Compulsive eating: spiritual or biological.

Part of this thread is something I have posted on the DS forum, but I have made some additions.

There are 3 types of wls patients that I've come across.

Types 1) Those who became obese eating the same diet as thin people. This is a metabolic issue.
           2)  food addicts
           3)  other: gain after pregnancies, side affects of medications, etc

I have always been a type 2 bariatric folk. And I took food addiction to an extreme of binging that is hard to even put in words. The only way I can describe what led me to binges was that I always felt like I was broken and engorging myself with food made me feel right (fixed). Note that I was born with this broken hunger mechanism. I was not abused, nor did I experience any childhood trauma.

Being obese as a child was very difficult. It hurt my self esteem, and made me ashamed of my body. I started the yo-yo dieters lifestyle in the second grade when I when I did atkins induction for the first time. Throughout middle school and high school I went through all sorts of extreme yo-yo dieting. of course I always yo-yo'd more up than down.

When I was 16, I weighed 300 pounds and went to OA and was told that I had a spiritual malady. Of course the 12 steps didn't do jack **** for me, so I tried weigh****chers, no sugar/flour diets, and all sorts of other "lifestyles." None of them worked.

When I was 19 my gradmother died from a stroke, which was caused by her being severely obese. I didn't want the same fate, so I looked into wls. After learning about the lapband and RNY, I knew I could never follow the dietery restrictions and just gave up on the idea of having surgery. I knew I would fail miserably just like with any diet I've tried.

When I was 21 years old, I reached my highest weight of 441 pounds with my bmi at 66. I had diabetes, hypertension (highest recorded was 196/115 with heart rate in 130's), GERD, sleep apnea, hyperlipidemia and arthritis. I wore a 7XL shirt and had a 60-62 inch waist. I was so big that I couldn't even get a pair of shoes on and wore slippers instead as shown in my preop pic.



My life was a complete wreck. I had so much joint pain that I could barely walk. My GERD was so bad that I couldn't even sit through a lecture at school without having to "run" to the bathroom to vomit/retch. That was on top of barely being able to stay awake.  My poor health led me to quiting my job and dropping out of college. I was majoring in statistics and worked for my school as a math tutor.

At this point I decided that I had to give surgery a try. I knew my weight was going to kill me, and I had to give it a shot. I went to a seminar at the nearest center of excellence (surgery mill) where they explained lap band vs gastric bypass. Being that this was Dr. Fobi's program they discussed the fobi pouch variation of the RNY. It is a RNY with a silastic ring around the stoma that is meant to prevent the stoma from stretching. There are some other differences that the RNY, but that is the main one. After seeing that the success statistics were much higher with the fobi pouch than the lapband and RNY, I was easily sold on having that surgery.

After my surgery I continued to battle daily with my broken hunger mechanism. With my "tool," I was able to have some leverage, and I won more often then not. But once I started dumping and having blood sugar crashes all hope was lost at fighting food cravings.

One of the most amazing changes since my revision to the duodenal switch is that my broken hunger mechanism has completely resolved. I know that whatever was broken in me was biological and has now been surgically corrected. For the first time in my life I actually feel satiety and am not a slave to hunger.

I have seen many surgery war threads on the mb where failed RNYers, often severe obese RNYers, come by and say something along the lines of, "I'm broken." www.obesityhelp.com/forums/amos/4354945/Im-broken/ Of course DSers tell the OP to revise to the DS, but then a bunch of  RNYers claim that the OP has to fix what is broken before benefiting from more surgery.

As someone who has suffered from the most extreme broken hunger mechanism, I can testify that it is a biological issue. I suppose some of us are born without the normal cues that signal satiety. Since my DS I have felt completely at peace with food. I still love food, but so does my DS. For anyone to claim that they had to fix what is broken before benefiting from revision to the DS is of the most backwards logic, for, in my opinion, the DS is the only way to correct what is broken. Only then will such a "broken" person have a chance at success with surgery.

Let's face it, we all have faults and imperfections whether they are genetic or self induced.

Hunger, food and eating are so complex and tied together that it is almost impossible to say what causes some of us to use food like a drug.

I do believe that weight loss surgery can help with food addictions for many reasons.  Not everyone gets the physical changes that you speak of.  People with different surgery types say that they are no longer hungry.  Some say they never get physically hungry.

This hasn't happened to me.  I still have horrendous head hunger and real hunger.  However, I am no longer able to gorge myself, but I think I would if I could.  You may be right about the drive to eat being biological more than spiritual, but not everybody gets that same biological response to hunger that you have after surgery.  Some may get it at first and then the hunger demon returns.

