Crisis and Conversation

I’m quite sure I’ve said this before, but I have written so many brilliant pieces for this blog.  And never posted them.  See I run through them in my head first.  Which makes me think I’ve written them.  I haven’t though.  Obviously.  Trust me, they were fantastic.

I get to see my bariatric surgeon twelve hours from now.  We catch up, do blood work, he tells me the surgery was a success, I say, but I’m not a size 4 (even though I know all about the size trickery), and so on.  Yet, I don’t want to go.

I don’t feel he’ll be proud of me.  I’m not, why should he be?  I’ve slacked on my vitamins which is, by the way, incredibly stupid and careless of me.  I’m blaming a mid-life crisis, only without the convertible (too much sun damage), the blonde (Clooney‘s not blonde), or the being 50, let me just say that again, I’m not 50.  But when I do turn 50, 50 will be the new 40.  So be prepared.

I mean really, do we ever learn?  I read a post of a friend and he decided to finally quit smoking, to admit it would be hard and to  be prepared for always wanting a smoke. I totally understand that   On particularly bad days I wonder what food can pass my way that will turn it all around.  Hey, you know what?  Food isn’t magical.  (Except for bacon.)

Those with food addiction love to say “you can give up drinking, but you can’t give up eating.”  I would like to tell my doctor that yes, I want to give up eating.  It’s never really done anything for me.  Sure, I.  Love.  It.  But if he could just do something to change it in some way.  That would be grand.

Think about all the time you spend eating.  If you did not eat, you would have so much more time.  And yet, I think I would miss the conversations the most  I remember times growing up when we had what I called Scratched Up Hamburger.  Sometimes it had onions in it.  I hated it.  That could be why I haven’t bought hamburger in three decades.  But no matter, if that was the dinner, or it was filet mignon from the finest restaurant, the conversation was still what made the meal for me.

I am not alone with my food and conversation thoughts.  You really should read a much better writer and incredible mind, film critic Roger Ebert.  He is now fed through a tube so he does not eat, drink, or speak.  Here’s what he had to say on the subject here

Tomorrow I’ll wake up and say “today I’m gonna be different” and that will last, oh, sometimes 15 minutes.  Maybe tomorrow I’ll think of Roger Ebert and really enjoy my yogurt while I have the option.  Live in the now and go to the gym for real (I have been going twice a day in my head for the past year).    I ‘ll let you know.

 

Drop It Like It’s Hot

If you want to get back on track or just lose a few pounds quickly, there are some healthy changes anyone can make.  By anyone I mean anyone, not just bariatric patients.  Many bariatric patients feel that once they have had their procedure they can eat “just like a thin person.”  Little do they know, most thin people work at it.  Very few people just randomly eat what they want when they want and look amazing.  

Start with liquid calories.  Drink water.  I’m talking 100 fluid ounces a day.  Track it too.  I prefer www.myfitnesspal.com but there are many options that are just as free and just as easy to use.  Drink your water.  If you’re a coffee drinker, drink even more water.  And, if you’re a coffee drinker, drink some about a half hour before you work out.  It will help you work harder and longer without you realizing it.  

Ban white pasta and white bread.  If your goal is something like five pounds in a week or so, drop all pasta and bread.  If you’re going for more, start with a white bread and pasta ban, then you can add back in some wheat.  Much like vegetables, the darker the bread or the pasta, the more nutrients it has for you.  

Do 30 minutes of cardio every day for a week.  It would be great if you did it every day forever.  It would be great if I did it every day forever.  Think of your goal.  Is it long term or short term?  If you want to make it a habit then 21 days of 30 minutes of cardio every day will have you missing it on the days you don’t do it.

Besides the white stuff, come on, you already knew French fries weren’t good for you, stop eating one thing.  Baked potato chips every day, one cookie every day, something like that.  A little sacrifice.  It will add up.  

And find a way to add some super foods to your menu.  If you don’t like salmon, try it every possible way because it’s just that good for you.  If you had that twice a week, that would be spectacular.  Blueberries, strawberries, pumpkin, spinach, tomatoes, turkey, and walnuts are some other super foods.  Make sure you’re taking whatever vitamins are appropriate for your bariatric surgery, for your age, for your health.  Have your blood tested.  Seems everyone is low on vitamin D these days.  

