Why we became overweight in the first place

  People overeat and stuff themselves in order to feel good.  It's the pleasure factor that we are all after when we eat.  When we stuff ourselves or give ourselves sweets, we actually are feeding the hormones in our body that give us pleasure sensations and those are the same sensations we get when we feel loved. 

We are as addicted to that sensation whenever we choose to overeat, get drunk or take drugs.  All of them give us pleasure and all of us are seeking it.  People just don't understand that food is an addiction just like alcohol and drugs.    I personally realized that I was stuffing myself because I never had the love of my parents.  My mother abandoned me because she chose to be an alcoholic and my father chose to love his second wife more than me and I ended up living with friends and other relatives all of my life.  My father died when I was 15 and my mother died when I was 20.  I harbored anger and bitterness towards them all of my life and chose to 'fill that void' with food because it made me feel good like being loved feels good.  When I realized that fact, it helped me deal with the whole overeating issue itself.  When I chose to forgive my parents and love them despite their failures, the desire to overeat went away.  Granted, the surgery happened before I did that and the weight came off but I've managed to overcome the 'food is my life' issue because I chose to forgive.  

See, when you think about it, the people who have surgery are forced to first drink liquids the first week.  Then they graduate to more solid liquids the second week.  Then they graduate to soft foods after that and eventually get to regular food but in small increments from then on.  If you stop and think about it, if a person would eat like that without surgery they would lose just as much weight as if they didn't have the surgery in the first place.   People regain their weight because they never dealt with the issue of why they overate in the first place.  They thought that the surgery would cure the whole fat issue and it doesn't.  They learn how to graze all day or stretch their pouch back out and then wonder why they've regained most or all of their weight.    A person's weight issue will never be solved with surgery.  It can only be cured by finding out why you are overeating and deal with that first and then learn to LISTEN to your body and only eating WHAT and WHEN it wants to eat. 

People think that 'mouth hunger' is real hunger but it isn't.  Overweight people usually don't know what it's like to feel a hunger pain because they don't get to that point.  Food is their life.  They live to eat instead of eating to live.  No one really realizes how little food the body needs for fuel each day.    If you ask me if I would have had the surgery again, I would tell you no.  Most WLSers aren't that way.  I would have chosen to cure myself mentally first and then listened to my body and learned what it really wanted and when it wanted it instead of just throwing food down it when I saw a commercial or smelled food cooking.    I don't know what decision is best for you but I do know that you must love yourself enough to cure the inside before you cure the outside, however you choose to do that is up to you.  

I am having trouble reading your post due to the lack of separate paragraphs.  It's one long paragraph.

Thank you.  I knew I was addicted to food 20 years ago, when I first attended Overeaters Anonymous.  The pleasure of food was just as addictive to me as my alcohol was, and still is.  I did not choose to be a food addict anymore than I chose to be an alcoholic.  The addictive brain was in me at birth, and when fed the pleasurable chemicals, I was addicted...sugar, alcohol, you name it, and I became hooked.

My father was an alcoholic, and I never believed he chose to be one.  He just was.  He never went to AA, as far as I know.  Though I know an AA oldtimer that used to be Dad's drinking buddy who did try to 12 step Dad, prior to Dad's death.  

It sounds like you might benefit from Al-Anon.  In AA, I learned that I am powerless over alcohol.  Nobody chooses to be addicted to it.  It happens.  

Trish

Trish, you always have the gift of putting things in perspective so eloquently.  I wanted to say pretty much the same thing...but you do it so much better!  Thank you for always posting...I look forward to your postings and Rhondas' also.  Peace to you, love Debra 

You are so sweet to say those things.  I learned to share from my gut in AA and OA starting in 1989.  I also began psychotherapy back then as well.  Tons of learning from personal experience, which is the best teacher.

I am so relieved that this topic has been addressed. Not to lump people into the same category but generally people overeat because they want the comfort that eating gives them. Thank you for opening up in this forum. There really shoud be more open and honest people like yourselves as it is people like you who make these forums a success. It's not easy facing up to your demons but it's worth it in the end