It is an interesting subject though.

I have to agree with you Phyllis. there may be some people for whom physical hunger is the only issue - MacMadame comes to mind - but for most of us biological issues and emotional  problems and everything else is so mixed together it's silly to try to pull all the threads apart.  why take the time: just deal with ALL of it.

I know I am addicted to Binge Eating behavior and so may disagree with those who say they are addicted to food. I mean, we need food to live. addicted to sugar, maybe. lord knows I am addicted to caffeine.

I seem to have forgotten my point, here.  I think I'll make more coffee!

One element of food addiction is the full feeling that is very calming or stultifying depending on how far one goes with it.  I think sugar and simple carbs actually bring about a physical addiction, but food, any kind, even healthy stuff can be addictive because of the emotional feelings it brings about.  The emotional part is the hardest to shed and I doubt I ever will without a lobotomy.

stultifying, indeed!  never understood the whole sugar "high" thing: it has always been a downer for me. or a soother or a  coma inducer!

I don't think I will get completely over it but am living proof that progress can be made. course I've been working on it for decades, now.

still - I really have come a long way. it's WORTH it, since it makes the rest of your life better, too, not just the weight/size thing.

You are so right about it making the rest of your life better.  I am so proud of you for making progress with the food thing.  It is the hardest addiction of all because you just can't stop it like you can alcohol or drugs.

You give me a kick in the ass to keep working on it.

At the risk of being flamed I will just say that anyone that thinks that any WLS will cure food addiction is going to be in for a sorry disappointment.  There is a honeymoon period where it will seem that way but in more cases then not it is a temporary reprieve and it will most likely be back with a vengeance.  Physical or spiritual, WLS is NOT a cure for eating disorders and failing to address them will result in major problems.

I did not say cure for food addiction. I said it can correct a broken hunger mechanism. I do not  have an eating disorder. Of course I have to avoid the same temptations for refined carbs that anyone would be tempted with.

I am also not in a typical DS honeymoon phase. Most DSers are given a smaller sleeve and don't feel much hunger until longer out. I was given an 8 oz stomach, and my appetite is alive and well like any DSer who is longer out. I just don't have a broken hunger mechanism.

 Anyone who eats their way to 100lbs or more overweight has a eating disorder.  Notice I said "eat their way".  Nothing to do with medication reaction or metabolic disorder.  You said yourself that your eating brought you to 441lbs.  That is an eating disorder.  Don't fool yourself.
I would venture to guess that many of us ate our way to morbid obesity with rarely feeling any hunger.  I know that I ate too much and too often to ever feel real hunger.  Compulsive overeating has little to do with physical hunger as much as emotional hunger.  Curing the physical hunger will not do a thing for emotional hunger.
You are in a honeymoon period whether you see it or not.  So am I even though I had WLS 9 years ago.  This is a whole new ballgame and new rules.  You have malabsorption helping you now.  I lost weight for nearly 2 years after my first WLS even though I did nothing to change the way I ate.  I thought I found the answer to my prayers.  I could eat whatever I wanted and still lose weight.    A dream come true.  That turned into a nightmare of physical side effects because I didn't change the way I ate.  Malabsorption is very forgiving in the beginning.  Ask anyone who is many years out.
If you don't learn new eating habits it will bite you in the ass.
Your hunger mechanism is not fixed.  I guarantee that.  Talk to me at 5 years out and I will think you have something of value to add to the conversation.  As of now you haven't lived with any WLS for 5 years.  In fact, after a very short period of time your first WLS came back to haunt you because you didn't change the way you eat.  It won't be much better this time.  No matter how much people may tell you that it will be.  You are still bringing your old habits to the table and you will keep getting what you always got, maybe a little time delayed, but you will get the same results.  I believe it is called the definition of insanity, doing the same things expecting different results.  

But who are you to say that my hunger is/was emotional. I was a compulsive eater since freaking preschool, and I had a very good upbringing with no abuse. I have learned new eating habits, and I don't push the whole join the dark side for cookies.

And your assumption that I didn't change my eating with my first wls is wrong. I followed a pretty strict atkins diet, and I did not eat any junk food or refined carbs in my first year. I only went for that stuff after my blood sugar problems started. Do you really think I lost over 260 pounds in a year by eating everything I wanted. And now I still don't eat everything I want, and I track my carbs and weight daily.