All in all, these are simple and straight forward changes you can make.  Just a few tips to shave off some pounds or jump start a major weight loss.  Remember, you didn’t put the pounds on overnight, it just seems like you did.  They won’t be off by the time you finish reading this.  You have to start somewhere.  Start today.  Start now.  You’re not in it alone.

 

Forgiveness

There are many great quotes/cliches regarding forgiveness. Phrases such as:

“To err is human, to forgive, divine.” ― Alexander Pope

“It is surely better to pardon too much, than to condemn too much.” ― George Eliot

“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” ― Lewis B. Smedes

And that’s the point I’m getting to, really, sometimes you make yourself a prisoner.  Everyone walks their own path.  Or, in my case, I used to lumber along my own path.  Weight gain has been something that I was never able to forgive myself for.  

Is there something about you that you have not forgiven?  For those of the Catholic faith, as I am, I have gone to confession and received absolution.  Yet I still cannot forgive myself.  As I am writing this I realize that is ridiculous.  Why do I need to hold on to self-inflicted pain?  I gained weight throughout my life for various reasons, I lost a great deal of it, and still I am weighted down.  Why was I not strong enough to not do that to myself in the first place?  Seems to me this is wasted worrying.  I won’t get those years back.  It’s done.  It’s like saying something you wish you hadn’t.  Once it’s out there, it’s out there.  I ate things I wished I hadn’t (later, at the time they were delicious.)  Eating, speaking, writing, hitting, drinking, whatever it was or is that haunts you now, you can’t take it back.  If you read the Big Book from Alcoholics Anonymous it is suggested that you contact those you feel you have wronged and basically try to right it.  If food is your devil, I do not suggest you whisper to your favorite jeans that your sorry you ate so many M&M’s you can no longer wear them.  There are things you can do to change your behavior.

I have realized today that I have had bariatric surgery to help me control my super morbid obesity.  I face every day as a challenge to keep my eating habits healthy and in check.  But I have never, ever forgiven myself for being fat in the first place.  It’s something I need to do.  I’m not going to live forever.  No one is.  Self-loathing and anger at yourself for your addiction is not going to help you help yourself.  

I have been lucky to have had many hands reach out to me as I deal with my food issues.  They are welcome, appreciated, and needed.  However, I also have two capable ones.  I know I can’t move forward without forgiveness first.  And it all starts with me.  (By the way, I didn’t write this as a free pass to skip down the candy aisle merrily tossing chocolates in my mouth.  Mmmmm chocolates.)

Recovery from Addiction Part 3

Jane Ellen and Paul talk about food and alcohol addiction

Recovery from Addiction Part 2

Jane Ellen and Paul talk about food alcohol addiction

Recovery From Addiction Part 1

Jane Ellen and Paul talking about food and alcohol addiction while going through the 12 steps of AA

Queen of Denial

When most people diet, they force themselves the foods they desire.  You deny yourself enough and you take in fewer calories, thereby losing weight.  You’re not an idiot, you knew that already.  You also knew that once you are off the diet and you have what you desire again, back it comes.  

That works for some people.  Not everyone,  because if it did we wouldn’t be wallowing in obesity.  Seriously.  I don’t remember this as a child.  I’m in a public place and I look around and people aren’t just a little overweight, they are magnificently huge.  I am amazed by it all.  And yet, there is so little sympathy and understanding.  You see an alcoholic, someone addicted to gambling or nicotine–nd many say they need treatment.  You see someone fat and you say they should just get some exercise and shut their big, fat, mouths.   

But obesity is a symptom of a disease.  Here, I’ll even throw in a definition of precisely what disease is from a medical dictionary:  “An impairment of the body or one of its parts resulting from various causes, such as infection, genetic defect, or environmental stress, and characterized by an identifiable group of signs or symptoms.”  

And here’s where denial comes in.  Culturally, we deny the fact that the obese have a disease.  You can’t just wish away diabetes and cancer.  You can’t just wish away obesity either.  Of course every diseased person has that wish.  You have no idea how many times, how many years, I would wish that I would wake up thin.  Or smaller anyway.  I would actually wish I had some non-fatal wasting-away condition and I would just wake up, better, and 100 pounds lighter.  I’m not kidding either.  And I know I’m not alone.  

