Question for the vets: Fear of regain

My daughter says it is proof I am a nerd. I just say I am well read.

It is not so much fear as just accepting reality. If I go back to eating the foods I ate before surgery, then I will have regain. I accept that.

I am over ten years out and every single year it has gotten harder. I could eat just as much as a normal person now. It seems impossible but it is true. I have to make my food choices very carefully. I have to weigh myself daily.

I have regained over the years and lost again. Each time it gets much harder than the time before.

For the first three years, I felt like I had been cured. My disease was just in remission and it came back with a vengeance. Maintaining my weight is my responsibility. If I don't do the job then I will regain.

Thanks for this great perspective based on real-life experience. Very sincerely appreciated!

I am not a vet by any means at 2.5 years out and about to revise. I have, however, never permanently regained a single pound. All my weight fluctuations are due to lymphedema or the 10 pound thyroid bloat that happens when my dose is adjusted. Do I not mess up? Well, of course not. I am a flawed person with flawed habits - how else do you get to be the size of a small car?

I have a different perspective being Buddhist, and so I address my fear and try to see the realistic view. What does that mean? In order to be mindful, true mindfulness requires we see things as they actually are, and that we look at ourselves as we actually are.

When I feel fear I immediately thank it.

I then assess whether it is justified, because fear is 100% a necessary and healthy response for humans to have in many cases. Fear is why we survive.

I am rigidly authentic in the sense that I accept the way I am whether I have just made a mistake, or whether I have had a lapse. This is vital with an eating disorder of the severity I have.

Realistic view also means I must experience what I feel, because what I feel is real even if the reasons for it are skewed. Acknowledging where the fear comes from, and accepting it, and acccepting myself - that's true mindfulness. It's not just blissing out on the here and now listening to Yanni while eating low carb donuts and hitting a drum or something. True mindfulness is a process that is participatory disengagement - we disengage from the emotional force inside us in the sense that we observe and acknowledge it, and then we intentionally participate fully in our experience.

To answer your question, I often feel like a fraud every day. I often feel I am destined to regain, or not lose weight, or mess up something important. However, I acknowledge this is fear, and is legitimate on one hand, but that the person who used to do those things is dead, effectively. I acknowledge I have grown past this and seek out the wisdom of people who *are* successful when I mess up. I am immediately accountable for my hubris no matter how painful.

Fear is insidious because what it really does is steal the present moment from us, and as humans we are linear creatures (DS9 reference for my Star Trek peeps) who can only live in the present.

It took many years for me to get here, and many journeys, and many mistakes. It took realizing I was, well. Not the best person, and a horrible person in many ways. And it took getting over myself.

For me, fear is now motivation to focus on the present. Every second must be good health. And, sometimes pleasure is good health, and more often a 30g protein shake is good health.

Fear is a part of the process...both of recovering from obesity and in being a human being. It's only when fear controls us that we founder.

So, I guess to actually answer your question after a long and possibly unrelated tangent, fear will never go away. Fear will, however, stop to dominate you if you 1) thank it for being there, 2) acknowledge it, and 3) ask and examine what it's saying and what it's trying to tell you.

This is a long process and it requires 100% unflinching honesty and total participation. I'll let you know when I get close to actually achieving it most of the time, heh.

For now I accept that I am flawed in some ways and also pretty spiffy in others. I do my best to work on both, because life, thank goodness, is never stagnant. As long as the river moves, I will try to move with it rather than swim against it.

I always love your responses,Donna. Wise words there--thanks for sharing them!

Oh, Donna ... thank you.

And respect for your perspective.

Fear = Respect, yes. That I keep. It is why I weigh every morning and every night. It is why I meal plan and stay mindful. That is why I take my vitamins everyday. That is why I continue to have my follow up labs done. That is why I always eat the protein first. That is why I never drink with meals. Respect is my ally.

Fear = Terror of failure, nope. I lived that for the first year and have worked the whole second year to let that go. Feeling like I was on the edge of disaster, failure was like a wolf snarling at the edge of my campfire. I was drained, exhausted by it, and felt robbed of joy. I had RNY to allow myself to live a longer healthier life; trading day after day of joy for that terror was not a good trade.

I can't agree enough with the comment that we are linear and fear steals our ability to be joyful in the moment we are in. I am still working on it and may always be in some ways working on it but my relationship with food itself is really the thing that I believe has changed the most for me. I see food as fuel now instead of a source of comfort, joy, or safety. Fuel is important and I work hard to cook healthy low carb high protein meals daily so that my body engine has what it needs and I enjoy eating it. However food has a backseat to things like a good joke, a warm kiss, a purr of my cat and a phone call with my kiddos. Life is vibrantly rich with opportunities for joy that are not calorie based. Fearing failure in any aspect of my life would cripple my capacity to embrace all these beautiful experiences.

Respect not terror. Totes McGoats.

~Elizabeth

I dont consider myself a vet even 3 years after DS but Ive hit my goal and Ive gained a little back, then re-lost it. I like to think of it as vigilant not fear haha but lets be honest Im terrified!! I dont wanna gain it back. Holy crap I was almost 380lbs! and now I got called petite and tiny at work the other day, I almost cried! The fact is I will always be a big girl in a little body, but Im gonna try my damndest to keep this body little haha. I hope this helps knowing that the struggle is real for all of us.

It's important to know that some regain is perfectly normal and how much to expect (different surgeries have different avg percentages). That's why people try so hard to lose as much as possible the first year, so that regain put them in a normal place.

For instance, I know with my DS, the average regain is 15-20% of the weight lost. I'm 12 years out and have regained 14%, so I'm not concerned. If I was at 25%, I would be panicking.

I also think I have a "healthy" fear. It is enough to keep me on track, but not too much to keep me from enjoying life.

The first 3-4 years I did feel like a fraud and worried the weight would all easily reappear. Now at 9 years out, as far as my weight goes, I feel like a regular person who gains 5-10 pounds every once in a while and then does what needs to be done to lose them.

I stick around here to keep my head in the game. I learn from everyone here and am thankful for the support.