Operation Post-Opers
I'm poking around some other boards and one thing is absolutely crystal clear: once we all hit approximately the 3 year post-op mark, we begin to struggle like fish in a swamp. And we start to gain the weight. It would be interesting to do a certifiable assessment of the actual percentage of post-ops who are able to keep the weight off and within what margin but almost across the board, desperate people are posting about desperate times. My analytical mind says that this is the identification of a problem, and a serious one. Now all we have to do is solve it. Identify the Problem. Design the solution to the problem. Implement the solution to the problem. Test results to ensure problem is solved. Here's what we're NOT doing. We're NOT owning the Big Picture - because we can't. There is too much Black Hole, too much we don't understand about the physiological nature of our new digestive system. But the common denominator seems to be that at around 3 years post-op, an alarming percentage of us have a screaming insatiable hunger that is painful and unrelenting - and the first question we are asked is, "Is it head hunger?" This simply is not fair, nor does it move us toward solving the problem! It only makes us feel guilty and shameful, negative feelings that so many of us have worn like a 2nd skin for most of our lives - and so we start the vicious cycle all over again...eat to soothe the raging feelings...which can never be soothed. This common denominator - the screaming hunger - is the key that I believe if we start paying very close attention to instead of ignoring - if we attribute it to our changed anatomy and what that means in terms of the way we process food this far out of surgery, then maybe, just maybe we have a fighting chance to come up with a new strategy to solve the problem! NO MORE GUILT. NO MORE SHAME. What do you say, friends, let's put our heads together on this, like scientists in a lab - hey, there could be a book in this that will really turn this WLS industry on its head - and think of the people we will help if we can really come up with the answer to this!!! Just thinking out loud. Your turn. Love ya, M.
This is an extremely good topic.
As I feel that the gain can be contributed to a physical problem with the surgery, I feel more strongly about the fact that it is a mental and/or psychological situation. Quite simply, more attention was paid to my body than my head. As much as professionals call obesity a disease, which it is, I still feel it is more of a mental disease than a physical one. After talking to people, it seems that not enough is done to work on the problem of WHY a person became so obese. If some of these mental problems are addressed BEFORE the surgery and AFTER the surgery, I don't think we would have this problem. If food addiction is treated like the TRUE addiction it is, surgeons and medical professionals would be going about this an entirely different way. It seems to me that more attention is given to anorexia and bulemia than people who just can't stop eating.
Just my thoughts....
Joanie
I think you're dead on (again) about this, Joanie - but I am nagged by the other piece. The anatomy. We can't just be carved up on the inside, rearranged, stitched back together and sent on our merry way to lose a couple hundred pounds and then cast a blind eye on that aspect of this new way of living. It's too big a piece of the puzzle. And no attention is being paid to it as far as I can tell in terms of the weight regain, while lots of attention -- "finger pointing" -- is being paid to the emotional aspects of it, what made us fat in the first place. YES, this is part of it; YES, the way we are living as a culture, as a society is a HUGE part of it (Connie's post) - but I believe equally significant is the physical -- and unnatural -- altering of our digestive systems; how does that new system evolve over time and how does that evolution impact the overall success rate of keeping the weight off? This is what I think needs to be researched and looked at carefully if we are to understand why people are gaining some, all, or more of the weight back. M.
Ms. Maureen,
I think that if we are going to get to the bottom of this, we're going to have to ask very tough questions and be brutally honest.
I agree that we are gaining weight, but so is the rest of America. What we have going for us is a somewhat diminished capacity for loading crap into our systems. It may not feel that way compared to 3 years ago, but compared to 5 years ago, we're all eating much less. What are we gaining in comparison to the non-wls population? What are the factors that causing a national epidemic? Larger portions? Greater stress? No natural movement through the course of the day as in driving everywhere instead of walking, using a dishwasher instead of washing by hand, vacuum cleaners once a week instead of sweeping every day?
I have questions about the voracious hunger. Are we really any hungrier than "normal people?" When we were heavier, my guess is that we didn't give ourselves much opportunity to get hungry. I think hunger was pretty much diminished just by virtue of having a smaller stomach. Now that the hunger is here, can we really tell whether or not it is similar to what other people feel? Is this an abnormal hunger or is it what other people feel? I'm not sure because I don't think I have it. At least not the way you describe it. I get a deep hunger between meals, but it' not intolerable and it goes away if I ignore it.
Did we really solve the root cause of our obesity with surgery? I suspect not. Sure there were physical issues such as an enlarged stomach remediated with surgery, but I suspect that surgery was just a stop-gap or temporary solution. Surgery bought me time and a tool, but it didn't offer a solution to what caused me to be obese in the first place. I still eat when I'm stressed. I don't care what mental tapes I play or what I try to distract myself with, I'm an emotional eater.
Those are just opinions/observations from the peanut gallery. If we really want to do some serious analysis, I think we need to start with ourselves and ask some even tougher questions. Are we following all the rules and are the rules even valid? Are we still emotional eaters? Do we still have all the habits that made us obese in the first place? Lots of questions. Maybe we need to start with a survey.