The non-obese public, in my opinion, denies that obesity is a disease.  The obese deny that they have the responsibility to fight for their health.  They, and I say they based upon my own experience and talking to thousands of obese and formerly obese individuals, they even deny that they ate something.   I have such a problem with that.  Did you eat ALL that?  No, I didn’t.  Uh, wait a minute, maybe I did.  Maybe I did devour all those calories.  Isn’t a can of Pringles a single serving?  No?

Denial is, at its essence, a defense mechanism.  For instance, I will just desire my feelings for you.  That way, if I pretend they don’t exist then I don’t have to deal with them.  Dealing with them would mean I would have to act upon them one way or the other.  However, if they don’t exist then I can stay on my current path.  Deny that you’re fat.  Deny that you’re in love.  Deny that you’re a failure.  Deny that your life is a cesspool.  Denial comes in pretty handy.  

It’s been said that once you accept you’re out of control then you can start to rebuild.  I have always said I am in control of my actions, the good and the bad.  I don’t blame anyone for anything I do. So,  I guess it comes down to this.  Admit to yourself that what you’re doing and the life you’re living is or is not satisfying to you.  I would say, “are you happy?” but I have only vague recollections of a few minutes of what I would call happy.  I have spent most of my life denying my feelings about anything (except my children).  I have tried to contain major highs–because you can go nowhere but down, and major lows–because they suck.  Consequently, I am almost always detached, level, numb.  It takes a lot to keep yourself numb.  

However, in my case, I have so many memories of food equaling happy that I turn to it to change my mood.  And I realize I have always done that.  That’s why I understand the alcoholics, the smokers, the junkies.  You get in such a state of denial that you just want to feel nothing.  Or maybe you want to feel what you think is normal.  I actually get a rush of happy when I shop.  I feel almost that good when thinking about what I need to buy.  Just looking at shoes online can flip me like a pancake. (Mmmmm, pancakes.)  I try to channel it for good when I work as a stylist.  I can accessorize as brilliantly as I can cook.  However, it makes me wonder.

Can anyone truly get past denial?  Or is the act of avoidance so ingrained that we, collectively, are doomed to live unsatisfied lives?  My personal belief is only you, the person who wants to change, can change.  No one else can change you.  It all starts with you.  If you feel a change is in order, and then you can’t seem to move past it, then, other than feeling totally fucked, you have to kick it into gear.  What’s just one thing you can change so your life will be what you want it to be?  I started with bread.  I gave it up completely.  Now that I’ve conquered that I need to take a bigger step.  I guess I’ll need some new shoes for that.

 

