the program and I was chatting with the lady the whole way through.  It wasn’t until the last round that I failed on, about 25 minutes later, that I was starting to get winded.

She was kind of in shock because apparently nobody comes into her room already fit.  We talked about my normal exercise routine and she said she has literally nothing for me except to keep up the good work and that she wishes all her patients were as dedicated as I was.

Then there was the food therapist…

Counseling is a big part of this program because if you don’t change the way you eat, then you’re not going to lose weight.  Now, I had issues with food growing up.  I used to sneak food and hide that I was eating it, which is part of the reason I got fat.  The other half was deciding to become vegetarian at 17 and then go out to eat most nights with my friends and boyfriends up until I left home at age 22.  This meant a lot of pasta, salads with not so good stuff piled on top, and franken foods.  I don’t think I was sneaking food by that time because I was convinced I was eating healthy…

So once she looked at my food journal and we had a chat about my relationship with food, she said that there weren’t really any red flags.  I obviously had already changed the amount I was eating, working on portion control, etc.  She couldn’t understand why I wasn’t losing, but it wasn’t because I was eating all the wrong things or emotional eat.

So we sat there and talked about my time in Florida where I worked at a juvenile treatment facility…

Last but not least, the doctor from hell.

This part still pisses me off to this day.  I can forgive the first three ladies for not knowing about Lipedema (though the fact that I’ve been eating well, exercising and not losing much weight should have clued them in) but this doctor? If I ever see her again I probably would walk up and punch her in the face.

This session started with my sitting down at her desk and her launching a “This is the Netherlands, you should be speaking dutch” tirade.

Excuse me? At this point I was emotionally drained and tired.  Here I was taking one of the biggest steps in my life and weight loss journey, reaching out for help, and you’re going on about my language skills? Well, fuck you too lady.  I pretty much shut down and told her that at this point, I just wanted to get through the session.

So she gets me up on the examining table in my underwear and starts poking my fat.  I can remember 2 things that were odd to me then, but now stand out as the moment that I should have been diagnosed with Lipedema.  The first comment was how the fat didn’t feel like the fat of her other patients and the second comment was about how big and tree trunk like my legs were.

After that she got me dressed again, went through some medical stuff and then she started in on speaking dutch again.  I can’t remember verbatim what I said, but I can remember getting up, walking to the door, telling her to fuck right off, and I left with her mouth hanging open.

The conclusion was I should have WLS, just not at their clinic.

When I left her office I slammed the doors and was crying.  At this point my husband was trying to intercept me since he knows I’m liable to blow up, but the woman assigned to my case got to me first.  I pretty much told her how fucking horrible that doctor was and that if we found that I needed surgery, I’d be going to a different obesity clinic.

Well, it was determined that I needed surgery and that I’d need to speak dutch to fit into their program.  I told them don’t worry, I’ll find someplace where I’m welcome and that is actually concerned with helping me as a human being and left without looking back.

I spent another 5 months with my personal trainer since that was all I could afford and by the end of those 5 months was off Weight Watchers and was instead counting calories.  I was also transitioning to low carb without really knowing it, which would later find me permanently on the keto diet.  But that’s a story for another day.

The result of 6 months with my personal trainer and jogging 5-10km every other day was a whopping 11kg weight loss.  That took me from  295 to about 270.  Afterwards my weight crept up to about 280, but I maintained 280 from 2011 up until 2014 where the real fun started happening.

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PetraAnn

PetraAnn was first diagnosed with Lipedema in fall 2015 after years of eating keto and exercising with no weight loss results.After diagnosis, she has gone through 8 tumescent liposuction procedures from 2016 until 2018 and on 17 December 2019 underwent an abdominoplasty to remove the remaining 3-4 liters of lippy fat and loose skin.

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