Lots of love,
Connie
Your questions are great ones, Connie, but here's my point: they are the ones being asked quite readily and frequently. These are the first questions we ask when we strive to understand why we're doing what we do - why we eat the wrong things or overeat or start obsessing about food...the "what's wrong with ME" questions, the EMOTIONAL/PSYCHOLOGICAL aspect of the journey. My point is we need to be asking questions with the same curiosity, the same intensity about the PHSIOLOGICAL aspect of the journey - the new digestive system, how it evolves over time and how that evolution impacts the success of our ability to keep the weight off. This is what the WLS industry is NOT doing. When I expressed concern to my surgeon at my 4 year checkup about the insatiable hunger I was feeling and that I was afraid I was starting to gain despite intense effort not to, his brush off response was, "Your tool is fine." End of story. The door was closed. I am saying these surgeons MUST be accountable for post-surgery life success! If they are the architects of these new bridges, don't they have a vested interest in ensuring the bridges don't collapse? Ok, lousy metaphor but I just want to know ALL of what I'm dealing with. I absolutely agree with you - the culture societal thing is huge; isn't it obscene to watch the Olympics, the pinnacle of physical perfection of the human body, and one commercial after another is showing these athlete shoveling McDonald's hamburgers and fries down their throats??? You are so right about this. So we KNOW what we're up against with that one. What we DON'T know is what we're up against with the anatomy. And I want to know. I need to know. I don't want to feel guilty and ashamed - I just want to fight the good fight AND WIN IT. Love you, Maureen
Ok, here's my theory of evolution and weight loss. Pure conjecture based on some fact, but mostly opinion. Nothing new. Nothing that a million other people haven't thought before me.
Technology, medicine and society evolve at a much faster pace than the human body. My body is under the assumption that I should still be out gathering nuts and berries, chasing down deer and hunting mountain lions. My body is mystified by the fact that I sit in a car to get to work where I sit on my ass for 8 hours a day. My body is engineered and primed to fuel me for running and jumping and climbing. My body is geared to expend lots of energy during the day and then burn off the unused calories after I have eaten my last meal of the day. I'm expected to go to bed early to prepare for the next day of running, jumping and climbing.
So I get up in the morning and eat ½ the calories my body thinks it's going to need to get through the day of vigorous activity. What!?!?! In response my body starts slowing down to conserve the energy that I've put in it. If I don't exercise in the morning, my body will try to conserve what has been provided and slow down my metabolism. I'm starving by lunch time when I eat more than I ate for breakfast because I'm hungry. Again, I thwart my body's attempts at normalcy by going back to sitting on my butt instead of walking all the way down to the river to bring back water. By the time I get to dinner, the body says, OK, I'm going to rev up the metabolism and burn off the unused calories so I can be trim and fit and ready to run and jump and climb tomorrow. Ha! I fool the body by eating a big bowl of popcorn. What, What, What!?!?!? I should be sleeping and burning calories. Not stocking the furnace again. My body throws its arms in the air and curses at me in Latin.
The body is an amazing piece of work that is finely tuned to perform the daily functions of thousands of years ago. The body is also amazing at recovery. The liver regenerates itself. The brain remaps when there is injury. When there is a minor blockage, the heart generates new vessels to carry blood. When the stomach is cut, why shouldn't the body find ways to get more food into it to support running, jumping and climbing? Studies have found that the body starts to absorb fat again about a year after bypass surgery. You have to have fat for your brain to work. We cut off the part of the intestine that absorbs fat in an attempt to lose weight, but the brain needs fat so parts of the intestine further down the line start to adapt and absorb the fat that the brain so desperately needs.
Thinking about it from an evolutionary standpoint, I'd be surprised if the body didn't start adapting and demanding to be fed. I think the real answer to obesity will happen when we can figure out how to fool the body into thinking Bill Gates is a god and we should all be sitting on our butts as a matter of survival.
I was right there with you hanging on every word until the Gates god thing...huh? Yes, yes, yes, you are right on all of this - we are swimming up stream in our attempts to stay fit and healthy in a culture that shackles us to sedentary lifestyles full of sugary goo and machines that rip the nutrition out of our food source in the name of "taste" - did I tell you our hens are laying? We have two young hens and they are happy as can be free roaming our little 5 acre piece of land scrapping up the grubs and ticks and every morning we go out and lift a still warm egg from each of their nesting boxes and sometimes have them for breakfast right away - or otherwise, gather several together to make an egg salad or have a stash of hard boiled eggs for the week. It's lovely! (And no, you don't need a rooster for them to lay, only if you want them fertilized and hatched - and we don't!) And we're busy picking vegetables from our garden - a bounty harvest this year of tomatoes, peppers, carrots, onions, spaghetti squash (we'll have enough for the entire winter!), cukes coming out of our ears... we've had a lot of fun trying to get back to a more self-sustaining life style because frankly it's become absolutely rediculous living the way we all do! Insane! So I'm getting back to basics this week - no more gimmicks for me; healthy eating, concentrating on whole foods, protein first with veggies and fruits in moderate portions; and EXERCISE. I've really gotten away from the basics and that's what I'm going to return to, I've got to. Goal: 12 lbs. gone by Sept. 1st - I will weight 140 by Sept. 1st, that's my goal. We'll see. We shall see. Love ya, Maureen
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