Forgetting to Eat

I used to hear about bariatric patients who forgot to eat.  It always pissed me off.  When many people have weight loss surgery, the desire to eat actually goes away permanently.  Sadly, such was not the case for me.  However, something new is going on.  I’ve actually been forgetting, or rather, unable to eat.  For regular readers of my rantings, it’s not secret that I suffer from extreme headaches.  Strangely, they are just like extreme fighting, only with less bleeding and I rarely hit anyone with a chair.  Last October I made my first attempt to see yet another neurologist who I was told would not give up until my daily headaches were controlled or eradicated.  July 1 I got to see Dr. Jan Brandes.  She was all I could ever hope for.  A shoe-a-holic.  Anyway, we’re trying an entirely different approach with medications to prevent my daily headaches that I’ve never even heard of.  And one of the side effects is the desire to eat has been turned off.  The downside to all this is that I now have to force myself to eat or I feel so weak it’s as if I’ve been overcome by a case of the vapors (after all, I do live in the South).  Now that’s almost as bad as a headache.  There has to be a happy medium.  And that’s always been my problem.  Finding the happy medium, everything in moderation, yadda, yadda, yadda.  Moderation has never been my watchword.  It’s a good thing I was never much of a drinker.  My husband doesn’t understand cravings or addictions of any kind.  He says just stop doing whatever it is you want to stop doing.  It’s the way  he’s wired.  Yet I have a hard time with people who aren’t addicts of some kind.  Whether they’re addicted to reading, shopping, or eating (not all addictions have to be illegal or be bad for your skin), I get what makes those folks tick.  Since I was a kid, chips have spoken to me, in whispers usually (side note, when I proofed this I read the word “chips” as “chimps” it makes the sentence that much more entertaining).  I simply can’t have them in the house.  God forbid I buy Cheese Puffs.  Evil, those things are truly evil.  Green beans on the other hand, why, they apparently are mute.  Since this headache medication has switched off my mental desire for food, it’s still so new I don’t want to test it with something truly tempting.  I’m not stupid.  On top of all this, I’m supposed to journal my headaches, and I also track my food intake on MyFitnessPal.com.  And I blog, I Tweet, I Facebook, I design other people’s websites, hey, I’m even going to be on a reality show.  You know, I think I need my own assistant just to keep things straight.  The big question is, has the new medication cured me of my headaches?  No, not yet.  However, they are getting better.  I am cautiously optimistic.  Sure, I had an ambulance at the house two weeks ago, doesn’t everyone?  And yes, I sent them away with chocolate chip cupcakes in hand.  I couldn’t get off the couch, but I sent them away.  I’m better now.  And that one medication is no longer on my list.  Today I decided I would make myself eat three times a day even if I wasn’t hungry.  Eat something I SHOULD eat by the way.  There is a big difference.  If I can adjust to all this then I can get my funny back.  I feel that has been removed by the headache medications as well.  I wonder, if I had to choose, which way I would go?  Daily headaches but still funny, or no headaches and not funny.  Oh, well, there’s no contest.  I’d rather be in pain.  But it would be so nice to be thin, wealthy and pain-free, I have to admit.  We’ll just have to see how it goes.

