the essential
The Château de Vernhes clinic in Bondigoux is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. Specializing in the treatment of obesity, it welcomes the most severe patients in particular. Like Thibault, 30, who tells us about his journey and his body.
Thibault first set foot in Bondigoux in March 2021. He was 27 years old, weighed 254 kg and had never heard of the Château de Vernhes clinic located two hours from his home. The Gersois went there at the request of his surgeon. To be able to benefit from a partial stomach ablation (“sleeve gastrectomy”), he had to lose 30 kg before the surgery. He achieved this in one month.
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The young man quickly recounts the difficult period he went through when he was 22, the sudden death of his boss, the periods of unemployment and his “bad genes” that always kept him obese. “I gained 100 kg in five years. No one dared to talk to me about it. One evening, a family friend stopped me, asking me what I was doing with my body, if I wanted to die. That was the trigger.”
“I didn’t realize I was mentally broken”
Back at the clinic after the operation, in the spring of 2021, Thibault then began a long relearning stay. Nine months to rethink his plate, his diet, move again and understand who he was. “60% of the work is psychological and I didn’t realize that I was mentally broken. The first thing I did when I arrived here? I cried, I opened up to the doctor,” says the young man who will have lost 128 kg in 18 months. Now, he eats smaller quantities, knows when to stop when he is no longer hungry, has added fruits and vegetables to his plate, and avoids salt and fat.
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His third stay in Bondigoux has just started, he must prepare Thibault for a new operation, reconstructive surgery this time, to correct the effects of weight loss on his skin and tissues. This step towards his new body is not so simple. The day he returned, Thibault wondered what he was doing there. “I have become a toothpick, I feel too thin, now I am cold whereas before I always walked around in shorts and a t-shirt. I loved my body, it was me, my shell, my power too”, he testifies.
Hunting with his brother, walks and soon rugby
Thibault has not only changed physically. He also says he feels calmer, more serene. “Before I went into battle like a rooster, now I see life differently, I take everything on, without taboos.” He also talks to young people about the dangers of junk food, as in the video made with YouTuber Tibo Inshape, viewed more than a million times.
Above all, he has found “full form”, too happy to “be able to go hunting with my brother and walk 10 km without being out of breath, to go shopping, to walk without having pain everywhere and not to think about people’s looks”. An agricultural employee in Eauze, in the Gers, he intends to take up a license at the rugby club next season.
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