That leaves celery

Well, it’s not as grim as my friend Wendy suggested.  What can you do to lose weight and/or keep it off?  Today the New England Journal of Medicine published a study.  They, yes the mysterious they, had studied over 120,000 people for 20 years.  Those who were studied were not obese.  At least, not 20 years ago.  On the average, the participants gained 17 pounds each.  What happened?  Well, the people they were talking to didn’t eat right or exercise.  I know, huge (no pun intended) surprise.  There were certain foods the participants wrongly (for their waistlines) chose to eat en masse.  These foods will also come as no surprise:  Potatoes in any form, especially (“Wonder Twins Unite!”) in the form of a potato chip or French fry. Butter.  Ah buttah.  Nothing like it is there?  I bake with it, but I don’t cook with it (fine line there).  I still remember Letterman’s gag about eating a stick of butter as a snack.  However, one of my doctors said to use butter because it will help signal to the brain that you are full.  You may recall that when fat-free foods, especially fat-free treats, were introduced, people didn’t seem to pick up on the fine details that fat-free didn’t mean calorie free, or sugar-free.  You think fruit juice is healthy?  Nah, eat the fruit, don’t drink it.  Fried foods, desserts–yeah, you already know not to indulge in those.  Personally, I rarely eat anything fried (although I am well aware of its deliciousness), I’m not into fruit juice and pasta is useless to me–I prefer the sauce.  Sweets,  there’s the rub.  I bake them constantly.  Then I usually give them away.  My dad rarely eats them and he has a profoundly sweet tooth.  As do I.  Mmmm do you like potted meat?  Well, it’s not good for you.   An Italian sub is rife with processed meats.  Tasty as they may be, processed meats should be avoided.  Now lettuce turn to unprocessed red meat.  Yeah, avoid that too.  And that would be lamb, beef or pork that hasn’t been preserved in some manner.  So no processed meat, no unprocessed meat, got that?  Soda, that added at least one pound every four years.  I haven’t had one since October 25, 2002.  Yet sometimes I wistfully smell someone’s freshly poured Coke or Pepsi.  God forbid I get near IBC root beer.  Whole grains–good, refined grains–bad.  Learn the difference.   A refined grain is usually steeped in starchiness and chemicals.  They occur when natural grains are stripped of everything good and decent about them and pumped up with chemicals and preservatives.  For example, dark pumpernickel bread would be a healthier choice over that white bread that you can actually get to form a ball in your hand.  Trans fats were discovered to be bad in the late 1950’s. And they’re still bad.  Hydrogenated vegetable oil is Super Bad.  That’s the ingredient you need to look for to avoid trans fats because, in the end, they raise your bad cholesterol level and lower you good cholesterol.  Generically, you’ll find trans fats in all the foods you currently love:  Pastries and cakes, French fries (unless fried in lard / dripping), doughnuts, cookies (the bane of my existence), chocolate (I thought dark chocolate was good for you? aaaaaa I hate these studies), margarine (see, butter is better), shortening, fried chicken, crackers.  Sonuva.  Crackers, that’s just uncalled for.  Aren’t Wheat Thins health food yet?  Because you can’t eat just one.  And again with the potato chips.  Well, all chips.   As I look at this again, perhaps Wendy (www.weekdayjukebox.com) was correct.  Celery is the answer.  It is quite satisfying with garlic salt or hummus.  Or garlic salt AND hummus.  Here’s the good news.  Wait, let me think of it.  Ah yes, more fruits and vegetables.  Try some new ones, hey, there are so few familiar food choices left to choose from so have at it.  Chicken, turkey and seafood, they’re OK.  Unless we’re talking mercury levels or hormones, but I’m not.  But you already knew that didn’t you?  If we all ate non-processed lean proteins and fruit and vegetables AND exercised more, we would lose weight or maintain a healthy weight.  I know, simple, eh?  You’re doing that already, right?  Yeah, me too.  Here’s the bottom line, we all know for the most part, what is a healthy food choice.  And yet, we consistently don’t make them.  Sure, I’m speaking for me.  No, no, come to think of it, I’m speaking for most people.  Two-thirds of Americans are overweight with a BMI of 25.   One-third of American age 20 or older is obese.  That means their BMI is 30 or more.  BMI is Body Mass Index just in case you’re not keeping up.  I had a BMI of 60.  I was super morbidly obese.  Please note, the super did not grant me the power to fly or be invisible.  I refer to that Jane as the manatee.  Even though the beloved manatee is an endangered species, I don’t ever want to look in the mirror and see that Jane again.  Like I said, we all know what to do in order to be healthy.  We are often bogged down by addictions, desires, compelsions if you’re Barney Fife, rationalizations.  I can’t see if my arteries are clogged.  But I can my jeans not easily zipping.  So what I have to remind myself is what do I want more (Punk, I talk to myself in Dirty Harry’s voice).  Do I want the half a brownie or do I want to wear my low-rider jeans? 

 

C is for Clarity

Clarity arrived at 3am this morning as I was holding back my 6-year-old’s hair as she vomited.  You know, vomit is the ultimate truth serum.  As half of my brain focused on helping her, the other half gave me a stern talking to.  I have been a headache sufferer for most of my life.  The past year the pain finally knocked me on my ass and I’m in major treatment for TMJ.  But still, the pain has been, to put it politely, extreme.  As Anna Grace was calmly dealing with being sick, I came to the realization that I have been plying myself with comfort foods because I have not been dealing well with the pain I was experiencing.  I have been giving myself a free pass to eat foods I either would not normally eat, or not in such a volume, or just plain snack when, as every good bariatric patient knows you should never snack–all as a way to cope with the pain.  I believe this is called an Ah-ha moment (which is different from an A-Ha moment which compels you to listen to “Take On Me” over and over.)  And so today, when I poured out some cereal for my girls, I did not eat a bite from each bowl.  I’ve had my protein bar, and I’ve had a salad.  As I know it will take me about three weeks to get all this rampant food insanity and carb cravings under control, I am easing off.  If I feel I have to eat between meals, it will be vegetables.  I have almost convinced my palate that sugar snap peas and hummus are as good as Ruffles and French Onion Dip.  And much less greasy.  Having totally de-carbed before with Amy Cotta’s Six Weeks to Skinny Jeans program, I know it can be done.  And it can be done by me.  I also know that I don’t have clothes big enough to include this padding of self-loathing I have added.  Self-loathing cannot be contained.  Even by duct tape.